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  was burning evenly. ‘You’ve seen the Polaroids for yourself?’

  ‘I’ve got copies of them here.’ Joe reached under the driver’s seat and produced a small buff envelope. He handed it to Titus and watched him closely for his reaction. Titus didn’t open the envelope at first, but tapped it against Joe’s sleeve.

  ‘You’ve tape-recorded the girl’s evidence?’

  ‘Better. Video-recorded it. And the evidence given by her friend.’

  ‘Her friend’s a hooker too?’

  ‘No. A chambermaid at the Las Vegas Futura.’

  Titus opened the envelope and took out the Polaroids. ‘Anything known?’

  ‘On the chambermaid, no. Clean as a whistle. First-class witness.’

  ‘Better and better, said Titus. He held the Polaroids up to the Cadillac’s dome light, and squinted at them narrowly.

  ‘You want your eyeglasses?’ asked Joe Jasper.

  Titus shook his head. ‘I can see what’s going on. A big fat guy in a toupee is lying on a hotel bed while a naked girl with very big gazongas is pissing straight into his mouth. Or am I mistaken? Maybe I’ve got it upside-down.’

  ‘It’s the correct way up, said Joe, tightly.

  ‘Well,said Titus, rubbing his eyes. This is pretty bad news for our glorious President, wouldn’t you say so? I mean, it’s obviously him.’

  Joe nodded.

  Titus examined another Polaroid, then another. T don’t know what the hell turns anybody on about doing that, he remarked, turning one of the pictures around to show it to Joe. Joe shrugged, non-committal. Titus demanded: ‘You don’t get turned on by doing that, do you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good, said Titus, shuffling the pictures and then rucking them back in their envelope. ‘Good.’ Then, after a

  long silence. ‘Wouldn’t want anybody on my staff capable of enjoying something that I don’t.’

  ‘Right,said Joe.

  Titus wiped the side of his filthy wader on Joe’s off-white rugs. Joe watched him in a kind of martyred fascination, while the names of several brand-names of auto upholstery cleaners went through his mind. Delco did quite a good one of their own, he remembered.

  ‘Question is,’ said Titus, ‘what are we going to do about this lady? What’s the best way to handle her?’

  Joe tried a smile, but then he realized that Titus hadn’t meant any double entendre, and quickly looked grave instead. ‘First off, we have to protect her,’ he said. ‘The minute the media get a sniff of what’s going on, they’re going to be after her like hounds. And if I know anything at all about Uncle Roberts, the. Unfortunate Accident Squad isn’t going to be close behind.’

  Titus nodded, and pursed his lips in serious acknowledgement. ‘You’re right, Joe. See to it. Fix her up in some dinky suburban house just outside of Washington. Rockville, some place like that. Keep her guarded, and make sure that” she’s available when we want her. Keep her happy. Give her good food, and lots of booze. Give her a couple of well-hung guys if that’s what she wants. Dope, anything. But keep her secret and keep her ready. Better still, I might persuade Nadine to take care of her.’

  ‘Yes, sir, said Joe.

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Titus.

  ‘Fort Worth, seeing her mother. But Nielsen’s with her.’

  Titus was about to say something lashing, but held his tongue. Just because he personally hated the sight of his own mother, that didn’t mean that other people shouldn’t go to visit theirs. It was one of those human aberrations that couldn’t be avoided, like excessive religiosity, or homosexuality, or reproduction furniture.

  ‘We’d better get back to the hotel, said Titus. ‘I want to talk to Senator Rodney.’

  There’s a phone right here, offered Joe, picking up the car telephone, and switching it on.

  ‘You think I want to talk to Senator Rodney in my waders?’ demanded Titus.

  ‘No, well, I guess not, said Joe.

  ‘Right then, said Titus, folding his arms. ‘Let’s go.’

  It took them only ten minutes to get back to the Elkswood Hotel, a white timber-lapped building overlooking the trees and the foggy curve of the Shenandoah River. Joe carried Titus’ fishing-tackle for him as Titus walked with loudly-wobbling waders through the lobby, and up to the two-bedroomed suite where he was staying. A Secret Service agent was sitting outside on a folding chair, deep in The Playboy Advisor. He got up and stood uncomfortably to attention when Titus came past, but Titus absent-mindedly squeezed his shoulder, and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Thanks for letting me get away for a couple of hours.’

