Talley had planted himself in front of the Secretary of State. “Okay, business, Arthur. Do you know that the New Succession Bill sponsored by Senator Hankins is being approved by the full committee in the Senate Caucus Room today? Only one change suggested by the Legislative Council. After a President dies, and the next in line is serving as temporary Acting President, the new President and Vice-President are elected by the existing Electoral College for a full four-year term and not merely the unexpired term.”

“Yes, I heard about the change. I didn’t know the hearings were done and the bill was being approved today.”

“The committee isn’t touching a word in the language about you and the rest of T. C.’s Cabinet. It stays right in there. Dilman cannot remove you or any other member of the Cabinet without Senate consent. In fact, the line of succession as it was the day T. C. and MacPherson died stays untouched for the rest of the unexpired term. No new Speaker, no new President pro tempore of the Senate is to be elected to take precedence over you. The chairmanship will be revolving. That’s it, Arthur.”

“I know.”

“As committee chairman, Hankins is bringing the bill to the floor tomorrow or the next day. It’ll pass.”

“Will it?”

“It certainly will. And now, to expedite things, Zeke Miller is introducing a companion bill, same language, in the House. The House Rules Committee won’t stymie it. When it gets to a roll call there, it’ll go through in a flash.”

“Maybe.”

“For sure, Arthur. The question is-will Dilman sign or veto?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said Eaton with annoyance. It irritated him to be dragged into these grimy, tricky, bartering legislative matters.

Eaton allowed Talley to drift out of his vision. He closed his eyes and smoked his cigarette. As much as he had tried not to, he had thought of that damned New Succession Bill, of course. How could he help but think of it? Everyone in T. C.’s inner circle, in the Party, in the press, his own wife, Kay, in fact, had kept reminding him that he was the next in line to the Presidency. Even if he had been able to remain deaf to the talk of the past week, it would have been impossible not to recognize his new position with the arrival of the three Secret Service agents, assigned by law to protect him as the Number Two man in the government.

Now, like it or not, he had Senator Hankins’ New Succession Bill, with language that retroactively froze him into the position of succeeding Dilman as President, no matter whom the House and Senate selected for chairmen, no matter whom Dilman might prefer in his Cabinet. It was an embarrassment in many ways, the kind of act Eaton ordinarily deplored, for it was so nakedly political and unreasonable. If it passed, it told Dilman that the Congress did not trust him as a person (and a Negro), that the Senate was stripping him of his inherent removal powers, that the Senate was taking over as his guardian. Furthermore, no matter how ambiguously written, it told the country to shut one eye to the Constitution, for while the Constitution gave the Senate the right to approve of a Presidential appointment, it did not give that body the right to control a Presidential removal. In short, one paragraph of the language of the act was clouded over by doubtful legality, yet it was skillfully hidden behind the verbiage of an otherwise valid New Succession Bill. The political cynicism and rationalization that wrote the bill, put it in the hopper, had it introduced on the floor, had it powerhoused through the subcommittee, the full committee, and to a roll call, was appalling to Arthur Eaton.

Moreover, Eaton hated himself for being thrown into the Hankins and Miller camp. They were not his kind of people. He despised their talk. Publicly, they were pleading that an unusual situation in government had called for an unusual measure to meet it and to secure the continuity of government. Privately, secretly, these same men were agreeing that even if the doubtful paragraph made the bill unconstitutional, it would take so long a time to reach a test before the Supreme Court, take so long a time to be thrown out, that by then President Dilman would have served his one year and five months under Senate restraint, and what happened after that did not matter. All that mattered was that the nation would have been protected from its own current President.

Eaton wanted no part of those politicians and their bill, and he promised himself that he would stay aloof, as far above and beyond the questionable intrigue as possible. He had one task, and it was enough for one human being-to see that the United States was steered in the direction that his friend T. C. had set for it.

He opened his eyes to find Wayne Talley before him once more.

“Arthur,” Talley said, “Dilman mention anything to you about the Hankins bill?”

“Not to me, no.”

“What if it’s brought up at the Cabinet meeting?”

“I doubt that it will be brought up,” said Eaton. “Since it concerns each of the Cabinet members, protecting them against their President, why should any one of them bring it up? Certainly I would not have the nerve to speak of it myself.”

“What if Dilman himself brings it up?”

Eaton thought about this. “No, he won’t bring it up either,” he said with confidence. “You’ve seen him in action throughout the week. He’s afraid to open his mouth. He listens. He worries. He retreats. He has no strong or definite opinions about anything in government, except that he doesn’t want trouble. I think he wants to remain unobtrusive and accepted. If he can get through T. C.’s term without rocking the boat, I believe he will feel that he has accomplished all he wished to accomplish.”

“Which is?”

“To prove a Negro can be President and leave the nation no worse off.”

Talley did not seem convinced. “I hope so. Let’s see how he reacts to that first television speech we hammered out for him. If he goes for it verbatim, every point we made, promising the country he will serve merely as a caretaker for T. C.’s program, then I think you’re right.”

“When did you give him the draft of the speech?”

“When he was leaving here last night.”

Eaton nodded. “Then we should know today. After all, if he is going on the networks with it tomorrow-late tomorrow afternoon, isn’t it?-he should-”

Eaton left the sentence unfinished, as he cocked his head to listen to the approaching clack of footsteps on the cement walk outside. He came to his feet, and he and Talley stood respectfully attentive as the Secret Service agent near the garden greeted Dilman and the White House policeman opened the screen and turned the latch of the French door.

Dilman was inside the Oval Office, nodding his head. “Mr. Secretary-Governor-”

“Mr. President,” said Arthur Eaton.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” said Wayne Talley.

Dilman remained uncertainly before them, revealing a troubled smile. “I know I’m late. I apologize. I was trying to supervise the moving, and trying to find where everything was, when I ran into the-the First Lady-you know-”

“Oh, Hesper, you mean,” said Eaton. “I thought she’d moved out yesterday.”

“Well, there were a few bits of unfinished business, I guess,” said Dilman. “Anyway, we got to talking-a lovely lady-and that’s why I’m late. Do we still have a little time before the Cabinet meeting?”

“Only fifteen minutes now,” said Talley. “We can cover the ground, if we go right at it.”

“I’m ready,” said Dilman. He started for the desk, and with obvious reluctance sat down behind it in the straight-backed, light green leather swivel chair that had been substituted for T. C.’s widely photographed ebony chair with the electrically controlled lifting and reclining device built into its massive frame.

Eaton settled back into the seat he had been using beside the President’s desk, and Talley pulled up a cane-bottomed chair.