“I’d welcome suggestions.”

“The Twenty-fifth Amendment.…”

“That wouldn’t work. He’s politically undesirable but that doesn’t make him unfit. We’d have to prove it to the satisfaction of the Congress. Three days? We’d never make it. I don’t think you could prove he was legally insane. And you can’t disqualify a President just because you disagree with his political philosophy.”

“He’s seventy-seven years old.”

“So were De Gaulle and Adenauer when they were in office.” The President finally got around to lighting his cigar. “We can’t start wasting time with ideas that aren’t going to work. Hell, I’ve been up one side of it and down the other for the past hour.”

“Maybe he could be forced to resign.”

“Wendy? After he’s had this whiff of the Presidency?”

“There must be something in his past. Everybody knows he’s a crook.”

“Well, that’s his insulation, isn’t it? If everybody already knows, it won’t be much of a shock if you give them proof. Besides it would take weeks to put together that kind of evidence and afterward he’d probably make political capital of it—he’d say we were trying to blackmail him. Everybody hates a blackmailer.”

“You should have been his campaign manager,” Satterthwaite growled.

“I’ve already covered all this ground in my own head. I just don’t see the answer to it—except for one thing. Recover Fairlie.”

“We’re trying, damn it.”

“I know you are.” The President was too abrasive to be soothing but that was his intent and Satterthwaite nodded to show he understood. “Well Bill?”

He searched for an answer. Finally he threw up his hands. “There’s only one way. You know what it is.”

“I do?”

“Kill him.”

A long time seemed to go by, during which the President returned to his seat behind the desk and gnashed on his cigar. Finally Satterthwaite broke the ugly silence: “Make it look like one more revolutionary atrocity.”

A slow bleak shake of the head. “God knows I’m no Boy Scout. But I couldn’t do that.”

“Nobody’s asking you to do it personally.”

“I’ll put it another way then. I won’t accept it. I won’t stand for it. I won’t have it.” The big head lifted with great weary effort. “Bill, if we did anything like that—what difference would be left between us and them?”

Satterthwaite began to breathe again. “I know. I couldn’t do it either. But it’s there. It’s an answer, you know. And if it’s the choice between assassination and the kind of Armageddon he’d bring down on us.…”

“I still won’t do it.”

It came down to ancient basics: did the end justify the means? Satterthwaite turned to the chair and sank into it. Chagrined and elated at the same time by Brewster’s righteousness.

Then the President punctured it. “There’s a point you’re missing.”

“Yes?”

“Have a look.”

The President pushed the pad across the desk. Satterthwaite had to get up to reach for it.

Brewster’s fitful handwriting:

   LINE OF SUCCESSION

?  President

X Vice-President

X Speaker of House

  President pro tem of Senate

  Secretary of State

  Sec of Treasury

  Sec of Defense

  Atty General.…

“You see the point, Bill? Cross but Wendy and who’s next? Secretary of State? Hell, John Urquhart’s no better qualified for this job than Willie Mays. He’s a pencil pusher. You’ve been doing his job for the past four years. I’d have dumped him a long time ago if you hadn’t been here.”

Of course that was old-fashioned politics; Urquhart was a fool but he’d helped elect Brewster to the Presidency and he had his job through patronage, just like Treasury’s Chaney and several of the others. It was one of the weapons the Republicans had used in the presidential campaign: Fairlie had roasted Brewster for his Cabinet appointments and the people seemed to have heeded him.

A year ago Brewster had toyed with the idea of replacing Urquhart—had tentatively offered the post to Satterthwaite; but then the Republicans had started sniping and Brewster had to vindicate himself so he had not only kept Urquhart in the job, he had vowed loudly his undying support for the Secretary of State. That was the way the game was played.

“I’ll tell you, Bill, Wendy might go charging right into a war with his eyes closed tight, but John Urquhart would likely go blundering into one just as fast with his eyes wide open. Fairlie was dead right, damn him. I shouldn’t have been such a prideful fool.”

“We all shared in that decision. It was a party decision. We couldn’t afford to retreat under fire. I still think it was the right decision at the time.”

“Let’s not waste words on hindsight,” the President said. He opened the desk drawer against his belly and lifted out a pamphlet-sized copy of the United States Constitution. “You read this thing lately Bill?”

“Why?”

“I keep thinking there’s an answer in here but I’m damned if I can find it.” He opened the covers and began to paw through. “Here. Article Twenty, Section Three. ‘… the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice-President shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice-President shall have qualified.’”

“That’s clear enough, isn’t it? Congress was authorized to decide who succeeds to the office. They did so—that’s what the Act of Succession is.”

“Seems to me you can’t read the Constitution the way a brimstone fundamentalist reads the Bible, Bill. It’s not a literal document.”

“You’d have to take that up with the Supreme Court, Mr. President.”

“The Final Resort of Exalted Conjecture,” the President muttered. It was one of his time-honored phrases; he used it whenever the Court voted him down.

“I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“Well neither do I to tell you the truth. But it just seems to me there’s got to be some way to use this Constitution to help us prove the Government wasn’t set up for the express purpose of installing the oldest and most senile member of the Senate as President of the United States.”

“The Constitution doesn’t say anything about that. All it says is the Congress may provide for filling the office when there’s a vacancy. The Constitution doesn’t spell out how they’re supposed to do it.”

The President gnawed thoughtfully on his cigar and Satterth-waite scowled at him. In the end Brewster began to smile. “That’s it, ain’t it Bill.”

“Sir?”

“You put your finger on it. The Constitution doesn’t specify how they’re supposed to fill the vacancy.”

“Yes but that’s immaterial isn’t it? I mean they’ve already complied with the Constitution. They’ve provided for a line of succession. It’s a fait accompli.”

“Is it now.”

“I guess I’m not following you. But I’m no expert on constitutional law. Maybe you ought to be talking to the Attorney General.”

“I’m talking to the right man. Every time I rub brains with you it strikes sparks. That’s what you’re here for.” The President tossed the pamphlet back in the drawer and slid it shut. “The Act of Succession is an Act of Congress, right?”

“It’s the law of the land, as they say.”

“Uh-huh. You got any idea how many Acts of Congress get passed every year, Bill?”

“Not exactly. A fair number.”

“Aeah. And how many get amended every year?”

Satterthwaite shot bolt upright in the chair. The President waved his cigar; suddenly he was looking almost smug. “Now I’m not a hundred per cent positive, mind you, but it’s becoming my horseback opinion that this here Act of Succession is not exactly carved into stone tablets. I seem to recall it’s been amended four or five times in the years I’ve been in Washington. Back in Nineteen and sixty-six, and I believe again in Nineteen and seventy. And a couple-three times before that too.”