“Good morning,” she said, and stopped a half-dozen paces away from him. Her tone was cool and curiously dull, and he realized in the dim light that she looked as tired as the President: small lines beneath her eyes, a pinched look to the corners of her mouth. He wondered if she understood the seriousness of Augustine’s position. Surely she did understand, as intelligent and perceptive as she had always been.
He said, “I had a nine o’clock appointment with the President, so I came straight up. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, I don’t mind… Maxwell.”
“He’s ten minutes late,” Harper said. “Do you know where he is?”
A loose strand of hair had fallen away from her temple and she brushed it back into place in that absent, caressing way some attractive women had, both conscious and unconscious of its sensuality. “He had a meeting at eight o’clock with the security affairs advisor,” she said. “I imagine he’ll be here shortly.”
She seemed to want to say something else, but did not; Harper had the impression that she was vaguely ill at ease. She was usually so poised, so self-assured, and yet in his presence she was oddly subject to fluctuating moods. Sometimes she seemed cold and distant, as if she did not like or trust him completely; at other times she was open and friendly in a way that bordered on affection. It occurred to him now, as it had before, that she intuited his carefully concealed attraction for her and perhaps responded to it. That under different circumstances she might have been receptive to him as an intimate.
Or as a lover? he thought.
Pointless thinking, damn it. Pointless.
At length she said, “If you’ll excuse me, I have some things to do.”
“Of course, Mrs. Augustine.”
Harper watched her walk across to the hallway door, the play of her hips beneath the suit pants. When she got there, she paused and looked back at him, as if she still wanted to say something more; but again she did not speak. And a moment later she was gone.
Frowning, he returned to the chair by the fireplace and sat down again. He wished he understood her better, what motivated her, what went on behind that dispassionate public facade. Did Augustine himself understand her? Did anyone? She was the President’s wife, she had by everyone’s testimony more to do with this administration than any First Lady since Mrs. Woodrow Wilson-and yet, could it be that she was not working with the President so much as using their collaboration as cover for some sort of personal cachet?
He could not quite shake the pervasive feeling that she was something more and something less than what she seemed to be.
Eight
The press secretary’s office was down the hall from the West Wing Reception Room, and as Christopher Justice turned the corner toward it a few minutes past noon, on an errand for the President, two men just emerged from the office were walking shoulder to shoulder and talking animatedly. Even though they had their backs to Justice, he recognized them: Attorney General Wexford and Peter Kineen.
Justice paused, looking after them. There was probably some innocuous reason for them to be together, but it struck him as odd that Kineen, the President’s bitter rival, should be here in the White House; that he should be so intimate with the attorney general, who was also chairman of the President’s reelection campaign. And odd, too, that both men had been together with Austin Briggs (whom Justice didn’t particularly like because he sometimes seemed to use questionable judgment in his comments to the press).
Thoughtfully, he continued to the press secretary’s office. When he entered he saw that there was no one at the outer reception desk: Briggs’s private secretary had evidently gone to lunch. The door to the inner office stood ajar, and Justice crossed to it and knocked and then pushed it inward.
Briggs was seated at his desk, and he had apparently been studying a sheaf of papers spread out in front of him; but now he blinked at Justice, swept the papers together hastily, put them into a manila folder and his hand on top of the folder as if guarding it. His expression, Justice saw with some surprise, was like that of a child caught at some sort of mischief.
“I’m sorry if I’m intruding, Mr. Briggs,” Justice said. “But the President asked me to stop by.”
“The President asked you-?”
“Yes sir. He’s busy and he couldn’t come himself. He’s planning to go to California this weekend and he’d like you to cancel the press luncheon scheduled for next Monday. He’d also like you to prepare a media release saying that he intends to remain at The Hollows for from three to five days for private policy discussions with members of his staff.”
Briggs seemed nervously flustered, uneasy; he ran a hand through his hair, ran his tongue over his lips, and reached for a cigarette from the pack in front of him. Though they were approximately the same age, he appeared very young to Justice-had seemed that way from the first moment they’d met. Maybe because there was a certain obvious immaturity in the man.
“I don’t understand,” Briggs said. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“Joke, sir?” Justice felt himself frowning. “Of course not. Why would you think it’s a joke?”
Briggs cleared his throat. “Well, it’s just that going to The Hollows again while the press is still in an uproar over the Israel remarks… well, I’m not sure it’s such a wise decision.”
Justice said, “It’s the President’s decision, Mr. Briggs. If you’d like to call him later on…”
“No,” Briggs said, “no, that won’t be necessary. All right, I… I’ll take care of the cancellation and the release.” He got up jerkily, like a man struggling out of water, crushed his unlighted cigarette in the heavy White House ashtray on his desk, and caught up the folder and tucked it under his arm. And went out past Justice, leaving the door open, hurrying.
Justice stood for a moment, confused and bothered by the press secretary’s curious behavior. What was in those papers he had been studying? Did they have something to do with the presence earlier of the attorney general and Senator Kineen? Was he up to something, and had he been guiltily worried that Justice would realize it and inform the President?
He hurried back to the Oval Office.
Nine
For Augustine it had been a typically grueling day.
To begin it there had been a seven A.M. conference with the national energy advisor to discuss several of his bottlenecked energy proposals. Then there had been a brief meeting with the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, followed by a meeting with the security affairs advisor on intelligence matters. Shortly past nine he had gone upstairs to the Oval Study for a brief and painful consultation with Maxwell Harper, who had not told him anything he didn’t already know or suspect; but he was damned if he would listen to any more accusations that he was starting to make serious political blunders, and he had cut the meeting short.
At ten o’clock he’d met with members of the cabinet, minus Oberdorfer who was still in Tel Aviv, and Wexford whose absence was unexplained. Discussion of economic imperatives-going over the same ground he had covered with the economic council chairman-and then of the grave status of the French franc (during which he had had a fleeting feeling of sympathy for Nixon, who’d at least had the courage to admit that he did not give a damn about the Italian lira). At twelve-thirty, just as he was preparing to go to lunch-alone, because Claire was with Elizabeth Miller at a UJA luncheon downtown-Justice had returned from his errand to the press secretary’s office to tell him about Briggs and Wexford and Kineen. That had spoiled his appetite and he hadn’t bothered to eat at all.
But he had not had time to dwell on the news. At onefifteen there had been a brief meeting with a ceremonial delegation from the National Council of Ministers, who were in town for their annual convention; the bishop said he would pray for the presidency. At one forty-five there had been a conference with Senate Majority
