Tintagel (4 page)

"That's not going to look too good to the environmentalists." She pulled back a stray black-gray lock from her eyes, not really caring how she looked in her open nightgown. At forty-nine, she had yet to lose some of her youth, since she had divorced early and had, as a consequence, never had any vitality burned out of her by fierce lovers and husbands and a generation of nagging children under wing. She had a sister in Michigan, married and with one child, who looked years older than she, but was, in fact, much younger.

She got up, finally, from the ruin of covers and quilts, and lifted the chenille robe from the eighteenth century divan at the foot of her bed. Paraphernalia from last night's reception draped the small couch.

Ken Collins stood at a respectable distance with a mute expression on his face, unable to prevent himself from seeing the open nightgown flutter even further apart just before she wrapped herself in the bathrobe.

Why, God, didn't they keep Janet Walen on to do this
? he thought, standing there is his frustration and decency. He lifted his schedule sheet before him.

"Uh, Katie. We've got two …"

She waved him off. "I know. The breakfast with the Iraqi ambassador, then the security briefing. What the hell time is it?"

Glancing at his watch, he said, "It's 5:30. You're running a trifle late."

She slippered into the massive and overly elaborate bathroom. Her fuzzy pink house slippers hissed along the carpet like two fussy angoras.

"Be back in a minute," she announced, hardly considering his presence as she vanished into the imperial bathroom.

Outside in the hallway, two other presidential aides stood waiting. Collins slipped out and signaled to them. They were having coffee.

"She's late as usual. It'll be about a half an hour if we're lucky."

Rita Hanks sighed, somewhat relieved. "Well, that's all right. The ambassador is used to it, although we can't reschedule the briefing if she putters around with him for too long. The Joint Chiefs will be in conference the rest of the day."

They could hear the shower thundering through the open door. Rita Hanks, Pentagon spokesperson, and Beverly Silva, the President's personal secretary, glanced into the bedroom as the maids scurried about, and understood.

Rita stared at the Press Secretary with a mixed look of envy and ire. "You know what went on last night?" she asked Ken irritably.

"No idea at all. It's none of my business. She just came in late. That's all I know." He wore a constantly naive expression on his face that seemed to tell more of innocence than guile, which gave one the impression that he was not the Wall Street-analyst-turned-Press-Secretary he wanted to appear, but was actually a big pussycat.

"I'll bet," Beverly Silva said cuttingly, though smiling to herself as she drew out a slim cigar from her purse. "And I'll bet the
Post
and the other scandal sheets get wind of it before we do. Who was she with last night?"

Ken smiled conspiratorially at Beverly. He always did like the way she pursed her lips when she was about to smile. There was a grand element of sexuality in her gestures that functioned, to his way of thinking, like the lower part of an iceberg, protruding just the slightest hint of its reality above the surface. And he secretly believed that he was put in their midst as a test, having something vaguely to do with party loyalty or perhaps punishment for crimes committed against womankind in former incarnations.

But Collins knew that to be off-balance, emotionally, in any political situation, meant suicide. And it was rough in the midst of these women. Sometimes Rita Hanks, dark-haired and dark-eyed, would brush too near him in the corridors of the White House, drawing behind her a scent of Catastrophe, that illegal perfume that catalyzed male hormones and adrenaline to dangerous levels, and he often believed that he could burn up on the spot. But all these special women would probably do would be to stick marshmallows on twigs taken from the White House lawn and roast them in the fire of his passion. Catastrophe, like so many good things in life, had been illegal for years, but when filter-masks became part of daily apparel, no one seemed to complain. It was one of life's little pleasures.

But it was Beverly Silva who secretly had his heart ever since she graciously threw up in his lap in the limousine behind the Washington Hilton at the inaugural ball.

These women
, he thought, recalling what an old friend of his had said: God put women on this earth to make self-realization for man more trouble than it should be. Heaven was a long way away.

Chauvinist that he was, he smiled at Beverly. "I don't know who dropped her off, but Senator Randell picked her up last night. Big thing over at Compton's. Jet set, and the lot." He grinned ridiculously, looking back toward the bathroom. "I decided not to go to this one for a change."

