Julian wrote steadily, losing track of time, putting down all that he could remember about the events since the inauguration. As he wrote, the burden of Lockwood’s change of heart lifted. Line by line, he understood the reasons for it and accepted its consequences. He was not a natural writer. He had to struggle to put into words what he remembered as a kaleidoscope of images, a jumble of impressions, a cacophony of voices. But he was proud of his results. He avoided flourishes, he made no excuses for himself, he resisted interpretation even though he believed that he knew and understood the reasons behind the actions of the powerful better than almost anyone else of his generation. He let the facts speak for themselves.
This process induced in Julian an almost hypnotic state, in which he saw and heard nothing outside the little pool of light cast by the green-shaded lamp on the writing table. Consequently he was startled enough to leap when he heard someone speak his name. This involuntary jump of the nerves occurred even though he recognized the visitor’s voice at once.
“Good grief, Archimedes! How did you get in here?”
Hammett said, “Your wife let me in.”
“You woke her up?”
Hammett ignored the question. What difference did it make if Emily’s sleep had been disturbed? “Julian,” he said, “something very strange is going on.”
Julian capped his pen, blotted and closed his diary and slipped it under a newspaper lying on the desk. He had no wish to discuss the existence of his journal with Hammett, whose curiosity was as bottomless as his suspiciousness. He tried to smile, but he was too tired, and he knew that he would have to write down whatever Hammett was going to tell him before he could sleep with an easy mind. “Really?” he said. “What?”
“Macalaster’s daughter had another séance tonight, and—”
“A séance? For heaven’s sake, Archimedes. You became Chief Justice of the United States today. Congratulations, by the—”
“She told me things she could not possibly know, things that no one knows. She told me—” Hammett was flinging himself from one side of the small room to the other, flapping his arms in agitation.
Julian said, “Sit down before you crash into something, Archimedes. You’re flying around like a bat in a bridal chamber.”
“No. You have to hear this. She knows all about the Shelley Society. That ghost, Susan, called me Six-Nine. She said, ‘Five-Five will know the secrets of Six-Nine.’ Five-Five is Horace.”
“So it is.” Julian shook his head. “Archimedes, why are you so paranoid? What if Manal does know something about the Shelley Society? What can this child possibly know that could harm you or anyone else? We’re just a bunch of little old ladies doing good works in the world.”
“If that’s what you believe, you should be a little more paranoid. The ghost says Five-Five will tell the world about Six-Nine. Horace is going to betray me. That was the message.”
For a long moment Julian stared at Hammett in disbelieving silence. Finally he said, “Archimedes, go home. You’re making no sense whatsoever.”
“You don’t want to hear the rest?”
“No. I’ve heard enough. Go home.”
“All right, but one thing you’re going to hear whether you want to or not. The source of all this nonsense is somebody you know.”
“Oh? And who might that be?”
In spite of himself, Julian was interested in what might come next. Hammett usually had a reason for his suspicions. In the past, when in the grip of a delirium like this one, he had often sounded like a madman, only to be proved right in the end.
“I’ll tell you who,” Hammett said. “In fact, I told you once before. Or at least mentioned a feeling I had about a certain person.”
A certain person. Where did Hammett get his outlandish vocabulary? Now he was waiting with glaring eyes for Julian to speak. Julian knew that he wanted him to ask him to go on—it was his way of wringing an apology from him—but he refused to be the first to break the silence.
At last Hammett said, “I know you’ll be surprised. The name begins with Z.”
Julian was exasperated and exhausted and still half in his writing trance. “Z?” he said. “I don’t think I know anyone at that end of the alphabet.”
“Oh, yes you do.”
“Archimedes—”
“All right, call it Zed. Remember the party for Lockwood at Macalaster’s house.”
Julian realized whom he meant. “Zarah?” he cried. “Be serious.”
Hammett replied, “I have never been more serious in my life.”
