“They may be able to find some sort of fingerprints,” the President was saying, not with great conviction. “Some sort of clues.”

“There’s no word from Fairlie?”

“No. Nor from the people who took him.”

“It’s an awful thing.”

“It wouldn’t have happened,” Brewster intoned, “if I hadn’t let him talk me out of cracking down on the bastards.”

“I doubt you can say that. A crackdown wouldn’t have netted these—they’re in Europe.”

The pale eyes flickered. “Dex, I want to get tough with these bastards. I need your help.”

“You’re asking me the same thing you asked him a week ago.”

“The situation’s got worse. Out of hand.”

“We don’t even know who these are yet, Mr. President.”

“One of them’s an American. A black. We know that.”

“That hardly justifies a mass lynching.”

“I don’t want a lynching, Dex.”

“A net would only catch thousands of innocent fish.”

“It’ll show them we won’t back down.” A gesture with the hand that ordinarily held the cigar. “That’s important right now—a lot more important than people seem to think.”

Ethridge knew the President wanted a crackdown not for any strategic purpose but to give the appearance that the Administration was doing something firm and functional. Right now the public needed that reassurance. Ethridge conceded the President had a point; but it was an equally valid point that an overt display of official violence could trigger the dissidents into rebellious mob riots which would force Washington into punitive reaction. It could only be military. And once you unleashed your military establishment against segments of your own populace you were admitting the whole democratic structure was a failure. Ethridge was not willing to risk that when, through Fairlie, the country’s chances for reorganization and reform and ultimate stability were better than they had been in decades.

Pain stabbed his eyeball. He squinted. “Mr. President, I’m against taking any wholesale action right now. But I’m going to give this a lot of thought.”

Brewster backed away with grace. “Do that, Dex.” He looked at his watch. “Get a good night’s sleep then; we’ll start the briefings first thing in the morning. I imagine you’ll——are you all right, Dex?”

“Headache, that’s all.” The spasm receded; he stood up to go. A slight weakness in his right leg but when he put his weight on it he had no trouble walking. In the morning he’d call Dick Kermode.

The President walked him to the door. “Mind your health, Dex.” Partly in jest: “You know what happens if you bail out on us. Old Milt Luke’s next in the line of succession.”

It was a curiously bemusing thought. The old House Speaker hadn’t lost any marbles yet but he had reached the age where every point had to be illustrated by a long trudging ramble into reminiscence, an excursion into debilitating recall.

The President said, “I’m serious about that, Dex. Milt Luke’s your backup man until you’re inaugurated. Once you’re sworn in you can nominate your own Vice-President and have him confirmed by Congress—have you picked anyone yet?”

“You’re talking as if you don’t expect we’ll get Fairlie back.”

“I hope we will. But things don’t always come right in the end, Dex. We may not get him back in time, we may not get him back at all. You may have to swear in as President. Pick yourself a Vice-Prez—do it soon.”

Agent Pickett and the protective squad picked him up in the corridor and convoyed him to his car. He had one of the presidential limousines now; he slid down in the seat and rested the back of his head against the cushion, closed his eyes, felt the headache begin to wane.

Sam March, he thought. March would make a good Vice-President. Level-headed, a good Senator, the right kind of Republican.…

Good God.

March was dead: killed in the bombing.

Ethridge sat up, winced, looked out the window. So many of them were dead. It was difficult to credit.

Silence inside the moving limousine. Thump of tires, the soft whoosh of the heat blowers. It was a cool steamy night, the windows fogging up, windshield wipers batting softly. The back of the driver’s head was flat and complacent; the Secret Service guards always taciturn, were silent now.

Big black limousine: like a hearse, he thought. How many of them he had followed this week. The endless funerals. He couldn’t get to them all. Most of them had been taken home to their native states but a few—those with war records who had indicated the preference—had been interred at Arlington. He had shuttled to and from them, reminded each time of the first state funeral he had witnessed. Raining, he remembered: hot and wet, and the cortege had marched from the Capitol all the way to Arlington on foot in the drenching rain. The caisson had rolled with stately grandeur and the Mall had been crowded with veterans and the honor guard behind Black Jack Pershing’s casket had included Eisenhower and Hap Arnold and all those others who were dead now.

The overlap of generations was stunning: Ethridge had been a young congressman heading for the Seventies, perhaps the Eighties; Pershing had fought Indians on the frontier.…

The limousine drew up. The Secret Service had a van drawn up in the driveway—stakeout headquarters. Ethridge was ushered into his own house, an agent preceding him to check out the shadows. They were very tense now, these Secret Service men. They took their jobs seriously and there had been too many failures.

Judith had gone up to bed, he was told; he looked in surprise at the wall clock in the foyer: it was half past eleven.

A President keeps long hours. He hung his overcoat in the hall closet, put his hat on the shelf. Very weary. The headache had receded but he felt drained; it had been an unbearable week, an unbearable day.

He’s right. Maybe I don’t have the drive. Ambition for the Presidency was a pathological thing and he had never had it, not really.

He went into the study. The house man poured him a cognac according to habit and withdrew quietly from his presence. Ethridge sank into his chair, staring at the telephone by his elbow.

It was like the pre-wedding jitters. You never seriously thought of flight but there were moments of panic. The Presidency—of course he wanted it. Every politician wanted it.

He had to look up the number; he dialed, looked at his watch, made a slight face. At least the headache was gone.

“Congressman Bee’s residence.” It was Shirley Bee, trying to sound starched; he smiled.

“Hi Shirley, it’s Dex Ethridge.”

“Why Senator!” She sounded genuinely pleased.

“How you doing?”

“Why just fine, thank you.” Her Birmingham drawl made it jist fahn, thankye.

“Andy around?”

“Why sure, I’ll get him right away.”

Noblesse oblige. Ethridge sat back, bemused by the petty exercise of power.

“Hello? Senator?”

“Andy. I’m sorry to disturb you this late at night.”

“Not at all. I’m still up. Trying to write a letter to Senator March’s widow—trying to think of the words.”

That was like Bee. To write his own consolation letters. Ethridge felt the incision of guilt: he’d had his administrative aide take care of that.

He started to say That’s strange, I was just thinking about March, but he held his tongue. “Andy, I need to talk with you.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Not on the phone, I gather.”

“Better not.”

“I’ll be right along then. Save me a brandy.”

Hanging up he saw how easily he was beginning to utilize the prerogatives of power. Until the convention he would have been the one to go to Bee’s house—even though Bee was only a congressman. Bee had done two terms in the Senate himself, had been one of the most popular men ever to sit in that body. Then there had been that automobile accident four years ago just when he was up for re-election. There had been a wave of public sympathy but it hadn’t been enough to overcome two things: Bee’s hospitalization, which made it impossible for him to campaign, and the Brewster landslide which had swept Democrats into power everywhere. Even so, Bee had been nosed out by the slimmest vote margin.