Briggs’s home? Could a dead man be transported off the grounds with all the security guards and security devices in operation? Maybe, he thought. If the man who moved the body was a Secret Serviceman himself, whose presence on the grounds at night would arouse no suspicion, would not be questioned; if the man was Christopher Justice No, he thought then, angry with himself, it’s a criminal offense, for God’s sake, I won’t be a party to a thing like that. All his life he had prided himself on his honesty, on his steadfast code of decency in government. If he compromised his principles now, how could he live with his conscience?
And what if Justice were caught? He would have to be sworn to absolute silence in any event, which meant that if he were caught, he would be forced to accept full and sole responsibility-and that would lead to public disgrace, an end to his career, and to repercussions that would be just as bad as if Briggs’s death were simply reported as it ought to be. Ordering him to take that kind of risk was a terrible inequity.
And yet…
If Justice were careful, he would not be caught; he was a resourceful man, a cautious man; the odds were good that he could get away with it. Wasn’t it worth the risk, then, in the long run? After all, a cover-up of this sort wasn’t really so awful; he would only be taking steps to counteract a bitter turn of fate, to save the country from disruptive hue and cry, to save himself and his administration from the kind of attacks that could cost him renomination and reelection. Didn’t all of that vindicate a minor transgression, a minor distortion of the truth? And where Justice was concerned, wasn’t it a simple if painful matter of priority? The sacrifice of one common man meant little enough compared to the welfare of the country and of the President; Justice would understand that without having to be told, and because he was both loyal and trusting, he would accept the order without question.
Augustine stood for a while longer, struggling with himself; but at a deeper level he had already made his decision, right or wrong. Still, even when he admitted it to himself finally, he knew he would have to talk to Claire. This was one decision he could not act on without discussing it with her first.
He pushed away from the desk, saw Justice standing uneasily by the hall door. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “Wait here, Christopher. Don’t do anything until I come back.”
“Yes sir.”
Claire was in her bedroom, and when Augustine entered he was surprised to find her just hanging up the telephone extension there. She seemed more composed now; the stricken look was gone and some of the rocklike stability that was the cornerstone of her personality had returned. It was always that way with her: no matter what crisis might arise, she never allowed it to disturb her poise for long.
He said, “Whom were you talking to?”
“The appointments secretary,” she said. Her voice was thick. “I’ve asked him to make arrangements for us to leave for The Hollows first thing tomorrow morning.”
“The Hollows?”
“It’s best if we don’t stay in Washington at a time like this.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” Augustine said slowly. “The only thing is, how will it look if we leave so soon after the announcement of Briggs’s death?”
She came forward, stopped so close to him that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. “There doesn’t have to be an announcement tonight, does there?” she said. “There doesn’t have to be an announcement for a while yet.”
Those wide hypnotic eyes gripped his own, probed into them with such intensity that it was as if she were able to penetrate his mind and read his thoughts, to touch the soul of him. She knew him so well, so well; no part of him could ever remain secret to her for very long. Relief moved through him: the decision was theirs, not his, and it was bound.
“No,” he said, “not if the body were to be moved to Briggs’s house in Cleveland Park, if it appeared that that was where he had his accident.”
“Do you think that can be done?”
“Yes. It’s a dangerous risk, but I think it can. And I think we have to try it, Claire. I hate the deception of it, and yet we can’t afford not to handle it this way.”
“I know,” she said. “But you won’t do it yourself?”
“Of course not. Christopher will have to do it.”
“Alone, Nicholas. Promise me you’ll stay here with me.” Augustine nodded, hating himself just a little in that moment. “I’d better tell him,” he said. “We don’t have much time; the body could be discovered at any second.”
“Yes,” she said. “At any second.”
He turned, went to the door. As he opened it he glanced back and saw that she had sat down on the rosewood bed; her head was bowed, and he thought he saw the gleam of wetness on one cheek. Tears? But she never cried; he had never seen her cry once in twenty years of marriage.
He swallowed against a sudden constriction in his throat, walked into his bedroom and through it to the study to face Justice. Forgave me, he thought-and did not know if he was asking forgiveness of Claire or Justice or God or the world.
Eighteen
There was no one in the immediate area when Justice pulled his Ford Sedan under the portico on the West Wing’s north side, parked it there in the shadows. Far down near the carriage entrance to the White House proper, a pair of civil-service guards stood looking across at Lafayette Park; he had stopped the car to talk to them briefly, as he had done with two other sets of guards on his way here from the staff parking lot, telling each of them that the President had asked him to deliver a box of file papers from one of the West Wing offices to Senator Jackman’s home in Georgetown. No one had questioned him; there was no reason they should have. And since his car was known to the rest of the security staff, none of the other guards would think anything about it if they came across the Ford parked here under the portico.
Justice got out of the car, stepped around to the rear and unlocked the trunk but did not raise the lid. Then he walked back to the West Wing corner, went around it toward the south wall. When he reached it he stopped to listen, to scan the south grounds. Everything appeared quiet, normal. A thin, hot breeze rustled the shrubbery nearby, otherwise the night was hushed, scented with cloying spring fragrances. Reflected light shimmered on the surfaces of one of the ponds; there was a faint whitish glow on the horizon cast by the lights in the Jefferson Memorial. There was no sign of any of the guards in the vicinity.
He hurried out onto the lawn, staying in close to the building where there were long patches of shadow. Except for the lighted rectangle that marked the press secretary’s office, halfway between the west corner and the Oval Office portico, all of the ground-floor windows were dark. Yellowish illumination showed at two of the second floor windows, but unless someone up there was standing close to the panes and looking straight down, he would not be seen.
Justice’s face felt damp and hot, and he ducked it against the sleeve of his suit jacket as he went. Ever since leaving the Oval Study twenty minutes ago, he had kept his mind deliberately blank; he had learned in the military, and again in the Secret Service’s indoctrination courses, that when you were given a mission of any kind-and particularly one which involved peril-the only way to perform it properly was to close your mind to everything but the mission itself.
But like an undercurrent, thoughts and emotions kept tugging at him. Bewilderment: too many things happening too quickly, in a way and with implications that he lacked the capacity to understand. Furtiveness, wrongness: he was an officer of the law, he had dedicated his life to upholding it, and yet here he was, about to commit an act which was contrary to the very codes by which he lived. A sense of fatalism: he was not going to get away with this, there were too many things that could go wrong, too many obstacles to overcome. Faith in the President: if he had been surprised and disconcerted by the order to move Briggs’s body, he had also immediately understood and accepted Augustine’s explanation of why it was necessary. He knew well enough what would happen to him if he were discovered, but that did not bother him; the greater good was all that mattered. All that mattered.
