Scruff

  “It was the basis of my discussions. Finally the only basis.”

  “Were you told why?”

  “Yes.… I’m sorry.”

  The President searched Trevayne’s face, and Andrew felt sick. He didn’t want to look at this good, fine man, but he knew he could not waver.

  “My health?” asked the President simply.

  “Yes.”

  “Cancer?”

  “I inferred that.… I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s a lie.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “I said it’s a lie.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “You’re not reading me, Mr. Trevayne. It is a lie. The simplest, crudest lie that can be used in the political arena.”

  Trevayne’s jaw fell slack as he looked at the maturely lined, strong features of the man behind the desk. The President’s eyes were steady, conveying the truth of his statement.

  “Then I’m a damn fool.”

  “I’d rather that than face the diminishing returns of cobalt.… I have every intention of assuming the standard of my party, campaigning, and being returned to office. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Trevayne.” William Hill spoke softly. “Please accept my apologies. You’re not the only damn fool in this room.” The old man attempted a tight-lipped smile. “We’re neck-and-neck on a slow track for last place.… We’re both a little ludicrous.”

  “Who specifically read you my premature obituary?”

  “It was read twice. The first time was at the Villa d’Este in Georgetown. I went there a skeptic—to see who would try to buy off the subcommittee report. To my astonishment, no one did; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. I emerged a three-quarters candidate.”

  “You still haven’t—”

  “Sorry. Senator Alan Knapp. In what I think was called ‘true bipartisan spirit,’ he made the announcement that you were leaving at the end of your present term. And the good of the country came first.”

  The President, turning his head only slightly in Hill’s direction, spoke. “You’ll follow this up, Bill?”

  “The energetic Senator will retire before the end of the month. Consider it a Christmas present, Mr. President.”

  “Go on, please.”

  “The second instance was in New York. At the Waldorf. I held what I believed was a showdown with Aaron Green and Ian Hamilton.… I thought I’d won; therefore, the report as you read it. Hamilton said you wouldn’t live out a second term; you were putting up either the Vice President or the Governor of New York. They couldn’t accept either one.”

  “Scylla and Charybdis strike again, eh, Bill?”

  “They’ve gone too far!”

  “They always do. Don’t touch them.”

  “I understand.”

  Trevayne watched the short interplay between the two older men. “Mr. President, I don’t understand. How can you say that? Those men should—”

  “We’ll get to that, Mr. Trevayne,” interrupted the President. “One last question. When did you learn that you’d been manipulated? Manipulated brilliantly, I might add, now that I see the pattern.”

  “Paul Bonner.”

  “Who?”

  “Major Paul Bonner—”

  “From the Pentagon,” said the President as a statement of fact. “The one who killed that man up at your house in Connecticut?”

  “Yes, sir. He saved my life; he’ll be acquitted of the murder charge. He then faces court-martial; he’s being drummed out.”

  “You don’t think that’s justified?”

  “I do not. I don’t agree very often with the Major, but—”

  “I’ll review it,” cut in the chief executive as he hastily scribbled a note on his desk. “What did this Bonner tell you?”

  Andrew paused briefly; he wanted to be precise, completely accurate. He owed that to Bonner. “That a brigadier general named Cooper, in a state of depression, anxiety, told him I was the Pentagon’s candidate; that the irony of the Major’s situation was that in the final analysis …” Trevayne paused again, embarrassed by his own words. “Bonner’s court-martial might be rescinded by executive intervention.… My intervention.”

  “Good Lord,” uttered Hill almost inaudibly.

  “And?”

  “It didn’t make sense. I looked upon my meeting with Hamilton and Green as a success, a capitulation on their part. I was sure of two things. The first was that I was not their candidate; the second, that they accepted my terms. They were getting out.… Bonner’s information contradicted everything I believed.”

  “So you called in Cooper,” said the President.

  “I did. And I learned not only that I was the Pentagon’s—Genessee Industries’—candidate, but I had been from the beginning. Every resource of the military—Army intelligence data banks, industrial collusion, even interservice voting indoctrinations—they’d all be used to ensure my election. Management, labor, the service ballot; voting blocs guaranteed by Genessee. There was no capitulation in New York; they weren’t getting out. They were wading me out. If I got the nomination—God forbid the office—I’d be hanged. To be independent, to expose them at that point, would be to expose myself.”

  “At which juncture—junctures—you’d destroy your candidacy or—God forbid—the national and international confidence of your administration,” completed the President.

  “They took considerable risks,” said William Hill. “It’s not like them.”

  “What alternative did they have, Bill? He couldn’t be bought. Or persuaded. If our young friend hadn’t gone to them, they would have come to him. Same solution, on the surface. Orderly retreat as opposed to economic chaos. I would have subscribed; so would you.”

  “You talk as if you know all about … them.”

  “A great deal, yes. Hardly ‘all.’ I’m sure there are areas you’ve covered that we’re not aware of. We’d appreciate a full briefing. Classified, of course.”

