Ted Allbeury - The Twentieth Day of January

“Did Siwecki tell you this?”

“Logan, Siwecki was doing what he was told to do.”

“What else have they fixed?” Powell’s voice was edged with anger.

“It’s cost about thirty million dollars and cashing in on twenty years of organization.”

Powell shook his head. “That’s their view, not mine. The people voted and they voted for me. They’re too late, my friend. I’m President-Elect and if they play games with me they’ll be exposed and sent packing.”

“Your programme promised peace and prosperity. You can deliver it—with help.”

“What we do to get peace and prosperity will be negotiated between governments, no other way.”

“Nobody’s suggesting any other way. To get prosperity we need peace. They want that, too. To get peace we need disarmament. They want that, too. With a peace pact you’ve got tens of billions of dollars to direct and provide the prosperity. Half a dozen Administrations have tried to deliver it. Yours can be the one that succeeds.”

Powell leaned back in his chair.

“You’ve been with them all the time, Andy. You’ve known.”

“You wanted to win, Logan. I helped you do it. Others helped me.”

“And what happens if I refuse?”

“Refuse to cut down arms? Refuse billions of dollars of Soviet trade? Refuse decades of peace? You’d have to be very stupid or very stubborn to do that.”

“Answer me, Andy. What happens if I refuse?”

“You’d cease to be President. When the scandal died down I guess you could earn a modest living somewhere in Europe.”

“And how would they fix that?”

Dempsey shrugged. “A leak to a journalist would be enough.”

“The leak would expose them, not me.”

“The Communist Party of the United States would take the blame, not the Soviets.”

“Nobody would believe the Soviets didn’t know and support it.”

Dempsey said quietly, “And nobody would believe that you didn’t know and support it. You’ve been back-marker all the way, Logan. For the Governorship itself. And four years later you’re given the Party’s nomination as presidential candidate. An unknown. And on January twenty you will be President. How do you think that was possible? I’ll tell you. Millions of dollars, and collecting old debts and obligations. Theirs, not yours.”

Dempsey leaned back in his chair. He had gone as far as was necessary. He had watched Logan Powell turn a blind eye to a hundred situations that stank of conspiracy and contrivance. But turning a blind eye was not the same as not knowing. Powell was bitten by the power bug the same as all the others. From the moment there was a chance that he could be Governor of Connecticut he would have done anything to make it certain. And all the initial diffidence, when it was put to him that he might be the Party’s candidate for President, was gone the moment it looked a real possibility. Logan Powell had left the dirty washing to him and hadn’t given a damn how it was done. Now he had the prize, the power, he’d cling to it as all the others did.

Dempsey leaned forward and poured them both another drink. He raised his glass.

“To Jan twenty, Mr. President.”

Powell shook his head as if to break his thoughts and lifted his own glass.

“To both of us, Andy. May God help us.”

Dempsey knew that already Powell’s mind was back in the White House. And at the back of his mind he would be working out how to cash in on the political prizes that the Soviets were laying out in front of him. Powell would rationalize them as being what he intended all along.

Long after Dempsey had gone, Powell sat hunched up in his chair, his mind recalling incidents from way back. Grainger, the frontrunner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination, stepping down in his favour and buying a half-interest in the Johnson real-estate business a couple of weeks later. Siwecki’s half-smile as they finalized the strike arbitration. Campaign funds that never seemed to run dry. Wards, cities, counties, States, delivered against the odds, where newspaper analysts had shown that to get his turnout he must have picked up votes from militant left-wing areas. Visitors in Dempsey’s apartment who were never introduced. Times when the talk stopped as he walked in, and never started again. Strong Democratic cities who had given him their vote. State-level politicians who came out in his support with whom he had never exchanged a word. Militant Trades Union leaders who had carried “Powell for President” placards. The TV lighting that had made Grover’s face look old and haggard, and the Gay Libbers who cheered so vociferously at Grover’s meetings. He could swear he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known. Guessed maybe, for a split second here and there, but guessing wasn’t knowing. But his signature would be on documents and instructions. They would have made sure of that.

He thought about Dempsey. Andy Dempsey, the smiling character in the green corduroy jacket. Tireless and energetic. Heir to a packet of millions, dilettante art-critic, every girl’s favourite escort. The charmer who screwed but didn’t tell. Even with Jenny he never knew if Dempsey slept with her. She had been introduced as Andy’s girl at the party, but there had been no come-back when he took her for himself. Just the usual happy Dempsey smile and no comment.

Thinking of Jenny made him think of Laura. She had agreed not to make any move for a divorce until after the inauguration. From the moment he had been a gubernatorial candidate she had closed the bedroom door and all the other doors. Quiet, unassuming Laura had views of her own. She had said he’d never make it, and even after he was Governor she would have no politicians in the house. He would miss young Sam, but Sam was part of a package, and the price of the package was for him to get out of politics. Her father had tried to talk her out of it way back, but she had been adamant and scathing. She had said he was a stooge, the monkey who took the chestnuts out of the fire for the professionals, the wheeler-dealers. She wanted him back teaching at Yale but would settle for him staying in the consultancy. She had been jealous of his every success. Nothing convinced her. She’d probably even voted for Grover, the bitch. But he would miss them, they had been the only security he had. But if Dempsey and his friends thought he was a stooge… He stood up and switched on the TV.

Nolan swore softly under his breath, stopped the car and got out. He’d told them a hundred times not to leave their cycles lying in the drive. As he lifted up the cycle and leaned it against the hedge the six-year-old blonde came running towards him. He mentally toned down what he had intended saying. She was so pleased to see him, and anyway he loved her.

Walking behind the child was his wife, smiling, because both his women were well aware that they could disarm him in seconds.

As he swung up the small girl he bent to kiss his wife.

“Both lots of slides have come back. I’ve had a sneaky look at them and they’re great.”

“Are those the Disney World ones?”

“Yes. D’you want to read Sal the Riot Act about her bike?”

He grinned. “I guess not. But it is a damn nuisance. I have to leave the car across the path half in, half out.”

“It’s getting too cold for her to play outside. And too dark.”

The small girl was stroking his face. “Will you fix my bike for me, Dad?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s the chain again.”

Nolan drove the car into the driveway and carried the cycle into the garage. He switched on the light and put the cycle up on the bench. He cleaned and oiled the chain and fed it slowly on to the wheel. He tested both brakes and they were hopelessly slack. Like most CIA men, Nolan did not find it incongruous to come from dealing with the seamier side of the country’s life to fixing a bicycle chain on a child’s bike. Their training and their experience had taught them the value of routine and perspective. A routine that automatically checked brakes on kids’ bikes meant that you never carried a .45 Browning that wasn’t reliable. And a perspective that made the vigilance worthwhile, because your family was your stake in the country you were protecting. And you then valued other men’s families, too. Without a stake you were just playing games.