Program for a Puppet (29 page)

FBI Director James Dent had dutifully carried out his President's rather frustrated orders, deducing that the leak must have come from either the President's staff or the Secretary of State's offices. In the early afternoon of October 2, Rickard received a telephone call from him.

“We have a breakthrough, Mr. President.”

“You've traced the source?”

“Yes. We were right. It was the Secretary of State's department.”

“Who?”

“Assistant Under Secretary Gregor Haussermann, sir.”

“Haussermann,” the President breathed. “Are you absolutely positive?”

“No doubt about it. We have conclusive taped information.”

“Tape? How?”

“We tapped his phone, and recorded conversations.”

“Where?”

“At his office and his home.”

“You have other evidence? You know we couldn't use bugging.”

“Yes. We know how he gets classified data in and out, who he passes it to and where he does it. The tapes verify everything.”

“Okay. Get all the evidence including the tapes to me. I want to be positive myself before I make another move. You know how delicate this one is.”

By late Thursday afternoon Washington time, Rickard had played the tapes of Haussermann's conversations in the presence of the Secretary of State and FBI Director Dent. Rickard decided to fire Haussermann as soon as possible. The second assistant Under Secretary of State was summoned to the Oval Office. At 6:30
P.M
. he eased his slight frame into a chair facing Rickard, who was talking on the telephone. Haussermann shifted uncomfortably as the President made obvious reference to him.

“He's right here now sitting in front of me … we'll find out from him … we'll see what he says…”

After three nerve-racking minutes, President Rickard put the receiver down and then scribbled on a notepad, not looking up at Haussermann for nearly another minute. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed his eyes and said, “Now, Mr. Haussermann, you know why you are here?”

Haussermann looked perplexed and blinked nervously. “N-no I don't, Mr. P-President.”

Rickard's gaze pierced into the other man's skull. “Well I'll get straight to the point. I know without a shadow of doubt you have been leaking important confidential administration minutes.”

Haussermann reacted visibly. The irises dilated. His nostrils and lips quivered. His mouth opened and closed twice before he managed to blurt out, “You're … you're … you're wro-wro-wrong!”

The President snapped, “No, I'm not!” He then read off in detail the classified information Haussermann had relayed, the times when he had done it and the people to whom he had passed it.

Haussermann was shocked. The confrontation had not
helped his speech impediment. “You-you can't pro-pro-prove any-any-any of it.”

“I have!” Rickard thundered. “I want your resignation by tomorrow and I'm going to ask you to submit to questioning by the FBI and CIA, just in case you've passed on any more secrets we should know about.”

“Oh, no … oh, no … you can't do that!” Haussermann breathed, his words coming very fast. “You must have bugged me. You should be impeached for that!”

“Look. I don't want any arguments, Haussermann,” Rickard shouted angrily. “You're finished!”

“Ju-just like Ro-Ro-Ronald MacGregor.”

“What did you say?” Rickard glared. “Just like MacGregor. What do you mean by that?”

“We-well, he's dead, isn't he? And so am I, if you-you persecute me like this.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me? Anything else you want to say?”

“All right … all right … I'll resign right here! Right now!” Haussermann pulled a pen and a piece of paper from the front pocket of his suit coat, leaned forward on the President's desk and began to scribble.

“Get hold of yourself, man. I said by tomorrow. Now if you have nothing more to say …”

Haussermann's pen rested in a shaky right hand. “I see,” he said, nodding quickly. “You-you are going to interrogate me with your Gestapo tactics! Well, I will not go as easily as MacGregor! Why don't you-you admit you-you had MacGregor assassinated?”

“I had MacGregor assassinated? Are you insane?”

Perhaps, the President thought, with a sudden flash of compassion, the rush of guilt may have unbalanced the poor devil.

Haussermann carried on regardless. “He would have beaten you. So you had an assassin strike him down!”

Rickard had had enough. “I'd like you to leave now, Mr. Haussermann,” he said firmly, as he placed his spectacles back on.

