“Extreme steps?”

“The details aren’t important, but time is. We know Russo plans to travel to Washington to testify. No matter how untrustworthy his testimony might be, its impact could be, in our opinion-and after careful analysis-severely damaging.”

Fletcher agreed with the CIA man’s statement. The potential political fallout for the man he served in the White House had caused sleepless nights and bouts of stomach distress. He nodded.

Roper looked out his window at a car that pulled into the same cutout, and saw it contained a young couple, probably looking for a place to neck. He turned to Fletcher. “We need your permission to take whatever action we deem necessary to protect the president.”

“My permission?”

“As the man most involved in preserving this presidency for the future.”

“Yes, I understand,” Fletcher said. “Yes, I-it must be stopped.”

Roper looked at him intently. “Your reputation isn’t exaggerated, Mr. Fletcher,” he said. “The president is in good hands.”

He left Fletcher’s car without saying another word, got into his own, and drove off. Fletcher stayed there for a few minutes until he felt he was intruding on what was going on behind the steamed-up windows of the other vehicle. As he drove home, he was tormented by what had transpired. Extreme steps! Did Roper mean something as extreme as doing physical harm to Russo? The thought was wrenching; it assaulted him physically, and he feared he might not be able to continue driving. But after sitting up alone and late in his home office and sipping a brandy from a seldom opened bottle, he’d calmed down and had a less dramatic perception of what Roper had meant. More comforting was the realization that it was out of his hands.

Initial reports that Russo had been killed by mobsters seeking revenge salved any pangs of conscience he might have suffered, allowing him to focus on his responsibility of guiding Adam Parmele to a deserved second term. The meeting with the CIA’s Roper had never happened.

The attorney general stood and came around behind Fletcher, placing large hands on the political adviser’s shoulders and kneading them. “Russo and Widmer and his hearings will die their natural death, Chet. Business as usual, which is what the country needs to go forward.” He released his grip on Fletcher and stood silently behind him. Fletcher didn’t move, feet planted on the floor, waiting to hear what was inevitable.

“The best way to put this behind the president, Chet, is for us to put some distance between you and the administration. The president will accept your resignation-for personal reasons. He’ll respect your wishes to spend more time with your family and to get back to the thing you love most, shaping the young minds of our future leaders. I’m sure you’ll have no problem lining up a job at a top university. And there’ll be the lecture circuit, Chet, after this dies down and blows away like dry seed in a gale.”

“I didn’t realize what would happen,” Fletcher said, realizing how feeble he sounded. “When I agreed to extreme measures, I-”

Garson came around to the front of the chair and loomed over Fletcher. “You’re a brave man, Chet Fletcher, and I admire brave men.”

Fletcher looked up and swallowed against bile in his throat. “In the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man,” he said. “The idle man and he who has done much meet death alike.”

Garson’s expression was quizzical. He smiled. “That’s true,” he said, although Fletcher doubted that the attorney general truly understood what he’d said.

Fletcher slowly got up and went to the door. He stopped, turned, and said, “The president knows?”

He was met with stony silence.

Fletcher returned to his office in the West Wing, closed the door behind him, sat behind his desk and reached into a drawer, withdrawing a sheet of paper carrying his letterhead. He uncapped a favorite Montblanc pen, and slowly, carefully, methodically wrote a letter of resignation, which he placed in an envelope, sealed, and wrote on it: The President of the United States. He locked the envelope in a drawer, pocketed the key, and drove home.

Kathryn Jalick was up before the sun after lying awake in bed for what seemed an eternity, and debated going back to work. There was a ten o’clock staff meeting at the Library of Congress she knew she should attend; seventeen boxes of material left to the library by the widow of a prominent nineteenth-century Washington physician. Their contents chronicling the doctor’s life in D.C.’s social circles were to be opened and catalogued.

A palpable excitement always accompanied the opening of materials from the library’s vast storage areas in which more than twenty million items awaited perusal and cataloguing. The occasion marked an opportunity to peer through a window into the private lives of others, a legal voyeuristic experience that was both valuable to the understanding of history and titillating.

On the other hand, Kathryn wasn’t anxious to face questions from her colleagues about Rich, his book, or his disappearance. She’d received a number of calls from fellow workers since the news broke, friendly inquiries in search of firsthand inside information to share with the curious.

A call shortly after seven made the decision for her.

“Hey,” a voice said.

“Rich. I was hoping you’d call.”

“I’m in a booth, can’t talk long. Look, I’ve decided what to do.”

She sighed with relief. It didn’t matter what decision he’d made, as long as it resulted in some sort of action. As the shrinks say, “Any action is better than no action. At least you have a fifty-fifty chance of being right.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll fill you in when I see you. You going in to work today?”

“I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Go. I’ll contact you there this afternoon. Can you get out early?”

“I suppose so. Rich, what’s going on? What have you decided?”

“I’m going to New York.”

“New York? When?”

“Later today, after you and I do a few things. Look, I have to run. Call you.”

He hung up.

As she showered, the FBI agent monitoring the tap on her phone cursed under his breath. He’d picked up only the last few words of the conversation, not enough to nail down the location from which the call had been placed.

When the second call came moments later, she’d emerged from the shower wrapped in a terrycloth robe, her wet hair secured with a towel. The phone tap was working fine.

“Kathryn, it’s Ellen.”

“Hi.”

“So what are you and Rich going to do?”

“I don’t know, Ellen. Rich just called and-”

“He did? Where is he?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Kathryn, for God’s sake, Rich has to turn over those tapes.”

“Ellen, I can’t help you or Geoff. Please try and understand. Look, I just came out of the shower and have to go to work. When I talk again with Rich, I’ll tell him how much you and Geoff want to speak with him and urge him to call. Okay?”

“It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?” Ellen said, not sounding happy.

Tim Stripling checked in from home with the Com Center at the Hoover Building and was told of the conversation between Kathryn and Ellen Kelly. The botched pickup between Kathryn and Marienthal wasn’t mentioned. Stripling told them he’d be available all day, his cell phone on. After going through a pot of coffee, he abandoned an earlier plan to hang around the house and decided instead to get in the car and cruise the neighborhood surrounding Union Station, where the previous call from Marienthal had been made. If Marienthal called again, he wanted to be able to respond as quickly as possible to the location.