“What is it, Bucky?” the president said suspiciously. He didn’t much like the look on Trumble’s face, which resembled a fallen soufflй.

Trumble took a deep breath. “Cass Devine is Frank Cohane’s daughter.”

The president’s face went the color of New England clam chowder. “What are you telling me?”

“Just that. Devine isn’t a married name. She had her name legally changed. She and Frank apparently had some falling-out. She took her mother’s name.”

“Oh, goddamnit.”

“Yes.” Bucky waited for the explosion he knew was coming. Sometimes it took a while to build, like a volcano.

“Jesus fucking Christ in the…,” the president spluttered, his face now the color of Manhattan clam chowder, “morning! You’re telling me that we instructed the attorney general to spring the daughter of a major fucking donor to the party?”

“That would…unfortunately appear to be the substance of what I’m…yes, sir.”

The president hurled his pen onto the desk with such force that it skittered off the surface and onto the carpet.

“Who knows about this-this twenty-four-carat calamity?”

“That’s the good news, sir. No one. I mean, I suppose Frank knows, but he isn’t saying anything. He’s probably embarrassed by her. At any rate, this information didn’t come from him.”

“Who did it come from?”

“You don’t need to know that, sir. I made some inquiries. She’s Frank Cohane’s daughter. They haven’t spoken in years. He lives in California -”

“I goddamn well know where he lives. I’ve spent the goddamn night at his goddamn house.”

“Yes, sir. Last October. After the Countdown to Greatness event. You presented him with his Owl pin.”

Owls, of course, are those who contribute over $250,000 to the national party, making them eligible for “special White House briefings by top officials,” “front-row seats at inaugural festivities,” “special issues bulletins,” and of course the odd ambassadorship, cabinet post, or commission position.

The president made a groaning noise.

“He’s donated five hundred thousand,” Bucky Trumble continued. “The other quarter mil ostensibly from his wife, Lisa. Presumably not Cass’s mother. She seemed more the…evil stepmother type. You presented her with a pin, too.”

“This is atrocious staff work, Buck.”

“I do not disagree, sir. The question is how to go forward. I’m of course willing to take the fall here.”

“Goddamnit, we’ve got a campaign coming up. How the fuck is throwing you over the side going to help?”

“Well, I…if you really-”

“Rearrest her.”

“Sir?”

“Throw her butt back in jail. Call Killebrew and tell him-whatever you need to tell him.”

Bucky Trumble puffed out his cheeks. “I’m not sure Fred would really go for that. Rearresting someone-it’s…um.…?tricky.”

“Happens all the time.”

“It does?”

“Well, Buck, it had better goddamn well better happen this time.”

Bucky Trumble flashed forward in time. He saw himself sitting before a grand jury as an independent prosecutor asked him, Did the president specifically instruct you to tell the attorney general to fabricate evidence that would lead to Ms. Devine’s rearrest?

As it happened, President Peacham-who from the first moment he went into politics began to be haunted by the homophonic possibilities of his surname-was himself having a similar reverie.

“That’s all, Buck,” he said, leaving Bucky Trumble in the position of being unable to tell the grand jury that the president of the United States had specifically instructed him to commit a crime.

“Sir, I’ll do what needs to be done. But I really don’t think he’ll go for it,” Bucky tried again.

The president leaned back in his chair. “If we win reelection, how many Supreme Court vacancies do we anticipate?”

“Two, minimum. Possibly three.”

“It’s a bit early to have the conversation with him. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the matter at hand. But you know, Fred Killebrew has been a helluva good AG. He’d make a helluva good Supreme Court justice. Don’t you think?”

Mr. Trumble, in that same meeting with the president, did the president instruct you to offer the attorney general an appointment to the Supreme Court in return for-

“Uh…”

“I do,” the president said brightly. “I do.”

“I could…relay that to him. Along with-”

“I’m sure you’ll handle it, Bucky. With your usual flair.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After they throw her cute little ass back in jail, make sure you put it out that the White House is pleased. That we always thought it was a bit hasty to let her walk.”

“Fred’s really not going to like that.”

“Fuck him. He’ll be too busy measuring himself for judicial robes to care.”

It came to her late that night, sometime between two and three in the morning, while she was blogging away on CASSANDRA.

She decided not to post it right away-cognizant that epiphanies time-stamped “2:56 a.m.” tended, in the harsher light of midday, to arouse suspicion.

First thing in the morning, she called a meeting with Randy and Terry for that afternoon. They all met in Randy’s office on the Hill. She’d prepared a quick-and-dirty PowerPoint presentation. She took them through it. They listened in silence.

“So?” she said when she was finished. “What do you think?”

Randy and Terry stared.

“You want me to introduce this?” Randy said. “In the U.S. Senate?” He began to laugh. “Cass, Cass, Cass. I have to hand it to you. You are a piece of work. You really had me, there.”

“I’m totally serious,” Cass said. “I don’t think it’s got a prayer. But as a meta-issue, it would force the debate like nothing else.”

“Meta-issue?” Terry said. “What the fuck is a meta-issue? Is this one of your Ayn Rand deals?”

“It’s got nothing to do with that. Meta means…you know…transcendent. Bigger. Higher. Beyond. Above. Metaphysics. You were the one who told me the media was bored. Well, let’s wake ’em up.”

Terry and Randy exchanged glances. My God, she’s serious.

“Look at these figures.” Cass called up one of her PowerPoint slides. “That’s a one-month-old Gallup poll. Attitudes are shifting. Fewer and fewer people equate longevity with happiness. They’re ready for something like this. And while I realize that it would never in a thousand years fly, there’s evidence to suggest that it’s a debate people are eager to have. Let the government dig in its heels. Fine. Then we say to them, ‘All right, so what’s your solution?’ Two workers to support every retiree? They don’t have a solution. Things are already starting to fall apart and they still don’t have a solution.”

“It’s nuts, Cass.”

“No, it’s bold.”

“Boldly nuts.”

“Since day two at TSC you were always telling me, ‘Throw long.’ So. This is long.”

Randy looked at his watch. “I hate to be the party pooper, but I’ve got a committee meeting. Grand seeing you both. Let’s keep up the dialogue. Ta-ta.”

“What’d you expect?” Terry said in the car on the way back to the office. “That he was going to agree to introduce a bill in the U.S. Senate encouraging Boomers to commit mass suicide-in order to save Social Security?”

“Not suicide. Voluntary Transitioning,” Cass said.

“Whatever. What time of night did you dream this one up?” Terry was quiet for a moment, then said, “I’ll give you this: It’s definitely out-of-the-box thinking. Now if you could just apply this kind of brain sweat to Larry’s insecticide-”

“Did you ever read Jonathan Swift’s ‘A Modest Proposal’?”

Terry sighed. “You mean at Harvard? Or was it Princeton? Remind me, which Ivy League university did I attend?”

“The Gulliver’s Travels guy,” Cass said. “You heard of him, surely.”

“Yeah. So?”

“In 1729, Swift published an article proposing that the way to solve poverty in Ireland was for the poor Irish to sell their children for food.”