He looked at Nolan as he spoke. “Whatever happens, Pete, the Soviets have lost the ball-game.”
“I’m not so sure, Jimmy. If we have to go all the way and expose the bastard, it’s going to have an effect like the Kennedy assassination and Watergate combined. In spades.” Nolan shook his head. “I can’t explain it, but this thing is different from anything the Soviets have ever tried. It’s kind of sick, in a special sort of way. It makes the Constitution itself look childish and pathetic. The reaction against the Soviets will make Joe McCarthy look like Snow White. It won’t be a cold war. It’ll be a new ice age.”
There was a long silence and then MacKay said softly, “There is an alternative.”
Nolan looked at him intently. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it, fella. I have.”
“And?”
“Jesus. Who gives the order? And what effect would another assassination have on the public?”
“There are more ways of killing a man than a .45 slug.”
Nolan stood up, shaking his head. Not in disagreement but as if to rid his mind of the problem.
“This is other people’s problem, not ours. Thank God.”
The next day the Washington Post carried a lengthy piece about Powell’s Cabinet-selection interviews, and speculated on the likely recipients of the main offices. It concluded with a quote from Powell himself.
“There will assuredly be substantial cuts in the Defence budget. For too long the United States has been expected to act as fireman for every bush-fire in the world. We have our own bush-fires of inflation and unemployment. There must be adjustments, a sharing of the burden by our friends in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Let us send abroad the products of our great technology, of our farms, and of our research, not our young men.”
When asked if this meant withdrawing troops from overseas bases the President-Elect had replied, “All options are under consideration.”
The Washington Post editorialized uncertainly.
“All the signs in Washington indicate that the President-Elect intends carrying out many of the major features of his election platform without delay, and many commentators have noted that he will not need the support of the finely balanced Congress to implement these changes, as many of them do not require new legislation. Comment from Europe has been muted but there is little doubt that in London, Bonn and Paris the situation is being watched with intense interest.”
CHAPTER 10
Nolan and MacKay spent most of the morning reading the transcript of Kleppe’s notebooks. They made a long list of names for investigation and a short list of prime targets. The flow of money from Kleppe exceeded what even the most successful diamond-selling operator could have supported, but Nolan put through an urgent request to IRS for copies of Kleppe’s returns for the last six years.
They took the shuttle to Washington and met with Morton Harper in his office at eight o’clock in the evening. MacKay felt the tension of the other two men and was glad that he was almost a passenger, a neutral observer.
Morton Harper wore a dinner jacket, and his black bowtie was undone, the two ends trailing down the front of his white shirt as he leaned with one elbow on the top of a metal filing-cabinet.
“I’ve no idea how we shall be received by the Chief Justice or Mr. Speaker. They have no inkling of what I shall be telling them. And I have no idea as to what their reaction will be. Elliot was a Republican appointment. There was almost no opposition from any quarter. Bethel is a Republican too. An entirely political animal whose natural habitat is Capitol Hill. He isn’t going to like it. Neither of them can order us to stop the investigation, but by consulting them I have almost given them some sort of power of veto. I am convinced, now, that our suspicions are justified. And almost convinced that they are correct. We really had no choice but to pursue the facts, but I would not be happy to go further without advice. If you are asked questions you will answer without reservation no matter what their attitudes may be.”
He looked at his watch.
“My driver will take me in my car. You two travel together.”
Chief Justice Elliot lived just outside Aurora Heights in a house that he had bought when he was first married. Its white boards shone in the moonlight and it looked, with the orange lights from its windows, like an advertisement for gracious living. In fact it was primitive compared with most dignitaries’ homes in Washington, and he would have been lucky to get $80,000 for it on the open market. But as he had paid only $11,000 he wouldn’t have worried.
When they were shown in he was sitting at a big round table with Sam Bethel, the tubby, white-haired Speaker of the House. He waved them to the seats round the table.
“Help yourselves to drinks, gentlemen.”
Only Morton Harper went over to the sideboard, and he poured himself a generous neat whisky. He sighed audibly but unconsciously as he sat down at the table.
“Now, I understand you’ve got something you want to talk about with Sam and myself. You were a touch coy on the telephone, Morton, so we’re expecting the worst.”
Morton looked up sharply, and Nolan saw his fist clench as it lay on the table.
“Well, I’m not going to disappoint you on that score, judge. And I know you’ll believe me when I say that I find this the most difficult meeting that I have ever attended.” He looked at both men in turn. “I have rehearsed a dozen times my approach to this problem. I have sought for the right sentence that would lead me into talking with you gentlemen. And there isn’t such a sentence. At least there is no such sentence that I can bear to utter.” He thrust back his heavy frame in the chair until it creaked. “Nevertheless, utter it I must. We