"Randell," Rita muttered. "So he got retrieved OK?"

Collins leafed through a fold of papers, momentarily serious. "Yeah, this time it was Lanier. Francis Lanier from Malibu Canyon, California. He's one of the best, so they chose him." He looked up at the women. "It was expensive all the way around."

"Why is that?" Rita queried.

"They had to fly a psychologist into Fort Meyer after Randell came out. He made Randell confess."

"Confess?" Both Rita and Beverly glowed with interest, almost like Dubuque housewives bent toward the latest neighborhood poop over clotheslines. No one liked Randell and everyone liked Katie.

I don't believe this
, Ken thought to himself. But he did enjoy the attention.

"Now that would be telling," he said. But he leaned over as one of the maids breezed by with a tray of coffee and small donuts for the President.

"Smeared with adultery and scandal. Even you-know-who…"
Now who's gossiping
, he said to himself.

But the women understood.

Collins frowned. "But don't let any of this out. It isn't quite settled yet. I'll handle the information flow and the scandal sheet questions. But keep a lid on it."

Katie bloomed from the bathroom in a healthy cloud of steam, massaging her short hair with a towel. The maid lowered the tray and Katie grabbed a steaming cup of coffee, lighting up another cigarette.

She caught the expression on Collins' face, and, after looking over to Rita and Beverly, she instinctively knew what the two of them now knew, thanks to Ken Collins.

At least he's up on the news
, she thought. "Well, I see word spreads fast these days."

"I think, Ms. President," Rita started rather formally with an awkward sense of protocol, "that you'd be best advised to keep a low profile as far as Senator Randell is concerned. He's political dynamite and you know it."

Katie Babcock just smiled wickedly.

"What she means, Katie, is," Beverly began, "we don't know what made Randell succumb to the Syndrome. No one seems to. At least, if anyone does know, they aren't talking. But it has to be pretty bad. I'm sure there's more to his going under than the business over his personal finances and his marriage. If what Ken says about that scandal is true …"

Katie waved her cigarette about. "No one knows what Albertson Randell is up to, mentally, except that Stalker, Lanier. But he's no shrink." She looked at Collins standing with his arms folded behind his back, waving his roster.
At parade rest
, she thought.
A good soldier
.

"Ken, make a note," she said to him. "I want to meet Lanier personally. Find the time. It might be revealing. And try to get a meeting with any of the other known Stalkers. If the Syndrome is spreading as much as they tell me it is, then I want to know how they work. Must be fascinating."

"Right, Katie," he said firmly, jotting on the sheet.

"And if you must know," she announced to everyone present in the bedroom, "Albertson says he's cured."

Katie removed her robe quite unselfconsciously displaying a lithe, tight body in bra and slip. "He's now on an increased dosage of Baktropol, since Baktropol is the only thing that seems to work against this disease." She puffed on her cigarette. "Even if it is only temporarily effective against the Syndrome. As long as he's on it, Lanier says in his report that Randall won't succumb anymore. He may go crazy, but at least he won't disappear like the rest." She paused, thinking for a moment. "And Randell, despite his personal life, is one of the most powerful men in this country. And the country
does
need him."

But Ken wondered just what she meant by "the country." He turned and headed out of the room.

"Oh, yes, Ken," Katie called back to him. "Check the scandal sheets and see how I'm doing. After the luncheon today, I've
got
to see that Greek about the munitions swindle he pulled in Britain."

"I thought you were going to let the CIA deal with him."

"Can't. It's too sticky. I think I can get around both the CIA and the Department of Justice. We can use a mind like his and his connections. Get him."

The President smiled, then busied herself with her morning wardrobe, humming a tune.

Rita cast a quick glance at Ken Collins as he was leaving. Then she looked over at Beverly. Katie Babcock was humming a tune, and she rarely hummed or sang. She was always serious and reserved.

"At least she seems happy," Rita whispered aside to Ken at the door.

"It must be love," he winked, not at all serious. "She probably got laid last night."

"What an awful thing to say," Rita shot back, halfway scolding him.

But the humming concerned them both.

