“Must be something heavy-duty going on up front, huh?” a wire service reporter said.

“Maybe he’s planning to invade Mississippi, punish them for not voting for him.”

“He doesn’t want to answer questions about his wife,” someone else offered.

“ Mississippi, hell. If he’s going to use the military to get anybody, it’ll be Senator Widmer.”

“What’ve you got on those hearings coming up?”

“Nada. Zip. I’ve seen a tight clamp on hearings before, but nothing like this. Even the best leaks aren’t talking. What are we coming to?”

The press representative from the Washington Post had chosen a seat apart from his colleagues. One called to him: “Hey, Milton, you pick up anything new on the Widmer hearings?”

“No,” Milton said, and went back to a magazine he’d been reading.

The reporter who’d asked the question leaned close to the ear of a correspondent from CNN. “Widmer’s got some surprise witness,” he said.

“Yeah, I heard that, too.”

“Got something to do with that murder at Union Station.”

“Get outta here! Where’d you hear that?”

“I’ve got a source who-”

Robin Whitson’s sudden entry into the press section from where she’d been sitting midships brought the conversation to a halt.

“Hey, Robin, come sit here,” someone suggested.

“In a minute,” the press secretary said, plucking a sandwich from a tray being passed by a steward and bantering with reporters nearby. A few minutes later, she slipped into an empty seat next to Milton from the Post.

“What’ve they got, a thing going?” someone whispered to a colleague.

“ Milton? Come on.” Now he lowered his voice so that it could barely be heard over the jet’s four engines. “”He’s got something on the Widmer story.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear things.”

Robin sensed the undercurrent of talk and came to the front of the section. “Okay,” she announced, “here’s the drill in Miami. The president will be talking about his new initiative on education and the escalating tension in North Korea, and he’ll float some ideas on strengthening the crime bill currently under discussion in Congress.” She motioned for her assistant press secretary to distribute advance copies of the speech Parmele would deliver in Miami.

“What’s with his wife canceling, Robin?”

“A scheduling conflict.”

“Hours before she’s due to make the trip?”

“That’s what happened. Hey, get off this nonsense about the president and first lady. Okay? You’ve got better things to think about.”

The first lady and her absence was the last thing on the minds of Parmele, Fletcher, and Brown as they sat in a tight circle of club chairs in the president’s office compartment.

Brown, who had just briefed Parmele and Fletcher on new information concerning the pending Widmer hearings, had learned over the months to leave the president and his political adviser alone after delivering sobering news. “Nobody in until the chief says so,” he told a uniformed Marine lance corporal, who stood at rigid attention outside the president’s flying office.

Parmele swiveled in his leather chair to look through the window at towering cumulus clouds on the eastern horizon.

“See those anvil-shaped formations on top?” Parmele said, his eyes not straying from the vista outside the aircraft.

Fletcher came to another window and crouched. “Yes,” he said.

“Thunderstorms,” said the president. “Violent thunderstorms inside those clouds. They could tear this aircraft into bits.”

“Not a pleasant thought,” Fletcher said.

Parmele turned to Fletcher. “Neither is what Walter just told us,” he said, grim-faced.

The president left his chair and paced the thickly carpeted area. As usual, he’d removed his shoes immediately after takeoff and was in his stocking feet. The incessant whine of the 747’s engines provided white noise to fill the silence between the men.

Fletcher had taken a seat, crossed his legs, and watched his leader- America ’s leader-walk, as though it would force clarity into his thinking. Fletcher had seen Parmele do this numerous times before. Being in motion seemed to energize the man when he was grappling with particularly thorny problems. The briefing Walter Brown had delivered certainly qualified.

Parmele went behind his desk, sat, leaned forward to prop his elbows on it, and said, “Nobody will believe it, Chet.”

Fletcher cleared his throat. “Mr. President, those who wish to believe it will. Those who don’t won’t. But it isn’t that simple, sir. These charges are serious. Widmer will shape it for maximum impact.”

“It’s all hearsay,” Parmele said. He’d been an attorney before entering politics.

“But this isn’t a court of law,” Fletcher countered. “You aren’t considered innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The court of public and political opinion doesn’t deal in such niceties.”

Parmele leaned back and threw up his hands. “He doesn’t have anything, damn it! You heard Walter. The old Italian who was going to testify is dead. What does Widmer have? The word of someone trying to make a fast buck, that’s all.”

Fletcher sighed as he added, “And notes and taped interviews with Louis Russo. That’s what I’m told.”

“Secondhand stuff.”

“Mr. President,” Fletcher said, “the Widmer hearings will be televised. They will be front page on every paper in America, and overseas, too. If there are tape recordings and they contain Russo’s allegations about you, hearing them will be riveting to the American people. They-”

“How do you know? Have you heard the tapes?”

“No, sir, but I assume they contain Russo’s charges in his own voice.”

“What about this guy’s book? What’s his name? Marienthal?”

“Richard Marienthal. His book is being published by Hobbes House.”

Parmele guffawed. “Hobbes House! Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ve had the editor and publisher queried, Mr. President. They’ll say nothing more than it’s a novel.”

“A novel? Widmer’s going to base his hearings on a goddamn piece of fiction?”

“I don’t believe it is a novel, Mr. President. Chances are they’re calling it a novel at this juncture to keep its true nature under wraps. It has to be a nonfiction recounting of what Mr. Russo claims happened and his role in it.”

Parmele stood again. “This is nothing but a goddamn political hatchet job to derail a second term.”

“Of course it is,” agreed Fletcher, not adding that it represented considerably more than that. The word impeachment never passed his lips.

Congressional liaison Walter Brown’s breaking the news about the substance of the Widmer hearings hadn’t come as a surprise to Fletcher. Far from it. As tight as security had been surrounding the hearings, tidbits about the genesis of them had begun to ripple around official Washington as early as two weeks ago. Light on specifics, the rumors had been brought to Fletcher’s attention by well-placed sources inside Congress, members of Parmele’s political party.

This posed a dilemma for the political adviser. He considered going to the president soon after learning of it, but decided against it. It was all too vague at that juncture, too grounded in innuendo and half-truths. Too, there were the sources of the information, those unnamed men and women whose own agendas had to be questioned.

Instead, Fletcher made the decision to pursue it through his own contacts, keeping the president out of the loop, at least in the short run.

His first step had been to confer with the attorney general of the United States, Wayne Garson. That meeting had taken place in the west wing of the White House, a room not much in demand because it was not much bigger than a closet.