Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  What Roger P. Croy really wanted to know—aside from a growing anxiety about the apparently unchanged international situation—was what attitude he should take toward the Help America bill. Should he stay on the job and preside over the Senate, thereby appearing to give some Administration sanction to the measure? Or should he turn the gavel over to someone else and make himself discreetly invisible, thereby indicating some Administration displeasure? If he did preside, should his rulings be relaxed and friendly to the bill, or should they be strictly by the book? Should he recognize mostly Senators who were in favor of it and suavely overlook those who weren’t, or should he be strictly impartial and straight down the middle? If there were tie votes, how should he resolve them? The Chair did have some role to play, after all, and Roger P. Croy felt that he would very much like to know what the President thought it should be.

  It was typical of him, and in a sense typical of the whole hectic situation at this moment, that the Vice President should be quite prepared to move either way according to the President’s dictates. He felt no particular moral, historical or democratic indignation against the bill, and no great enthusiasm for it. He was there, he felt, to do the job the President wanted. He would just like to know what it was. If he didn’t know, he would flounder, and that could open the door to results the President might not desire.

  He felt frustrated, annoyed and rather helpless. A sudden hand on his arm, particularly when he spun about impatiently and saw who it was, did not make him feel any better.

  “Yes?” he said, barely civil, for he instinctively disliked and mistrusted this particular individual. “What can I do for you?” And then, because he suddenly felt uneasy and on guard for no reason he could quite put his finger on, he added the name almost as an afterthought—“Fred?”

  “Well, Roger boy,” Senator Van Ackerman said, “let me come along to your office for a minute and I’ll tell you.”

  “It’s almost time for the Senate to convene—” the Vice President began, but a sudden angry, almost feral expression on his companion’s face caused him to change his mind. “We have about fifteen minutes, I guess,” he amended lamely. “You can come in, if you like.”

  “Good,” Fred said, amiable again as suddenly as he had been hostile. “I like … Now,” he said, when they had ascended to the second floor in one of the Senators’ private elevators, nodded to the police and Secret Service at the door and entered the Vice President’s ornate little office just off the floor, “sit down, Roger, and I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. What do you hear from the man downtown?”

  For a moment the Vice President felt like bluffing. Then he abandoned it and spoke frankly.

  “Not a damned thing. I haven’t been able to get through.”

  “Neither have I,” Senator Van Ackerman confessed with a scowl, and though what he said next sounded like a joke, something in his tone made the Vice President shiver a little. “That smart-ass little bastard who screens the calls has got to go.… Well, anyway, I guess that leaves it up to us. Since he’s temporarily out of the picture for some reason I can’t figure, we’ve got to decide on strategy for the bill.”

  “That’s why I was trying to reach him,” the Vice President said. “I don’t know whether he wants it or not.”

  “Silence implies consent,” Fred said shortly. “He’s already missed the time to oppose it, if he wanted to.” He frowned a little, then smiled an intimate, secret little smile and said, as if to himself, “He misses the time for almost everything, doesn’t he?… but,” he went on, more brightly, “that’s his problem, isn’t it, Roger, and none of yours and mine.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” the Vice President said stiffly, deciding that he must reject this apparent attempt to establish an unwanted intimacy, especially since he suddenly felt that at its heart lay a carefully calculated campaign to separate him from the President. “I just don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you do,” Senator Van Ackerman said comfortably. “It’s obvious he’s scared out of his gourd and the whole thing is drifting. So that leaves it up to you and me and our friends on the Hill to go ahead and do for him what we know he wants us to do, which is to pass the Help America bill and give him the tools to get the job done.”

  “What job?” Roger P. Croy inquired, hating himself for his uncertain, almost hesitant tone. This was no way to deal with Fred Van Ackerman, but in the absence of word from the President he was really on a spot.

  “The job of keeping these lily-livered reactionary right-wing bastards under control,” Fred Van Ackerman said in a suddenly vicious voice. “The job of keeping the damned dissenters from interfering with the policy of peace he was elected to carry out. The job of showing them who’s boss—that job. You know we can’t have these pantywaists tearing down the country and messing everything up for him, Roger. It’s intolerable!”

