(1964) The Man

by Irving Wallace

  Shoving the chair aside, she searched around the battered standard typewriter, telephone, spindle with its sheaf of impaled handouts, and reference books. At last, she located a memorandum pad upon which was imprinted, Quickie-Note. Tearing off a sheet, she found a pencil stub and wrote, “George: Sorry, it doesn’t fit. Edna.” Then, easing the engagement ring off her finger, she placed it atop the note that she had written, and then she hurried out of the press quarters.

  Approaching the Reading Room, returning the White House policeman’s hearty greeting, she intended to turn left and duck into the corridor that led past Flannery’s office to her own office. But the entrance to the press secretary’s corridor was blocked by a crowding, heaving, elbowing mass of correspondents, and in their midst, his rust-red hair tangled, his tie yanked down from his open collar, in shirt-sleeves and suffering harassment, was Tim Flannery.

  The reporters milling around him were noisy, vociferous, and profane. Although Flannery kept raising a hand to silence them, his tormentors continued to wave their pads and shout questions: “Tim, is the President watching the impeachment on television? . . . Hey, what did he think of Zeke Miller’s opener? . . . Did Dilman himself get his counsel to inject the Negro issue? . . . Say, Tim, how is he taking it? . . . What about a statement? What time is he making a statement?”

  “Pipe down, will you?” Flannery bellowed. “Now listen, fellows, I only stuck my head out here because you’ve been driving my poor secretaries nuts with notes and questions that you know they can’t answer and I can’t either . . . wait a minute—quiet—listen—I told all of you every day last week, I told you yesterday, I told you this morning, and I’ll repeat it once more for those of you who need ear trumpets: the President, and correctly so, believes it would be improper to make any public statement about his impeachment trial while it is in progress. He may have something to say afterward, but right now—”

  “Afterward will be too late, and nobody’ll want to listen!” someone croaked out, and Edna could see the speaker was the repulsive Reb Blaser. “Tim, you tell him, for his own sake,” Blaser went on, “he better take advantage of any free space while he can get it. Two weeks from now he won’t be able to get mention in a single paper unless he takes out want ads!”

  Another voice shouted angrily, “Can it, Reb, will you? You’ll always have Jeff Davis to write about anyway! . . . Hey, Tim, what about—?”

  There was a chorus of laughter, and then Flannery stilled it. “Boys—repeat and stet—no comment from the President until the trial is over. However, he will continue to make statements and give out releases on other matters of government. Right now, I have two or three routine—”

  The press crowd had quieted, bringing pencils to their pads, as Flannery read the White House news of the day.

  Edna Foster realized that she would have to take the long route to her office, or whoever’s office it was by now. She started across the lobby, and had just passed the heavy center table adorned by the White House police pistol-shooting trophy, when she heard her name called aloud.

  Slowing, she turned her head in time to observe George Murdock, decked out in an expensive smoke-gray suit she had not seen before, his pitted face beaming, as he hastened around the table to intercept her.

  “Honey,” he said, grasping her forearms, “what a sight for sore eyes. Why didn’t you call me? When did you get back?”

  The obligatory scene, she told herself. There was no use trying to escape it. A phrase from the trial crossed her mind, and she altered it for George and herself: kill the beast before it—even if it—means the end of your own life.

  “Edna, when did you get back?” he repeated.

  “I’ve never been away, George.”

  “Never been away?” he echoed, puzzled, slowly releasing her arms.

  “That’s right. I was here all the time. I didn’t want you to know, because I didn’t want to see you.”

  “Edna, what in the devil do you mean—you didn’t want to see me?”

  “I mean I want nothing to do with a person I can’t trust. You took what I told you in confidence, you sold it to Zeke Miller in return for a filthy job, and you are as responsible as anyone for the President being on trial, and that makes me ill—and you make me ill.”