1
Owing to his short stature, R. Tucker Attenborough had a nervous habit of speaking even louder than usual on first meeting with a person of consequence. To Alfonso Olmedo C., he bellowed, “Rainbows!”
Olmedo caught a whiff of the hundred-proof vodka the Speaker had drunk to fortify himself for this meeting. It was seven o’clock in the morning. Attenborough was pasty-faced and his eyes were concealed behind dark-green sunglasses. He pointed upward with his thumb. Olmedo tilted back his head in order to gaze at the frosted glass roof of Washington’s Botanic Garden. The sprinkler system was operating in another part of the greenhouse, and diagonal rays of sunlight shone through a mist of chlorinated water, revealing the colors of the spectrum.
“How lovely,” said Olmedo.
“Imagine seeing something like that indoors,” Attenborough said. “They used to water with hoses, but I got ‘em this sprinkling system. Creates a fog, runs on a timer, saves water.”
“What happened to the people who ran the hoses?”
“I guess they went on to something else. I keep telling them they should pipe birdsong, American birdsong, into this place to make it even more restful, but they won’t do it.”
“Then perhaps you should surprise them with birdsong funds.”
Attenborough peered into Olmedo’s face to see if he was making fun of him, but the latter’s expression was friendly and plainly lacking in irony. “Not a bad idea,” Attenborough replied. He breathed deeply, taking in and expelling several lungsful of the damp, ferny air. His influence had got them admitted to the building a couple of hours before the doors opened to the public, and the two men were the only visitors.
“I love this place in the morning,” Attenborough said. “Lots of times I come on down here before I start the day to think or talk to people. Makes you feel better to breathe the same air as all these trees.”
“There may be a reason for that,” Olmedo replied. “In Bolivia, whose cities and towns are mostly high up in the Andes, people are subject to sudden fits of violence. A man will go into a restaurant with a woman and somebody who doesn’t have a woman of his own, a perfect stranger, will pull out a gun and shoot him dead in a fit of jealous rage that the killer cannot afterward explain. My father always said this strange behavior was induced by a shortage of oxygen to the brain because of the altitude. So maybe there’s a surplus of oxygen in here, with all this vegetation at work.”
“You figure I need extra oxygen?”
What a suspicious man, Olmedo thought; these politicians were as sensitive as mafiosi. He smiled reassuringly and said, “Don’t we all, living in the city?”
“Could be,” Attenborough said, only half mollified. “Maybe that’s why I get so sleepy all the time. Nod right off when someone’s talking to me—do it all the time. I thought it was boredom.”
They arrived at the desert plants, growing in a room by themselves, and Attenborough stopped. “You asked for this meeting, Counselor,” he said. “Shoot.”
“Very well,” Olmedo said. “I had hoped, Mr. Speaker, that you might be able to tell me what to expect from the House of Representatives in regard to my client.”
Attenborough snorted. “Jesus,” he said, “is that all?”
Olmedo smiled, as if baffled by Attenborough’s sarcasm. “I mean in terms of procedure. Also timing.”
Stepping back and gazing upward, Attenborough conducted a lengthy survey of Olmedo�
�s face and elegantly tailored form. Then he said, “Does Lockwood still think I’m trying to steal his job?”
Olmedo had not realized how tiny the Speaker was before meeting him in person. He registered astonishment at his words. “The President hasn’t mentioned any such idea to me. Nor would I be interested. My only concern is in the legal aspects of the situation.”
“Then you’re in for an education, my friend. The law won’t have a whole hell of a lot to do with the way things turn out. This is a political can of worms, and every slimy son of a bitch in town is squirming around in there with the rest of ‘em. Plus a whole bunch of daughters of bitches—don’t want to be sexist. Everybody wants to get in on the hanging, regardless of gender, race, or religion.”
“You regard impeachment as a foregone conclusion?”
“Yep. But not necessarily the hanging. What you should be worrying about, Counselor, is getting your client through the ordeal with both nuts still in his scrotum.” Attenborough looked at his watch. “I’ve got an eight forty-five on my calendar, so we’re going to have to speed this up. Ask questions, Alfonso.”
