in disarray. The opportunists moved in and took over, and there were six years of Draconian laws and corrupt administrations from the lower to the upper Hudson.'
'Are you blaming me for all that, Jacob?'
'It's related, Samuel. Thrice Caesar refused the crown and all hell broke loose.'
'Are you saying that Kendrick might refuse to assume the office presented to him?'
'You did. You walked away in outrage.'
'Because people unknown to me were committing enormous sums of money, propelling me into office. Why? If they were genuinely interested in better government and not private interest, why didn't they come forward?'
'Why don't we, Samuel?'
Winters looked hard at Mandel, his eyes sad. 'Because we're playing God, Jacob. We must, for we know what others don't know. We know what will happen if we don't proceed our way. Suddenly the people of a great republic don't have a president but a king, the emperor of all the states of the union. What they don't understand is what's behind the king. Those jackals in the background can only be ripped out by replacing him. No other way.'
'I understand. I'm cautious because I'm afraid.'
'Then we must be extraordinarily careful and make certain Evan Kendrick never learns about us. It's as simple as that.'
'Nothing's simple,' objected Mandel. 'He's no fool. He's going to wonder why all the attention is raining down on him. Varak will have to be a master scenarist; each sequence logically, unalterably leading to the next.'
'I wondered, too,' admitted Winters softly, once again glancing at the portrait of his late wife. 'Jennie used to say to me, “It's too easy, Sam. Everyone else is out there busting his britches to get a few lines in the newspapers and you get whole editorials praising you for things we're not even sure you did.” It's why I started asking questions, how I found out what had happened, not who but how.'
'And then you walked away.'
'Of course.'
'Why? I mean really, why?'
'You just answered that, Jacob. I was outraged.'
'Despite everything you might have contributed?'
'Well, obviously.'
'Is it fair, Samuel, to say you were not gripped by the fever to win that office?'
'Again, obviously. Whether admirable or not, I've never had to win anything. As Averell once said, “Fortunately or unfortunately, I've not had to depend on my current job to eat.” That sums it up, I guess.'
'The fever, Samuel. The fever you never felt, the hunger you never had must somehow grip Kendrick. In the final analysis he has to want to win, desperately need to win.'
‘The fire in the belly,' said the historian. 'We all should have thought of it first, but the rest of us simply assumed he'd leap at the opportunity. God, we were/coW
'Not “the rest of us”,' protested the stockbroker, holding up the palms of his hands. 'I didn't think about it until I walked into this room an hour ago. Suddenly the memories came back, memories of you and your—fierce independence. From being the bright hope, an extraordinary asset, you became a morally outraged liability who walked away and made room for all the sleaze-balls in and out of town.'
'You're hitting home, Jacob… I should have stayed, I've known it for years. My wife in a fit of anger once called me a “spoiled Goody Two-Shoes”. She claimed, like you, I think, that I could have prevented so much, if I accomplished nothing else.'
'Yes, you could have, Samuel. Harry Truman was right, it's the leaders who shape history. There could have been no United States without Thomas Jefferson, no Third Reich without Adolf Hitler. But no man or woman becomes a leader unless he or she wants to. They've got to have a burning need to get there.'
'And you think our Kendrick lacks it?'
'I suspect he does. What I saw on that television screen, and what I saw five days ago during the committee hearing, was an incautious man who didn't give a damn whose bones he rattled