  At first, from the crimson hurt on his face, she thought that he would deny everything. To her surprise, he did not. He said, “Look, sure, but there was no question of breaking trust—I’ve never double-crossed anyone in my life—and you, I wouldn’t—” Suddenly he was aware that the conference around Tim Flannery was breaking up, and his colleagues were spreading about the room. “Edna,” he said urgently, “we can’t talk here. Let’s go out for something and I’ll explain—”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you, now or ever.”

  Pained, he dropped his voice low. “Look, honey, you promised to help me hold my old job or get a new one by tipping me off in advance to any news—and I thought, maybe I was mistaken, but I thought what you told me that night was meant to be in the nature of offering me something I could use—to help both of us. Well, I was just going to use a little, and that’s all I did use, but Reb and the Miller staff, they added two and two and came up with more. My own part in it was next to nothing.”

  She would give no ground. “If your part was next to nothing, how come Zeke Miller paid you off so handsomely? For next to nothing?”

  “Honey,” he whispered, “the ammunition that maybe they got from me, that I hinted at, was practically a dud compared to what they had found out and stored up already. Miller, he was just being grateful that I—I was on the side of people who want to see this country run right, that’s all. You don’t know him, Edna. Miller is actually a generous man beneath that political bombast. Anyway, I really believe it, that stuff about the President, and I really believe I’ve done something good for my country. Is that wrong? It’s all out now. And you know it as well as I do. Dilman isn’t fit to be our head of state. So be sensible—”

  “Be sensible? For what? So we can be married, and you can have a cheap source of hot news for—”

  “Stop it, Edna. Dilman’ll be out on his butt in two weeks, and you’ll be out of a job, so what kind of news source will you be? I want to marry you because I want to, that’s all. I can afford it now, and I want to be a family man—”

  “Well, I can’t afford it now, because you’ve cost me too much.”

  She saw him glancing off nervously, and then she became aware that Reb Blaser was hovering nearby, pretending disinterest. She was perversely pleased with George’s discomfort. She placed the soggy umbrella under her arm and started to go around him.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, attempting to block her, “we’re not through.”

  “Oh yes, we are.”

  “You mean you’re choosing Black Sambo over me?” he said tightly.

  “I’m choosing to go back to work for a man who’s trying his best, if he’ll have me, rather than live with a—a—with whatever low, slimy thing you’ve become. Good-bye, George. You and Blaser go on writing good lynch stories. I’ll be watching for them in print. Only don’t bother to call me ever again, especially not when you can’t sleep nights.”

  “Edna, for God’s sake—”

  She heard no more. She rushed out of the lobby. In the corridor, she was pleased with only one thing: that she was tearless.

  Entering her office, she could see that nothing had changed except that her swivel chair was now occupied by the scrawny colored girl, Diane Fuller, who was busy on the telephone. As Edna put down her purse, propped her umbrella in a corner, and took off her raincoat, she realized that Diane was regarding her with popeyed disbelief, as if she were an apparition from another world.

  Diane Fuller said, “Yes, Mr. President,” into the telephone. Then hanging up, rising, fumbling for her shorthand pad and pencils, she nervously said, “Hello, Miss Foster. I somehow didn’t expect you.”

  Edna reached the desk. “Where are you go
ing?”

  “Inside. There’s a meeting about to start. The President wants me to take it down.”

  “Well, you never mind.” She held out her hands for the pad and pencils. “I’m ready to go back to work.”

  Diane Fuller clutched the pad and pencils. “I—I don’t know if—”

  “I don’t know either, Diane,” she agreed, “but I intend to find out.” Firmly, she removed pad and pencils from the colored girl’s fingers. “You stand by for a while, take the phone messages. If I remain inside over five minutes you can go back to your office in the East Wing. If I come flying right out, you’ve got yourself a permanent position right here.”

  Without bothering to check her appearance in the mirror, Edna Foster opened the heavy door to the Oval Office and walked into the room. At first, as she advanced toward the Buchanan desk, she saw him in profile, and she realized that President Dilman was unaware of her entrance. He stood behind the desk, his attention entirely fixed on the television screen. The volume was turned low, and not until Edna reached the desk could she make out the words spoken by the voice coming from the television set, that of Nat Abrahams, as it gently chided the House for having included Article II as one of the impeachment charges.

