"I don't see why we have to worry about that goddam ECOMCON bunch tonight," said Clark. "If Broderick doesn't have any planes, he can't get his people out of there."
"But he does have twelve planes already," Todd pointed out. "You saw them land."
"I think we can take Barney's advice on that one when he gets here," Lyman said. "Obviously, nothing is scheduled out of there until midnight at the earliest."
"If I could suggest one more thing, Mr. President," Casey said.
"Please."
"I think it would be wise if you called each one of the field commanders listed in General Scott's 'Preakness' message. Just tell them that the alert has been canceled and that they are to stand by until further notice."
"That'll jar 'em," Clark said with a grin. "The Commander in Chief canceling an alert that they don't know he knows about and that they aren't supposed to know has even been scheduled."
"I think Casey's right again," Lyman said. "Chris, are you making notes on all this?"
The answer was obvious. Todd, his face wreathed in busy satisfaction, was scribbling on his big yellow pad.
"Well," Lyman said, "we finally come up to what I hoped would never be. I must say I have absolutely no faith that we can succeed. I'm afraid the country may be on the verge of rebellion by Monday. Can you imagine Scott on television?"
"That reminds me," Clark said. "One more thing for your list, Chris. The President has got to call up the head of RBC and get him, as a personal favor, to cancel out MacPherson's time tomorrow."
"That's right," said Lyman. He stood up again and walked over to the windows. Once more he seemed to drop a curtain between himself and the others in the room.
Why, he thought, did this have to happen to me? Even Lincoln had an easier decision-the other side fired first. This thing looks so simple to the others, but it just won't work. Scott will tell the country that the Russians are building a stack of new warheads, and he'll say I failed to protect the country. What's my answer? If I get into a shouting match with him, we might wind up in a war with Russia. If I don't answer him, the House will pass a bill of impeachment. There isn't a man on the Hill who could stop it. And who's the winner then, Mr. Todd?
Lyman's eye ranged across the Ellipse and over the Tidal Basin to Jefferson's columned portico, and he thought: Wasn't it Jefferson who said, "I tremble for my country"? Well, now I know what he was talking about. If we'd got the evidence of this plot in writing, I could have pulled it off, forced Scott out quietly, used the treaty fight as an excuse, and the country would never have known. But this way? This way we have one chance in a thousand of succeeding. Todd and Casey, even Ray, don't understand that. But they can't. Only the President can, and you're it, Lyman, and there isn't any choice now.
Oh, quit playing wise old man, Jordie, and get on with the job.
He was still standing by the window when a loud rap on the door startled them all. Esther Townsend came in.
"Excuse me, Mr. President," she said, "but there's a man downstairs who insists he has to see you right away. His name is Henry Whitney." The secretary's voice, trembled. "He's our consul general in Spain."
Friday, 4 P.M.
Henry Whitney had spent twenty years schooling himself not to show uneasiness or emotion no matter what kind of company he might find himself in. But here he was in the private quarters of the President of the United States, unbidden, uninvited, and out of channels. That was the most unsettling part of it: out of channels. He followed Miss Townsend across the vaulted hall.
"The President is waiting in the Monroe Room," she said, and steered him through a doorway without bothering to knock. "Mr. President, this is Mr. Henry Whitney."
Jordan Lyman came quickly forward, hand outstretched.
"Nice to see you, Mr. Whitney."
"How do you do, sir," the consul general replied. He stood awkwardly, conscious of his soiled shirt, his rumpled suit and scuffed shoes. There had been no time to clean up. After a wild drive from La Granja to the Madrid airport, he had flown to New York, hurried across Long Island in a taxi and caught another plane to Washington. There had been just barely time to wash his face and run an electric shaver over it at Dulles Airport.
"Is it about Paul-about Girard?" asked Lyman. His voice was eager.
"Yes, sir. It is about Mr. Girard. I'm not sure how to begin, sir. I guess I better just give it to you."
Whitney put his thin attaché case on a chair, snapped the catches open, and took out a bent silver cigarette case.
"Look inside, Mr. President."
Lyman almost snatched the case out of Whitney's hand. He struggled with it and tore a thumbnail trying to open it.
"Here, sir." Whitney produced a little penknife and pried open the catch.
Lyman took out two sheets of folded paper, scorched brown at the edges and along the folds, but otherwise undamaged. He glanced quickly at the first few sentences, then turned to the second page and looked at the bottom.
"Sit down, sit down," he said to Whitney. "I'm awfully sorry. Just let me read this."
Lyman took the papers over to a window, adjusted his glasses and began reading. When he finished he went back over it to reread several passages.
"Have you read this?" he asked Whitney suddenly.
"Yes, sir." Whitney was sitting uncomfortably in a curved-back armchair across the room.
Lyman looked at the foreign service officer with the pleased curiosity of a man studying a stranger who has just done him an unexpected favor. He saw a slightly built man with red hair and thin features. Large blue eyes gave him an air of innocence that seemed incongruous in the light of his presence in the White House at this moment.
"Understand it?" asked Lyman.
"Not altogether, sir. I could only add two and two.
But I thought it would be ... important for you to have it. So I brought it."
"Did you discuss it with anyone?" asked Lyman. "Or show it to anyone? How about the ambassador?"
"No, sir, perhaps I should have, but I did not. No one has seen it except you and me. It seemed to be an eyes-only kind of paper. I'm quite sure the Spanish police at La Granj a never thought to look inside. The ambassador doesn't know I've come. I suppose I may have been missed by now."
"Ambassador Lytle knows nothing about this?"
"No, sir," Whitney said. "You see, Mr. President, the police chief at La Granja-that's where the plane crashed-gave me a box of things found in the wreckage. There was precious little, but what there was he turned over to me. I put the box in my car and had dinner. Then, before I went back to the scene to meet the investigators, I decided to see if any of the belongings could be identified as to owner. The cigarette case had no markings on the outside, and when I opened it, I ... well, I read it, and I thought you ought to have it right away."
Lyman folded the papers, put them carefully back in the silver case and slipped it into his pocket. He pulled a chair up close to Whitney and sat down.
"Mr. Whitney, I have other questions," he said. "But first, about Paul. Was he ... was there ... ?"
"No, Mr. President. Very few bodies were even whole, except those in the cockpit. The others were all burned." Then, seeing the look on Lyman's face, he added: "I'm quite sure that it all happened very quickly, sir. On impact."
Lyman looked away toward the window. Strangely, what he saw was Girard on Inauguration Day, his big head looking ridiculous under his rented silk top hat. They had joked about that; Paul had compared himself to the cartoonists' standard personification of prohibition and blue laws. Now he was gone, and Lyman knew how old men feel when they pick up the newspaper in the morning and see their lives flaking away each time they turn to the obituary page.