“Hardly. But there’s a strange thing about it when you think it over.”
“Is there?”
“Think about it, Bill. If he’s going to use the same hard line Hollander uses, then why pass over Hollander at all?” And a sudden lunge forward of the handsome senatorial chin. “Could it just be because Howard Brewster wants the satisfaction of stomping the radicals himself? Not to mention his ambition to stay in office four more years?”
“You just said he was a lifelong friend of yours. None of this sounds very friendly to me.”
“I’m not feeling too friendly. I stayed up most of the night thinking back on that conversation he had with me yesterday. A few things stuck in my craw. One advantage of knowing a man for thirty years is that you get to know the little signs he puts up when he’s just pulling your leg, when he’s planning to double-cross you, when he’s lying for your benefit. We all do it. If you’re a good enough poker player and you play opposite the same people for thirty years you ought to be able to figure out what it means when one of them wiggles his ears.”
“I’m not following this completely.”
“Bill, he wasn’t lying to me yesterday. I know all the signs. I may be one of the handful of living men who do, but I’ve known the President since the days when he didn’t know who sat on which side of the aisle. And I’m telling you the man has every intention of proceeding with measures that aren’t very much different from the ones Hollander means to employ. I’m sure he feels honestly that he’s got a better chance of putting it over on the country than Hollander has. Hollander’s a fool whatever he does; however much Howard Brewster may be disliked nobody faults his intelligence. He’s trying to sweet-talk the Congress of the United States into backing him and so he’s playing the public role of man of reason. But to me it’s like the Goldwater-Johnson contest in Sixty-four when Johnson stood on a peace platform and then went out and did all the things Goldwater had been stupid enough to announce he’d do if he got elected.”
There was a momentary silence. Grant was looking at Satterthwaite, unblinking. “He was telling me the truth, you see, but he wanted me to think he was lying. He tried to make it look like the standard logrolling we all do. But the sincerity showed through.”
“Why should he want you to think he was lying?”
“Because if there really wasn’t any difference between him and Wendy there was no reason for me to back him.”
“You honestly believe there’s no difference?”
“Howard Brewster has the capacity to make himself a demagogue in this country. Hollander doesn’t. That’s the salient difference, Bill. And that’s why I won’t abide by your request—his request.” Grant stood up. “I’m going to fight it publicly and privately, Bill. Every way I know how. I’ve already started—by giving you something to think about.”
Satterthwaite walked, almost in relief, to the door. Picked up his armed escort in the corridor and went out to the waiting gray Interagency Motor Pool sedan. On the way to the Executive Office Building he sat in the back seat and held his head as if it weighed half a ton.
Grant’s notions were insidious. It was true Brewster was bearing down hard. In essence his argument was “Aprés moi le déluge.”
According to Grant you had to extend that. You had to start from that premise and look at the, evidence and reach the conclusion that Brewster really meant “L’état c’est moi.”
Satterthwaite closed his eyes. Things were reeling.
He had never been less than intensely loyal. Even when arguing with Brewster he had always played the role of loyal opposition. He had never aligned himself with Brewster’s adversaries and he had never differed publicly with the President.
Suddenly he felt himself the man in the middle.
No, he decided abruptly.
It was a mark of his exhaustion that he had let Grant play on his uncertainties. It was ridiculous. Suppose it was true? It still left the choice: Brewster or Hollander. And the choice was still clear.
Satterthwaite had served Brewster long enough to know him. He had observed Hollander for an equal length of time and regardless of Brewster’s personal ambitions there really was no comparing the two men. Brewster had stature and conscience; Hollander had neither.
Satterthwaite left the car and headed for the caucus.
3:15 P.M.North African Time Lime sat in the bar drooling with drunken lechery, clumsily pawing the blonde. His cap was askew at an angle more precarious than rakish. “Hey innkeeper!” he roared at the top of an arrogant American tourist voice. The blonde gave him a blowsy loose smile but Lime wasn’t looking at her; he was rearing his head around angrily to locate the bartender, Binaud. “Hey let’s get these classes—glasses filled, what’s taking you so damn long?” A corner of his vision held Benyoussef Ben Krim crossing the front of the room from the door to the front end of the bar. A big man, fat but not yet obese, limping slightly.
The CIA agent Gilliams had sent the blonde on request and she had brought the Levi’s and loud Hawaiian shirt and the yachting cap with its golden anchor embroidered on the crown. Lime provided the rest: the appearance of a flabby dissipated American on a week’s holiday from a Saharan oil-company job.
Ben Krim caught Binaud’s eye and Lime saw Binaud’s careful one-inch nod. Ben Krim stood impatiently while Binaud mixed a drink.
Lime stood up, almost upsetting the chair; patted the blonde and lurched toward the door as if headed for the toilet attached to the outside of the building.
Ben Krim turned to go out the door and Lime managed to collide with him.
“Jesus.” Lime started to get angry and then had another look at the size and ferocity of Ben Krim; Lime’s face changed, he assumed a cowardly half smile. “Hey, look, I apologize. These freeways are murder aren’t they, hey? Good seein’ you old buddy.”
While he talked he was making drunken efforts to brush Ben Krim’s jacket smooth. The Arab stared at him with hooded disgust and Lime stumbled through the door, almost fell off the step, staggered around the corner and poured himself into the toilet chamber.
Through gaps in the boards he had a restricted view along the outside wall of the bar to the road, the pier, the boats and airplane beyond. He saw Ben Krim walk stolidly out onto the pier, putting most of his weight on his left leg, dragging the right foot along. After a moment Binaud appeared and followed Ben Krim onto the pier. A third man got out of a black Citroen 2CV that was drawn up at the near end of the dock and Binaud made a point of inspecting his pilot’s papers—Lime assumed that was what they were. Finally an envelope came out of Ben Krim’s pocket and Ben Krim counted out money. Binaud counted it too and then put it away in his pants, and ushered the two men down the pier ladder to the dinghy he kept tied up there. Ben Krim followed them down out of sight.
When Lime staggered out of the toilet they were rowing out to the Catalina. He gave them a casual glance and lumbered around to the front door of the bar. Tripped over the step and fell inside.
He picked himself up and stood in the shadows to watch Ben Krim and the pilot climb into the PBY, after which Binaud began to row back toward the pier. Lime walked to the table and removed the yachting cap, handed it to the blonde and said, “Thanks. You did fine.”
“Boy do you sober up fast.” She smiled and it was genuine this time; it made her look a lot better. “What was that all about anyway?”
“I needed an excuse to bump into him.”
“To pick his pocket?”
“Quite the reverse,” Lime said. He took two paces into the center of the room to look out through the door. The Catalina’s engines were coughing into life and he watched the big-winged plane cast off from its buoy and turn and taxi out on the water.