  Reaching the desk, Edna Foster coughed discreetly. At the sound, President Dilman’s head jerked toward her. His brow contracted slightly, but there was no astonishment in his reaction. He turned off the television set.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Foster,” he said. “Are you fully recovered?”

  “I’ve been ill, Mr. President. But now, yes, I am fully recovered. Whether or not I am well enough to work, that’s entirely up to you. I do feel—I feel I owe you an honest explanation—”

  Dilman fussed with the papers on his desk. “No further explanation needed. I heard the whole thing from Tim Flannery at lunch today. He finally confessed to seeing you, and took it upon himself to repeat what you had told him.”

  She was thankful that Tim had made at least a part of her task easier. Still, she felt that she must speak for herself. “Then all I can add—whether it means anything to you or not—but I must say it for my own sake—it’s this—I’ve had to make an important personal decision, and I’ve made it. Sooner or later, I guess, everyone is called on to choose sides. There’s no avoiding it. Well—not that it matters to you any more—but I am on your side, whatever happens, and I won’t tolerate or have anything to do with anyone who is not on your side. I’d like to work for you, not because it’s the most rewarding secretarial job in the world, but because, like Mr. Abrahams, I want to do my part. I know I’m not being fair to you. You have every reason to tell me to leave. If you do, I won’t blame you a bit. I know in your shoes I’d—”

  “Miss Foster,” the President said, with a trace of impatience, “this is a busy day. Please sit down and let’s go to work.”

  Her heart, its beat momentarily suspended, or so it seemed to her, suddenly resumed its thumping. She wanted to embrace him. She murmured, “Thank you, Mr. President,” and quickly occupied her accustomed place. The President pushed a button on the intercom, and spoke something to his engagements secretary.

  Almost immediately, Shelby Lucas’ door opened, and the Director of the CIA, Montgomery Scott, entered, unzipping his portfolio. He was followed by General Jaskawich. Both men greeted the President, and then Scott saluted Edna, and Jaskawich warmly introduced himself to her. Edna, whose years around the Senate and the White House under T. C. had made her incapable of hero worship, found herself awkward and thrilled in the presence of Jaskawich. She had read that he had been sworn in as the President’s new military aide, and somehow, she had expected that he would be as aloof and remote as the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead, as if refusing to take his rank, uniform, and orbital flights seriously, he was as friendly and natural as, well, as Tim Flannery. To Edna, it was as if one of those stone statues in Lafayette Square had leaped down from the saddle to enlist itself on their side.

  “Where shall we sit, Mr. President?” Scott asked.

  “You sit here, right next to Miss Foster,” Dilman said. “General Jaskawich, you pull up a chair next to me, so we’ll be facing them.”

  “I’ve been watching television,” Jaskawich said, lifting a chair and moving it to the indicated spot. “If ever I laid eyes on an animated cuspidor, I did today, watching that Zeke Miller. But you know, I think your Mr. Abrahams is spitting him right back in the eye.”

  “Do you think so?” Dilman asked. “It’s difficult for me to judge.”

  “You may lose the first round by a shade in the Senate,” said Jaskawich, “but you may have won it by a mile around the country.”

  Dilman nodded thoughtfully, then suddenly pulled up his swivel chair and again buzzed his engagements secretary. He studied Jaskawich and Scott, and then he said, “They’ll be coming in now . . . When I think of what we’re up against this second, that show on television seems about as important as a cartoon short for children. Mr. Scott, you’ve got to lay it on the line.”

  A door opened and closed, and at once, with the arrival of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the atmosphere of the Oval Office seemed to become highly charged. Secretary Carl Steinbrenner, embodying in his every movement the irreproachable solidity of the self-made successful aircraft manufacturer, exchanged guarded courtesies with the others, while General Pitt Fortney, after flinging his braid-trimmed cap and military trench coat on a sofa, strode forward with a more aggressive helloing.

