'It sounds remarkably generous—like everything you say and do, old friend. And also because I know so well what you would face by yourself. You'd do it better than I, Jacob.'
'Nonsense.'
'It must be your temple—’
'When were you last in church, Samuel?'
'Let's see. My son was married in Paris when I broke my leg and couldn't attend, and my daughter eloped with that charming helium-head who makes far more money than he deserves writing those films I don't understand—so it must have been in forty-five when I got back from the war. St John the Divine, of course. She made me go when all I wanted to do was get her undressed.'
'Oh, you're outrageous! I don't believe you for a minute.'
'You'd be wrong.'
'He could be dangerous,' said Mandel, suddenly changing the subject and reverting to Evan Kendrick. Winters understood; his old friend had been talking but he had also been thinking.
'In what way? Everything we've learned about him—and I doubt there's much more to know—would seem to negate any obsession for power. Without that, where's the danger?'
'He's fiercely independent.'
'All to the good. He might even make a fine President. No ties to the tub-thumpers, the yea-sayers and the sycophants. We've both seen him blow the first category away; the rest are easier.'
'Then I'm not being clear,' said Mandel. 'Because it's not yet clear to me.'
'Or I'm being stupid, Jacob. What are you trying to say?'
'Suppose he found out about us? Suppose he learned he was code name Icarus, the product of Inver Brass?'
'That's impossible.'
'That's not the question. Leap over the impossibility. Intellectually—and the young man has an intellect—what would be his response? Remember now, he's fiercely independent.'
Samuel Winters brought his hand to his chin and stared out of the window overlooking the Street. And then his gaze shifted to the portrait of his wife. 'I see,' he said, uncertain images coming into focus from his own past. 'He'd be furious. He'd consider himself part of a larger corruption, irrevocably tied to it because he was manipulated. He'd be in a rage.'
'And in that rage,' pressed Mandel, 'what do you think he would do? Incidentally, exposing us in the long run is irrelevant. It would be like the rumours of the Trilateral Commission promoting Jimmy Carter because Henry Luce put an obscure Governor of Georgia on the cover of Time. There was more truth than not in those rumours but nobody cared… What would Kendrick do?'
Winters looked at his old friend, his eyes widening. 'My God,' he said quietly. 'He'd run in disgust.'
'Does that sound familiar, Samuel?'
'It was so many years ago… things were different—’
'I don't think they were that different. Far better than now, actually, not different.'
'I wasn't in office.'
'It was yours for the taking. The brilliant, immensely wealthy dean from Columbia University whose advice was sought by successive presidents and whose appearances before the House and Senate committees altered national policies… You were tapped for the governorship of New York, literally being swept into Albany, when you learned only weeks before the convention that a political organization unknown to you had orchestrated your nomination and your inevitable election.'
'It was a total shock. I'd never heard of it or them.'
'Yet you presumed—rightly or wrongly—that this silent machine expected you to do its bidding and you fled, denouncing the whole charade.'
'In disgust. It was against every precept of an open political process I'd ever advocated.'
'Fiercely independent,' added the stockbroker. 'And what followed was a power vacuum; there was political chaos, the party
