“I've built up a rather large, youngish, go-getting legal staff since I took over at the agency. I'm going to turn those lawyers into detectives.”
“You could get them killed.”
“Not if I send them out in teams of two and three, and not if there's an armed United States marshal with each team.”
“You can swing that?”
Adjusting his cuffs, McAlister said, “The President has promised me anything I need.”
“Where will you start?”
“We'll try to find Wilson's laboratory. If we can get our hands on the files or on a scientist who worked with Wilson, we ought to be able to learn Dragonfly's identity.” He led the way into the living room and waited while Canning got his raincoat from the foyer closet. “There's another angle we'll cover. Berlinson managed to kill one of the men sent to get him. The corpse wasn't in the house in Carpinteria, but our forensic experts swear there was a fifth killing. There was a great deal of blood near the bedroom closet, and it doesn't match types with any of the Berlinsons or with the FBI agent who was killed in the kitchen. So… Somewhere there's a dead CIA operative, a dead Committeeman. I'm going to try to pin down the whereabouts of every agent who is supposed to be in Mexico or North America, any agent who might have slipped into Carpinteria, California. If one of them isn't where he's supposed to be, if his absence is unexplained, if I can't get a line on him one way or another, then we can be pretty certain that he's the one Berlinson killed. We'll find out which agency employees were most friendly with him. They'll probably be Committeemen. With luck, we might get hold of one of these fanatics before he knows what's happening.”
Canning held the hooded raincoat, waited until the other man had his arms in the sleeves, let go of the collar, and said, “Then what?”
McAlister turned around to face him. Buttoning his coat, he said, “We interrogate him.”
“Oh?”
“We learn who runs The Committee.”
“If he knows.”
“Or we see if he can tell us where Wilson had his lab. Or who Dragonfly is.”
“If he knows.”
“He'll know something.”
Putting one hand on the doorknob but making no effort to turn it, Canning said, “Like you said earlier, these are all tough boys, hard cases. They won't break unless you hit them with a combination of extreme torture and drugs.”
“That's right.”
“You aren't the kind of man who could use those techniques.”
McAlister frowned. “Maybe I could.”
“I hope you don't have to. But I hope you can if it comes to that.”
“I can. If it gets down to the wire.”
“If it gets down to the wire,” Canning said, “it's already too late.”
FIVE
At one-twenty that afternoon McAlister entrusted his Mercedes to a federal security officer and hurried toward a side entrance of the White House. The enormous old building, streaming with rain, looked like a piece of elegantly sculptured alabaster. All over the spacious grounds, the trees of many nations shared a common autumn: the leaves had begun to turn a hundred different shades of red and gold. McAlister was not aware of this beauty. His mind was on the Dragonfly crisis. He went straight to the door, exchanged hellos with the guard, and stepped into a small marbled foyer, where he left puddles of rain on the polished floor.
Beau Jackson, the sixty-year-old tuxedoed black man who was on duty at the cloakroom, gave McAlister a toothy smile. Jackson was an anachronism that never failed to intrigue McAlister. His look and his manner seemed pre-Lincolnian. “Nasty out there, Mr. McAlister?”
“Wet enough to drown ducks, Mr. Jackson.”
The black man laughed as he took McAlister's coat. Hanging it up, he said, “You just hold on a minute, and I'll wipe the rain off your attache case.”
“Oh, I'll get it,” McAlister said, putting the briefcase on a small mahogany stand and reaching for the display handkerchief that was folded to a perfect double point in the breast pocket of his suit jacket.
“No, no!” Jackson said urgently. “You mustn't mess up your nice hanky, Mr. McAlister.”
“Really, I—”
“Why, you have it folded so nice…” He tilted his graying head to admire the handkerchief. “Look at them folds. Would you look at them folds? Sharp enough to cut bread.”
McAlister smiled and shook his head. “Okay. I'll use the bathroom.” He went into the visitors' lavatory, splashed cold water on his face, combed his hair, and straightened his tie. When he returned to the cloakroom, he found Jackson folding the dustcloth he had used to wipe off the attache case. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson.”
“You're welcome, I'm sure.”
He picked up the case. “How's that son of yours getting along? The one who was trying to buy a McDonald's franchise.”
Jackson smiled, “He got the store all right. He's deep in debt, but he's working sixteen hours a day and selling hamburgers faster than they can kill the cows to make them.”
McAlister laughed. “Good for him.”
“Have a nice visit with the boss,” Jackson said.
“That's up to him.”
Five minutes later, passed along by the appointments secretary, McAlister stood outside the door to the Oval Office. He hesitated, trying to relax, trying to get a smile on his face.
On his left, three feet away, the ever-present warrant officer sat on a chair in the hallway. On his lap lay a black metal case, The Bag, the file of war codes that the President needed if he were to start — or finish — a nuclear war. Thirtyish, clean-cut and lean, the warrant officer was reading a paperback suspense novel. It had a colorful cover: two people running from an unseen enemy. Above the title was a line of copy: “Unarmed in the desert — with hired killers on their trail.” Without looking up, thoroughly hooked, the Bag Man turned a page. McAlister wondered how a man who might one day help to cause mega-deaths could possibly be enthralled by a fiction in which only two lives hung in the balance.
He knocked on the door, opened it, and went in to see the President.
The Oval Office was quintessentially American. It was clearly a room where business was transacted and not merely a place set aside for ceremonial purposes. The furniture was expensive, often antique, but also sturdy and functional. A United States flag hung from a brass stand at the right and behind the chief executive's desk, as if everyone had to be reminded this was not Lithuania or Argentina. Every corner and glossy surface was squeaky clean. The room held a vaguely medicinal odor composed of furniture polish, carpet shampoo, and chemically purified, dehumidified air. The ubiquitous blue-and-silver Great Seal of the President of the United States officialized the carpet, the desk, the penholder that stood on the desk, the pens in the holder, the stationery, the stapler, the blotter, each of the many telephones, the sterling-silver pitcher full of ice water, and a dozen other things. Only American chiefs of staff, McAlister thought, could wield so much power and yet cling to such simple-minded status symbols as these.
The focal point of the office was, of course, the President. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man who managed to look austere and approachable, sophisticated and of simple tastes, fatherly and quite sensual all at the same time. In spite of his London-tailored suit and hand-stitched Italian shoes, he had the rugged, rangy image of a cowboy actor. His hair was thick, salt-and-pepper, artfully mussed; and his eyebrows were dark and bushy. And he had the best collection of vintage 1960, white-white, porcelain-capped, steel-pin, jaw-sunk, permanently implanted, artificial teeth extant.