  “It’s awkward,” the Vice President conceded carefully, “but whether it warrants a measure as harsh as yours is in some respects, is another matter. After all, it’s still a free country.”

  “It is?” Senator Van Ackerman asked, again with his secret, conspiratorial little smile. “Come now, Roger!”

  “But it is!” Roger Croy protested, shocked out of his carefully held dignity. “Of course it is!”

  “Well, it won’t be for long,” Fred said flatly, “if we let this damned protest and dissent get out of hand. They’re out to destroy America, Roger, it’s obvious that’s their game. That’s why we have to have this bill. That’s why we’ve got to help America. The ‘Help America bill!’ That’s what we’ve named it and that’s what it is: to stop the damned dissenters and preserve law and order!”

  “But you always used to be opposed to stopping dissent,” the Vice President protested, rather foolishly. His answer was a scornful smile.

  “I was opposed when the dissent was directed against something I didn’t believe in,” Fred Van Ackerman said, “but now it’s against a man and policies I do believe in.” His voice suddenly acquired a savage singsong. “Don’t you believe in the President, Roger? Don’t you believe in the great peace policies he’s following? Aren’t you for Edward M. Jason? Don’t tell me the Vice President of the United States is betraying his President, Roger! Don’t make me have to tell that to him and to the press!”

  “No!” Roger Croy said so hurriedly and loudly he was sure the guards outside the door must have heard him. “No!” he repeated in a lower, insistent voice, ignoring the sudden ominous scowl his next words brought to the face across the desk. “Don’t you pull any of your blackmail games on me, Fred Van Ackerman! I’m for Edward M. Jason and his policies 100 per cent! I believe in Edward M. Jason and everything he does! I believe—”

  “Then stop gasping for breath like a silly old woman,” Senator Van Ackerman interrupted with a harsh relish, “and help me plan strategy to get this bill through. I’m counting on you, Roger, and the President’s counting on you. You’d damned well better keep the faith, hadn’t you?”

  “Well,” Roger P. Croy said lamely, his voice still shaking with affront and anger, “of course I want to do what’s right to help him.… ”

  But a few minutes later, after he had convened the Senate and then turned over the gavel temporarily to the president pro tempore, stately old Lacey Pollard of Texas, he again was unable to get through to the President. He thought it might be of help to let him know the mood and thinking behind the bill, but the appointments secretary, coldly efficient, blocked him again.

  ADMINISTRATION FORCES RUSH HELP AMERICA BILL TO FLOOR OF BOTH HOUSES. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE VOTES APPROVAL 9-6 IN BITTER ALL-NIGHT SESSION. “YOUNG TURKS” ON HOUSE RULES COMMITTEE RAM THROUGH DECISION TO BYPASS JUDICIARY, SEND MEASURE DIRECTLY TO FLOOR. VAN ACKERMAN, BRONSON BERNARD TO OPEN DEBATE.

  RUSSIAN FLEET RIDING ALL SEAS. GOVERNMENTS IN PANAMA, GOROTOLAND ANNOUNCE “COMPLETE PACIFICATION” AS FINAL AMERICAN PRISONERS ROUNDED UP. WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES PRESIDENT CONFERRING WITH TOP AIDE
S AS CRISIS MOUNTS. NEW ANTI-JASON GROUP REPORTS “MANY THOUSANDS” OF WIRES, MESSAGES SUPPORTING STAND.

  The Picturephone rang, but when she turned on the receiver the screen was blank. Only a voice, husky and unidentified, said, “Mrs. Knox?”

  “Yes?” she said coldly, though her heart gave a sudden hurtful leap. “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Just a friend, Mrs. Knox,” the voice said. “Just a friend. One who wants you to be very, very safe and not very, very sorry.”

  “Who are you?” she repeated, indignation and courage making her voice stronger. “What is this all about?”

