The Multiple Man

“First, it might be a foreign plan to get rid of me and install an agent in my place. That sounds pretty wild to me. It just isn’t the way governments think or work.”

“That doesn’t mean it can’t be real,” Wyatt said.

Halliday shrugged lightly and went on. “Second, it might be a group inside the Government here, say, the military, who want to get me out and their own man in.”

I said, “The Joint Chiefs don’t think too much of the way you’re handling this Kuwait trouble.”

“I realize that. But it’s hard to think that nearly two and a quarter centuries of civilian control over the military is being threatened by the Joint Chiefs.”

“You really think they’re that loyal to you?”

“To the nation, yes. Unqualifiedly. And I haven’t really frightened them to the point where they think they’ve got to take over the Presidency to save the nation.”

Wyatt shook his head. “It only takes a couple of paranoids.”

“No,” the President insisted. “It takes a lot more than that to make exact duplicates and get them as close to me as the two dead bodies have gotten.”

“What killed them?” I wondered aloud. The President ignored that and went on to his third point. “Finally, there’s the chance that some interest group within the United States, but not inside the Government, is behind it. Same reason: they want to get their own man into the White House.”

“Who could it be?” I asked.

Wyatt shouted, “Anybody! This Administration’s been straightening out a lot of overdue problems. And every time we try to help one group, at least one other group gets sore because they think we’re hurting them. I could give you a list as long as this room: every goddamned pressure group from the National Association of Cattlemen to the Boy Scouts.”

“It’s not that bad,” the President murmured.

“No? The auto manufacturers are sore because we’ve pushed them into upping pensions for the workers retired early by automation. The unions are sore because we’re backing automation and robots are taking more new jobs than people. The farmers. The truckers. Those damned fat cats on Wall Street. The blacks in the cities who’re madder’n hell at being forced to work for their welfare checks…” He ran out of breath.

“You can’t change society without frightening people,” the President said. “Even those who yell the loudest for change are frightened when it comes.”

“And what they’re scared of, they hate.”

“And what they hate,” I finished, “they strike out against.”

“Exactly,” said the President.

“So you think it’s the third alternative? Some power group outside the Government?”

“Yes. That’s my hunch.”

“Some damned well-heeled pressure group,” Wyatt said. “This is no gaggle of ghetto kids making bombs in their lofts. It’s the big leaguers.”

“But…” Something about that conclusion just didn’t hit me right. “But they have all sorts of other avenues to fight you. They’ve got Congressmen and Senators in their pockets. Money. Influence. The media. Why this?”

Halliday leaned back in his chair again. “I’ve been asking myself the same question, Meric. And there’s only one possible answer. Some group in the United States has decided that the democratic process doesn’t work the way they want it to. They’re not content to let the people decide. They want to take over the Government. Of themselves. By themselves. For themselves.”

For a few long moments I sat there saying nothing. The room was absolutely quiet. Sunlight streamed in through the ceiling-high windows. Outside, the rose garden was a picture of tranquility. I imagined I could hear bees droning as they went from bloom to bloom.

Then I looked at Halliday. The President was watching me, appraising my reactions.

“It scares the shit out of me,” I said.

“I know. Me too.”

“You really ought to be doing more than sending McMurtrie out to round up a team of investigators. A lot more.”

“Like what?” His Holiness snapped. “Call out the Marines? Declare a national emergency?”

It was so damned frustrating. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“I don’t think there’s much more we can do, at this stage,” the President said softly.

“You can dig into those goddamned pressure groups,” Wyatt demanded.“ Use the FBI. And Internal Revenue. Stir up their nests! Force them into a wrong move. Take the initiative.”

He cocked his head slightly to one side, the way he always does when he wants to give the impression he’s seriously considering something. But almost immediately he answered, “And we’ll be taking another step toward a police state. Those pressure groups are people, Robert. Most of them haven’t done anything at all that’s even vaguely illegal. We can’t go bursting in on them like a gang of storm troopers. That would do more harm than good.”

Wyatt groused and pitched back and forth impatiently on the rocker. “All right. Most of those people are good citizens, although I’ll bet you can find a lot of dirt under their fingernails. But some of them are trying to kill you.”

There it was. Out in the open.

Halliday said simply, “Then we’d better find out which ones they are before they succeed, hadn’t we?”

FOUR

I had lunch with Wyatt in the tiny staff dining room in the West Wing. We talked over the possible problems of handling the press and the media, should any of this business leak out.

Calling it a dining room was being overgenerous. It was a glorified cafeteria, down in the basement under the West Wing, barely big enough to hold a dozen people at one time. Completely automated food service, like coin machines except that these were free. Your tax dollars at work. Dead-white walls with no decorations outside of a TV screen that served as a bulletin board, constantly flashing news items, press releases, job descriptions, and other tidbits that no one paid any attention to. The furniture was a bit posh for a cafeteria: slim-legged teak tables and rope-weave chairs. Very comfortable. The only other people in the little room were a pair of security guards, both female, chatting about their coming evening. Wyatt and I sat as far from them as we could.

In between bites of a sandwich that tasted like plastic on cardboard, I said, “Robert, there’s one absolutely essential point. I can’t cover for you if I don’t know what’s happening.”

He gave me a hawkish look from across the narrow teak table. “Afraid of being caught in public with your pants down?”

“I can stand the embarrassment,” I countered evenly, “but you can’t. And neither can the President. Once those news people get the impression that I’m not giving them the straight story, they’ll swarm all over us. We can’t afford that.”

And a corner of my mind was saying,How easily you switch from being open, honest, and a responsible civil servant to being secretive, misleading, and plotting to keep the truth away from the people.

Wyatt chewed on his salad thoughtfully for a few moments, then said, “Okay, we’ll keep you fully informed.”

“How?”

He almost smiled at me. “You’re learning, Meric. A few days ago and you would’ve accepted my word on it and not worried about how the agreement would be implemented.”

“A few days agoI was young and innocent.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m scared. Somebody’s trying to steal this whole damned country from us, Robert!”

He did smile this time. “Don’t get panicky. That won’t help.”