“Andrews, somebody, somewhere, and it may be a United States senator, is planning to assassinate the President; so far, he has been prepared to murder two of my best agents, a Greek who might have recognized him, and a deaf postman whose only connection with the matter was that he may have been able to identify Casefikis’s killer. If we rush in now with the heavy artillery, then we will scare them off. We have almost nothing to go on; we would be unlikely to discover their identities. And if we did, we certainly wouldn’t be able to nail them. Our only hope of catching them is to let the bastards think they are in the clear — right up to the last moment. That way, we just might get them. It’s possible they have already been frightened off, but I think not. They have used such violent means to keep their intentions secret they must have some overriding reason for wanting the President out of the way within seven days. We must find out what the reason is.”
“Shall we tell the President?”
“No, no, not yet. God knows, over the past two years she’s had enough problems with the Gun Control bill without having to look over her shoulder trying to figure out which senator is Mark Antony and which is Brutus.”
“So what do we do for the next six days?”
“You and I will have to find Cassius. And he may not be the one with the lean and hungry look.”
“What if we don’t find him?” asked Mark.
“God help America.”
“And if we do?”
“You may have to kill him.”
Mark thought for a moment. He’d never killed anybody in his life; come to think of it, he hadn’t knowingly killed anything at all. He didn’t like stepping on insects. And the thought that the first person he might kill could be a U.S. senator was, to say the least, daunting.
“Don’t look so worried, Andrews. It probably won’t come to that. Now let me tell you exactly what I intend to do. I’m going to brief Stuart Knight, the head of the Secret Service, that two of my officers were investigating a man claiming that the President of the United States was going to be assassinated some time within the next month. However, I have no intention of letting him know that a senator may be involved; and I won’t tell him that two of our men died because of it; that’s not his problem. It may actually have nothing to do with a senator, and I’m not having a whole bunch of people staring at their elected representatives wondering which one of them is a criminal.”
The Assistant Director cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. “Some of us think that anyway.”
The Director continued unswervingly. “This morning, Andrews, you will write a report on Casefikis’s information and the circumstances of his murder, and you will hand it in to Grant Nanna. Do not include the subsequent murders of Stames and Calvert: no one must connect these two events. Report the threat on the President’s life but not the possibility that a senator is involved. Is that how you would play it, Matt?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rogers. “If we voice our suspicions to people who don’t need to know them, we will run the risk of provoking a security operation that will make the assassins run for cover; then we would simply have to pick up our marbles and start over — if we were lucky enough to get a second chance.”
“Right,” said the Director. “So this is how we’ll proceed, Andrews. There are one hundred senators. One of them provides our only link with the conspirators. It’s going to be your task to pinpoint that man. The Assistant Director will have a couple of junior men follow up the few other leads that we have. No need for them to know the details, Matt. To start with, check out the Golden Duck Restaurant.”
“And every hotel in Georgetown, to see which one put on a private luncheon party on 24 February,” said Rogers. “And the hospital. Maybe someone saw suspicious characters hanging around the parking lot or the corridors; the assassins must have seen our Ford there while Calvert and you, Andrews, were interviewing Casefikis. I think that’s about all we can do for the moment.”
“I agree,” said the Director. “Okay, thanks, Matt, I won’t take up any more of your time. Please let me have anything you turn up immediately.”
“Sure,” said the Assistant Director. He nodded at Mark and left the room.
Mark had sat silently, impressed by the clarity with which the Director had grasped the details of the case; his mind must be like a filing cabinet.
The Director pressed a button on his intercom.
“Coffee for two, please, Mrs. McGregor.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Andrews, you come into the Bureau at seven o’clock every morning and report to me. Should any emergency arise, call me, using the code name Julius. I will use the same code name when calling you. When you hear the word ‘Julius,’ break off whatever you are doing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, a most important point. If, in any circumstances, I die or disappear, you brief only the Attorney General, and Rogers will take care of the rest. If you die, young man, you can leave the decision to me.” He smiled for the first time — it was not Mark’s idea of a joke. “I see from the files that you’re entitled to two weeks’ leave. Well take it, starting at noon today. I don’t want you to exist officially for at least a week. Grant Nanna has already been briefed that you have been seconded to me,” continued the Director. “You may have to tolerate me night and day for six days, young man, and no one other than my late wife has had that problem before.”
“And you me, sir,” was Mark’s quick and unthinking reply.
He waited for his head to be bitten off; instead the Director smiled again.
Mrs. McGregor appeared with the coffee, served them, and left. The Director drank his coffee in one swallow and began to pace around the room as if it were a cage; Mark did not move, though his eyes never left Tyson. His massive frame and great shoulders heaved up and down, his large head with its bushy hair rocking from side to side. He was going through what the boys called the thought process.
“The first thing you’re to do, Andrews, is find out which senators were in Washington on 24 February. As it was near the weekend, most of those dummies would have been floating all over the country, making speeches or vacationing with their pampered children.”
What endeared the Director to everyone was not that he said it behind their backs but that he said it even more explicitly to their faces. Mark smiled and began to relax.
“When we have that list, we’ll try and figure out what they have in common. Separate the Republicans from the Democrats, and then put them under party headings as to interests, public and private. After that, we have to find out which ones have any connection with President Kane, past or present, friendly or unfriendly. Your report will cover all these details and be ready for our meeting tomorrow morning. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now there’s something else I want you to understand, Andrews. As I am sure you know, for the past decade, the FBI has been in a very sensitive political position. Those watchdogs in Congress are just waiting for us to exceed our legitimate authority. If we in any way cast suspicion upon a member of Congress, without indisputable evidence of his guilt, they will hang, draw and quarter the Bureau. And rightly so, in my opinion. Police agencies in a democracy must prove that they can be trusted not to subvert the political process. Purer than Caesar’s wife. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“From today we have six days, from tomorrow five, and I want to catch this man and his friends red-handed. So neither of us will be on statutory overtime.”
“No, sir.”
The Director returned to his desk and summoned Mrs. McGregor.
“Mrs. McGregor, this is Special Agent Andrews, who’ll be working closely with me on an extremely sensitive investigation for the next six days. Whenever he wants to see me, let him come right in; if I’m with anybody but Mr. Rogers, notify me immediately — no red tape, no waiting.”