“I ha-have evidence on MacGregor's death.”

“If you do have evidence, you had better give it to me, or the director of the FBI.”

Haussermann laughed cynically. “Oh, yes … so you-you could be smar-smart and destroy incriminating evidence. You-you must be joking!”

“I'm not joking, Mr. Haussermann. You are talking about a very serious situation. I have personally ordered the direction of the investigation into MacGregor's death. It's my responsibility to hand over any relevant information!”

Haussermann got up, his pen and paper still in his hand. He seemed in two minds whether to start writing again or obey the President's wishes. “I have evidence you killed MacGregor,” he hissed.

“Fine,” Rickard said calmly but firmly, thinking it best to humor the man. “If you have evidence that I killed MacGregor, then hand it in.” He leaned across his desk and flicked an intercom switch. “Rachel. Send in a security guard.”

“Is everything all right?” his secretary's voice squeaked.

“Absolutely. Just send one in.”

Seconds later, a burly guard knocked and entered.

“Show him out, will you?”

Haussermann backed away from Rickard. As he reached the door he yelled, “You're a murderer!”

The guard took him under the arm and began to escort him forcibly.

“Okay,” the President said, with a sigh and shake of the head, “I'm a murderer.”

As the guard departed with Haussermann, Rickard's secretary poked her head in at the door. “What on earth was that all about?”

“Don't worry, Rachel,” Rickard said, as he sat down at his desk again. “It was one of those moments when all of a man's sins return to haunt him. He was guilty as hell, I guess. He went off his rocker for a minute there.”

“You've had a difficult day, Mr. President. Would you like coffee or something?”

“Yes. Good idea, Rachel … just another tribulation in the trial of this great office,” he said sardonically.

Inside he had to agree with her. First there was the leak, then the wire taps and now the dismissal of a senior official. Yes,
he thought, taking a deep breath, it has been an extraordinarily tough day. But he was certain things were going to get tougher before the election.

He proved himself right the next day, when he went to New York.

The firing of Haussermann made the headlines in the morning papers, but that didn't bother him. What put his blood pressure well over his doctor's recommended level, was a feature in a weekly women's magazine, which had been picked up by the daily press and television. A young blonde in California calling herself Valeri Hudson claimed in an interview with the magazine that she was pregnant by Rickard. The woman, who was a former National Security Council employee, said she had visited the White House more than forty times to make love to him, and that they had formed a “very close” relationship over an eighteen-month period. She promised to make her true identity known in about six weeks' time, when “their” child was expected.

Rickard was furious. His first thoughts were for his wife, Lillian, and he rang her at noon from his party's New York campaign headquarters. But she was at a Washington charity fashion show and could not be contacted immediately. He ordered his press secretary to put out a statement saying that both the woman and the magazine would be sued for substantial damages. He categorically denied the suggestions in the feature story and added that it was “most definitely part of a major smear campaign” as election day drew nearer. Despite this, he could do nothing to stop the media turning the story into a full-scale “possible” scandal. And with “Valeri” in hiding somewhere in Europe, it soon became the gossip point for matrons' hairdressing salons and men's bars right across the nation. Photographs in the press accompanying the story showed that the woman was extremely attractive, and this made her story even more juicy and credible.

Rickard finally got through to the First Lady.

“Just answer me one question, darling,” Lillian Rickard, an intelligent and demure forty-five-year-old, said. “Have you ever made love to this woman?”

“Oh, my God! No, I have not!”

“Everett. There's no need for you to get excited. The most important thing is that you don't get worried.”

“You're right, darling.”

“Remember, even if it were true,” she added huskily, “I wouldn't run out on you.”

Rickard was glad he was sitting alone in a campaign office. His stomach suddenly had butterflies and his throat had gone dry. Rushing into his mind came the memory of his only “affair,” if it could have been called that, when he was Ohio's state attorney general ten years ago. For some reason he was never really able to explain even to himself, he had got entangled with his private secretary, a prim and ordinary-looking woman. It lasted only half a year. Then, as now, he thought, the incredible woman at the other end of the line had supported him.

