The Fourth K

Elizabeth was usually amused by his vulgarities, especially in bed, but she was not amused now. "His exercising executive privilege will damage him," she said. "The papers and TV will crucify him."

"OK, we can do that," Sal said. "But how about if just you and me go to see Oddblood Gray and try to pin him down?

We can't make him talk but maybe he will. He's an idealist at heart, and maybe psychologically he's horrified at the way Klee botched the atom bomb incident. Maybe he even knows something concrete."

It was unfortunate that they picked Oddblood Gray to question. Gray was reluctant to see them, but Elizabeth's friendship with Vice President Helen Du Pray was the deciding factor in their favor. Gray had a tremendous respect for Du Pray.

Sal Troyca opened the discussion by asking, "Isn't it odd that the Attorney General, Christian Klee, had those two young men in custody before the explosion and never got any information out of them?"

"They stood on their Constitutional rights," Gray said cautiously.

Troyca said dryly, "Klee has the reputation of being a rather forceful and resourceful man. Could two kids like Gresse and Tibbot stand up against him?"

Gray shrugged. "You never know about Klee," he said.

It was Elizabeth Stone who put the question directly. "Mr. Gray," she said, "do you have any knowledge or even have any reason to believe that the

Attorney General secretly interrogated those two young men?"

Gray felt a sudden rush of anger at this question. But wait, why the hell should he protect Klee? he thought. After all, most of the people killed in New York had been black. "This is off the record," he said, "and I will deny it under oath. Klee did conduct a secret interrogation with all the listening devices turned off. There is no record. It is possible to believe the worst. But if you do, you must believe the President had no part in it."

CHAPTER

19

ON THIS EARLY MAY MORNING before meeting with the President, Helen Du Pray went on a five-mile run to clear her head. She knew that not only the administration but she herself was at a very dangerous crossroad.

It was pleasant to know that at this point in time she was a hero to Ke

There were many dangerous problems. What had Klee really done? Was it possible he could have prevented the atom bomb explosion? And had he let it explode because he knew it would save the President? She could believe that of Klee but not of Francis Ke

And yet. And yet. There was in the persona of Ke

Congress to do his will. And what would he make that Congress do? It was clear that Ke

For she recognized that Ke

She felt the sweat on her back, her thigh muscles ached, she dreamed of ru

Dr. Zed A

It wasn't so bad when he dealt with Francis Ke

Ke

Until he began serving in Washington, Dr. A

He found it incredible that mankind still waged war, at enormous cost and to no advantage. That individual men and women still killed each other, when there were treatments that could dissipate the murderous tendencies in human beings. He found it contemptible that the science of genetic splicing was attacked by politicians and the news media as if tampering with biology were a corruption of some holy spirit. Especially when it was obvious that the human race as now genetically constituted was doomed.

Dr. A

Which made Dr. A

Typical asshole reasoning. And President Ke

There would have been time.

It was regrettable, to say the least, that so many people had been killed or injured. But A

But these two kids were obviously thinking of sociological controls, not scientific ones. They were thinking of repressing science, halting its march forward. The real answer, of course, was to change the genetic structure of man so that violence would become an impossible act. To put brakes in the genes and in the brain as you ~on a locomotive. It was that simple.

While waiting in the Cabinet Room of the White House for the President to arrive, A