Line of Succession

“Even though the alternative is Hollander?”

“You’re thinking in terms of immediate expediency, Bill. You always do. I’m thinking of the long haul. I don’t think we can jeopardize the whole meaning of the Constitution for the sake of a temporary crisis.”

“It won’t be temporary if Hollander gets to spend four years in the White House. It may be the most permanent thing that’s ever happened to this country. If you agree a

“Let’s leave out the sarcasms, shall we?” Grant’s voice beat rolling echoes around his office. Past Grant’s head through the window Satterthwaite could see the shell of the Capitol with snow on it. The building didn’t look much different on the outside from before the bombings. A few construction trailers drawn up against the East Portico, a larger number of guards than there had been a month ago. A bit of absurdity in that, since nobody was inside it except workmen.

Fitzroy Grant’s dewlappy face turned slightly and picked up some light from the window; his eyes looked sad. He ran a hand carefully over the neat wave in his white hair. “Look Bill, the majority will vote with you anyway. My vote won’t matter.”

“Then why not throw in with us?”

The deep slow velvet voice was only faintly ironic. “Call it principle if you like. I realize the truth can’t prevail against a false idea whose time has come. But I have to follow my own inclinations.”

“Can I ask at least for an abstention?”

“No. I’m going to vote against.”

“Even if you turn out to be the swing vote?”

“I’m not that low in the alphabet.”

“I’m backpedaling, you can see that. I’m not used to this kind of horsetrading. But it does seem to me there ought to be somewhere where we could meet on common ground. Some kind of compromise.”

Grant seemed to smile. “You’re not half bad at it, Bill. Don’t run yourself down as a politician.”

“Well I sure don’t seem to be getting anywhere with you.”

“Howard Brewster’s pushing too hard, Bill. Love me love my ideas. He’s put himself on the line—everything he’s ever been, everything he’s got. One throw of the dice. All right, I realize he’s feeling the heat. I don’t like Hollander either. But this arrogance from the White House—that’s what I can’t stand. Frankly I believe we can handle Hollander. Hamstring him. There are ways, if only Congress will show the gumption. Hollander’s less of a threat than Howard Brewster, to my mind—because if Brewster puts this over on the country it’ll be one more nail in the coffin of the republic. The Roman Caesars came to power by stealing it away from the Senate. Brewster’s trying to get Congress to reinstate him in an office he just got through losing in a popular election. It smacks of coup d’état to me. I’m afraid I simply haven’t got the conscience to back this move. That’s all there is to it.”

“Fitz, you talked to the President yesterday, and——”

“Let’s say the President talked to me.”

“——and you told him you couldn’t support him. But you agreed to keep the secret until he opened it up. Why?”

“My peculiar brand of personal loyalty I suppose. He made it personal. We’ve been friends for thirty years.”

“Then may I prevail on that friendship for at least this much—that you agree not to campaign actively against the President’s move?”

“By actively you mean publicly.”

“No. I mean privately as well. While the committee is getting ready to report out the bill will you agree not to perform any of that quiet arm-twisting you’re so famous for?”

Fitzroy Grant chuckled amiably. “Fu

“I’d appreciate an answer.”

“Very well, I’ll give you one. But it requires a bit of a preamble. With me they always do.”

Satterthwaite thought of looking at his watch, thought better of it, waited. He was thinking of the hard-backed chairs over in the Executive Office Building that would be filled in an hour’s time by the rumps of two dozen congressional leaders, among whose number the President hoped Fitzroy Grant yet might appear.

“When you look out around you today,” Grant said, “you see nothing but the wreckage that’s been left by these incredible atrocities and outrages. To my mind that’s the inevitable result of our weakness as a people. The libertarian principles have obviously failed. For altogether too long we allowed these goons of the so-called New Left to spread sedition and terror. We stood by and listened while they boasted openly of the violence they were going to do us. Our well-intentioned lawmakers chose to call this treason ‘dissent’ while the goons were ambushing cops and plotting sabotage and laying the groundwork for insurrection right under our noses. Now it seems to me——”

“Fitz, you’re condemning an entire society with guilt by association. There’s no proof more than a handful of criminals had any part in these atrocities. Their leaders aren’t even Americans.”

“I’ve been hearing that until it’s come out my ears.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“It’s totally beside the point. The point is that a society is too permissive, too weak, and too open to further attacks when it allows such things to happen as we’ve seen happen in the past couple of weeks.”

“Yet the alternative is a kind of fascism. That’s what Hollander wants—it’s also what the radicals want.”

“Fascism’s a strange word, Bill. It used to mean something specific. It doesn’t any longer. It’s just an epithet we use to indicate hatred of our enemies. If this country’s in any real danger of being taken over by a fascist sort of movement I think that danger exists in the nature of Howard Brewster’s effort to bend the Constitution far more than it exists in the senile brain of a weak old man like Wendy Hollander. Hollander’s a fool and everybody can see that—that’s our means of defense against him.”

“Mussolini was a bit of a fool in his later years. It didn’t stop him from maintaining the stranglehold on his country.”

“Until they killed him.”

“You think we ought to kill Hollander then?”

“No. I suppose most of us have thought of it though. I’m sure Howard Brewster has.”

“It’s been mentioned.”

“Why do you suppose he rejected it, Bill?”

“Why do you reject it?”

“Because I’m not a murderer. But then I’m not bucking for a second term in the White House.”

“That’s slanderous, Senator.”

“I expect it is. There’s probably some truth in it, however.” Grant’s chin lifted. His head was silhouetted against the window and Satterthwaite had a poor view of his face but the eyes seemed to gleam out at him. “Bill, that speech I just gave you about the country’s lack of strength—about the permissiveness that allows these things to happen. Did that ring a bell with you?”

“Sure. I’ve heard a lot of people use those arguments. I half believe some of them myself.”

“Ever heard Howard Brewster talk that way?”

“On occasion.”

“I’m talking about recently. Within the past two or three days.”

“No.”

“Well I’ve got news for you, son. Those were almost the exact words he used when he talked to me yesterday in his office.”

“It makes sense,” Satterthwaite said, half defensively.

“Howard Brewster’s kind of sense, you mean. He’d naturally use that sort of conservative spiel with me because he wants my support. Is that what you think?”

“I think it’s possible he might have come on a bit strong in that direction for your benefit,” Satterthwaite said cautiously. “After all he wouldn’t want you to think he was going to be too soft on the radicals.”

“Because that might send me scooting right over into Wendy’s camp, is that it?”

“Something like that. Hell, we’re all adults here. Is that the first time anybody’s ever tried to reassure you that way?”