Lyman said nothing to Todd, but turned instead to Casey. "What do you think of it all, Jiggs?"
"You mean, should you do it?" Casey hadn't expected to be asked for advice.
"No, I mean do you think it's feasible, as a military man?"
"I think it might work, sir, but only if you got a new chairman in immediately. And you'd be better off if you backed him up with a new chief in each service, so there'd be no confusion about the chain of command. I think I'd have the new chairman send out an all-service message, canceling all plans for an alert Saturday. That might surprise the people who didn't know there was one scheduled, but for anybody like General Seager at Vandenberg or Admiral Wilson at Pearl, it would mean the thing had collapsed."
"All points noted and accepted," Todd said. "Anything else?"
"Well, about confining General Scott here, sir," Casey said. "I'm not so sure about that. It's a cinch he couldn't run a revolution cooped up in a bedroom. But ..."
Lyman smiled. "But you think it might be rather poor public relations for our side."
"Well, yes, sir. There would be some repercussions, certainly among military people."
"Art?" Lyman had turned to his Secret Service man.
Corwin shrugged his heavy shoulders. "Don't ask me about heading off any political plots, Mr. President. But, strictly from a legal standpoint, I'd rather have you use soldiers, if you can, to guard General Scott. Our only excuse to do that would be to claim he had threatened your life. Still, in a way I suppose he has. Well, we'd do whatever you wanted."
Lyman walked over to the tray of liquor and looked at the others inquiringly. Casey and Corwin shook their heads. "Scotch and soda, please," said Todd.
The President mixed a drink and handed it to Todd, then made one for himself. He remained apart from the others a moment, squinting reflectively at the bubbles rising in his glass. Without turning, he began to talk.
"Chris, the only thing wrong with that is the same thing that was wrong with it Tuesday when somebody brought it up. The newspapers would go wild, yelling for my scalp. Congress would come back in a rage, ten bills of impeachment would be introduced the first day, and there'd be investigations till hell wouldn't have 'em. The country would demand a court-martial of Scott to 'get the facts.' "
He swung around to face the Treasury Secretary.
"My God, man, before it was over, they'd have me in St. Elizabeth's with half the head shrinkers in the country certifying I was suffering from delusions of persecution."
Todd leveled a finger at Lyman. "Granting all that, Mr. President-which I don't, by the way-isn't it true that it would leave Gianelli as president and the Constitution still operating?"
"For how long, Chris?" Lyman waved his glass as if to sweep away the other man's argument. "Scott would own this country, lock, stock and barrel. It would be a military dictatorship and Vince would be nothing but a figurehead."
"But Scott would be out," protested Todd, his voice rising again.
"Not for more than a week, if that long," countered Lyman. "There'd be so much pressure that Vince would have to fire Palmer, or whoever it was, and give the job back to Scott. From then on he could run the country."
"Confound it, Mr. President, you're conjuring up all kinds of fantastic visions," Todd snapped. "The fact is that you took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, and unless you act fast you'll be violating that oath."
Todd had risen to his feet in the heat of his exposition. He and the President stood, no more than two feet apart, in the center of the room. Each held his drink as though brandishing a weapon. Both men were flushed now.
"Don't tell me about my oath," barked Lyman. "You may be a great lawyer, but how I do my job is my business."
"This happens to be my country as well as yours, Jordan," rasped Todd, "and I don't intend to stand by while it slips away because you can't face reality."
They had forgotten all about the Marine and the Secret Service agent as they stood arguing. Todd blazed and bit, aroused almost to fury. Lyman was on the defensive, his anger that of a sad and tired man who snarls when cornered.
"Chris, you just couldn't possibly understand it." The President's voice was infinitely weary. "No man who hasn't gone to the voters can."
"I've never noticed that the mere process of running for office conferred wisdom on a man."
"Chris, you couldn't be elected dog catcher." There was no trace of humor left in Lyman's tone.
"Well, at least now we know where we stand ... Mr. President." Todd bit off the title as though Lyman were unworthy of it.
Lyman glared at the lawyer, and for a moment Casey actually feared the two men might come to blows. Then Todd picked up his briefcase, pulled out Millicent Segnier's tax return, and flourished it in front of Lyman's face.
"Why don't you use this?" Todd's voice had risen sharply.
"No."
"You haven't got the guts."
"I do not participate in blackmail," said Lyman, "and I'm surprised that it seems to be accepted as a matter of course on Wall Street."
Todd waved the paper. "For God's sake, Mr. President, we're facing the destruction of the greatest system of government on earth and you insist on acting like some Victorian prude."
"Oh, Christ, quit waving that thing, Chris," Lyman complained. "You remind me of Joe McCarthy."
Todd crammed the tax return back into his briefcase and threw the portfolio into a chair.
"And furthermore," Lyman added, "your idea of surrounding this house with troops is just plain childish. I'd be the laughingstock of the Western world."
"You seem to be more concerned with your image than with your country," said Todd frigidly.
"Throwing troops around the White House would be the act of a coward." Lyman said it stubbornly.
"Well, confound it, then you suggest something- anything. I'm sick of talk. It's time to act. You're behaving like an ostrich."
Todd and Lyman were oblivious of the other men in the room. Corwin and Casey, for their part, were too embarrassed to look at each other. Corwin had seen emotion among high officials before, but never anything like this. Casey simply wanted to get out of the room; he felt like a neighbor who had blundered into a domestic squabble. He felt he had no right to look at the President. A feeling of great pity for this troubled man came over him, and he silently pleaded with Todd to stop.
But it was Lyman who subsided first.
"We'd just be cutting our own throats, Chris," he said. "It just can't be done your way." His voice trailed off. "I wish Ray was here."
"My God, Mr. President," Todd exploded, "can't you make up your mind without the senator from Georgia holding your hand?"
"At least I can count on him for some realistic advice," Lyman shot back. Then, shaking his head as if to clear it, he smiled wearily and put his big hand on Todd's shoulder.
"I'm afraid the General has succeeded in dividing the allies," he said. "Chris, it isn't that I'm afraid to act. I just don't know how yet. We're still dealing with a bowl of mush and we really don't know any more than we did two days ago."
Lyman turned to the other two men as if he had just noticed for the first time that they were in the room. His eyes silently beseeched them for advice. But neither Corwin nor Casey had anything to offer.
"Let's sleep on it," Lyman said finally, his eyes on the floor. "Something may turn up in the morning. If not, well, we'll see."
Todd led Casey and Corwin toward the door. With his hand on the knob he turned and spoke in a voice that was almost forcibly restrained.
"Let's just make sure we act before it's too late," he said. "It takes only one administration to throw the country away."