The Fourth K

She paused for a moment and then said, "You don't know anything about it. And I think you're getting a little queer about Campbell."

Again he saw the snow stained with her blood, little flashing rivers, a prickling of red dots. But he said with complete control, "What exactly do you mean?"

"You're a little weird, you know," Irene said. "That's why I liked you in the begi

"You thought that, and then you left him with me anyway?" Jatney said.

"Oh, I know you wouldn't harm him," Irene said. "But I just thought me and Campbell should split and go on to India."

"It's OK," David said.

They let Campbell completely destroy the snowman, then they all got into the van and started the twenty-mile drive into Washington. When they pulled into the interstate, they were astonished to see it full of cars and buses as far as the eye could see. They managed to inch into the traffic, but it took four hours before the endless monstrous steel caterpillar spilled them into the capital.

The inaugural parade wound through the broad avenues of Washington, led by the presidential cavalcade of limousines. It progressed slowly, the enormous crowd overflowing the police barricades at spots and impeding progress. The wall of uniformed police began to crumble under the millions of people who pushed against them.

Three cars full of Secret Service men preceded Ke

The car directly behind Francis Ke

The car carrying the presidential staff came to a complete stop, and Oddblood Gray looked out the window. "Oh shit, the President is getting out and walking," he said.

"If he's walking we have to walk with him," Eugene Dazzy said.

Gray looked at Christian Klee, and said, "Look-Helen's getting out of her car, too. This is dangerous. Chris, you have to stop him. Use that veto of yours."

"I haven't got it anymore," Klee said.

Arthur Wix said, "I think you'd better call a whole lot more Secret Service men down here."

They all got out of the car and formed a wall to march behind their President.

The large snowflakes were still swirling in the air, but they felt no more substantial on the body of Francis Ke

David Jatney pushed out a space in the crowd that would shelter himself and Irene, who held Campbell in her arms because he would have been trampled otherwise-the crowd kept shifting in waves like an ocean.

They were no more than four hundred yards from the viewing stands when the presidential limousine came into their line of sight. It was followed by official cars holding dignitaries– Behind them was the endless crowd that would pass before the viewing stand in the inaugural parade. David estimated that the presidential limousine was a little more than the length of a football field away from his vantage point. Then he noticed that parts of the crowd lining the avenue had surged out into the avenue itself and forced the cavalcade to halt.

Irene screamed, "He's getting out. He's walking. Oh, my God, I have to touch him." She slung Campbell into Jatney's arms and tried to duck under the barrier, but one of the long line of uniformed police stopped her. She ran along the curb and made it through the initial picket line of policemen only to be stopped by the i

Campbell in her arms. The Secret Service men would have recognized that she was not a threat and she might have slipped through while they were thrusting back the others. He could see her being swept back to the curb, and then another wave of people swept her up again and she was one of the few people who managed to slip through and shake the President's hand and then was kissing the President on the cheek before she was roughly pulled away.

David could see that Irene would never make it back to him and Campbell. She was just a tiny dot in the mass of people that was now threatening to engulf the broad expanse of the avenue. More and more people were pressing against the outer security rim of uniformed police; more and more were hitting against the i

And then David Jatney felt a suffusion of warmth through his body. He thought of the past days in Washington, the sight of the many buildings erected to establish the authority of the state: the marble columns of the Supreme Court and the memorials, the stately splendor of the faradesindle structible, irremovable. He thought of Hock's office in its splendor, guarded by his secretaries, he thought of the Mormon Church in Utah with its temples blessed by special and particularly discovered angels. All these to designate certain men as superior to their fellows. To keep ordinary men like himself in their place. And to direct all love on to themselves. Presidents, gurus, Mormon elders built their intimidating edifices to wall themselves away from the rest of humanity, and knowing well the envy of the world, guarded themselves against hate. Jatney remembered his glorious victory in the "hunts" of the university; he had been a hero then, that one time in his life. Now he patted Campbell soothingly to make him stop crying. In his pocket, underneath the cold steel of the.22, his hand found the candy bar and gave it to Campbell.

Then, still holding the boy in his arms, he stepped from the curb and ducked under the barriers.

David Jatney was filled with wonder and then a fierce elation. It would be easy. More of the crowd were overflowing the outer rim of uniformed police; more of those were piercing the i