Shelley's Heart

by Charles McCarry

  “That’s quite a sequence of events, I agree,” Mallory said. “But why did it surprise you that Buzzer Busby and the rest of the radicals don’t want me to be President again?”

  “It didn’t surprise me, but that’s not the point,” Whipple replied. “Busby had just got through telling me in so many words that it was all over for Lockwood. We all know it is, but he had something up his sleeve. He couldn’t say exactly what, wink-wink, but it was obvious he was busting his buttons.” Whipple voiced these last three words in a parody of Busby’s St. Grottlesex drawl.

  “He was needling you?”

  “Pissing on my shoe.”

  Mallory thought for a moment, then said, “If Buzzer really does have something up his sleeve, why would he tell you, of all people?”

  “Because,” Whipple replied, “Buzzer’s not the brightest guy in the world. And you know him, Franklin—he’s such a peacock he can’t resist showing off.”

  “And that’s all you’ve got to go on?”

  “If you know Busby, not to mention Hammett and his Fifth Column, it’s enough to make you wonder,” Whipple said. “They want to get rid of Lockwood. That’s phase one.”

  “Maybe so, but how does knocking off Lockwood serve their purposes? If he wasn’t elected, I was.”

  “Since when did Buzzer’s crowd give a tinker’s damn about elections? They just stole one. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That bunch would rather burn Washington than let you back in the White House.”

  “Granted. But what other choice will they have if the Senate finds that the election was stolen?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ve got a funny feeling they’re working on it,” Whipple said. “Look up Hammett’s words. He’s been talking and writing about the Supreme Court as a mechanism to overthrow the elected government of the United States and seize absolute power for twenty-five years. I asked him about it in the confirmation hearings, quoted him chapter and verse from his own published statements, tried to pin him down. He just laughed it off, and Buzzer let him get away with it, but he meant every word he ever said on the subject. You know he did.”

  Mallory nodded absently. “Amzi, I respect your instincts. I thank you for this warning. But let’s keep this idea to ourselves for a while.”

  “Don’t worry,” Whipple said. “I’ve been put through the holy inquisition before by those bastards. That’s why I’m so damn suspicious. All I’m saying is, you should be, too.” Groaning with arthritis, he stood up. “Got to go. Bitsy’s having some Oklahoma people to supper tonight.”

  Mallory put an arm around the old man’s shoulder and looked into his worried eyes. “Just hold those fifty votes in line, Amzi.”

  “You don’t have to be concerned about that, Mr. President,” Whipple said. “But that may be the only thing you don’t have to worry about. These people are capable of anything. I know them, Franklin.”

  “I know you do,” Mallory said.

  5

  On the opening day of the impeachment trial, a Tuesday, Attenborough sat in the best seat in the front row, flanked by the party leaders, whips, and committee chairmen—his last perquisite as Speaker. This was the first time he had been inside the Senate chamber for a long time, but he remembered everything about it, its somber hush, its front-parlor atmosphere of mahogany and plush, the senators loitering at their desks like bachelor uncles in their Sunday clothes. The familiar group of ferocious women glared at him from the visitors’ gallery; he looked for Slim among them, but she was such a chameleon that he was not sure he would know her if he saw her.

  In its first two hours the process unfolded at a ritual pace. The Senate adjourned its ordinary session and then reconvened itself as a court of impeachment. The roll was called and the sergeant at arms read out the proclamation of the trial. Then, as the Constitution provides, all one hundred members were sworn individually. The oath was administered in a trembling voice by Senator Otis W. Dyer of Rhode Island, the eighty-two-year-old president pro tempore of the Senate, who after the Speaker of the House was next in the line of succession to the presidency. Dyer was unable to stand because he had recently broken his hip, but every senator rose to his feet to take the oath, including the battered but gallant Wilbur E. Garrett. His upper body and left arm were encased in a cast over which it was impossible to wear a coat, so he wore the jacket of his suit draped over the uninjured shoulder like a dragoon’s mess jacket.

  At the end of these ceremonies the president pro tempore, assisted by two members of his staff, stepped down from the chair and Chief Justice Archimedes Hammett entered the chamber. He was accompanied by the senior associate justice of the Supreme Court, Bobby M. Poole, and escorted by a committee of three senators. Hammett wore his judicial robes and carried a tattered copy of the Bible in Greek—a gesture to the memory of his immigrant grandfather, as Patrick Graham, seated before a monitor several blocks away in a studio, explained in the funereal murmur he had adopted to describe these events. Without the slightest pause or hesitation, Hammett mounted the veined marble podium and took the chair reserved for the presiding officer. In a ringing voice, head thrown back, Hammett said, “Senators, I am here in obedience to the Constitution and in answer to your resolution for the purpose of presiding over the trial of the impeachment of the President of the United States, Bedford Forrest Lockwood. I am ready to take the oath.”

  Justice Poole administered the oath. Like the ones just taken by the senators, its language was the same as that repeated by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase in the 1868 trial, the only difference being the substitution of Lockwood’s name for that of Andrew Johnson: “I do solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Bedford Forrest Lockwood, President of the United States, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws; so help me God.”

