“Well, Morton. A cast of thousands. You must be delighted.”
The eagle eyes watched the genuine surprise on Harper’s face.
“That’s not quite the word I would have chosen, Judge.”
“No, of course not. How foolish of me.” He looked across at Mr. Speaker. “What about you, Sam?”
Bethel leaned back. “You know, I sometimes wonder if this damn country isn’t going crazy.”
“Maybe you’re right, Sam. But right now we’ve got to decide what to do about it.” Elliot couldn’t hide his impatience.
Harper put his hands together and Nolan recognized the sign.
“There’s a wide variety of action open to us. Would you like me to go over it?”
Elliot nodded. “By all means.”
“In no particular order of importance, we can do these things. We can leak it to the press and let it go where it will. We can inform the out-going President. We can inform the Secretary of State. We can form an impeachment committee. We can confront Powell, who must be wondering by now where all his friends have gone. We can pass it all to the FBI whose province it really is. Or we can do nothing.”
There was silence round the table as each man wondered if there was yet another alternative. A nicer, simpler one. Nolan wondered if anyone else around the table had thought of eliminating Powell. On reflection he thought it unlikely. MacKay might, but not the others. It was Harper who broke the silence.
“What d’you think, Mr. Speaker?”
“Well, we don’t inform the press, that’s for sure. And we should be causing maximum embarrassment beyond what we have already achieved if we told the present incumbent. There would be an inter-party dogfight. The FBI won’t pick up this hot potato, you can be sure of that. We can’t even consider doing nothing. We’d deserve to be put up against a wall. The only thing possible is to confront Powell.”
Elliot raised his bushy white eyebrows.
“And what do we do if he tells us to jump in the lake, Sam?”
“You show him those bloody pictures of him screwing the girl.”
Elliot turned to Harper. “Has he indicated anything to you about whether you’ll be left at CIA?”
“He called me to a meeting yesterday. Implied that he hadn’t made up his mind yet.”
“Was he suspicious, d’ye think?”
“I don’t think so. He seemed very sure of himself.”
“Did he ask any policy questions?”
“No. He was telling me what it was all about.”
Nolan chipped in. “Say we take it that some sort of confrontation is the only way. What’s our objective? What do we want him to do? And what do we think his reactions will be?”
Sam Bethel belched softly. “Pardon. His reactions are going to be unpredictable. When he confirmed my reappointment he wasn’t the diffident new boy. He was enjoying the power. I even got a few words of advice on handling the House. I’d say his reaction’s gonna be like a Doberman having two pounds of rump steak pulled out of its jaws. He ain’t gonna go quietly. I’d put my silver dollar on that. He could have us all in the pen in hours.”
Elliot was not amused. “Not me, Mr. Speaker. Not me.”
“OK. You can send in the food parcels, Judge.”
Harper spoke softly. “Who’s going to be the one to approach him?”
“Mr. Speaker,” said Elliot.
“The Chief Justice,” said Bethel.
Nolan caught Harper’s eye. “You want to say something, Mr. Nolan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carry on, then.”
“It’s quite clear from Dempsey’s statement, and from the scuttlebutt in Hartford that Powell and his wife have been estranged for years. She was totally against him going into politics right from the start. In fact, she wouldn’t have politicians in the house. Dempsey cashed in on this estrangement so that Powell would not have an alternative background. Nothing to fall back on. He was dependent in every way on Dempsey, whether he knew it or not.
“From what I’ve been able to find out it was a normal marriage up to the time Powell stood for the governorship. She met him when he was at Yale and his father still lectures there. It seems she had looked forward to sharing in an academic life. She tolerated him setting up as a business consultant but closed the shutters when he went into politics.
“She co-operated, but not very enthusiastically, during the Presidential election campaign but according to what I’ve gathered from White House security they haven’t been together since the night of the election.”
Nolan paused and Sam Bethel said slowly, “What’s this got to do with the present situation, Nolan?”
“We want him out of politics, and so does she. She could be the one who confronts him.”
Elliot frowned. “You mean tell her about all this, and leave it to her?”
“Not quite, sir. We could give her the pictures and suggest she could save his face. Tell him that if he doesn’t opt out he’ll be impeached or exposed. But we would let him off the hook if she could persuade him to bow out gracefully before inauguration.”
Bethel snorted. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Nolan. The President-Elect announces to the country that because his wife doesn’t like him being in politics he’s decided to throw his hand in. Jesus.”
“Not exactly that, sir. But maybe the Physician to the President does a routine medical check and finds a serious heart condition and after deep reflection the President-Elect steps down for the sake of continuity and the country.”
Bethel sniffed loudly. “And a few months later some press photographer takes a photograph of Powell playing tennis, or jogging or some damn thing.”
“Powell’s own interest would be to play along with the scenario. He’s gone along with Dempsey’s film script, he’d go along with this.”
“What does he do after he resigns?” Elliot looked only mildly interested.
“He lives comfortably and quietly on his presidential pension. A hero and democrat to one
