David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Gerrard stepped through the court's open gate, closed it, and shook hands with the man. 'How are you, Ken?'

'Troubled. And you, Alan?'

The same. I just had what the columnists would call a chewing-out from the president.' Gerrard massaged his right eye.

'Anything you couldn't handle?'

'As far as my ego goes, no big deal. But strategically…? I'll tell you about it later. I mean, we're supposed to be here to play tennis, after all, and to tell the truth, I need to get rid of some stress.' Again, Gerrard massaged his right eye.

'What's wrong with - ?'

'Nothing important. The smog's so gritty it irritates my eyes. If the itch gets any worse, I'll have a doctor give me some ointment.'

'But you're sure it won't interfere with your game? I've been looking forward to beating you today. The thing is, I'd prefer to do it on even terms,' Ken said.

'No matter. On even terms or not, you'd still have trouble beating me.'

'Okay, then, challenge accepted. Serve.' With a smile, Ken walked to the opposite end of the court.

Ken's last name was Madden, and he was the Deputy Director of Covert Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. He and Gerrard had gone to Yale together, had both belonged to its influential, secret society of Skull and Bones as well as Yale's tennis club, and had kept in touch over the years. Their friendship was long and well-established. No political commentators gave it much attention. Once a week, since the present administration had come into power, the two former fraternity members had made a habit of this game, at least when Gerrard was in town and not exiled by the president on yet another international good-will mission. The critical factor was that playing tennis was exactly what the media and the public expected Gerrard to be doing, and in so exclusive a setting where reporters and minor diplomats were refused admission, the weekly game – like so much about Gerrard – had become invisible.

As a rule, Gerrard's and Madden's skills were equal, their matches won by a very close margin. If Madden was victorious one week, Gerrard would be victorious the next. But today, despite Gerrard's confident challenge, the irritation in his right eye did impair his ability. He lost the first set, managed with difficulty to win the second, but didn't have a chance in the third. That was all they had time for.

Gerrard bent over, breathing heavily, surprised by his exhaustion. The smog, he thought. The damned smog. 'Sorry.' He reached the net, shook hands with Madden, and toweled his sweaty face. 'I apologize for the clumsy match. I'll try hard to be more challenging next week.' As he had repeatedly, he rubbed his right, weeping eye.

'Yeah, since we started, that eye's gotten worse. It's red now. You'd better do something about it.'

'Maybe if I rinsed it with water.'

'Why not?' Madden shrugged. 'Give it a try. At least the club's got a reverse-osmosis purification system. Otherwise the chemicals in the water would make your eye even worse.'

They walked toward the side of the court while in the background other players continued their matches.

'So tell me,' Madden said. They stood with their backs to the clubhouse, taking care to block their conversation in case they were being monitored by directional microphones. Tell me about the president.'

'He plans to veto the clean-air bill.'

Madden shook his head. 'Dear Lord. The stubborn fool.'

'I guarantee I gave him my best arguments,' Gerrard said. 'But he just wouldn't budge. According to him, when the problem gets bad enough, American businesses will suddenly come up with a miracle cure.'

'What a joke. I didn't realize the president had a sense of humor, even if it is unintentional,' Madden said. 'When the problem gets bad enough? Doesn't he realize that the problem's bad enough already?'

'To him, it's like the mounting budget deficit. Let the next generation take care of it. Right now, he says his primary obligation is to hold the country together.' Gerrard toweled more sweat from his face.

Madden sighed. 'Well, it's not as if we didn't expect him to react that way. But we had to do the right thing. We had to give him the chance.'

Despondent, Gerrard draped his towel around his neck. 'However, it gets worse.'

'Oh?'

'The president feels betrayed. He's confused. In a panic. He can't comprehend how the opposition swayed so many Republican senators to switch party allegiance and vote for the bill. He's so furious about their defection that he claims he's doing his damnedest, using all his investigators, to find out what made them do it.'

'We expected that as well. Political reflex,' Madden said. 'But I can't imagine many senators confessing they were blackmailed. Because, after all, the next obvious question would be why were they being blackmailed, and I don't believe a senator would be stupid enough to destroy his or her career by confessing bribes, kickbacks, cocaine addiction, adultery, and a few other, even more serious matters our people discovered. Insider stock trading. Hit-and-run manslaughter while intoxicated. One case of incest. No, those senators will keep their mouths shut. They're experienced. Better yet, God bless them… at the same time damn them… they're practical. It's a pity we couldn't find more senators with something to hide. But on balance, it kind of gives me faith in the system. Not everybody's got a deep dark secret. Even so, if we had been able to scare just a few more senators, the vote would have been in our favor. And you wouldn't have had to compromise your position and break the tie by voting against the administration.'

Gerrard shrugged. 'No problem. I can tolerate the president's contempt. What is a problem is that after he vetoes the bill, and after he sends it back to the Senate, we'll have to put pressure on more senators to gain the two-thirds vote we need to override his veto.'

'Well…'Madden glanced around, assessing the security of their position. 'We've got the power. We've got the influence. All the same, the vote'll be close. In the meantime, when you continue not to cooperate with the president's policy…'

'Yes, that worries me,' Gerrard said. 'The president might restrict my activities even more. He might put me on ice until he can choose another vice president when the next election comes up. But it's vital that I keep going on those good-will missions. I have to keep coordinating our efforts.'

Madden stared down at the concrete surface of the tennis court.

'Yes, it's vital.' He straightened. 'Regrettably, he leaves us no choice. But the group knew – and they agreed - that we'd have to do it sooner or later.'

'And now,' Gerrard said, 'it'll have to be sooner.'

'Without question. The president showed the nation… not to mention the world … how brave he was when he went to that antidrug conference in Colombia last year. Cynical journalists were taking bets on when and how the cocaine lords would have him assassinated. But the president survived… I consider it miraculous… and now he's overconfident. Next week, he's flying to Peru for yet another drug-control conference. I'm not clairvoyant, but I think that this one time I can definitely predict the future. The president won't be coming back. Alive, at least. A week from tomorrow, we'll have a new president. A more enlightened one.'

'I hope I'm worthy of the responsibility,' Gerrard said.

'Well, as you're aware from your frequent good-will trips, you'll have a great deal of help from our counterparts.'

'Yes, by sending me on those trips, the president was his own worst enemy.'

Madden stared again toward the concrete surface of the tennis court.

'Something else?'