He went on, out of earshot from the President. "They say the more stable you are, the less of a chance you have of going under. I can recommend a checkup, but she shouldn't be singing. She'll have the damn tune running through her head all day long. That could cause some problems. If the pressure gets too rough at the briefing, she could lapse. She isn't immune. Nobody is, these days."

He looked concerned.

Rita glowered at his easy concern, mistaking it for insincerity. "You, the expert. Just watch out for her. If you see the signs, let me know. I can buzz a Stalker just in case. We can't have the President of the United States popping out of sight never to be found again."

"Oh, she'd have to be in the presence of the original piece of music being performed. And whatever it is," Ken said, "it will probably be outlawed sooner or later."

They could hear her humming to herself as she walked in and out of the bathroom preparing herself for the day. Her voice had a rich timbre to it and filled the room pleasantly. She seemed very much at ease with herself.

Ken remarked, "Well, it doesn't sound like the blues. To me, anyway."

Rita looked worried. The President
did
have an ulcer caused by nerves and tension.

Collins patted her affectionately on the shoulder. "Don't worry. The Stalkers are busy, but you're talking about the head honcho in these parts. They'd come running."

"Sure," she said bitterly. "If not for money, then for the attention."

"I don't think they'd do it for the fame. It would put them out of business. They really don't like working with us too much. Most don't like the political mind, and most like to work anonymously." He had a copy of Lanier's report on Albertson Randell. "They say that politicians are sick."

Rita mused. "It's just too bad the blues are illegal now. Just about everything is these days." She coughed. "Even going without a filter-mask on the eastern seaboard."

Outside, they could hear the wind grating against the thick, bulletproof window, as if grains of sand were being tossed around in the air.

Collins frowned, looking out the window. A brown haze concealed any light that the new day was bringing upon Washington. "It's that goddamned aeroplankton again. We're going to get a blow today. I had forgotten the forecast."

He turned. "I
do
have to get a few things done before Katie gets to the ambassador." He waved at the two aides.

Katie swirled into their midst as he clicked down the hall.

"I like that boy," she said to them. "Might make something out of him before it's all over." She wandered over to her makeup table.

Beverly strolled over. "Katie"—she looked down at the bottles of makeup and fingernail polish—"we can get you a professional for this."

"No," she said, struggling to blink a particle of eyeliner out of her eye. "I've been thinking of giving up the whole thing, anyway. I'm not a queen, you know. I don't need someone to wipe my ass when I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself."

Rita and Beverly glanced at each other, surprised, as Katie Babcock blinked before the wide mirror.

"It's just not worth it," she finished, not looking at either of them.

She rose and walked into the wardrobe closet, leaving her two astonished aides behind.

She closed the door silently.
A professional, she thought
, shaking her head.
Just what I'd need to keep me alive. Make things easier. As if a makeup woman would solve all my problems
.

She knew that everyone in the country—everyone with some kind of political muscle—was gunning for her, either literally or politically. She had two more years of her first term to go, and that would provide enough shooting space, enough space for something to go wrong. It would be time enough for some typical female weakness to appear. Which, she knew, everyone expected. After all, the first woman President in the history of the Republic had more than just an image of the presidency to maintain. She was still a woman, and sometimes the burden of her success or failure occasionally seemed to overwhelm her. It was enough of a task to simply get the work of the office done, and get Congress on her side when, daily, it seemed to be slipping from her grasp.

She had enough to worry about.

In these first two years of her administration, she had scored three near-assassinations, the most recent one occurring last month during a reception in New York, where she had served initially as a senator. She had barely swung the presidential election without the official blessing of organized labor in the country, a feat no one thought realistically possible, particularly for a headstrong woman. Then there had been two corporate oil scandals that under normal circumstances wouldn't have reached all the way to the White House if her ex-husband hadn't had a finger in the pie. There were rumors. And the country had been getting progressively more dispirited ever since the African War ended a number of years ago, right at a time when everyone was eager to forget the lessons of history and just as eager to taste imperialism's seductive nectar again. Her studies in law and geopolitics—coupled with prudent common sense—showed her just how much of a con game government policy had always been. It was a game, she soon found, for which she had a remarkable skill.