“Have you heard from Canning?”
“His cover is blown.”
“But how is that possible?”
“I don't know,” McAlister said wearily. “The only people who knew about him were me, you, and Rice.”
“Where is he now?”
“Tokyo.”
“Then it's about time for us to send his name along to the Chairman.”
“No, sir. Canning just arrived in Tokyo. He's a full day behind schedule, thanks to some trouble he ran into in Los Angeles.” He quickly explained about that.
“Yes, Bob, but now that his cover has been blown, I don't see any reason for us to keep his identity a secret from the Chairman until the very last minute.”
“Well, sir, the Chairman's going to want to know how Canning will be arriving in Peking. You can tell him our man will be aboard one of the two dozen authorized flights from Tokyo to Peking. But I'd like to keep that a secret until the plane is in the air.”
“Okay,” the President said. “We'll send all the data except the name of the flight — and we'll stat that by satellite as soon as it takes off from Tokyo. Which flight is it?”
“For now,” McAlister said, “I'd like to keep it a secret from you as well as the Chairman, sir.”
The President hesitated, sighed, and said, “Very well. Is there anything else?”
Once more the President had stopped clicking his tongue. McAlister was happier when he could hear that sound, for then he didn't have to wonder what the man was doing. He longed for another series of clicks. He thought; I'm going mad. And he said, “Sir, there's something I believe we have to do, but it's beyond my jurisdiction. Are you open for a suggestion?”
“I'm always open for suggestions.”
“Arrest A. W. West.”
There was a long silence on the line.
“Sir,” McAlister said, “we strongly suspect that he's one of the men behind The Committee, behind Dragonfly. Arresting him might throw the organization into confusion. That might buy us time. And they might panic, start making mistakes.”
“We have no proof against him,” the President said sternly. “We may suspect that West is behind it, but we have nothing that would convince a judge.”
“Then arrest him for the Kennedy assassinations. We know that he was one of the people who financed all of that.”
“We have circumstantial proof. Only circumstantial proof. We may know that he was part of a conspiracy, but again we have nothing to show a judge, nothing concrete. Furthermore, I thought we had all made a policy decision not to open that can of worms and throw the country into a turmoil.”
McAlister sagged in his chair.
“Do you agree, Bob?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, exhausted. The bourbon was getting to him. His mind was clouded.
“I'll leave instructions with my secretary to put you through to me at any hour. If something comes up, call me at once.”
“Yes, sir. And, Mr. President?”
“Yes?”
“If you have any speaking engagements over the next few days — cancel them.”
“I have none,” the President said soberly.
“Don't even go for walks on the White House grounds.”
“And stay away from windows too?”
“Sir, if you were assassinated now, we'd be thrown into such turmoil that we'd never be able to stop Dragonfly — if it's stoppable under any conditions.”
“You're right, of course. And I've had the same thoughts myself. Did you take my advice about a bodyguard?”
“Yes, sir,” McAlister said. “There are five men stationed in my house tonight.”
“FBI?”
“No, sir. I don't trust the FBI. These are Pinkerton men. I hired them out of my own pocket”
“I suppose that's wise.”
McAlister sipped some of the melted ice in his glass. “We sound like true psychotics, thoroughbred paranoids. I wonder if we're ready for an institution?”
“Someone once said that if you think everyone is out to get you, and everyone is out to get you, then you're not a paranoid but merely a realist.”
Sighing, McAlister said, “Yes, but what are we coming to? What are we coming to when wealthy men can hire the assassination of the President — and get away with it? What are we coming to when private citizens and crackpot elements of the CIA can find the means to wage biological warfare against a foreign country? What are we coming to when all this can be happening — and you and I are so relatively calm about it, reasonable about it?”
“Bob, the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket — if that's what you're saying. It got pretty bad there for a while. But we're straightening it up, cleaning it up. That's what my administration is all about.”
And how many times have I heard that before? McAlister wondered.
The President said, “Bit by bit we're putting it all back together, and don't you forget that.”
“I wonder,” McAlister said. He was seldom this morose, and he realized that Dragonfly was the final catalyst necessary to start major changes in him. He didn't know what those changes might be; they were still developing. “Sometimes I think the world just gets crazier and crazier. It certainly isn't the world that I was taught about when I was a young man in Boston.”
“You're just tired.”
“I suppose.”
“Do you want me to relieve you? Would you like someone else to take over the agency?”
McAlister sat up straight. “Oh, Christ, no! No, sir.” He wiped one hand across his face. “I can't think of any other poor son of a bitch" — and here he was cursing again—"who could have stood up to these last six months as well as I have. That's not egomania — it's just fact.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Thank you.”
“We'll get through this.”
“I hope you're right.”
“I want to be informed the moment there are any major developments. And if you don't call me, if nothing comes up, I'll still give you a ring around five o'clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get some rest.”
“I'll try.”
“Goodnight, Bob.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
The President clicked his tongue and hung up.
While McAlister was on the telephone with the President, Andrew Rice was in his car, cruising around one of the unofficial red-light districts of Washington. He drove slowly past a couple of blocks of cocktail lounges, cheap bars, adult movie theaters and bookstores, boutiques, pawnshops, and shuttered delicatessens. Young and generally attractive girls, alone and in groups of two or three, stood at the curb near the bus stops. Although they were dressed and posed provocatively, many of them were trying to look — for the benefit of the police, who were not deceived but pretended to be — as if they were waiting for a bus or a cab or their boyfriends. They were all prostitutes; and Rice had already driven through the area once before in order to study and compare the merchandise. Finally, he turned a corner, pulled his Thunderbird to the curb, stopped near two flashily dressed young girls, and put down the automatic window on the passenger's side.
A tall blonde in a tight white pantsuit and a short red vinyl jacket leaned in at the open window. She smiled at him and said, “Hello there.”
“Hi.”
“Nice night, after all that rain.”
“Yes, it is.”
She looked him over, studied the leather-upholstered interior of the car. She said nothing more.
“Ah…” His hands were slippery with sweat. He was gripping the wheel so hard that his knuckles were bloodless; they poked up sharp and hard in his fat fingers. “I'm looking for someone.”