  “Classified? This material can’t be classified, Mr. President. It’s got to be made public.”

  “You didn’t think so twenty-four hours ago.”

  “The conditions weren’t the same.”

  “I’ve read the report; it’s entirely satisfactory.”

  “It’s not satisfactory. I spent five hours last night with a man named Goddard—”

  “Genessee. President, San Francisco Division,” said William Hill quietly, in response to the glance from the man behind the desk.

  “He walked out of San Francisco with four briefcases filled with Genessee commitments—extending for years. A good percentage of which have never been heard of before.”

  “I’m sure you’ll cover that in your briefing. The report stands as submitted.”

  “No. It can’t! I won’t accept that!”

  “You will accept it!” The President’s voice suddenly matched Trevayne’s. “You’ll accept it because it is the decision of this office.”

  “You can’t enforce that decision! You have no control over me!”

  “Don’t be so sure of that. You submitted—officially submitted—your report to this office. The document is over your signature. Incidentally, we have in our possession four copies with the seals unbroken. To speculate that this single report is not authentic; that it must be recalled because it’s been tampered with, shaped by the political ambitions of the subcommittee’s chairman, would raise the gravest issues. To allow you to recall it—for whatever the stated reasons—would also make my administration suspect. Our adversaries would claim we demanded changes. I can’t permit that. This office deals daily with both domestic and foreign complexities; you will not compromise our effectiveness in these areas because your ambitions have been thwarted. In this instance, we must remain above suspicion.”

  Trevayne’s voice conveyed his astonishment. He could hardly be heard. “That’s what they would have said.”

  “I have no compunctions stealing someone’s s
trategy if it has merit.”

  “And if I stand up and say it’s not authentic, not complete?”

  “Outside of the personal anguish—and ridicule—to which you subject yourself and your family,” said William Hill quietly, staring at Trevayne, “who would believe you?… You sold your credibility when you sent out that report yesterday morning. Now you wish to substitute a second? Perhaps there’ll be a third—if a group of politicians recommend you for the governorship. Even a fourth—there are other offices, other appointments. Where does the flexible chairman stop? Just how many reports are there?”

  “I don’t care about other people’s opinions. I’ve said it from the beginning—over and over again. I’ve nothing to gain or lose.”

  “Except your effectiveness as a functioning, contributive individual,” said the President. “You couldn’t live without that, Mr. Trevayne. No one with your abilities could. And it would be taken from you; you’d be isolated from the community of your peers. You’d never be trusted again. I don’t think you could live that existence. We all need something; none of us is totally self-sufficient.”

  Andrew, his eyes locked with the President’s, understood the essential truth of the man’s words. “You’d do that? You’d have it come out that way?”

  “I most certainly would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I must deal in priorities. Quite simply, I need Genessee Industries.”

  “No!… No. You can’t mean that. You know what it is!”

  “I know it serves a function; I know it can be controlled. That’s all I have to know.”

  “Today. Perhaps tomorrow. Not in a few years. It’s out to destroy.”

  “It won’t succeed.”

  “You can’t guarantee that.”

  The President suddenly slapped his hand on the arm of his chair and stood up. “No one can guarantee anything. There are risks every time I walk into this room; dangers every time I walk out.… You listen to me, Trevayne. I believe deeply in the capacity of this country to serve the decent instincts of her own people—and of mankind. But I’m practical enough to realize that in the service of this decency there must often be indecent manipulations.… Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. For surely you know not all the weapons will be turned into plowshares; Cain will murder Abel; the locusts will plague the land; and the oppressed will get goddamn sick and tired of looking forward to inheriting the creature comforts of an afterlife! They want something down here! And whether you like it or not—whether I like it or not—Genessee Industries is doing something about these things!… It’s my considered judgment that it is not a threat. It can and will be contained. Used, Mr. Trevayne. Used.”

  “With every turn,” said Hill with compassion, seeing the look of shock on Trevayne’s face, “there’s the constant seeking of solutions. Do you remember my telling you that? That search is the solution. It is continuously applied to such entities as Genessee Industries. The President is right.”

  “He’s not right,” replied Andrew quietly, painfully, looking at the man who stood behind the desk. “It’s no solution; it’s a surrender.”

  “An employable strategy.” The President sat down. “Eminently suited to our system.”

  “Then the system’s wrong.”

  “Perhaps,” said the President, reaching for some papers. “I haven’t the time to indulge in such speculations.”

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  “No,” answered the man, looking up from a page, dismissing Trevayne’s plea. “I have to run the country.”

  “Oh, my God …”

  “Take your moral outrage somewhere else, Mr. Trevayne. Time. Time is what I must deal with. Your report stands.”

  As if it were an afterthought, the President shifted the paper and extended his right hand over the desk as Andrew stood up.

  Trevayne looked at the hand, held steady, as the man’s eyes were steady.

  He did not accept it.

  52

  Paul Bonner looked around the courtroom for Trevayne. It was difficult to find him, for the crowds were milling, the voices pitched high, reporters demanding statements, and the incessant silent pops of flashbulbs were coming from all directions. Andrew had been there for the morning summations, and Paul thought it strange that he didn’t remain—at least for a while—to see if the jury would return an early verdict.