  Joe raised an interrogative eyebrow at the agent as he followed Titus into the room, and it was clear from the agent’s slight inclination of his head that Titus had never been really alone. Another Secret Service agent would have been waiting patiently in the woods by the river, with a pair of binoculars and a high-powered rifle. Titus was too unpopular with too many nuts and oddballs to let him go off on his own, unprotected. Somebody had already taken two shots at him in Cleveland; and he had been hit on the side of the head in Fort Worth with a can of chick peas. His office received at least a dozen threatening letters a day, including a recurring promise of ‘fiery execution’ from somebody who called himself ‘the Great Blast’.

  ‘Fix me a drink, will you?’ Titus told Joe, as he struggled the shoulder straps off his waders, and unbuttoned his shirt. ‘No, it’s over there, inside that thing that looks like a writing-desk.’

  Joe opened the front of the desk, and found a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, and lead crystal glasses. He poured out a large splash of whiskey, and carried the glass to where Titus was now wrapping a royal-blue towelling bathrobe tight around his hard, grey-pelted body.

  Titus took his cigar out of his mouth just long enough to swallow a mouthful, and then coughed, ‘Get me Rodney on the phone.’

  Joe opened the black security briefcase which Titus carried with him wherever he went. It contained anti-bug-ging alarms, infra-red detection equipment, and a scrambler telephone which could be plugged straight into the wall socket like a normal telephone. He punched out the 414 number and waited for the call tone to disturb Senator Rodney in his large split-level house in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Senator Rodney was a keen fisherman, too, and most of the time he was able to spend back in his home state he devoted to the lake, and his 23-foot boat Spirit of Southport.

  Titus stood by the window looking out across the hotel driveway. It had been foggy all day, and now that evening was drawing in, it was almost impossible to see down as far as the river. A time of ghosts, he thought to himself. A time for cold visitations, and prophesies to come true. He believed in destiny, particularly the kind of destiny which stalked through castle bedchambers carrying a bloody knife.

  Titus had been a three-star general, Korea and Viet Nam. He had been the last general to leave Saigon; and he had always privately sworn to himself that he would be the first general back in again. At 52, he was fit, muscular, and handsome as an uncarved slab of Mount Rush-more. He exercised every morning, one hundred press-ups, fifty burpees, twenty back stretches. He could punch a hole through an average modern plywood door with his fist, and he had once laid a nuclear disarmament demonstrator out cold. He wasn’t rich. His father had owned a body shop in Peoria, Illinois. But he had been a tough and uncompromising soldier, and he made his way in politics with the help of powerful friends in the Pentagon, and campaign contributions from defence-related industries who were anxious that the tone of America’s foreign policy should remain hotly belligerent.

  Titus had once said, ‘I would rather see America melt

  than fall into Soviet hands.’ Newsweek had dryly remarked that when Israel Zangwill had referred to America as ‘the Great Melting-Pot’, that wasn’t exactly what he had had in mind.

  Joe suddenly said, ‘Senator Rodney? Good evening. Yes, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you at home. It’s Joe Jasper. I have Mr Alexander for you. No, from the Shenand
oah Valley.’

  Titus took the phone, wiping it first on his towelling robe as if Joe Jasper might have left some slime on it. ‘Ken? It’s Titus. How are you doing? Yes. Sure. Did you hear the latest on RING?’

  Senator Rodney was suffering from a summer cold, and he wheezed a little. ‘I heard that Marshall is already talking about standing down a third of our cruise missiles. Provided, of course, he gets some reasonable guarantees from Moscow on Afghanistan.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s partly correct,’ said Titus. He snapped his fingers at Joe to bring him over his drink. ‘He’s expecting some wider Soviet cutbacks in Europe as well; but still nothing that could possibly justify reducing our cruise missile complement by one-third.’

  Senator Rodney sniffed, and coughed. There was an NBC editorial last night saying that he was going soft on the Soviets for no particular reason at all. Compromise without credit they called it. And considering the way he used to talk, before he was inaugurated … He used to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and you know what , feel about arms limitation.’

  Titus swallowed more whiskey, and then said, ‘We may have a way of stiffening him up again.’

