He’d wanted to run after her, say he was sorry, patch it up, get her to understand that what he was going through wasn’t easy. It would be over soon and they could get back to the way it had been between them in the beginning. He wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t be involved with Lowe if he didn’t need him at the moment. The truth was-and he couldn’t admit this to Kathryn, at least not yet-was that he hated Lowe as much as she did, and couldn’t wait for it to be over, when their mutual using of each other would end.

He left the apartment twenty minutes later and walked off his anger-but not his unhappiness-on his way to the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill. He rode the elevator to the roof level, and entered the virtually empty Capitol View Restaurant, where Geoff Lowe sat alone at the bar, a half-consumed martini in front of him.

“Hey, buddy, how goes it?” Lowe asked as Marienthal took a stool next to him.

“All right,” Marienthal replied.

Bob McIntyre, leaning against the back bar watching a baseball game on the plasma TV, greeted Rich.

“A beer,” Rich said.

“We’ll be over there, Bobby,” Lowe said to the bartender, pointing to a leather couch in a corner of the room.

“Mei will bring it over,” McIntyre said, indicating the martini.

“So, ready for the big day?” Lowe asked after they’d settled on the couch.

“No,” Marienthal said, thinking of Kathryn and wishing he were with her.

“No?” Lowe said, laughing, as the waitress delivered his drink and Marienthal’s beer. “What do you mean, no?”

“Nothing,” Marienthal said. “Look, Geoff, considering everything that’s happened, I-”

“What everything, Rich?”

“Russo getting killed. The guy who did it getting killed. Maybe we should-”

Lowe turned abruptly, his face less than a foot from Rich’s. “Am I hearing right, Rich? Am I hearing that you’re getting cold feet? If I am-”

“Wait a minute,” Marienthal said, pulling back. “Hear me out. That’s all I ask, just hear me out.”

Lowe leaned back and sipped his drink. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m hearing you out.”

Marienthal thought for a moment before saying, “I’m having second thoughts about Louis, Geoff.”

“Second thoughts? About what?”

“About maybe he exaggerated. You know, he was getting old and he was sick. I mean, Geoff, you’re about to take down a president.”

Lowe held up a hand to silence Marienthal. He surveyed the room before saying, “You’re wrong, Rich. We are about to do that. It doesn’t matter how old or sick Russo was. It doesn’t matter if he exaggerated. What does matter is that he had a story to tell, and he told it-to you. He’s gone. That leaves you, Rich, and the tapes of Russo, to tell the tale.” Sensing Marienthal was about to say something else, Lowe added, “And you and those tapes will tell the tale, Rich. Senator Widmer will be pleased that he could bring the truth to the American people, and you’ll have a best seller on your hands.” He indicated to Mei with his hand that he wanted the check. To Marienthal: “Drink your beer, Rich, and we’ll grab some dinner. My treat. The Capitol Grill. I’m hungry, in the mood for a porterhouse.”

Lowe drove Marienthal home after dinner. Marienthal looked up at his apartment window hoping to see lights on, see Kathryn’s shadow moving about the apartment. But it was blank, like his mood.

“Look, Rich,” Lowe said as they sat in his car, the engine running. “I understand you’re uptight, and I know why. You’re a writer, for Christ’s sake. What do you know about politics, huh? You sit at your computer and make pretty words that maybe somebody will buy. Politics ain’t pretty, my friend. It’s the ultimate war-take no prisoners, baby. You don’t think our dear president, Mr. Parmele, doesn’t shoot to kill? You think Mr. Parmele and his gang of cutthroats, his VP, cabinet, his political guru Chet Fletcher, play by the rules, follow the Geneva Convention?” He slapped Marienthal on the arm. “Yeah, Rich, it’s a war, and the stakes are big. This country either goes down the tubes with another four years of Parmele and the Democrats in control, or we get a straight-thinking Republican, one of our Republicans, in there to make things work again.”

This time he grabbed Rich’s arm. “What we are doing, my friend, is saving the republic. Hell, they might even erect a statue honoring you.”

Marienthal again looked up to the apartment window. The subject of what he was about to do hadn’t come up during dinner. Instead, Lowe had delivered his usual series of political diatribes, tossing in bits of history that might have been accurate or not, railing against the liberal establishment and the harm it had inflicted on the nation. His words from across the table had faded in and out of Rich’s consciousness. Rich was thinking of Kathryn, wondering where she was, what she was doing. He did a lot of nodding during Lowe’s speeches, responded with a series of grunts and “Sure” and “Yeah” and “I see what you mean.” But it all meant nothing to him. He wanted the evening to end so he could make it better with Kathryn.

“I’m going in,” he told Lowe, his hand on the passenger-door handle.

Lowe retained his grip on Marienthal’s arm. “I have a suggestion, buddy,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I think the reason you’re so uptight is that you’re sitting on all the notes and tapes you got from Russo.”

“Yeah?”

“What I’m suggesting is that you give all that stuff to me. I’ll hang on to it, keep it safe until the hearing.”

Marienthal shook his head. “I’d rather keep it myself, Geoff, until the hearing.”

“You’re not listening to me, Rich. Let me have all your source material. You don’t need it anymore. Hell, the book is written. It’s about to come out.”

“I’d really rather not.”

Lowe continued as though Marienthal hadn’t said anything. “It’s better if we have those materials, Rich. That way-”

That way, if something happens to me, the hearing can still go on, Rich thought.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” Lowe said.

“Yeah, fine.”

“Rich.”

“Yeah?”

“This is bigger than either of us. We don’t count for anything in the scheme of things. We’re talking national security, the fate of the country. Got it?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

“First thing in the morning.”

Kathryn returned after midnight. Frost permeated the apartment until they eventually sat together at their small kitchen table, cups of coffee in front of them, and talked about what had occurred. They remained there until the sun came up. By that time, a thaw had taken place. They kissed and promised to never allow an argument to progress to the stage it had.

And Rich announced a decision he’d made, with which Kathryn Jalick wholeheartedly agreed.