Line of Succession

“Andrew Bee,” Krayle breathed. “Jesus Christ, Bill, I think you’ve damn well got something there.”

9:45 A.M. EST The big jet landed at Andrews and when it taxied to a stop Lime unbelted himself and left the plane, unrefreshed by the six hours’ sleep above the Atlantic. The scrambler call from Satterthwaite had reached him at Gibraltar and he had obeyed instructions, coming on ahead of the others in a virtually empty plane, leaving Chad Hill in charge to bring all the bodies home, living and dead.

There was no sun. The runway was a little misty, the pavement slick. It was a day filled with gray gloom. An Air Force FOLLOW ME jeep came hissing along to the plane and Satterthwaite was in the passenger seat.

They reached the White House at ten-thirty. The Secret Service people nodded to Satterthwaite and greeted Lime with grave welcomes. Their movements were tracked by many alert eyes while they made their way to the President’s sanctum. Here and there a crate stood in a quiet corner: Brewster had packed weeks ago and it would have been unseemly to begin unpacking again.

Margaret kept them cooling their heels for nearly twenty minutes before they were admitted. Whoever had shared the President’s company in the interval had departed by the side door.

Brewster greeted them with ill-controlled anger. Lime, closing the door after Satterthwaite, looked at the President and was struck by the sheer physical size of the man as he had been struck by it before. On his feet Brewster loomed, he filled the big office the way a caged tiger filled his cell.

“What’s all the mystery, Bill?”

“We have to talk to you, Mr. President.”

“About this Andy Bee business I assume?”

Satterthwaite couldn’t help a little smile. “How long have you known?”

“Several hours. I’ve got a lot of ears—you of all people ought to know that.” The President’s eyes flicked briefly across Lime’s face: quite obviously he wanted to know what Lime was doing here, why he was with Satterthwaite. Quickly Brewster’s attention went back to Satterthwaite: “I suppose it’s an appropriate time for me to make a little ‘Et tu Brute’ speech. It was you, wasn’t it? Or did my sources foul that up?”

“It was me.”

Brewster nodded; the big head shifted, the eyes examined Lime and Satterthwaite in turn. Lime felt the force in them; he met the President’s stare uneasily.

Brewster said, “And now I suppose you’re ready to explain to me all the reasons why I should step aside and yield to Andy Bee.”

The conversation had very little reality for Lime. He was tired, he wasn’t a political animal; out of place, he only watched and awaited his cue.

The President said, “I guess you’ve been letting Fitz Grant bend your ear.”

“Fitz believes you intend to crack down on thousands of radicals.”

“I might have had that in mind. It’s a human reaction, Bill.”

“And now?”

“I’m still thinking on it.”

“It’d be a mistake the country would never recover from.”

“It might,” the President said, “but not for the reason you think it would.”

“No?”

“They need cracking down on, Bill. God how they need it. If we can’t hold up our heads in this country and fight back at the subversives who want to destroy us—Christ, if you won’t fight you deserve to lose. But I’m in a pickle now. I wish I’d foreseen it. I campaigned against Wendy Hollander on a ticket of moderation and tolerance. If I turned around and destroyed the radicals the way I should, the country’d have my hide in strips.” An odd smile, a quick hand gesture. “Puts me in a corner, don’t it.”

“Fitz Grant did say something like that. You’d end up looking like Johnson to Hollander’s Goldwater.”

“All right. But that’s not what you’re here to talk about. Is it.”

“There are reasons,” Satterthwaite said—and Lime felt the bitter reluctance—“why you must stand aside and support the Bee nomination.”

“Are there?”

“Several. For one thing there’s a legal technicality. I won’t go into detail at this point but we’re fairly certain Wendy Hollander has a basis to challenge you if you leave things stand as they are. He can maintain that according to the law he became President-elect the minute Milton Luke died, and that the amendment you passed in Congress was not binding because it would have had to be retroactive.”

“He’d have a hell of a time making that stick.”

“Mr. President, he could tear the country apart on that issue.”

“He could try. I’d be willing to fight it.”

“All right. Then consider the flimsy position you’re in with the public. They’ll call you a despot and a dictator and a lot of other names. They’ll insist you’ve flouted the Constitution and the will of the electorate. They’ll be calling for your resignation—in fact I wouldn’t put it past some of them, not only the leftists but the Hollander wing as well, to start impeachment proceedings.”

“They wouldn’t get far.”

“Far enough to whip the public into a frenzy. Do you want battle lines drawn up in the streets?”

“You’re forecasting civil war. That’s fanciful.”

“No, Mr. President, I don’t think it is. Because your opposition will have a piece of ammunition you won’t be able to defend yourself against.” Satterthwaite whipped around to Lime. “David, I want you to tell the President exactly what happened to Clifford Fairlie.”

The President was taken aback for the first time. Lime saw it; he had been watching the man steadily.

Lime told it straight. “You could call it an accident,” he concluded, “but any way you cut it, he was killed by agents of the American Government, not by his kidnappers.”

“Well yes, but——”

“There were half a dozen of us in the room at the time that dart was fired, Mr. President. There must have been twenty of us in the place by the time the doctor a

Satterthwaite raised a hand, palm out. Lime’s part of it was concluded and Satterthwaite picked up the ball. “They’ll claim we did it deliberately of course. They’ll say you wanted Fairlie dead to perpetuate yourself in office.”

The President drew himself up. “Bill, you don’t walk into the office of the President of the United States with a cheap attempt at blackmail. For the love of——”

“No sir. You misunderstand. David and I aren’t threatening you. If the accusations are made—and believe me they will be—we’ll both back you to the hilt. We’ll tell the absolute truth. Don’t forget David and I are implicated just as deeply as you are, if not more so. We’ll have to defend ourselves and of course we’ll do it with the truth. You didn’t murder Fairlie. Nobody murdered him. It was a freak accident, the result of our ignorance of one fact—the fact that Fairlie had been doped up so heavily before we reached him.”

Satterthwaite took a ragged breath. “But who’s going to believe us, Mr. President?”

Brewster’s face was suffused with a rush of blood. “I don’t like being bulldozed, Bill. There’ve been ridiculous rumors and accusations before.”

“Not like these.”

“Don’t you remember the slanders against Lyndon Johnson after the Ke

“It wasn’t the same, Mr. President. Ke

“From what you say there’ll be rumors whether or not I remain in this seat. That’s the weakness in your strategy, Bill.”

“No sir. If you step down now it’ll prove you had nothing to gain by Fairlie’s death. It won’t stop the rumors but it’ll take the force out of them. Their target will be a retired politician, not the incumbent President of the United States. There’s a world of difference.”