  ‘Is this why you’re calling?’ asked Senator Rodney, cautiously.

  That’s right. Joe Jasper has just stumbled across some very interesting visual and recorded material which shows President Marshall Roberts in a position which you might euphemistically call compromising.’

  ‘Witnesses?’

  The very best. The lady herself, and also another lady of spotless character who happened to see them go to his suite together, and who had the unenviable task of cleaning up when they’d finished.’

  ‘Cleaning up? What kind of cleaning up?’

  ‘I always said you were prurient, Ken. Let’s just say that our beloved President asked the lady to give him a little shower.’

  There was a digestive silence. On the other side of the room, Joe Jasper thrust his hands into his pockets and gave a funny little shiver of pleasure. Then Senator Rodney said, ‘What are you going to do? This is pretty hot stuff.’

  ‘What I’m not going to do is rush around to the Oval Office waving a fistful of Polaroids and tell Marshall that he’s got to call off the talks on Reduction In Nuclear Capability right away, or else.’

  ‘But you don’t want RING to go very much further, do you? Nor do any of us. The further we go, the more promises Marshall makes, the more difficult it’s going to be to extract ourselves with any kind of credibility. The worst thing you can do in politics is look as if you’re always changing your mind. It’s worse than being wrong.’

  Titus said, ‘I’m not going to put any kind of a squeeze on Marshall until I’m sure of my strategy. Let’s be realistic. There’s always the possibility that next week’s RING talks may break down of their own accord. Jesus, Ken, it took them three months to decide how long each delegate could spend in the men’s room. And the point is that I don’t want to waste the nastiest, smelliest piece of information I’ve ever had against Marshall, not if it isn’t really necessary. This stuff could be even more useful at election time.’

  ‘Still got your eye on the Lincoln Sitting Room?’ asked Senator Rodney, with noticeable sharpness. Titus had often visited President Nixon in the Lincoln Sitting Room when the President was working there after dinner, and he had always made it obvious that he coveted it.

  ‘When destiny calls, destiny calls,’ said Titus, unmoved. ‘Meanwhile, I’m going to install our principal witness in

  a house just outside of Washington, where we can get to her easily in case we need to produce her out of a hat; and I’m going to make sure that she’s guarded day and night. Joe tells me the other lady is probably safer where she is, at home in Las Vegas. If we start putting pressure on Marshall because of what he did at the Las Vegas Futura, and one of their chambermaids goes mysteriously missing, then Marshall’s men are going to know who to look for. The woman has a husband and children, and the last thing we want is to have her chickening out because Marshall has threatened to incinerate the family home.’

  Senator Rodney said, “This is going to be dangerous, you know. Marshall isn’t going to like it one little bit.’

  ‘I’m not frightened of Marshall.’

  ‘Well, maybe not. But he won’t take it lying down.’

  “These days, I’m not so sure,’ said Titus. ‘All the guts seem to have dropped out of him. Don’t you remember that speech he made at the San Francisco Cow Palace, during the primaries? All that talk about ‘the light of liberty’? All that rhetoric about ‘containing Communism’? Well, what happened to that when he promised the Soviets that America would keep hunter-killer satellites out of space? What happened to that when he pardoned that Soviet spy, what was his name, Nevsky? The light of liberty? You’d better believe it. Let me tell you, Ken -Marshall used to be the backbone of American political conservatism. Now he’s the goddamned jellyfish.’

  ‘I agree with you, Titus, you know that,’ said Senator Rodney. The only problem is, he’s strong. Marshall’s very, very strong. Not just strong but paranoid. He’s got a water-tight security set-up, and the best intelligence network since Eisenhower. It’s going to be hard to get to him, I warn you, and even when you do, you won’t be safe.’

  ‘Safety,’ Titus retorted, ‘is not my primary consideration. I was at Changjin Reservoir, remember? I was at Khe Sanh. I didn’t care about my safety then, and I don’t care

  about it now. All I care about is putting a stop to these goddamned disastrous RING agreements.’

  ‘Well, I hope you won’t be sorry,said Senator Rodney. ‘Keep me in touch, will you? When are you going back to Washington?’

  ‘I’m going to drive back now. I have a few traps to set.’

  ‘How was the fishing?’

