The Multiple Man

“Well?” he asked. “I want your promise of silence. Everything is settled now, except for you. It all depends on you, Meric.”

“No, Mr. President,” I finally said. “It all depends on you.”

His chin lifted. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve got to tell them.”

“Them? The press?”

“The people. You’ve got to tell them the whole thing.”

“Never!”

“You’ve got to tell them there’s more than one of you, at least,” I said. “Use your father’s death as an excuse, if you want to. But you can’t go on with a committee in the White House. Not unless the people know about it and approve.”

“That’s impossible. No way.”

I felt my own voice getting stronger. “The people didn’t elect a gang of brothers. They elected one man. You. You’re the only one they saw; you’re the one who made the speeches and did the campaigning.”

“But I was using the expertise of my brothers,” the President said. “They put the ideas into the speeches. They worked out the problems and the solutions.”

“Tell the people,” I urged. “You’ll never be able to keep this thing covered up now, anyway. Too many people know about it. It’s going to leak sooner or later. For God’s sake… go to the people and tell them!”

“They’ll want me to resign,” he said.

“Maybe.” “Can you picture this country with Lazar as President?” he demanded. “It’d be a catastrophe.”

I answered, “Can you picture what Lazar will do when he finds out what’s been going on? I won’t tell him, but you know damned well somebody will. You can’t keep this quiet forever.”

“You think not?” And I saw some of Jackson’s power lust glint in his eyes.

“I think not,” I said. “The story will leak out. It’s too big to keep covered. If it doesn’t come out now, it certainly will in the next election campaign.”

He nodded grimly. “During the primaries.”

“Sir,” I said, “even Lazar as President would be better than a man the people couldn’t trust. Maybe you could call for a national referendum… a vote of confidence. Then if it goes against you, both you and Lazar resign and call for a special election.”

“That’s crazy. Nobody would go for that.”

“The people would.”

“I mean nobody here in Washington.”

“But the people would. It’s their Government, you know.”

“Stop mouthing sermons. This is politics. This is real.”

I took a deep breath. “Sir, I honestly think that the only way you can survive in the Presidency is to tell the entire story. Freely. Now. Don’t wait for somebody to dig it up and lay the skeletons on your doorstep.”

“You’re full of shit, Meric. You’re so transparent, it’s almost funny. You couldn’t care less about my surviving in the Presidency—”

“That’s not true!”

“The hell it isn’t. What’s really bugging you is the idea of keeping the Presidency intact. You’re not working for me, you’re working for the god-damned Constitution.”

Meric Albano, the patriot? “No, I’m not that noble,” I countered. “But it wouldn’t be a bad idea if you and the Constitution were on the same side.”

He threw his head back and pleaded with the ceiling. “He doesn’t want a President, he wants a saint. A Catholic saint, at that!”

“Only dead men can be made into saints,” I said. “I’ve worked damned hard to keep you alive.”

He snapped those deep brown eyes on me. It was like facing a pair of gun muzzles. “I owe you that much, don’t I?”

“You don’t owe me a thing.”

“Not much,” he muttered. He got up from the chair again and started pacing the room. Not much floor space for him to work with; three long strides and he was at the window, four in the other direction and he reached the door.

Turning back toward me, he said, “I could put a pretty good face on it. Tell the people that my brothers were my advisers… the closest kind of aides a President could have. Hell, Kennedy made his brother the Attorney General, didn’t he? And there’s no hint of scandal; I mean, as far as money or political deals are involved.”

“I could help you write a speech like that,” I said.

He grinned. “A referendum. It might work out. It could work.” The grin broadened. “I can see the Congress wrestling with that one. They’d be on the spot to decide on calling the special election or not.” He laughed outright.

I shifted on the bed. “It’ll be damned hard to keep that shootout in the Capitol rotunda hushed up.

“It can be done,” he said. “If I can count on you to keep your mouth shut, I can cover the rest of them with the National Security Act. They’ll keep quiet.”

“You’ll have to tell the people about the cloning,” I said.

“Yes. They won’t like that. They’ll be afraid of it.”

“But you’re not the one who did it,” I pointed out. “It was your father’s decision. You were only a helpless infant.”

He stared at me for a moment “There’s still hope for you, Meric.”

“And you’ll have to bring your brothers out to the public,” I quickly added.

“H’mm. I’m not sure Josh could take that. He’s pretty close to a nervous breakdown as it is.”

“It could work,” I said.

“You don’t really care if it works or not,” he accused. But he was still grinning slightly. “All you’re interested in is the national welfare.”

I shrugged an admission of guilt.

“But I’ll bet I could swing it,” he said. “I could get them to swallow it. Especially if I start right after my father’s funeral. Get their full sympathy.”

I sank back in the propped-up bed, watching him plan his campaign in his head. I didn’t think he’d have a prayer of keeping his office. It would be too much for the public to accept. But then I hadn’t thought the public would elect Brandon, his predecessor. And if he’d tell the public that much of his story, I’d work like hell to help him. He deserved that much from me.

NINETEEN

They let me out of the hospital the next day. The first thing I did was call Vickie. She had just been turned loose, too, so I hopped a taxi to her apartment, intending to take her out to lunch. We had a lot to talk about.

I leaned on her bell and she opened the door immediately.

“You’re really okay?” we both asked simultaneously. And then we laughed and we were in each other’s arms and there wasn’t a damned thing to discuss.

It was getting toward dusk as we lay side by side on her waterbed and Vickie said, “Is it really all over?”

“Yeah. We’re setting up a press conference next Monday to…”

“I don’t mean that,” she said. Turning on her side, sending waves through the waterbed and through me, she asked, “Is it over between you and Laura Halliday? The torch is extinguished?

“How’d you know…?”

“I knew,” she said simply. “And I get the feeling that you’re finally free of her.”

“It was over a long time ago,” I said, “only I didn’t understand it.”

“You’re much too good for her,” Vickie said.

“For a researcher,” I joked, “you’re damned perceptive.”