Powers said, 'Absolutely no rush. Meantime, I thought we might get together for breakfast or lunch, talk it all over in a little more detail, the plans I have for you over here.'
I said, 'That would be really nice, and helpful as well. But things are really pretty rough for me right now.'
'I'll have my secretary call you,' he said. 'We'll set something up for tomorrow or Friday. Maybe you come over here and eat in the White House mess, see how the whole thing feels.'
God only knew where the next two days would find me, but I didn't want to say that to Powers, so I replied, 'Good, let's see how the days play out. Thanks for thinking about me.'
'Before you go, just one more thing,' he said, his voice changing, his tone becoming more serious.
'Sure,' I replied.
'You didn't get this from me, and this may not be worth anything at all, but I know for a fact that the FBI has assigned a couple of agents to look into any possible connection between Tommy Graham and Mick Wilkerson and the assassination attempt.'
The revelation stunned me. Graham was Stanny Nichols's campaign manager. Mick Wilkerson was his longtime chief political strategist.
Together, they were the brain trust that had catapulted their candidate to the Democratic nomination. Perhaps this is what my anonymous source meant when he told me that nothing was as it seemed. Perhaps my anonymous source actually worked in the Nichols camp.
This didn't gel with anything else I had, but it was something to keep in mind.
'I appreciate the heads up,' I replied, trying to contain my surprise.
'As I said, this didn't come from me.'
As I hung up, I saw Havlicek pull up to his desk on the other side of the room, then neatly lay out his autopsy photographs and report around his computer, either to get everything within reach or to inspire himself. You could never tell with this guy. I, meanwhile, eyed my phone, picked up the receiver to make sure it was working, then began etching out questions on a yellow legal pad.
'What are you doing?'
That was Peter Martin, arriving at my desk, somewhat more at ease than usual.
'Nothing,' I said, feeling like a little kid just caught stealing his sister's crayons. I still hadn't told him about this anonymous voice, and I had no plans to until I got something concrete.
'That's some hit Havlicek has for morning, no?' Martin asked, in a question that explained his good mood.
I said, 'It's a great one. I'm going to work the telephones to see if I can help him out on my end. Otherwise, I'll be prepared to jump in and do anything I can in terms of follows. I suspect there'll be many.'
'Good. I've got to tell you, I know we're in the throes of battle and all, but Appleton's none too happy about putting a story on the front page of the first edition yesterday, then having to pull it off. He's all over my case about it.'
He let that sit out there for a minute, until I said, 'I'm sorry. It's entirely my fault. I'll send Appleton an e-mail or give him a call and tell him as much.'
'No need. I've got us covered on it,' Martin said, shaking his head.
I kept going anyway. 'Look, Peter, I screwed up. I know I did. But I think someone was intentionally trying to screw me up, and that someone might be the militia leader and the FBI. This could be a much larger story, an exclusive story, because I made that mistake.'
Martin started wringing his hands together, as he sometimes does when a veteran senator announces he's not seeking reelection or the president pocket vetoes a piece of tax legislation. He said, 'Go on.'
I told him what happened. I told of the talk with Nathaniel, of the phone call with Kent Drinker, of the, well, encounter with the kid named Bo at the Dew Drop Inn. 'The obvious question is, why is an assistant director of the FBI paying a house call on one of the nation's emerging militia leaders a couple of weeks before a presidential assassination attempt in which the militia is blamed, at least initially?'
Martin rolled up a chair and sat down beside my desk. He said, 'To concoct a story. That's what you think, right?'
I replied, 'Well, maybe. But that presupposes that Drinker would know about an assassination attempt, doesn't it? So doesn't that become a little far-fetched?'
'That it does. So why else?' He paused, looking at me, and added,
'Because Drinker had a tip about an assassination attempt? He wanted to check it out with the militia. That's still a good story, no?'
'Could be,' I said. 'But then, why the coordinated story lines now about this guy in Wyoming, Billy Walbin?'
We both sat there, baffled. My head hurt from thinking, hoping, waiting for this anonymous source. This wasn't so much journalism as algebra-trying to fit all the figures into a complex equation.
I said, 'Havlicek and I were bouncing around the idea that this thing could have been staged, you know, like maybe some eleventh-hour election ploy.'
Martin looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. 'I don't think there's any way,' he said. 'I think I know this city pretty well. I think I know politics pretty well. And I can't even imagine that anyone would dare pull such a stunt, and that it could be kept secret.' He paused and added, 'it would be one thing if Hutchins were down by ten points with less than two weeks left. But this thing was neck and neck. He didn't need anything this dramatic.'
Good points, all, but I was increasingly unconvinced. The timing of the assassination attempt bugged me, the poor aim of the shooter, the resulting fanfare and rise in Hutchins's favorability ratings. Still, it was far-fetched, so I felt silly pushing it. I said, 'At the least, we need to get someone out to Wyoming, ASAP, to pay a call on this militia leader, and I don't know if that's what I ought to be doing right now.'
'You're right,' Martin said. 'And done. I'll send Phil Braxton'-another bureau reporter-'out there today.'
'One more thing,' I said. 'I just got an off-the-record tip that Nichols's guys, Tommy Graham and Mick Wilkerson, are being looked at by the FBI as possibly having some sort of link to this.'
Martin stared at me incredulously. 'Link to the assassination attempt?' he asked, skeptically.
I shook my head.
'Who the hell is telling you this?'
'It's off the record,' I said. 'But it's coming from Lincoln Powers.'
'Sounds like a stunt,' Martin said. 'Sounds like they're just trying to create some sort of negative buzz about their opponent a week before the election. We've got to be careful of that.' He paused, then added, 'And we also have to check it out.' Then he got up and retreated to his office.
Other reporters were beginning to arrive at the bureau, including Julie Gershman, who walked in wearing a short, rust-colored skirt that inspired a sense of warmth in any man fortunate enough to see her, including me. I say this in a good way, as another indication that I was becoming whole.
She gave me a come-hither look-okay, so I have no idea what a come-hither look is, but I read about it once in my wife's Cosmopolitan-as she tucked her hair behind a tiny ear.
'We ever going to grab that drink, or are we going to continue to be two emotionless drones, coming to work, making small talk, going home?' she asked.
'Hey, you leave my lifestyle out of this, okay?'
She laughed. 'Tonight?' she asked.
'Can't, unfortunately. Already meeting someone for a story. Let me dig myself out of this assassination story, and we'll get together then.'
'I'm going to hold you to it,' she said, and I hoped she was good for her word.
The telephone rang, and I fairly well jumped on top of it, only to find it was my friend Harry Putnam, wanting to head to the Capital Grille for steaks, cottage fries, some red wine, and cigars that night. Who am I, Dean Martin or something? Everyone thinks I'm available at the drop of a dime for an offer of a beer?
I turned up the volume on my ringer and roamed across the room, toward Havlicek. This felt all right in here today, better than I would have expected. We had some good hits behind us. We had one in the pipeline. Things were popping, and they would continue to be in the near term. Despite the debacle of Idaho, the looks I was
