11

THE PRESIDENT PUT HIS FEET UP on the desk and leaned back to the full extent of the swivel so that his eyes could see how cleverly the low relief of the presidential seal had been worked into the white ceiling with its trim of dental work. Was this the power and the glory?

It was a question he asked himself often. From the very moment when he knew that the presidency belonged to him, his elation had deflated. Suddenly he was frightened. It had taken him all of that election night to understand the sensation. He and Amy had clung to each other in their own bed back home, as if the touch of mutual flesh was necessary to validate reality.

Just suppose when he got there on top of the mountain, sitting behind his desk in the Oval Office, finger on the trigger of a holocaust, responsible for the preservation of the living world, protector of the concept of human rights, of a free people, of representative government, of the Judeo-Christian value system, that he suddenly discovered that he was ineffective, unsure, unwise, inadequate.

"No way."

It was a chorus of protest, echoing and reechoing in his mind. In that chorus were the raised voices of his cheerleaders. His parents, his grandparents, his wife, his children, his teachers, his teammates, his friends. It was his secret assumption that, long ago, perhaps at the moment of his conception, he had been marked and registered for high purpose. It was even embarrassing sometimes to hear the echo of such a presumption in his own mind.

And yet the evidence was inescapable. Paul Bernard was, indeed, chosen, anointed. Then why the hell was it getting harder and harder to hear the chorus of voices? Where the hell had all the cheerleaders gone?

Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair and looked across the room to the portrait of George Washington in his full-dress uniform. It had been painted by Charles Wilson Peale and was said to be the only full-sized portrait done of Washington from life. The father of our country. Had someone left it there to mock him?

"What would you do, wise guy?" he said aloud, actually waiting for an answer. "Avoid foreign entanglements, you say? Good advice, George. Send Martha my best."

He hadn't seen his secretary, Barbara Higgins, come in. Looking up, he blushed. His gaze moved to the tall clock. In fact, the hands on the clock had dominated his life all day. He had signed three important bills, taken the usual picture with the congressional leadership, given away the usual quota of pens, had a long meeting with the Secretary of Defense, posed with the poster girl for Juvenile Diabetes, made a round robin of calls to senators pushing his export bill, had a cheese sandwich and a Coke at his desk, both of which were sending back reminders. But it was that damned clock, that relentless tick-tock. Harkins had assured him that he would hear by two at the latest. Well, it was after two.

"Mr. Harkins and Mr. Foreman are waiting in the outer room, Mr. President."

"Well then..." He made a waving motion and his secretary scurried out.

He rose to move to one of the wing chairs in front of the mantel while the CIA Director and Foreman sat down together on opposite couches. He read the news in their faces.

"Damn," the President muttered.

"They had the house staked out," Harkins said. "They were dead sure. So we let them have it all. They were bitching about our interference. You remember what happened that last time when we offered to go in with them in Malta. Hell, it was a simple house assault. Nothing more."

The President tapped his fingers on the arm of a chair. The damned thing was bedeviling him. He felt a stab of pain in his midsection and popped an antacid in his mouth. The recovery of the woman and her child would have bought him a temporary reprieve. He had even discussed it at length with the Egyptian President, that frightened fool. They were sinking billions into the Egyptian pit. What the hell were they getting for their money?

"So let's have it straight," the President said.

"They went in on schedule," Harkins said. "Object was to move in, get the woman and her kid, and, if possible, get the hostage-takers alive, parade them in front of the cameras. A real glory scene. They had all the backup needed. Helicopters. The works. Only when they got there, the bastards had flown the coop."

"How come?"

"Must have been an inside tip," the CIA Director said.

"They've got a massive search going," his National Security Advisor said lamely.

"The Egyptians couldn't find an elephant in a hog pond," the President said. The antacid hadn't started to work and the pain was now getting him just below the heart. It occurred to him suddenly that maybe he was having a heart attack. Then he belched and the pain disappeared. No such luck, he told himself.

"Their people assure me—" Foreman began.

"Their people are full of shit."

"Unfortunately, they're also stupid. They were so sure, they invited media," Harkins said. "Then they tried to put a cap on it, which only made the media more determined to get a story out. Any story. With them, they love failure better than success. By evening it will be spread over the tube."

"Another needle in Uncle's rump," the President said. He stood up suddenly, as if he felt the physical pain in exactly that part of his own anatomy. Then he began to walk aimlessly around the office, skirting the couches, over the pale gold oval rug. He secretly avoided stepping on the turquoise rosettes, as if they were cow pats, like a superstitious child. Except that disaster had already struck. He looked out at the Rose Garden through the high windows, a peaceful scene, tranquil. It did not calm his agitation.

"With friends like that..." he began, then swallowed the cliché.

"It's not fatal, Mr. President," Foreman said. "It's not our blunder."

"What's the truth got to do with it," the President said. "Name of the game is perception. Guilt by association. Only one Teflon President a century."

He turned away from the window and looked down at the forest of family pictures on the little table behind his desk. Amy and the kids. His mother and dad, long dead. Mom, he thought, then shrugged away the image, suddenly remembering himself as a small boy hiding his head in her apron, her sweet dough-smelling starchy apron.

"Is it a good time to bring it up?" Harkins asked.

"Oh Jesus," the President said. He turned away from the window and slipped into the chair behind his desk.

"It's not exactly another Iran," Foreman said. "Don't let it get out of proportion."

He rifled through his desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Lifting it, he waved it at the two men.

"Polls, gentlemen." He slapped them on his desk. "If the vote was today, I wouldn't be elected dogcatcher. Imagine what it will be tomorrow." Again he stood up. With the tips of his fingers, he balanced himself on the surface of his desk.

"Listen. We've got one helluva prosperous country out there. We're rolling in dough. Incomes are up. Unemployment is down. We're fat and happy."

He sucked in a deep breath in an effort to slow down his accelerating agitation. "All that mean anything? Hell no. The box score shows an indecisive, cowardly man chasing phantoms. We're talking about only twenty-one American hostages. But it's not the numbers. It's that this yo-yo who runs the most powerful country on earth can't come up with a way to stop our people from getting hijacked and free them when they do. It's the pimple on your ass that always hurts the most." He stopped in mid-sentence, spent.

It was futile, he knew, to berate the wind. Simple explanation, he decided. His luck was running out.

"Well then, why not let me excise that pimple?" Harkins asked.

The telephone rang at his desk. He looked at his watch. He was scheduled for a meeting with his Chief of Staff and his domestic affairs counselor. He picked up the phone, turning his eyes away from Harkins' hopeful gaze. No. Not now, he told himself. Never.

"In a minute," he said, thankful that he could get on to another subject. Oddly, the men on the couches did not move. They exchanged troubled glances. There was something more, the President speculated, something that neither of them wanted to talk about.

"Why don't you toss a coin?" the President asked.

"We already did," Harkins said. "I won. I got to tell you the good news."

"Well?"

"The mother and her boy are both well," Harkins replied.

"So where's the punch line?" the President asked.

"They're in Lebanon," Foreman said.