“Gladly. When will the House act on this matter?”
“It could happen next week, maybe the week after that, if it goes the way I’m trying to make it go.”
“So soon? You’re in a hurry?”
“Damn right I am, my friend, because I’m a Lockwood man, whatever he may think, and I sure as hell don’t want to have to take over the presidency. What we’re going to do is cut the foreplay to the minimum. No hearings in front of the Judiciary Committee. I’m not handing this thing over to forty-one lawyers so’s they can have peacock fights in the media. The House will suspend the rules and resolve itself into a committee of the whole. Then the chair will entertain motions for three articles of impeachment for stealing votes in Michigan, New York, and California. Said motions will be debated under a rule limiting speeches by members to fifteen minutes. Then the articles will be voted on and no doubt adopted.” Uttering the next four words, Attenborough spoke more loudly: “In the order stated.”
Olmedo replied, “Michigan first, California last? Is that order significant?”
“It’s significant. The evidence of vote fraud is weakest in Michigan, middling in New York, and strongest in California. The history of impeachment trials has been that if you fail to get two thirds of the Senate in favor of impeachment on the first one or two articles, they forget the rest and go on home. That’s history. What will happen this time, nobody knows.”
Olmedo nodded gravely. “One last question,” he said. “What makes you think you can control the number of articles of impeachment?”
“Did I say I could do that?”
“No, Mr. Speaker, you did not. I apologize and rephrase. Can you control the number of articles?”
“Let me put it to you this way, Alfonso. I’ll be leaning heavily on the Book of Isaiah, chapter the fifty-third, verse the first: ‘Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?’ ”
“What report is that, Mr. Speaker?”
“The report in every newspaper and TV set in the land to the effect that your client is as clean as a hound’s tooth in every thought and deed. That he is the certified second coming of Honest Abe. That his trusted underlings stabbed him in the back in Michigan, New York, and California. That line of media horseshit is the best thing you’ve got going for you.”
“Horseshit? Is there any reason for anyone not to believe that this perception is wrong?”
Attenborough looked to left and right and behind him, then beckoned Olmedo closer. The latter bent at the waist. In an earsplitting whisper, Attenborough said, “Ibn Awad.”
Olmedo said, “The Arab sheik who was assassinated by his son to keep him from giving nuclear weapons to the Eye of Gaza?”
“With the secret blessing of the Lockwood administration in its fourth month in office. That’s the man.”
“I was under the impression that the whole story had come out during the campaign. Didn’t Lockwood himself make it public?”
“Franklin Mallory didn’t think so. He said murder had been done by the President of the United States and by God he was going to investigate it as the first order of business of his new presidency.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Hardly anybody does. He said it the day before the election on the Patrick Graham show. The rest of the media ignored it, what with the election being so close, and those kids from the Eye of Gaza blowing themselves up all over Frosty and him going on TV and saying he’d saved the world from nuclear holocaust, just don’t ask him for the details on how he did it. So the media didn’t ask.”
“Did Mallory mean what he said?”
“He usually does, Counselor.”
“Does that mean he has proof of some kind, in your opinion?”
“I don’t know beans about what old Franklin’s got and I sure hope I never do. But why the hell else would he call the President of the United States a murderer on network television?”
“Then why didn’t he include that in the bill of particulars about election fraud?”
“Maybe he’s saving the best for last.”
“Are you suggesting that this issue may come up as an article of impeachment?”
“I’m suggesting it’s mighty funny nobody’s brought it up so far.”
“Why?”
The question tried Attenborough’s patience. “Because, Counselor, some people might say it looks like the damn election was stolen a day after Mallory said the first thing he was going to do as President was to investigate the man he defeated as an accessory to premeditated homicide.”
Olmedo said, “Are you suggesting a connection between the Ibn Awad affair and the theft of the election?”
“Not me. But if somebody else decides to do so by making it an article of impeachment, you’re going to find yourself with the trial of the century on your hands.”