  Hammett repeated the words in the same loud, firm voice as before, and marking himself as a person standing alone in this act as in all other things, he held the Greek Bible balanced on his left palm, with his right hand resting on top of the book. Sourly imagining the artful close-ups of sensitive hands and well-worn Bible that must at this moment be appearing on every television screen in America, Attenborough thought: He’s like Napoleon crowning himself emperor in Notre Dame. Attenborough, who understood exactly what Hammett was doing, had to admire the skill with which he was doing it. It was like watching a Barrymore in the role of Chief Justice: if this was not the real thing, it ought to be. From his seat in the gallery, the Speaker looked directly at the podium, and when Hammett glanced upward as he finished the oath, the eyes of the two men met for an instant. The Chief Justice quickly looked away, a furtive movement—guiltily, by God.

  Hammett rapped twice emphatically with the gavel, bringing the trial to order. “The sergeant at arms,” he said, “will call the impeached.”

  The sergeant at arms threw open the doors of the Senate and called, “Bedford Forrest Lockwood, President of the United States, Bedford Forrest Lockwood, President of the United States, appear and answer the articles of impeachment exhibited against you by the House of Representatives of the United States.”

  There was no answer. Sam Clark said, “I understand that the President has retained counsel and they are now in the President’s room adjoining this chamber. I move that the sergeant at arms invite them to enter and appear for the President.”

  Olmedo and Blackstone entered and presented a letter from Lockwood authorizing them to appear for him. Hammett invited them to take the chairs reserved for them at another table; the empty, more ornate chair reserved for Lockwood stood between them. Naturally the cameras lingered on this symbolic piece of furniture; Attenborough knew what the cameras were doing because he was surrounded by members of the House who, even though they were present at the living event, were watching the proceedings on tiny hand-held television sets and listening to it over earplugs.

  By now more than three hours had passed without a recess and spectators a
nd members of the press were beginning to drift in and out of the galleries. Of course senators were at liberty to leave for the same purposes, but none did so because none wished to be the first to be seen on network television slipping away to answer a call of nature at such a solemn moment.

  Hammett pressed on. “The clerk will read the articles of impeachment,” he said.

  This done, Sam Clark rose to make a motion. “The Chief Justice,” Hammett said, using the form of reference to himself that Salmon P. Chase had employed in the 1868 trial, “recognizes the senator from Massachusetts.” Clark moved for a thirty-minute recess; Whipple seconded. Benevolently Hammett granted it, but when the senators filed out and the galleries emptied, he himself remained immobile in the chair. He was there when Attenborough left, in order to have a drink and a pill, and he was still there when the Speaker returned twenty-nine minutes later, as unmoving yet as charged with energy as a video image on PAUSE.

  On the stroke of the half hour, with every seat in the galleries reoccupied, Hammett moved for the first time, striking the gavel to bring the Senate to order. “Mr. Olmedo,” he said, “is the President of the United States ready to enter his answers to the articles of impeachment that have been brought against him by the honorable House of Representatives?”

  “He is not, Mr. Chief Justice. May I approach the bench?”

  “No, sir, you may not,” Hammett said. “This is a constitutional proceeding touching upon the most fundamental questions, including the very legitimacy of our government. Such proceedings cannot be conducted in whispers. It is essential that they be conducted aloud and on the record in their entirety, without secrecy of any kind.”

  Amzi Whipple rose. “In their entirety? May I respectfully ask who decided that, Mr. Chief Justice?”

  “It is a constitutional question. Therefore, the Chief Justice decided it, as authorized and mandated by the Senate under the rules adopted for this trial.”

  “Does this mean that the Senate itself cannot deliberate in secret?”

  “That is a procedural question for the Senate, not a constitutional question, and therefore the Senate, not the Chief Justice, must decide it.”

  “I move for immediate consideration of this procedural question by the entire Senate.”

  Hammett said, “Senator, I respectfully remind you that the Senate may not conduct any other business when sitting as a court of impeachment. The Senate may adjourn the public trial, reconvene itself, and do as it likes, but while it sits under the Chief Justice as a court of impeachment, it may conduct no other business.”

  Whipple said, “What were those words, sir? Did I hear you say under the Chief Justice? The Senate, sir, does not fall beneath any person or body except the Constitution of the United States.”

  “Precisely, and in this case the Chief Justice is the designated agent of the Constitution,” said Hammett. Once again his tone was friendly and reasonable, as though he were explaining the obvious to a rather slow student in a classroom.

  “I move for immediate adjournment,” said Whipple.

  A chorus from the right side of the chamber seconded the motion.

  “A motion has been made and seconded,” said Hammett. “The clerk will call the roll.”

  Because of the need to maintain party discipline at all costs, the vote was evenly divided, just as Hammett knew it must be: the Establishment always responded to any threat to itself by acting according to its own brute nature. Casting his first tie-breaking vote, he decided the issue in favor of continuation. It was clear to all what this meant: Lockwood’s party had voted against its own interests and Hammett had established his authority over the proceedings. The Cause had won the first round. From his desk, Busby smiled happily; the cameras registered this reaction along with the angry face of Amzi Whipple.

