"The only thing more wasteful might be World War III," the President said. "And if Russian ambassadors keep getting killed off by our people, that's just what we're going to have."
A heavy silence descended on the room.
"What about the woman in Atlanta?" the President asked.
"That's the first thing I did, sir. My men found her in her house. She died. It looked like a heart attack. There was nothing in the house that could tell us anything."
"You sent your men in to search the house ?"
57
Stantington realized that he had already broken a law by doing just that. When he went on trial, he knew, he could talk about fears of World War III, but a jury five years from now wouldn't want to know about that. All they'd want to know was that he had illegally sent CIA agents breaking into the house of an American citizen without a warrant and without proper authorization. "Yes, sir," he said. "I did that." "I didn't authorize that," the President said. An alarm bell went off in Stantington's head. He knew what the President was doing. He was dissociating himself from the CIA director's actions.
The hell with that, Stantington thought. He didn't get to be an admiral because he hadn't known how to play the game.
"Are you telling me, sir, that I did wrong?" "Yes," the President said. "What you did was technically wrong."
"I think, then, that I ought to make amends," said Stantington, thinking fast. "I think I will announce to the press what I did and apologize to the American people. If I do it now, I might minimize the damage." He looked at the President to see if the threat had registered. Such a statement by Stantington might well topple an administration whose popularity, according to the polls, was the lowest in thirty-five years of post-war administrations.
The President sighed.
"What do you want from me, Cap ?" he said. "I want you to have authorized that entry into that old woman's house in Atlanta."
58
"Okay. I authorized it. Satisfied?" "For now," said Stantington. "But it'd be nice to get it in writing. No hurry, of course. Anytime today would be fine."
"You don't trust me," the President said. "It's not that. We've been friends a long time. It's just that I met the old CIA director yesterday. In jail."
"Where he belongs," the President said. "For doing just what I did today," said Stantington. "I don't want to join him. In writing today will do nicely."
"All right," said the President. "You'll have it. Now what else about Project Omega? You can't mean that you haven't one word about it in all your files ?"
Stantington decided not to tell the President about the havoc that the new director had wreaked on the CIA's secret files with his freedom-of-information policy. No sense in bothering the commander-in-chief with too many details.
"Only one reference," he said. "And that is?"
"The program was started back about twenty years ago by a CIA employee, now retired." "Who's the employee?" the President asked. "His name is Smith. Harold Smith. He's some kind of a doctor and he runs a sanitarium named Folcroft. In Rye, New York."
The President's face tensed, then opened into a slow wide smile.
"Doctor Smith, you say?" "That's right."
59
"Did you talk to him ?" the President asked. "I tried to but I got his secretary and she told me he was out. A nasty thing, she was. She said she used to work for the CIA." The President nodded.
"She sounded like she was black," Stantington said.
The President just smiled. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "Snotty little snippet. She told me that Smith wouldn't come to see me, but I should come to see him. I told her that that was impossible, but she said that I would come to see this Smith, whoever he is."
"Like a threat?" the President said. "More like a promise," Stantington said. "She was a cool thing. Do you mind, Sir, if I ask why you're smiling?"
"You wouldn't understand," the President said. "Is there something special you want me to do?"
"Not really," the President said. "Just keep trying to find out whatever you can. I'll speak to the Soviet ambassador and assure him of our total confusion about this whole matter. And you exhibit all possible speed, Cap."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Stantington, rising to his feet. "Anything else?"
"No. Oh. Did you wear a topcoat to work today?"
"I carried one. I thought it might rain. Why?" "You might need it. It gets cold in Rye, New York."
60
"Are you telling me to go there, Mister President?"
"No," the President said. "It's out of my hands."
When he left the Oval Office, the director of the CIA was even more confused than he had been before. And he had a peculiar feeling that the President knew something about this Doctor Smith that he wasn't telling.
Alone again in his office, the President of the United States considered whether or not he should go upstairs to his living quarters and take the dialless red telephone out of the dresser where it was hidden, pick it up, and speak to Smith.
For Admiral Wingate Stantington had been right. The President did know something about Smith that the CIA director didn't. The President knew that Smith had not just simply retired from the CIA, but had been tapped by another young President to head up a secret agency called CURE, whose job it would be to work outside the Constitution to try to preserve America's Constitution. The young President had felt that America needed a helping hand in fighting crime and corruption and internal unrest.
This new President had been briefed on the agency by his predecessor. He hadn't liked it. The thought of a secret agency running around, out of control, frightened him. And what made it even worse was that the President could not give assignments to CUKE. He could only suggest.
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Smith, the only head of the agency since its inception, made the decisions about what CURE would work on.
The new President had thought of disbanding the agency immediately. That was the one order he was allowed to give it. But before he could do that, he found himself needing CURE and its Doctor Smith and the enforcement arm, Remo, and the aged Oriental who seemed able to do magic. And that was when the President first heard of Ruby Gonzalez, too, the CIA agent who had helped CURE bail America out of a sticky situation and then had been fired by the spy agency for her trouble.
The President had never met Ruby but he felt as if he knew her and if she had told Wingate Stantington that he was going to go to Rye, New York, he had no doubt that Wingate Stantington's next stop was Rye, New York.
The President drummed his fingers on the desk for a few moments, then decided not to call Smith. Not just yet. Not until Stantington had spoken with him. Instead, he picked up the telephone and told his secretary to summon the Russian ambassador. Perhaps he could express his regrets and apologies for the deaths of the two ambassadors and, using all the selling power at his command, convince the Russian that it was a mistake and that America was trying to stop it.
As he replaced the telephone, he thought of Doctor Smith forced out onto the golf course by Ruby Gonzalez. Good, he thought. He hoped Smith enjoyed his round.
62
It might be the last game of golf any of them would ever play.
As he rode along, suspended in air, Wingate Stantington thought that it was all very strange.
He had gotten back to the CIA's Langley headquarters and as he was leaving the chauffeured limousine some instinct told him to take his top coat.