“But why didn’t Mallory make this charge at the outset?”
Attenborough looked anxiously at his wristwatch. “Who knows?” he said in what was for him a normal voice. “But one thing I’ve learned in the twenty-five years I’ve known Franklin Mallory is that he is one smart son of a bitch. All this fuss about shifting votes around, which has always been the American way, may just be old Franklin’s way of getting the impeachment process started so that his people can bring up Ibn Awad. And by so doing, nail Frosty and everything the world thinks he stands for to the cross. It would finish progressive reform in this country. We’d be out forever.”
Attenborough had put a hand on Olmedo’s arm as he uttered these last four words. Olmedo waited for him to remove it before he replied. Then he asked, “Is that a worst-case scenario, Mr. Speaker, or do you think it might really happen?”
Attenborough shrugged. “One thing’s for sure. Frosty don’t want it to happen.”
“Meaning what, Mr. Speaker?”
“Meaning it may all come down to what Frosty’s got to trade and what Franklin’s price is,” Attenborough said. “And your client knows that. Good morning to you, sir.”
Without another gesture or glance, the little man hurried away among the potted trees.
Following him out at a slower pace, Olmedo learned one of the reasons for his haste as he was drenched by what seemed to be a small cloudburst. Through some freak of greenhouse atmospherics, water was being condensed beneath the glass sky and then released as warm, sticky rain that smelled of swimming pool chemicals and rotting vegetation.
2
John L. S. McGraw, the investigator, awaited Olmedo outside the Botanic Garden at the wheel of a rented Ford. As they crossed the Potomac and drove down the jammed parkway to the airport, Olmedo told him every detail of his conversation with Attenborough.
When he was finished, McGraw said, “The random element has been introduced.”
“As you say, Watson,” said Olmedo. “Obviously time is important. It would be best t
o go to the prime source.”
McGraw said, “You mean the client, or the little man who wasn’t there?”
“The latter. I doubt if the client knows much of value beyond the question of his guilt or innocence. He might even be shaky on that. Presidents are not burdened with details by the sort of men who carry out disagreeable duties on their behalf. How are you coming with your inquiries?”
“Okay, I think,” said McGraw. “Just a few more details; I’m almost there. If things work out like they should, I may be able to go get him today. But if I have to travel, I’m going to need some bona fides.”
“What did you have in mind, John?”
“A handwritten letter from the client saying it’s okay to tell me the whole truth and nothing but, plus something from Julian that says the same.”
“I’ll call Blackstone before I get on the plane. Do you need anything else?” McGraw responded with a sidewise New York smile. They had arrived at National’s shuttle terminal. With his hand on the door handle. Olmedo said, “You understand that we must produce the witness. Mere information won’t be enough.”
“Yeah, I understand,” said McGraw. “Have a nice flight.”
A couple of miles down the parkway, McGraw found a roadside turnoff that was sufficiently far away from the airport to provide reasonably good microwave reception. He parked, locked himself inside the car, got out the miniature computer he always carried in the zipper gym bag that served as his briefcase, and began punching out commands. Before entering into his association with Olmedo, McGraw had been a New York City detective assigned to antiterrorist duty. He retired on a disability pension—artificial left hip, artificial left knee, no left kidney, no left lung, no spleen—after a terrorist whom he surprised in the act of planting a bomb fired fourteen 9mm Parabellum rounds into his torso. While recovering from his wounds and the million dollars’ worth of surgery required to replace or repair his shattered body parts, McGraw had become a dedicated computer hacker, not because he was fascinated by technology—he hated machines—but because he could not resist a situation in which the very air was saturated with information of every conceivable kind. All you had to do to find it was figure out what you needed to know, and then ask the computer to provide the facts. McGraw, who knew many cops in many countries, supplemented this with personal inquiries, also conducted by computer through the confidential electronic bulletin boards that policemen used to help each other out in a world in which the criminals had most of the advantages.
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