  Ending the long moment of silence that followed his triumph, Hammett said, “Mr. Olmedo, you may proceed with the President’s answer to the articles.”

  “Mr. Chief Justice,” Olmedo said, “I ask for a thirty-day adjournment to give the President time to prepare his answer to these charges.”

  Hammett said, “The Chief Justice will entertain a motion on this question of procedure.”

  The vote resulted in another tie, broken by Hammett to deny the motion.

  “The motion having been put to a vote by the Senate and denied,” Hammett said, “I hereby order that the President of the United States, Bedford Forrest Lockwood, appear before the Senate at one o’clock in the afternoon on the Friday after next, ten days from today, to answer the articles of impeachment voted by the honorable House of Representatives. Let the record show that this ruling is made on the basis of a precedent established by the Senate. The Chief Justice is granting to President Lockwood the precise amount of time—ten days—granted to President Andrew Johnson by vote of the Senate in 1868. Do I hear a motion for adjournment?”

  Olmedo was on his feet again. “Mr. Chief Justice, I am at a loss to understand your ruling in this matter,” he said. “I ask that the date of the President’s appearance be established by vote of the Senate, as provided by the rules.”

  “The Chief Justice will entertain a motion to that effect,” Hammett said.

  Once again Amzi Whipple offered the motion. Once again the Senate was evenly divided. Once again Hammett broke the tie to defeat the motion.

  “The Sixth Amendment refers to ‘a speedy and public trial,’ Mr. Olmedo,” Hammett said. “That is what the Chief Justice’s ruling was designed to accomplish. Beyond that, the President has the right to what he demanded when he set this entire process in motion. For the record, I will quote his exact words: ‘I ask that the Congress act on this supremely urgent and important matter with the least possible delay consistent with a just outcome.’ Thirty days would clearly be an excessive delay.”

  Olmedo stood mute. Busby leaped to his feet and moved to adjourn. Hammett banged the gavel and strode from the chamber, leaving the senators still seated at their desks. Amzi Whipple sprang upright and charged across the floor to Sam Clark’s desk.

  “A breathtaking, a Solomonic, performance by Archimedes Hammett,” Patrick Graham was saying into his microphone. “He is triumphantly the man in charge. The United States of America has found itself a Chief Justice worthy of the hour.”

  6

  Like fingerprints, the vascular system of the face is unique and inalterable for each human being. The commercial potentialities of this anatomical characteristic were realized in the latter years of the twentieth century when Betac, a small private company just outside the Beltway, patented a simple, portable infrared scanner that was capable of detecting this pattern of blood vessels beneath the skin and transmitting it to a computer’s memory. When the captured image was matched against the stored original, the result was historic: not merely positive identification but absolute identification was achieved for the first time in the annals of investigative science. Disguises, plastic surgery, the most hideous disfigurement by injury or disease, made no difference. The person in the memory bank could not possibly be anyone but himself or herself.

  Horace Hubbard had traveled to the Caribbean on a false-genuine Canadian passport—false because Horace was not Kenneth Russell Holt, the businessman from Kanata, Ontario, whose name appeared on the passport, genuine because Holt (though unaware of Horace’s existence) was a real person who had been in a coma for ten years as a result of injuries suffered in a highway crash. Horace had encountered no difficulties on the way down to Mustique. However, as he passed through passport control after landing at Miami airport on his return, he was identified by a scanner. He would have been astonished to know that his infrared image was on file because, for obvious reasons, FIS field officers had been exempted from facial mapping. However, knowing that he would never be able to monitor, much less follow, so elusive a subject as Horace with his own meager resources, McGraw had arranged with a friend in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for Horace’s face to be mapped by a hid
den infrared scanner when he had brought him back through JFK from Chile. This image was added to the terrorist watch list, and the computer at Miami had matched this stored image to Horace’s bearded, bespectacled, and subtly darkened face in nanoseconds. Notice of the I.D., together with a rundown on Horace’s incognito trip (commercial airliner from Miami to Barbados, then on to Mustique by self-piloted rented plane, whose flight path had been recorded on the black box installed with U.S. secret funds in all such planes as an anti-drug-smuggling measure), was immediately posted on an antiterrorist bulletin board to which McGraw still had access through the kindness of the same friend in the INS.

  Immediately after receiving this information, McGraw scanned the open data bank for Mustique, and in running down the list of property owners on the island, he found the name of Baxter T. Busby. A further check showed that Busby had flown into Mustique in a chartered plane on the same day that Horace had arrived there. What was the connection? McGraw searched for more data. Working his way through the subjects’ affiliations, looking for cross-matches, he found that Busby and Horace had played basketball on the same team at Yale and that both had been residents of the same undergraduate college, Calhoun. This explained how they knew each other. But what else might it explain?

  It was almost dawn; even the most compulsive workaholics on the White House staff had gone home. As he did most nights, McGraw was working in a corner of the large, vacant West Wing office formerly occupied by Julian Hubbard. He had been looking through the computer log of Julian’s phone calls from the White House. He didn’t really expect to find much; Julian had spent most of his waking life on the telephone, making and receiving dozens of calls every day. Most were Washington numbers that appeared again and again.