His life was so filled with telephone calls from so many varied persons, at all hours, on all subjects, with so many degrees of urgency, that it was surprising how one more call, no matter how unusual, could have possessed the devastating power of an earthquake.

All of this he would remember later.

It was five days since his return from Europe, and Douglass Dilman sat at the head of the mahogany dining table in the intimate Family Dining Room on the first floor of the White House, enjoying the informal luncheon with United Nations Ambassador Slater and key members of the American delegation. In spite of the necessary presence of Arthur Eaton, who had been disapproving and excessively formal with him since his veto of the Minorities Rehabilitation Bill, the friendliness of his United Nations colleagues made the meal pleasurable.

Dilman had reported upon every detail of his foreign policy talks with Premier Kasatkin. His listeners agreed that the air had been cleared, and peace was probable and wonderful, and that the President had achieved a real success. Basking in the unanimity of this favorable opinion, Dilman had the appetite for a second helping of the baked salmon loaf.

Then it was, with the luncheon almost over, that Sally Watson appeared, and came quickly to him. While Ambassador Slater politely shifted his discourse from the President to Eaton, Dilman leaned toward his social secretary as she bent close to his ear.

“A telephone call, Mr. President,” she whispered. “Miss Foster says that the party calling insists it is important.”

“Who is it?”

“Miss Foster didn’t say, except-”

“I’m sure it can wait, then.”

“-except it is personal, from someone with the Vaduz Exporters.”

Dilman’s immediate reaction of concern broke across his features. He was sure that Miss Watson was not unaware of his reaction. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose I’d better take it.”

“Shall I transfer it in here, or-”

“No, no.” He pushed his chair back, made hasty apologies, and followed Sally Watson into the State Dining Room, and then into the Main Hall.

She was leading him to the Red Room. “Right in here,” she said. By the time he entered the nineteenth-century Empire parlor, he could see Miss Watson taking up the receiver from the marbletopped circular table. “Miss Foster,” she was saying, “I have the President. One moment-”

Dilman accepted the telephone. “Thank you. That’ll be all, Miss Watson. Please close the door when you leave.”

He waited. The moment that Sally Watson had gone, he turned away, receiver pressed to his mouth and ear, and said, “Miss Foster? You can put the call through.”

Again he waited.

The call had unsettled him. Not once before, in all his weeks in the White House, had Wanda Gibson telephoned him here. This was the first time. Of late, he had kept their tenuous relationship alive by trying to telephone her at least once a week, during evenings only, when the Spingers were home to answer the phone, and so avoid arousing any suspicion in the minds of operators or anyone else who might overhear him.

Now here was Wanda coming to him openly. He wondered. Of course, the message had not said that Miss Gibson was calling, but rather, someone from Vaduz Exporters. Perhaps Wanda had fallen ill, met with an accident, and someone in her office, or her employer, Franz Gar, was trying to notify him. But no, Wanda would have told no one in her firm that she was a friend of the President. He was baffled.

Suddenly, unmistakably, he heard Wanda’s voice in the earpiece. “Mr. President-is this President Dilman?”

He understood her hesitancy immediately. “One second, hold on,” he said. “Uh, Miss Foster-”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Personal call. You need not monitor this one. Thank you.”

He listened for the audible click of his secretary’s telephone, heard it, and was assured that Wanda and he were now alone. “All right, Wanda-”

“Are we private?”

“Absolutely.” The restrained tightness of her voice troubled him. “Wanda, what is it? Are you all right? Is there anything wrong?”

“I don’t know, Doug. I wanted to phone you all morning, but it was dangerous, so-”

“Dangerous?” What could be dangerous on a crisp, beautiful American morning? “Wanda, I don’t-”

“Wait, Doug, listen. I had to hold back until lunch, so I could get away without being obvious. I’m in a grocery store booth now. There’s so much that’s been-” She paused as if to organize her thoughts, and then her low modulated voice came through the telephone swiftly but clearly. “Our office was chaos this morning. Mr. Gar had summoned all the Vaduz associates from New York, Savannah, Galveston, San Francisco. There was so much pressure and haste, I think half the time they forgot I was there. Anyway, I was able to piece things together, and I could see how it might affect you, and thought you should know about it.” She caught her breath, then continued. “Doug, the agricultural equipment Vaduz Exporters has been sending out these last months to their home warehouses in Liechtenstein, it wasn’t entirely farm equipment, but weapons, small arms, machine guns, ammunition. My company was using Liechtenstein only as a cover-up. The weapons were actually being shipped on behind the Iron Curtain to Bulgaria and Albania, and from there to-to certain parts of Africa.”

“You mean Baraza? The Communists are shipping weapons to Baraza?”

“I heard Baraza mentioned once. I’m almost certain of it.”

Shaken, Dilman said, “And your company, Vaduz Exporters, they’re actually a Communist Front over here?”

“A trading corporation for the Soviet Union. I’m positive.”

“Wanda, did you ever have an inkling of this before?”

“Never, not once. Everything exploded early this morning. There were these people pouring in, rushing around like insane, and I was one of several ordered to burn duplicates of procurement orders that had gone out, duplicates of orders I had never seen, typed by someone else, kept by Gar in his office vault. I could read bits and pieces before the stuff went into the incinerator, and I could see Vaduz was shipping weapons and they were winding up eventually in Communist hands in African ports. But the main thing-”

“Wanda, what alerted them to destroy everything this morning?”

“I was just going to tell you, Doug. That’s the main thing. I heard CIA mentioned twice. I was all ears for everything by then, but I don’t think anyone realized I was listening. But Gar said their informant knew of a special CIA report that had gone to you about a Communist weapons buildup in or around Baraza, and by now Vaduz was probably under surveillance, and orders were-whose orders, I have no idea-orders were to take precautionary measures. This may all be unreliable, Doug, but something is going on. You probably know the entire story, and this is silly. You do see all the CIA reports, so-”

“I’m supposed to, Wanda, but I haven’t seen any CIA report like that one. I know nothing about a weapons buildup around Baraza. In fact, I was just having lunch with the United Nations delegates, telling them how the Russians promised me hands off.”

“Doug, maybe-” Wanda’s tone had become uncertain. “I’m sure I haven’t got any of this wrong, but maybe I’m reading wrong things into what I’ve heard and seen. It’s just that I’m so worried about you. Maybe you should-I mean, don’t depend too much on what I’ve said-but on your own, I think-”

“You did the right thing, Wanda, calling me. If there is nothing to it, fine, nothing lost. On the other hand, if what you’ve reported can be verified-” He was full of it now, his mind straining in every direction, until he realized that Wanda was still on the other end, in a telephone booth, worried, perhaps frightened. “Wanda-?”

“Yes-?”

“Thank you for this. I’ll look into it immediately. There’s one thing I want you to do for me. I want you to quit Vaduz, get out of there as fast as you can.”