  ‘Good enough. A fair catch of trout. Not what it used to be, though. Maybe I’ve lost my touch.’

  There are bigger fish in Washington, Titus. Whales, and swordfish, and sharks, too. Plenty of sharks.’

  Titus grunted in amusement, and then put the phone down. Joe Jasper said, ‘You don’t have to go back straight away, Mr Secretary. The girl won’t be arriving in Washington until the day after tomorrow. You could have yourself one more day’s fishing, if you wanted to.’

  Titus finished his drink, and held out his glass for another one. ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘fishing requires calm, and concentration. Right now, I’m not in the mood for it. I smell blood, thanks to you, Joe. I smell blood!’

  ‘You’re flattering me, Mr Secretary.’

  Titus stared at him. Joe Jasper was such a weasel, such a sharp, nibbling, chiselling kind of a creature, that Titus found him compelling company. Joe would accept any insult, and perform any task, no matter how menial or degrading. He had first come to Washington with Nixon’s West Coast cosa nostra, John Ehrlichman and Hank Halde-man and John Dean; but he had survived Watergate by attaching himself (‘like a leech,’ Titus often thought) to the caretaker administration which followed. Joe Jasper, despite his pale, unappealing face, despite his fastidious clothing, his Bijan shoes and his ostentatious gold rings, could worm his way in anywhere in Washington and get the goods on anyone. Anna Wuschinski, of the Washington Post, always called him Smeagol, after the snivelling, whining Gollum in Lord of the Rings. She was more accurate than she knew: Joe Jasper had a bite just as sharp as Smeagol, and just as much bony strength.

  ‘Pay the check,’ said Titus. ‘I want to leave for Washington right away.’

  ‘What about your luggage?’

  ‘Send Wilkins down to collect it in the morning.’

  Joe closed the communications briefcase, and gathered up the papers and notebooks which Titus had left around his suite. A thorough search would be made of the entire room tomorrow, to make sure that not even the slightest scrap of classified documentation had been left behind. Other, personal objects would be removed, too. It wouldn’t do for the left-wing media to discover that the Secretary of St
ate regularly ate Ex-Lax chocolate, nor that he used Chestnut-7 hair colorant.

  Titus showered, and dressed in a grey slubbed mohair business suit, with a 2nd Infantry Division necktie, and a pocket handkerchief of exact isoceles sharpness. Meanwhile, Joe told the Secret Service man outside to arrange for Titus’ official black Cadillac to be driven around to the front of the hotel, ready for the drive back to the capital. It was almost 6:30 p.m., a grainy Shenandoah evening, and because of the fog it was practically dark.

  ‘We’re all set to go, Mr Secretary,’ said Joe, as Titus came out of the bedroom smelling of Jules aftershave, the last of his cigar still clenched between his teeth.

  ‘Did you put in that call to my wife?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She’s decided to stay in Philadelphia one more night, but she’s expected back by Thursday afternoon. Your stepchildren are both at home.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Titus, tautly tugging at his left cuff, and giving himself a last inspection in the mirror. That’s all I need. Carl and Samantha, unlovability incarnate.’

  Joe picked a wiry grey hair from Titus’ shoulder. There was a call from Mr Nott, in Britain, but apparently it wasn’t urgent. And Mr Yusef called, about the pipeline arrangement.’

  ‘Any word from Schmidt?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘None. He seems to be playing this one really close to the chest.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Titus. Then, ‘Let s go. We got everything?’

  They left the suite and walked down the overheated, red-carpeted corridor. From inside one of the rooms they passed, there was the buzzing of somebody shaving, and from inside the next room, the muted burble of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The Secret Service agent walked a pace or two behind them, whistling between his teeth. His colleague was waiting in the lobby, bulky, nondescript, with brush-cut hair and the kind of belted weekend suit they advertise in the Saturday newspapers.

  ‘Mr Secretary,’ nodded the second agent, as Titus came down the staircase to the lobby. ‘Everything’s ready. I’m real sorry you had to cut short your fishing.’

  ‘Well, can’t be helped,smiled Titus, wryly. Over the hotel’s reception desk there was a large stuffed pike, illuminated with a spotlight. The Front Royal Towers had always advertised itself as The Compleat Resort for Anglers’.