"Either Senator Clark is completely out of his mind, which seems unlikely, or you'd better start moving right now, Mr. President."
"The first thing is to get Henderson back," Clark said, trying to lend momentum to Todd's urgings. "He didn't just walk out. The way the window was broken tells us that. Somebody shanghaied him. They're starting to play rough."
"What do you think, Jiggs?" asked Lyman.
"I think Mutt and the senator were followed from the airport," Casey said. "My guess is they'd put Mutt in a military guardhouse somewhere. They could charge him with going AWOL, or with assaulting an enlisted man, or both."
Corwin looked at the President. Lyman nodded. "You better get on it right away, Art," he said. "We've got to find him."
"It's just as I said last night," Todd began after the Secret Service agent had left the room. "We don't have one scrap of evidence that could be used in court, but every one of us knows that a big operation is under way. We don't know its exact purpose, but it has to be smashed today, and the sooner the better."
Todd fixed his eyes on the President as though to stare him into action. Lyman looked at Clark.
"I think Chris is right," Clark said. "You got to move."
"How?"
"Call Scott over here and fire him," Clark replied quickly. Then, obviously thinking as he spoke, he went on more slowly: "Then put out a message to all commands that an alert, scheduled for Saturday, has been canceled. And forbid any major troop movements without express permission from you. Then get Barney Rutkowski to fly down to Site Y and bust the place up."
"What's our excuse with Scott-and with the country?"
"Why, establishment of this goddam ECOMCON thing without authority, and airlifting troops all over hellandgone in secret," Clark said. "And don't forget that tax return. You can wave that under his nose."
Lyman twirled a pipe on the coffee table and watched as the stem swung in an arc around the bowl. He knocked the pipe out in the ashtray. Todd started to speak, but the President held up his hand.
"No," he said slowly, "not yet. There's got to be a better way. Anything sudden like that, and General Scott would own the country by Monday morning. People just wouldn't understand it-or stand for it."
"Maybe so," argued Clark, "but you've got to run that risk now. This thing has gone far enough."
Lyman walked to the tall windows and looked down across the big lawn toward the fountain, glistening in the morning sun. Two gardeners were working in the flower bed that surrounded the pool. After a moment the President turned and faced the group.
"No, not yet," he said again. "My hand would be immeasurably strengthened if we could get Henderson back here. He's really our only impartial witness, you know."
"You're gambling with the whole country," Todd said roughly. "Suppose Scott moves up the deadline and doesn't wait until tomorrow?"
Lyman passed up the opportunity to start another debate with Todd. Instead, he looked to Casey.
"Is that feasible, Jiggs? Could an operation like this, with that airlift, be speeded up?"
"I doubt it, Mr. President. It's taken weeks of preparation as is. It's possible, I suppose, but hardly probable." He grinned. "Anyway, if I were running it, I don't think I could move it up."
"I'll accept that military judgment," said Lyman. "We'll sit tight a few more hours before we decide and hope we get Henderson back in the meantime."
"I think that decision, or lack of it, is insane, Mr. President," said Todd.
"We had a full exploration of your views last night, Chris," Lyman said, "and you are clearly on record. I think we can dispense with any further summations to the jury, thank you."
Lyman walked Todd and Casey to the door. "Stay by the phone," he said. "I may need you both back here at any moment. I'm afraid it's going to be a long day."
As the Marine and the lawyer crossed the great hallway to the elevator, Todd eyed an Army warrant officer who sat woodenly in a chair, a small briefcase clasped between his knees.
"Say, Colonel," asked Todd when they were inside the elevator, "who are those people? One of them is always sitting just outside the President's door, wherever he is."
"I don't know. It's some kind of classified deal, I think, Mr. Secretary," said Casey vaguely. What a complicated thing this government is, he thought. There sits the man with the codes that could launch a nuclear war, and the Secretary of the Treasury doesn't even know it.
"Well, I just hope he isn't on Scott's list," Todd said.
Casey said: "Yeah, me too." Casey thought: But even the Commander in Chief couldn't order him away. And maybe-just maybe-this whole thing is so intricate, and has so many little compartments like that one, that even General Scott can't break through it. Let's hope so.
Casey's thoughts turned to personal matters as he drove home. He still had explained nothing about his trip to New York, or his absence again last night, to Marge. The time was coming, if he knew her, when she would demand some answers.
He was right. Instead of her usual morning work costume, she had on a green print dress and her high heels. That meant either a luncheon date or talk-talk with him. Casey guessed from her set smile that it was the latter.
"You look pretty classy for so early in the morning, honey," he said.
Casey followed her into the living room. She sat down on a leather hassock and tucked one nylon-clad leg under her.
"Colonel Casey," she said, "I think it's time you started trusting your service wife."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning where were you Wednesday night and what are all these comings and goings about?"
"Marge, I'm sorry, but I went out of town on a confidential assignment."
"I know that, dear. Very confidential." Marge smiled. He could see the little space between her teeth, but it definitely did not make her look innocent at this moment. "But you're on leave, remember? So let's not pretend it was business, shall we?"
Casey tried to look hurt and misunderstood. It required very little effort. He felt both.
"It was business, Marge. Official, government business."
"And did that business require you to contact a tall bitch named Eleanor Holbrook in New York, maybe?"
"Aw, cut it out, Marge," he said. "We went all through that a long time ago and I'm not going to go through it again."
"You were in New York." It was an accusation, not a question.
"No, I wasn't," he lied. Could some friend of Marge's have seen him at the Sherwood? Or at that restaurant? Or--God forbid-at Shoo's apartment house?
"You're too honest, Jiggs. You never have learned to lie well."
He bristled. "Marge, now, dammit, lay off. I'm not going to discuss any of this. Maybe I can tell you something about it Sunday. Maybe I can't. It's just going to have to be that way."
Her nose crinkled-but not with affection. This was the Angry Crinkle. Jiggs saw it only rarely, but it always meant trouble.
"I may just go off on a little confidential 'assignment' of my own this weekend," she said, "so I may not be available to have the pleasure of listening to your story-if you can make one up by then."
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Marge!" he exploded. But Mrs. Casey, in her best dramatic manner, rose from the hassock and clicked down the hall to the little room where she kept her sewing machine, her golf clubs, her writing desk, and her extension telephone. The door slammed behind her.
Casey kicked the hassock as hard as he could, and succeeded only in hurting his toes. Thank God, he thought, a fellow doesn't have to help save his country more than once in a lifetime.
Friday Noon
Art Corwin, swinging down from one doorstep and heading to the next, decided that if this week had accomplished nothing else, it had provided him with a thorough refresher course in the techniques of his business. Not that I really needed it, he thought. I may have spent a couple of years on my can in the west wing, but I haven't forgotten everything.