  “Well, now, Mr. President,” drawled General Fortney, settling himself beside the Secretary of Defense, “what’s so pressing that Carl and I have to come hopping over here in the middle of the day? Far as I could learn, everything that’s been coming in this afternoon on our restricted communications wires and the command lines might as well have been delivered by doves. All’s pretty much at peace around the world—no rumbles, except for that little brush-fire conflict down on our own Senate floor maybe.” He chuckled. “Guess that’s pretty much outside our province.”

  Dilman appeared to endure this calmly, and then, gripping the edge of his desk, ignoring General Fortney, he addressed himself wholly to Steinbrenner. “Gentlemen, I summoned you because there is a very real and grave crisis developing abroad. As of and until yesterday, Mr. Scott and I have kept you fully apprised as to the situation in and around Baraza, and—”

  “Oh, that,” General Fortney interrupted with a snort.

  Dilman stared at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Yes, that,” he said. “So long as there is a place on earth where the Soviet Union, secretly or overtly, is prepared to challenge the independence of a democratic government, no matter how large or small, to which we have pledged support, that is a place with which we must concern ourselves. Baraza is such a place. We persuaded Baraza to relax its guard against Communism, as a barter for Russia’s good will and promise of peace. Now there is ample evidence that Russia is about to break its promise by helping overthrow President Amboko. Our responsibility is to see that Amboko is not overthrown.”

  “Mr. President,” said Secretary Steinbrenner, “based on the information that I have seen up to and through yesterday, it would seem extremely doubtful that Premier Kasatkin has any real intention of fomenting rebellion in Africa.”

  “That was yesterday,” said Dilman. “Today’s another day, and the additional information we’ve been waiting for came in late this morning . . . Mr. Scott, repeat right here and now what you told me an hour ago, the latest intelligence that just came in to CIA.”

  Montgomery Scott had emptied his portfolio, and shuffling the papers in his hands, he looked gloomily at Steinbrenner and General Fortney. “Unhappily, gentlemen, the prospects for maintaining peace in Baraza are deteriorating with each updated report. Our last intelligence from our agents in Baraza, you recollect, we rated as being from a 4 to 3 in dependability, meaning fairly reliable. Enough for us to become concerned, and to suggest that we investigate th
e situation further. We have investigated further. It has cost us the life of an outstanding CIA agent to obtain today’s report, and this one we have evaluated at 2, only a shade under positively reliable, and that makes the situation sufficiently serious to warrant consideration of military countermeasures.”

  “Monty,” said the Secretary of Defense, “what’s in that last report?”

  “You’ll find a complete copy on your desk when you get back to the Pentagon,” said Scott. “What’s in it? Briefly, the information that Soviet Russian officers are just outside the Barazan frontier, mainly in the high country, whipping together and preparing a Russian-sized division—that would make it somewhat smaller than our divisions—of native Barazan Communists. Maybe as many as 13,000 men. The infantrymen are equipped largely with American small arms, M14 rifles, AR-10 Armalite rifles, 3.5-inch rocket-launching bazookas. However, most of this Communist division is both mechanized and armored, having been supplied with Soviet-manufactured tanks, mortars, Gaz jeeps, medium artillery. They have even hurriedly constructed several hidden airfields, and delivered a limited number of MIG-17 jet fighters and some twin-engined light jet bombers. We know that the buildup and equipping of this native Communist force is nearing completion, and all that remains is to find out precisely when—at what date—the rebels intend to strike. We expect to discover this date sometime between tomorrow and the end of the week. Several of Kwame Amboko’s own security agents have infiltrated the enemy camp, and if one of them gets out alive, Amboko hopes to relay his vital information to us by then.”

  Steinbrenner’s attention went to Dilman. “Do you trust Kwame Amboko, Mr. President?”

  “Completely,” said Dilman.

  “I don’t,” snapped General Fortney. “He’s sure to come up with something alarming, merely to drag us into that swampland of his and use us to liquidate his political opposition. Mr. President—”

  “General,” Dilman interrupted, “I trust him . . . Go on, Mr. Scott.”