Two
As we approach The Hollows we are troubled, far more troubled than we were on the Presidential Special because a new insight has come to us. We have executed two traitors, committed two acts of mercy-but how many other traitors are there still to be dealt with? How many more acts of mercy are necessary in order to end the conspiracy against the President? One, two, five, a dozen, a score?
Too many?
Perhaps, in our zeal, we have set ourself an impossible, an ultimately futile task. If there are too many of these turncoats, how can we continue to execute them with impunity? There can only be so many “accidents” before those who are our enemies, or those who are our friends but who do not understand the need for corporal punishment, realize the truth and take steps to nullify us.
And yet, we cannot-we must not-stop now. We are committed, we must go on, we must try to wipe out the conspiracy before it destroys Nicholas Augustine and all that he stands for. We must!
One thing is certain: no matter what happens, others of them will die. Kineen, and the next traitor whose deceit we are positive of-those two, at the very least, will die to protect the sanctity and the glory of the President of the United States.
Three
Sitting on the Cadillac’s rear seat, Justice kept thinking: Was it murder, what happened to Briggs and Wexford? Is someone close to the President a psychopathic killer?
He did not want to believe it. Yet years of experience in police work had taught him to distrust extreme coincidence, and you could not find any more extreme coincidence than two fatal accidents to two high-ranking political figures in as many days. And even though his conscious mind had refused to consider it, there had been a small suspicion in him from the beginning, from the moment he had found Briggs’s body under the office window, that the press secretary might not have died by accident-the seed that had spawned the lingering fear.
A psychopath. Every person had homicidal tendencies; that was a proven psychological fact. In most people they were buried deeply, and in others they came closer to the surface but were held in careful check; but in some individuals the impulse to murder became too great, eventually controlled reason and exploded into violence. Usually when that happened the person ran amok; in rarer instances he turned cunning and clever and committed his crimes in secret, so that you had no way of telling just by looking at him or talking to him that he was psychotic. Justice had read about such cases, had even investigated one during his time on the Washington police force-a mild-mannered business executive with a wife and three children who had strangled four women in the space of three months before he was finally caught. It could happen, it had happened, to people from all races, creeds, professions, classes, and intellects. And that meant it could happen to someone in the hierarchy of the U.S. government.
But even a psychopath had motives. If someone had murdered Briggs and Wexford-why?
Blank.
Justice did not know what to do. His training demanded that he immediately take his suspicions to the President, or at least to his superiors in the Secret Service. And yet, suppose he was wrong? Suppose he was creating a monster out of misfortune and anxiety? He had no proof, not even a shred of circumstantial evidence; he had nothing but an ugly, half-formed hunch. There was no reason why the President should believe him, no reason why his superiors should believe him. And he could not go to his superiors in any case, he realized, because then he would have to tell them about Briggs, whose body had still not been discovered in Washington. (And why hadn’t it been? Somebody should have found him by now.) Then the removal of the corpse from the White House might come to light, and that was something he could not take responsibility for. He had given the President his oath of silence.
All right, then. The only other alternative was to find proof himself. But how? In mystery novels the detectives solved all sorts of bizarre and improbable crimes by incisive questioning and astute observation, by stringing together clues to establish a pattern of truth. But he was no deductive genius like Poirot or Peter Wimsey or Gideon Fell; he lacked the capacity for ratiocination. He was nothing more than a simple working police officer, and simple working police officers conducted their investigations on the basis of evidence and fact…
They were almost to The Hollows now. Ahead, through the windshield, Justice could see the President’s limousine approaching the main gate to the ranch complex. Then he became aware of Ed Dougherty sitting on his left, Maxwell Harper on his right, Elizabeth Miller in the front seat. One of them? he thought. Or the agent, Judson, at the wheel? One of the other staff aides? One of the other security people? Who?
Who?
The main gate swung open electronically as the limousine neared it, and the caravan proceeded onto the estate grounds. As always, there was an aura of pastoral serenity to the landscaped lawns and outer gardens, the redwood-and-stone buildings, the horses roaming inside the paddock and the split-log corral; but this time it struck Justice as false illusion, like a set for a movie in which terror was the dominant theme.
If murder had been done in the White House and on the Presidential Special, it could be done here too.
Four
When the limousine drew up in front of the manor house, Augustine stepped out immediately and then reached back inside to give his hand to Claire. The two Cadillacs pulled up behind the limousine; the other cars had veered off onto the branch road that led to the garage barns and the staff and security quarters.
With Claire standing beside him, Augustine gazed around the ranch acreage. He tried to tell himself it was good to be home again-but it was not good except in a superficial way. The familiar sights and sounds and smells offered little comfort, little peace. The bastards have taken this away from me too, he thought.
The permanent domestic staff of The Hollows, headed by Walt and Ella Peterson, an elderly couple who had been with the Augustine family for thirty years, came out from the house. Augustine forced himself to feign cheerful responses to their greetings, and when Elizabeth Miller joined them he left her and Claire to answer the Petersons’ questions about lunch and other household matters, and walked over to where Maxwell and Christopher and the others were standing.
Justice, he saw, seemed to be in a state of anguish, as if there were conflicts raging inside him. And for the first time since he had known the man, Harper appeared listless, empty of his usual self-assurance. The others wore sober expressions, unaware of all the facts but sensitive to the grim tenor of things.
Faces before the fall? Augustine thought, and tightened his lips to keep from wincing. He said, “The day is yours, gentlemen. We’ll table business discussions until tomorrow.”
Small frowns of protest. Dougherty said, “But Mr. President… ”
“We can all use a short break,” Augustine said. “Besides which, I have personal matters to attend to today and I’d rather not be disturbed.”
He turned away from them, to escape their eyes and to shut off further protest, and walked quickly to the house. But as he came up onto the wide roofed porch, Harper hurried up behind him and touched his arm. Augustine stopped, looked at him.
“Nicholas,” Harper said in a low voice, “I don’t think tabling business matters is a good idea. There are pressing issues to be dealt with as soon as possible-the Indian situation, the S-1 bill, campaign strategy-”
“I can’t face those things today.”
“You’ve got to face them.”
“Tomorrow,” Augustine said. “I need time to get my head together. I just can’t think about domestic issues of campaign strategy after what happened to Julius.”
