The Fourth K

At that moment a very handsome black man blocked him off. His hand was extended. For a frantic moment Jatney thought he had seen the gun in his pocket and was demanding it. Then he realized that the man looked familiar and that he was just offering a handshake. They stared at each other for a long moment; Jatney looked down at the extended black hand, the black face smiling above it. And then he saw the man's eyes gleam with suspicion, the hand suddenly withdrawn. Jatney with a convulsive wrenching of all his bodily muscles threw Campbell at the black man and drew his gun from the windbreaker.

Oddblood Gray knew, in that moment when Jatney stared into his face, that something terrible was going to happen. He let the boy fall to the ground, and then with a quick shift of his feet put his body in front of the slowly advancing Francis Ke

He saw the gun.

Christian Klee, walking to the right and a little behind Francis Ke

It was some vague nightmare coming through-the reality did not sink in. The face he had called up on his computer screen these past nine months, the life he had monitored with computer and surveillance teams had suddenly sprung out of that shadowy mythology into the real world.

He saw the face not in the repose of surveillance photos but in the throes of exalted emotion. And he was struck by how the handsome face had become so ugly, as if seen through some distorted glass.

Klee was already moving quickly toward Jatney, still not believing the image, trying to certify his nightmare, when he saw Gray stretch out his hand. And Christian felt a tremendous feeling of relief. The man could not be Jatney, he was just a guy holding his kid and trying to touch a piece of history.

But then he saw the child in his red windbreaker and little woolen hat being hurled through the air. He saw the gun in Jatney's hand. And he saw Gray fall.

Suddenly Christian Klee, in the sheer terror of his crime, ran toward Jatney and took the second bullet in the face. The bullet traveled through his palate, making him choke on the blood, then there was a blinding pain in his left eye. He was still conscious when he fell. He tried to cry out, but his mouth was full of shattered teeth and crumbled flesh. And he felt a great sense of loss and helplessness. In his shattered brain, his last neurons flashed with thoughts of Francis Ke

In that same moment Francis Ke

David Jatney could not believe it had all happened. The black man lay where he had fallen. The white man alongside. The President of the United States was crumpling before his eyes, legs bent outward, arms flying up into the air as his knees finally hit the ground. David Jatney kept firing. Hands were tearing at his gun, at his body. He tried to run, and as he turned he saw the multitude rise and swarm like a great wave toward him and countless hands reach out to him. His face covered with blood, he felt his ear being ripped off the side of his head and saw it in one of the hands. Suddenly something happened to his eyes and he could not see. His body was racked with pain for one single moment and then he felt nothing.

The TV cameraman, his all-seeing eye on his shoulder, had recorded everything for the people of the world. When the gun flashed into sight, he had backed away just enough steps so that everyone would be included in the frame. He caught David Jatney raising the gun, he caught Oddblood Gray making his amazing jump in front of the President and go down, and then Klee receiving a bullet in his face and going down. He caught Francis Ke

He caught Jatney's look of stem determination as Francis Ke

Over the city, washing through the marble buildings and the monuments of power, rose the great wail of millions of worshipers who had lost their dreams.

CHAPTER

27

PRESIDENT HELEN DU PRAY held the Oracle's one-hundredth birthday party in the White House on Palm Sunday, three months after the death of Francis Ke

Dressed to understate her beauty, she stood in the Rose Garden and surveyed her guests. Among them were the former staff members of the Ke

Eugene Dazzy had already been told his dismissal was to take effect the next month. Helen Du Pray had never really liked the man. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Dazzy had young mistresses and was indeed already being excessively charming to Elizabeth Stone.

President Du Pray had appointed Elizabeth Stone to her staff-, Sal Troyca came with the package. But Elizabeth was exactly what she needed. A woman with extraordinary energy, a brilliant administrator, and a feminist who understood political realities. And Sal Troyca was not so bad; indeed he was a fortifying element with his knowledge of the trickeries of the Congress and his low brand of cu

After Du Pray assumed the presidency she had been briefed by Ke

After a month of study it became horrifyingly clear to her that Francis Ke

From where she stood in the Rose Garden, the trees not yet in full leaf,

President Du Pray could see the faraway Lincoln Memorial and the arching white of the Washington Monument, noble symbols of the city that was the capital of America. Here in the garden were all the representatives of America, at her special invitation. She had made peace with the enemies of the Ke

Present were Louis Inch, a man she despised, but whose help she would need. And George Greenwell, Martin Mutford, Bert Audick and Lawrence Salentine. The infamous Socrates Club. She would have to come to terms with all of them, which was why she had invited them to the White House for the Oracle's birthday party. She would at least give them the option of helping build a new America, as Ke

But Helen Du Pray knew that America could not be rebuilt without accommodations on all sides. Also, she knew that in a few years there would be a more conservative Congress elected. She could not hope to persuade the nation as Ke