The Fourth K

Christian said, "What the hell, you only gave him seven days."

Ke

So they had gotten into the car. They had a wonderful day. Ke

Christian Klee started making arrangements to leave government service. One of the most important things was to erase any traces of his circumventing the law in his protection of the President. He had to remove all the illegal computer surveillances of the members of the Socrates Club.

Sitting at his massive desk in the Attorney General's office, Klee used his personal computer to erase incriminating files. Finally, he called up the file on David Jatney. He had been right on this guy, Klee thought, this guy was the joker in the deck. That darkly handsome face had the lopsided look of a mind unbalanced. Jatney’s eyes were bright with the scattered electricity of a neural system at war with itself. And the latest information showed that he was on his way to Washington.

This guy could be trouble. Then he remembered the Oracle's prediction. When a man rises to absolute power, he usually gets rid of those closest to him, those who know his secrets. He had loved Francis for his virtues. Long before the terrible secrets. He thought about it a long time. And then he thought, let fate decide. Whatever happened, he, Christian Klee, could not be blamed.

He pressed the delete key of the computer and David Jatney disappeared without a trace from all government files.

CHAPTER

25

JUST TWO Weeks before President Francis Ke

Jatney had become restless. He wanted to escape the eternal sunshine of

California, the richly friendly voices everywhere, the moonlit, balmy beaches. He felt himself drowning in the brown syrupy air of its society, and yet he did not want to go back home to Utah and be the daily witness to his father's and mother's happiness.

Irene had moved in with him. She wanted to save on rent money, to go on a trip to India and study with a guru there. A group of her friends were pooling their resources to charter a plane and she wanted to join them with her little son, Campbell.

David was astonished when she told him her plans. She did not ask him if she could move in with him, she merely asserted her right to do so. That right was based on the fact that they now saw each other three times a week for a movie and to have sex. She had put it to him as one buddy to another, as if he were one of her California friends who routinely moved in with each other for periods of a week or more. It was done not as a cu

What horrified David most of all was that Irene pla

Jatney was fascinated by Irene and how she treated her son. She often took little Campbell to her political meetings because she could not always get her mother to baby-sit and was too proud to ask too often. She took him with her sometimes even to work, when the special kindergarten he attended was closed for some reason.

There was no question that she was a devoted mother. But to David her attitude toward motherhood was bewildering. She did not have the usual concern to protect her child or worry about the psychological influences that could harm him. She treated him as one would treat a beloved pet, a dog or a cat. She seemed to care nothing for what the child thought or felt. She was determined that being the mother of a child would not limit her life in any way, that she would not make motherhood a bondage, that she would maintain her freedom. David thought she was a little crazy.

But she was a pretty woman, and when she concentrated on sex, she could be ardent. David enjoyed being with her. She was competent in the everyday details of life and was really no trouble. And so he let her move in.

Two consequences were completely unforeseen by him. He became impotent. And he became fond of Campbell.

He prepared for their moving in by buying a huge trunk to lock up his guns, the cleaning materials and the ammo. He didn't want a five-year-old kid accidentally getting his hands on weapons. And by now, somehow, David Jatney had enough guns to deck out a superhero bandit: two rifles, a machine pistol and a collection of handguns. One was a very small.22-caliber handgun he carried in his jacket pocket in a little leather case that was more like a glove. At night he usually put it beneath his bed. When Irene and Campbell moved in, he locked the.22 in the trunk with the other guns. He put a good padlock on the trunk. Even if the little kid found it open, there was no way he could figure out how to load it. Irene was another story. Not that he didn't trust her, but she was a little weird, and weirdness and guns didn't mix.

On the day they moved in, Jatney bought a few toys for Campbell so he wouldn't be too disoriented. That first night, when Irene was ready to go to bed, she arranged pillows and a blanket on the sofa for the little boy, undressed him in the bathroom and put him into pajamas. Jatney saw the little boy looking at him. There was in that look an old wariness, a glint of fear and very faintly what seemed to be a habitual bewilderment. In a flash Jatney translated that look to himself. As a little boy he knew his father and mother would desert him to make love in their room.

He said to Irene, "Listen, I'll sleep on the sofa an the kid can sleep with you."

"That's silly," Irene said. "He doesn't mind, do you, Campbell?"

The boy shook his head. He rarely spoke.

Irene said proudly, "He's a brave boy, aren't you, Campbell?"

At that moment, David Jatney felt a moment of pure hatred for her. He repressed it and said, "I have to do some writing and I'll be up late. I think he should sleep with you the first few nights."

"If you have to work, OK," Irene said cheerfully.

She held out her hand to Campbell and the little boy jumped off the sofa and ran into her arms. He hid his head in her breasts. She said to him,

"Aren't you going to say good night to your uncle Jat?" And she smiled brilliantly at David, a smile that made her beautiful. And he understood it was her own little joke, an honest joke, a way of telling him that this had been the mode of her address and introduction for her child when she lived with other lovers, delicate, fearful moments in her life, and that she was grateful to him for his thoughtfulness, that her faith in the universe was sustained.

The boy kept his head buried in her breasts and David patted him gently and said, "Good night, Campbell." The boy looked up and stared into Jatney's eyes. It was the peculiar questioning look of small children, the regard of an object that is absolutely unknown to their universe.

David was stricken by that look. As if he could be a source of danger.