  “I think you should return to your dignified widowhood, Mrs. Knox,” the voice said, eerie and oily and obviously enjoying its own effects. “I don’t think you should try to meddle in public affairs any more. After all, Mrs. Knox: one death in the family is enough, isn’t it?”

  “Are you threatening me?” she demanded sharply, reaching finally to snap off the picture transmitter so that her sinister caller could not see her expression. The voice chuckled.

  “You—your son—your daughter-in-law—who knows who I might be threatening? But ‘threat’ is a nasty word, Mrs. Knox. Let’s just say I’m offering a word of sensible caution to a very great lady whom I admire very, very much. Let’s say that.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” she said shortly. “Kooks and psychopaths have been after the Knoxes all our public life. One more doesn’t matter.”

  “There’s already been one too many, hasn’t there?” the voice snapped, a sudden cold rage snarling out of it. “Where’s dear old Orrin now, Mrs. Knox? Where’s that great, distinguished husb–”

  But swiftly and instinctively, almost without conscious thought, she had snapped off the machine entirely and the room in the pleasant old house in Spring Valley was abruptly still.

  For several minutes she sat trembling, her breath coming in shallow, almost sobbing gasps, her heart pounding painfully, her body covered with perspiration. Then she forced herself to breathe more slowly, forced herself to stop trembling, by sheer will power made herself calm again.

  That finally accomplished, she switched on the machine and dialed the White House. The chief operator, efficient veteran of twenty-five years on the nation’s most important switchboard, recognized her with a cordial smile.

  “Why, Mrs. Knox!” she said. “How nice to see you. What can we do for you?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Marjorie,” she said, forcing herself to be sociable though her heart was filled with a sudden desperate impatience. “Is there any chance I might speak to the President?”

  The chief operator’s expression changed to one of brief but candid annoyance.

  “It is so difficult to get through to him. I don’t know what’s going on over there. But—” and normal cheerful briskness took over again—“we’ll give it a try. Hang on.”

  The screen went blank for a couple of minutes. Then she reappeared, expression regretful.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Knox,” she said, and Beth could see that she genuinely was, “but the appointments secretary says—”

  “Let me speak to him,” she said sharply. The chief operator nodded with a wink and a fleeting but obvious expression of approval.

  “Yes. I’ll get him.”

  Again the screen went blank. Then a face she did not know, young, smug, self-contained and curiously closed-off, unwelcoming and unyielding, appeared.

  “Yes?” he said sharply. “What is it, Mrs. Knox?”

  “I must see the President,” she said firmly. “Today.”

  “Mrs. Knox—” he began, the sharpness unchanged. “The President is extremely busy. He has given orders—”

  “You tell him,” she interrupted, her voice deliberately slow, authoritative and filled with what appeared to be an absolute certainty that he would comply, “that Beth Knox called and that I must see him personally today on a matter of great importance to us both. I expect you to transmit this message for me honorably, truthfully and at once. May I have that assurance?”

  “Mrs. Knox—” he said angrily. But she could see he was not so sure of himself as he had been.

  “May I have that assurance?” she repeated evenly, and for several seconds they stared at one another. Then his eyes dropped and with a sullenness suddenly almost little-boy, he snapped, “Very well! I will call you back.”

  Again the screen was blank, but before she could flick off her own, the chief operator reappeared for just a second.

  “Good going,” she said briskly. “I can’t stand this new crew.”

  “Thanks,” Beth said, feeling a return of amusement for the first time in half an hour. “I’ll be right here, Marjorie.”

  “Stand by,” Marjorie said. “We’ll be back to you just as soon as possible.”

  And in ten minutes, amazingly, she got the answer she had hardly dared hope for.

  “The President will see you at 3 p.m.,” the appointments secretary said, expressionless. “We will send a car and a couple of Secret Servicemen to pick you up.”

  “That won’t be necessary—” she began, and then stopped abruptly, her voice trailing away. His expression did not change.

  “The President thinks it will be best,” he said. “See you at three o’clock.”

