Harper thought ironically), other aides, and Secret Servicemen who could not quite maintain either their regimentation or their inconspicuousness in these closed surroundings. He ignored them individually, still brooding. But when he neared his compartment, at the upper end of the aides’ Pullman adjacent to U.S. Car Number One, he saw through the connecting door glass that the First Lady was standing in the doorway of her private drawing room, talking to her confidential secretary, Elizabeth Miller. He hesitated, and then, on impulse, he walked through into Car Number One.
As he entered, Elizabeth Miller was saying, “Do you want me to have a steward bring us some coffee, Mrs. Augustine?” Claire nodded, started to retreat into the drawing room. Harper called, “Mrs. Augustine,” and she stopped and seemed to stiffen, turning her head to look at him. Elizabeth paused, as if there was something she wanted to say to Harper, but he moved past her without a glance. He did not particularly care for the woman: she was another cipher like Justice.
His first thought as he came to Claire was that even the marks of fatigue did not detract from her beauty. But then his eyes met hers-and what he saw reflected there reversed his smile into a startled frown.
It was something that might have been fear.
She looked past him at the secretary, said sharply, “Don’t just stand there, Elizabeth, see about the coffee,” and then put her eyes on him again as Elizabeth Miller left the car.
Harper began, “Mrs. Augustine-”
“I haven’t time to talk now…”
“But I was just-”
“Please, not now,” she said, and before he could speak again she stepped back and pushed the door shut. Its lock clicked an instant later, like a protective barrier being snapped into place.
Nonplussed, Harper stood alone in the corridor and listened to the monotonous rhythm of the train’s wheels, to the uneasy rhythm of his thoughts. Her reactions to him were sometimes mutable, yes, but never before had she seemed frightened of him. Her attitude just now made no sense. Why should she be afraid of him, of all people?
Why should she be afraid of him?
Four
In his small compartment in the security’s Pullman, Justice sat trying to read the copy of Murder on the Calais Coach he had bought in Washington. And finding it dull and uninteresting. It was not the book itself, though; he knew he would have the same reaction to any mystery novel he tried to read today. After what he had done with Briggs’s body last night, the fictional exploits of criminals and detectives-the imaginary dilemmas of imaginary people-took on a kind of pallid irrelevency.
Justice closed the book, rubbed at his tired eyes. Why hadn’t Briggs been found? he asked himself again. He had been waiting for that to happen all day, and yet it hadn’t or word would have come to the President immediately. Somebody had to find the body before long, that seemed sure: there were colleagues at the White House who would question his unexplained absence from work, friends who might investigate when appointments were not kept.
And when Briggs was found, what then? Had he overlooked something after all in the Cleveland Park house that would tell the homicide detectives and the forensic experts that the press secretary had not died in his bathroom? If so, would they then suspect foul play? Christ, Justice thought, that would make things even worse for the President than if they had simply reported the death at the White House. The ultimate irony: an accidental death manipulated and mishandled so badly that it was thought of as homicide.
But even if anything like that happened, the trail could lead only to him. Where it would end because he would never reveal the truth, would never betray the President or his oath of silence.
Justice raised the novel again, looked at the spine, and then tossed it onto the seat opposite without reopening it. He wondered if he should go out of there, find something or someone to occupy his time and his mind. A drink in the club car, or a predinner snack from the buffet in the dining car, or a nap, or a look at the view from the observation platform, or conversation with some of the other Secret Service agents. Only none of these things appealed to him. He did not feel like doing anything at all.
After a time he slid over next to the window, watched inanimate objects appear and disappear outside as the train sped northeast out of Los Angeles. Even the pleasure he usually felt at being on the Presidential Special was absent; he was merely riding on a transportation vehicle, like Air Force One earlier, that was taking him from one point to another. Taking all of them to The Hollows again as it had so many times in the past.
When would Briggs be found?
Had he overlooked something in the Cleveland Park house that would make the police suspect foul play?
And the fear that had been born last night remained lodged like a bone inside him. The fear that did not yet have a name.
Five
There was a light but insistent rapping on the office door. Augustine was on his feet, about to approach the bar cabinet again because he had finished his drink and decided to permit himself a refill. He frowned as the knocking continued. Maxwell already? Well all right, he might as well get that over with; he felt relaxed enough now to deal with a lecture, if that was what Harper intended to deliver.
He went to the door and drew it open. But it was not Harper who stood outside.
It was Julius Wexford.
Augustine stared at him, unable to understand for an instant how Wexford could be here. When he had thought at all about the attorney general in the past forty-eight hours, he had had him compartmentalized with the National Committee in Saint Louis. And Wexford had not been at Union Station in Los Angeles when Augustine boarded the train; he must have arrived afterward, just before departure.
“Hello, Nicholas,” Wexford said gravely. His suit was rumpled and he had a harried, bleak-eyed look about him. But there was none of the nervousness he had shown two days ago in the Oval Office; his florid face was dry and his eyes were steady and resolute. “You seem surprised to see me.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“May I come in?”
“I suppose you might as well.”
Augustine moved aside to let him enter, reclosed the door. Wexford glanced at the red-velvet settee, glanced at the empty glass the President held, and then stood as if waiting for an invitation to sit down, an offer of a drink. Augustine gave him neither. Instead he went to his desk, set the glass down on it, rested a hip against its outer edge, and folded his arms across his chest.
“All right, Julius,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“I received word early this morning that you were on your way to California, so I took the first available plane out of Saint Louis.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“There are things that have to be resolved,” Wexford said. “Now, not whenever you decide to return to Washington.”
“Cabinet business?”
“No. You know perfectly well what things I mean.”
“I gave you my decision on Wednesday,” Augustine said. He could feel his nerves tightening again. “The issue is closed.”
The gentle sway of the train seemed to bother Wexford; he was prone, Augustine knew, to mild motion sickness. He backed over to the settee and sat on it with his hands splayed out on both sides of him, as though bracing himself. “I wonder if you realize,” he said solemnly, “just how much trouble we’re in right now.”
