opposition, virtually assuring your election. You espoused their causes, supported their cries for the unencumbered expansion of business and industry—’
'Reasonably unencumbered, yes,' said Jennings, the veins in his forehead pronounced, 'but not manipulated. Not corrupted by dealings with arms merchants all over Europe and the Mediterranean, and, goddamn you, not by collusion, extortion and terrorists for hire!'
'I knew nothing about such things!' screamed Bollinger, leaping to his feet.
'No, you probably didn't, Mr. Vice President, because you were all too useful peddling influence for them to risk losing you through panic. But you sure as hell knew there was a lot more fat in the fire than there was smoke in the kitchen. You just didn't want to know what was burning and smelling so rotten. Sit down!' Bollinger sat, and Jennings continued. 'But get this clear, Orson. You're not on the ticket and I don't want you near the convention. You're out, finished, and if I ever learn that you're peddling again or sitting on a board other than for charity… well, just don't.'
'Mr. President!' said the leather-faced chairman of the Joint Chiefs as he stood up. 'In light of your remarks and all too obvious disposition, I tender my resignation, effective immediately!'
The declaration was followed by half a dozen others, all standing and emphatic. Langford Jennings leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, his voice chilling. 'Oh, no, you're not getting off that easy, any of you. There's not going to be a reverse Saturday night massacre in this administration, no crawling off the ship and into the hills. You're going to stay right where you are and make damned sure we get back on course… Understand me clearly, I don't care what people think of me or you or the house I'm temporarily occupying, but I do care about the country, I care about it deeply. So deeply in fact that this preliminary report—preliminary because it isn't finished by a long shot—is going to remain the sole property of this President under the statutes of executive nondisclosure until I think the time is right to release it… which it will be. To release it now would cripple the strongest presidency this nation has had in forty years and do irreparable damage to the country, but I repeat, it will be released… Let me explain something to you. When a man, and I trust some day a woman, reaches this office, there's only one thing left, and that's his mark on history. Well, I'm taking myself out of that race for immortality within the next five years of my life, because during that time this completed report, with all its horrors, will be made public. But not until every wrong committed on my watch has been righted, every crime paid for. If that means working night and day, then that's what you're all going to do—all but my pandering, sycophantic Vice President who's going to fade away and with any luck will have the grace to blow his brains out… A final word, gentlemen. Should any of you be tempted to jump this rotten ship we've all created by omission and commission, please remember that I'm the President of the United States with incredible powers. In the broadest sense they include life and death—that's merely a statement of fact, but if you care to take it as a threat… Well, that's your privilege. Now, get out of here and start thinking. Payton, you stay.'
'Yes, Mr. President.'
'Did they get the message, Mitch?' asked Jennings, pouring himself and Payton a drink from a bar recessed in the left wall of the Oval Office.
'Let's put it this way,' replied the director of Special Projects. 'If I don't have that whisky in a matter of seconds, I'm going to start shaking again.'
The President grinned his famous grin as he brought Payton's drink to him at the window. 'Not bad for a guy who's supposedly got the IQ of a telephone pole, huh?'
'It was an extraordinary performance, sir.'
That's what this office has been largely reduced to, I'm afraid.'
'I didn't mean it that way, Mr. President.'
'Of course you did and you're right. It's why the king, with all his clothes on or naked, needs a strong prime minister who, in turn, creates his own royal family—from both parties, incidentally.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Kendrick. I want him on the ticket.'
'Then you'll have to convince him, I'm afraid. According to my niece—I call her my niece but she's not really—’
'I know all about it, all about her,' interrupted Jennings.