  “Thank you,” she said. And presently, after he had given a little half bow and vanished, and she had turned off her own machine, she added aloud to the silent room, “So apparently he does have some inkling of what’s going on in the world, after all.… ”

  Heartened considerably by this, she spent the next ten minutes calling her son and the ex-President. Hal was on the floor of the House, his first response a hurried and impatient “What is it, Mom, we’re about to start debate on the Help America—damn it, they’ve got me doing it too—dictatorship bill.” But when she told him tersely why she was calling, he responded with great alarm, demanding to know where Crystal was—“Safely upstairs taking a nap,” Beth said—and insisting that she call the police and ask that someone be assigned to guard the house. She promised she would, urged him to take care of himself and wished him well in the debate. He replied grimly that he thought they would lose but it would be a hell of a fight, and rang off, looking young, tense and worried but as stubbornly determined as his father would have been in similar circumstances.

  William Abbott, whom she found in the Majority Cloakroom just off the House floor, sounded equally alarmed but with an extra edge of fury that indicated how perturbed he was by the drift of events. He too urged precautions, thanked her for calling, promised to watch out for himself—“although,” with a grim little amusement, “I still have my Secret Service protection. They can’t take that away from me—yet, anyway.” She saved her most surprising information to the last. Bill Abbott was suitably astounded and immediately practical.

  “Very well: so you’re going to see him. I’m pretty sure you’re the first outsider he’s let in, you know. I hope you’ll really impress upon him—well, everything.”

  “Don’t worry, Bill. I will.”

  “Wake him up,” the ex-President said bluntly. “Shake some sense into him. Make him take hold. My God, he can’t let us drift any longer!”

  “I’ll do my best,” she promised, “—if he’ll hear me out.”

  “I think he just may,” William Abbott said. “I have a sneaking hunch he’s feeling desperately alone or he wouldn’t have agreed to see you. He wants reassurance, he needs a friend. I think in some way, subconscious or conscious, he feels he needs the help of the Knoxes.” His voice grew suddenly softer, and he used for Elizabeth Henry the nickname that only her husband had used. “You’re going to be Orrin’s stand-in, Hank. Do him proud.”

  “I will,” she promised with a sudden shaky little laugh. “I will, dear Bill. And I’ll report to you afterwards.”

  “Please do,” he said gravely.

  “You’ll warn Cullee for me, too?” she asked. He nodded. “I’m going over to
the Senate in a minute to talk to both him and Bob Munson. I’ll warn them immediately.”

  “Good,” she said, “God bless.”

  “You, too,” he said. “Be very careful.”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment after the screen went blank she sat motionless, mind racing. Then she called the office of the chief of police of the District of Columbia; was put through to him at once; explained the situation; was promised the immediate assignment of two officers—“They’re on their way,” the chief said with a smile, “ten minutes ago.”—and rang off, considerably reassured.

  After that she got up, tiptoed silently upstairs; looked in on Crystal; found her sleeping with a childlike soundness; and tiptoed back down. Then she returned to the Picturephone and made the call she had been considering ever since the evil voice had violated her home an hour ago. The expression on the face that appeared on the screen was a study as its owner saw who was calling him. But she didn’t give him time to think about it.

  “Walter,” she said firmly, “I think it’s imperative that you know something. I don’t know what you’ll think you should do with the knowledge, but I think you should have it. Do you mind?”

  For a second he looked quite nonplussed at the question. Then he shook his head with a cautious but not unamiable little smile.

  “No, Beth,” he said quietly. “I don’t mind. What is it?”

  While she described the voice he studied her face carefully and apparently without emotion. But when she finished he drew a deep breath and spoke with more genuine feeling and more genuine candor than he had ever revealed in all the years of his bitter opposition to her husband.

  “Christ,” he said. “What are we coming to?”

  Something about the desperate unhappiness of his tone sparked an intuitive response and with a quick, shrewd glance she asked bluntly, “Have they been after you too?”

  For a moment he hesitated. She was flattered that it was not for long.