  It did.

  In one hour and five minutes.

  Acquittal.

  Bonner hadn’t worried. As the trial progressed he’d been confident that his own Army counsel could have handled the job without Trevayne’s elegant, hard-as-nails attorneys from New York. But there was no denying the value of their collective image. They were the essence of respectability; whenever they referred to the De Spadantes or their associates, there was implied revulsion. So successful were they that several members of the jury nodded affirmatively when the comparison was made between the professional soldier who, for years, had risked his life in the murderous jungles defending the nation’s institutions, and the brother-brokers who sought to bleed these same institutions of money and honor.

  Trevayne was nowhere to be found.

  Paul Bonner made his way through the crowd toward the courtroom door. He tried to maintain a grateful smile as he was jostled and yelled at. He promised to have a “statement later,” and mouthed the appropriate clichés about his abiding faith in the judicial system.

  The empty, hollow phrases that contradicted the terrible knowledge inside him. In less than a month he’d know the wrath of military intransigence. He wouldn’t win that fight. The battle had been decided.

  On the courthouse steps he looked for his uniformed escort, for the brown sedan that would take him back to Arlington, to his barracks arrest. It wasn’t in sight; it wasn’t parked where he’d been told it would be.

  Instead, a master sergeant, tunic and trousers creased into steel, shoes gleaming, approached Bonner.

  “If you’ll follow me, please, Major.”

  The automobile at the curb was a tan-metallic limousine, two flags mounted in the front, one on each side of the hood above the wide grille. They rustled hesitantly in the December breeze. Enough to reveal four gold stars on each laterally across a red background.

  The sergeant opened the right-rear door for Bonner as newsmen and photographers crowded around him firing questions and snapping pictures. Paul didn’t need to speculate on the identity of the General in the back seat. The reporters had established it in loud, excited voices.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States.

  The General offered no greeting as Bonner entered and sat beside him. He stared straight ahead at the glass partition separating the driver from his Very Important Passengers.

  Outside, the sergeant shouldered his way around the vehicle and got behind the wheel. The car drove off; at first slowly, the driver coldly impatient with the crowd, pressing the horn continuously in an effort to clear his path.

  “That little scene was ordered, Major. I hope you appreciate it.” The General spoke curtly, without looking at Bonner.

  “You sound as though you didn’t approve, sir.”

  The senior officer looked abruptly at Bonner, and then, just as rapidly, turned away. He reached over to the left door panel, to the elasticized pocket, and withdrew a manila envelope. “The second order I received was to deliver this to you personally. It is equally distasteful to me.”

  He handed the envelope to Bonner, who, bewildered, responded with an inaudible thank-you. The printing on the upper-left-hand corner told him that the contents were from the Department of the Army, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He ripped the flap open and extracted a single page. It was a copy of a letter from the White House, addressed to the Secretary of the Army and signed by the President of the United States.

  The language was terse, to the point, and left no room for interpretation—other than the degree of anger, perhaps hostility, felt by the author
.

  The President directed the Secretary of the Army to terminate forthwith all contemplated charges against Major Paul Bonner. Said Major Bonner was to be elevated immediately to the permanent rank of full colonel and entered within the month to the War College for highest-level strategic training. Upon completion of the War College curriculum—an estimated six months—Colonel Bonner was to be assigned as a liaison officer to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Paul Bonner put the letter carefully back into the envelope and sat silently beside the General. He closed his eyes and thought about the irony of it all.

  But he’d been right all along. That was the important thing.

  It was back to work.

  What did the beavers know?

  Yet he was strangely troubled; he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the escalation in rank. Not one jump, but two. It was disconcertingly parallel to a promise made on an icy Connecticut slope, words that ended with ripped flesh and finally death.

  But he wouldn’t dwell on it. He was a professional.

  It was a time for professionals.

  Ian Hamilton patted the wet fur of his Chesapeake retriever. The large dog kept running ahead on the snow-covered path to pick up a stray branch or a loose rock, bringing it back to its master for approval.

  It was a particularly gratifying Sunday morning, thought Hamilton. Ten days ago he wasn’t sure he’d be taking any more Sunday walks; at least not on the shores of Lake Michigan.

  All that was changed now. The fear was gone, and his normal sense of elation, the quiet elation that came with great accomplishment, returned. And the irony of it! The one man he had feared, the only one who had the real capacity to destroy them, had removed himself from the chessboard.

  Or had been removed.

  Either way, it proved that the course of action he’d insisted upon was the correct action. Aaron Green had nearly fallen apart; Armbruster spoke in panic of early retirement; Cooper—poor, beleaguered, unimaginative Cooper—had run to the Vermont hills, his uniform stained with the sweat of hysteria.

  But he, Ian Hamilton, who could trace his family back to the origins of the infant colossus, whose forebears were the lairds of Cambusquith, he’d held firm.