“Darling,” he said softly, “can I tell you for the one billionth time how much I love you.… I told you after the last time I wouldn't play around ever again. And I haven't.”

“I believe you, honey.”

“I love you so much I want to cry. Really …”

“Everett, darling, please don't let it upset you. Just get on with running this country.…”

Brogan Senior cupped one hand to his forehead and watched the tiny white ball as it glided off and veered left of the green at the fifth hold of Lasercomp's private Black Flats Country Club. The Wednesday afternoon nine-hole game was a must for the sprightly octogenarian, who on this sunny October 8 was accompanied by Strasburg.

“How's our old friend Judge Shaw?” the Old Man asked, marching off down a slope to a buggy as Strasburg swung hard.

The lawyer followed Brogan Senior as his ball lobbed into trees right of the fairway. “He's fine,” he said, as he hopped into the driver's side and drove on. “I saw him last night at the theater. We couldn't say much. Too many people around.”

“What about the case?”

A decision in the Lasercomp versus U.S. Government legal battle was due shortly. The Old Man was beginning to get anxious about its outcome.

“We're doing all we can,” Strasburg said, as he guided the buggy over a rough patch. “We've hit him from every angle with our version of which way his decision should go. It must be embedded in his skull by now.”

Over the six years the case had been running, Lasercomp had used their knowledge of Shaw's reading habits as one way of trying to influence his decision. Every magazine and paper he read had favorable comment about the corporation and the consequence for the nation if he dared decide that Lasercomp should be broken up into smaller independent units. Every circular from banks, and even his own stockbroker, told him the same story. Occasionally they carried articles, written by supposedly “independent” people, which spelled out what Lasercomp would like the content of his decision to be.

As they approached the spot where Brogan's ball had landed, the Old Man said, “What about the carrot of a Supreme Court appointment?”

Strasburg stopped the buggy and pulled on the handbrake. “We have to convince Shaw that if Mineva is elected, he would appoint him once Judge Rathbone dies.” He jumped out and opened the passenger side door for Brogan. “Incidentally, I hear Rathbone's cancer is so bad that he may resign soon anyway. Shaw's life ambition is to make the big bench. That empty seat will be looming larger every dream he has.”

The Old Man strode to his ball just left of center of the fairway and lined up his shot to the green. “How are you going to let Shaw know Mineva would appoint him?”

“Before the decision, he'll just happen to meet the future President of the United States.”

“I had MacGregor assassinated,” Everett Rickard's voice on the tape said as an electronics expert in a basement apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, switched it off in annoyance.

He sat on a stool at a bench surrounded by innumerable pieces of electronic equipment and looked up, deep in concentration, at the track lighting that crisscrossed the ceiling and lit the sealed room brilliantly. Then he reached for the recorder again.

“Why don't you admit you had MacGregor assassinated …” the voice of Haussermann said.

“I had MacGregor assassinated,” Rickard's voice said again.

The expert stopped it and rewound it a fraction.

On. “… assass …” Off. Rewind.

On. “… assassin.” Off. Rewind.

On. “… assassina.” Off. Rewind.

The man worked fast and methodically, his deft control of the levers on the mixing panel an art in itself. Intermittently, the sound of the two voices would come off the tape.

The man stretched and yawned. It was time for more coffee. He switched on an electronically controlled and timed percolator which produced a brew to his own satisfaction. Sitting on a comfortable couch opposite the bench, he sipped his coffee, and contemplated his efforts. A minute later he switched on the three-and-a-half-minute tape. The modulation of certain words taken from several pieces of tape was marginally different.

As he was about to play the tape again, the face of Haussermann filled a television screen which monitored the front entrance of the man's apartment. He let the former State Department official in and offered him coffee.