The Fourth K (49 page)

Four days later, after Yabril’s PET medical interrogation, after the terrorist had been transferred back to FBI custody, he received two visitors. They were Francis Kennedy and Theodore Tappey.

Yabril was completely unrestrained, unshackled.

The three men spent a quiet hour drinking tea and eating little sandwiches. Kennedy studied Yabril. The man’s face seemed to have changed. It was a sensitive face; the eyes were slighly melancholy but good-humored. He spoke little but studied Kennedy and Tappey as though trying to solve some mystery.

He seemed content. He seemed to know who he was. And he seemed to radiate such purity of soul that Kennedy could not bear to look at him and finally took his leave.

•  •  •

The decision about Christian Klee was even more painful to Francis Kennedy. It had been an unexpected surprise for Christian. Kennedy asked him into the Yellow Room for a private meeting.

But Francis Kennedy opened the meeting quietly by saying, “Christian, I’ve been closer to you than anybody outside my family. I think we know each other better than anyone else knows us. So you will understand that I have to ask for your resignation to be effective after the inauguration, at a time when I decide to accept it.”

Klee looked at that handsome face with its gentle smile. He could not believe that Kennedy was firing him without any explanation. He said quietly, “I know I’ve cut a few corners here and there. But my ultimate aim was always to keep you from harm.”

“You let the nuclear device go off. You could have prevented it.”

Christian Klee very coldly considered the situation before him. He would never feel his old affection for Kennedy again. He would never believe in his own humanity, the rightness of what he had done. And suddenly he knew that he could never bear that burden. That Francis Kennedy must share responsibility for what had been done. Even privately.

Klee stared directly into the pale blue eyes he knew so well and searched for mercy there.

“Francis, you wanted me to do what I did. We both knew it was the only thing that could save you—I knew you could not make such a decision. It would have destroyed you, you were so weakened, Francis. Francis, don’t condemn me, don’t judge me. They would have removed you from power and you could never have borne that. You were very close to despair and I was the only one who could see it. They
would have left your daughter unavenged. They would have let Yabril go free, they would have left America disgraced.” Klee paused, surprised to see that Francis Kennedy was looking at him so impassively.

Kennedy said, “So you think I was after vengeance.”

“Not on Yabril,” Klee said. “Maybe on Fate.”

“You can stay until after the inauguration,” Kennedy said. “You’ve earned that. But you are a danger spot, a target. I have to make you disappear so I can sweep up the mess.”

He paused for a moment. “You were wrong thinking I wanted you to do what you did, Chris. You were wrong to think that I was acting out of a desire for vengeance.”

Christian Klee felt a vague dissociation from his world, an anguish he could not even define. He said, “Francis, I know you, I understand you. We were always like brothers. I always felt that, that we really were brothers. And I saved you as a brother should. I made the decision, I took the guilt. I can let the world condemn me, but not you.”

He paused for a moment. “You need me, Francis. Even more now, on the course of action you’re taking. Let me stay.”

Francis Kennedy sighed. Then he said, “I don’t question your loyalty, Christian. But after the inauguration you’ll have to go. We will never discuss this again.”

“I did it to save you,” Christian said.

“And you did,” Kennedy said.

Christian thought about that day in early December, four years ago, when Francis Kennedy, the President-elect of the United States had waited for him outside the monastery in Vermont. Kennedy had disappeared for a week. Newspapers and his political opponents had speculated that he had been
under psychiatric care, that he had broken down, that he was having a secret love affair. But only two people—the abbot of the monastery and Christian Klee—knew the truth: that Francis Kennedy had retreated to deeply and completely mourn the death of his wife.

It was a week after his election that Christian had driven Kennedy to the Catholic monastery just outside White River Junction in Vermont. They were greeted by the abbot, who was the only one who knew Kennedy’s identity.

The resident monks lived apart from the world, cut off from all media and even the town itself. These monks communicated only with God and the earth on which they grew their livelihood. They had all taken a vow of silence and did not speak except in prayer or yelps of pain when they were ill or had injured themselves in some domestic accident.

Only the abbot had a television set and access to newspapers. The TV news programs were a constant source of amusement to him. He particularly fancied the concept of the anchor man on the nightly broadcasts and often ironically thought of himself as one of the anchor men of God. He used this idea to remind himself of the necessity for humility.

When the car drove up, the abbot was waiting for them at the monastery gate, flanked by two monks in ragged brown robes and sandaled feet. Christian took Kennedy’s bag from the trunk and watched the abbot shake hands with the President-elect. The abbot seemed more like an innkeeper than a holy man. He had a jolly grin to welcome them, and when he was introduced to Christian he said jocularly, “Why don’t you stay? A week of silence wouldn’t do you any harm. I’ve seen you on television and you must be tired of talking.”

Christian smiled his thanks but did not reply. He was
looking at Francis Kennedy as they shook hands. The handsome face was very composed, the handshake was not emotional—Kennedy was not a demonstrative man. He seemed not to be grieving the death of his wife. He had more the preoccupied look of a man forced to go into the hospital for a minor operation.

“Let’s hope we can keep this secret,” Christian had said. “People don’t like these religious retreats. They might think you’ve gone nuts.”

Francis Kennedy’s face twisted into a little smile. A controlled but natural courtesy. “They won’t find out,” he said. “And I know you’ll cover. Pick me up in a week. That should be enough time.”

Christian wondered what would happen to Francis in those days. He felt close to tears. He took hold of Francis by the shoulders and said, “Do you want me to stay with you?” Kennedy had shaken his head and walked through the gates of the monastery. On that day Christian thought he had seemed OK.

The day after Christmas was so clear and bright, so cleansed by cold that it seemed as if the whole world were enclosed in glass, the sky a mirror, the earth brown steel. And when Christian drove up to the monastery gate, Francis Kennedy was alone, waiting for him without any luggage, his hands stretched over his head, his body taut and straining upward. He seemed to be exulting in his freedom.

When Christian got out of the car to greet him, Kennedy gave him a quick embrace and a shout of joyous welcome. He seemed to have been rejuvenated by his stay in the monastery. He smiled at Christian, and it was one of his rare brilliant smiles that had enchanted multitudes. The smile that reassured the world that happiness could be won, that
man was good, that the world would go on forever to better and better things. It was a smile that made you love him because of its delight in his seeing you. Christian had felt such relief at seeing that smile. Francis would be OK. He would be as strong as he had always been. He would be the hope of the world, the strong guardian of his country and fellowman. Now they would do great deeds together.

And then with that same brilliant smile Kennedy took Christian by the arm, looked into his eyes, and said, simply and yet with amusement, as if it didn’t really mean anything, as if he were reporting some minor detail of information, “God didn’t help.”

And in the cold scrubbed world of a winter morning, Christian saw that finally something had been broken in Kennedy. That he would never be the same man again. That part of his mind had been chopped away. He would be almost the same, but now there was a tiny lump of falseness that had never before existed. He saw that Kennedy himself did not know this and that nobody else would know. And that he, Christian, only knew because he was the one who was here at this point in time, to see the brilliant smile and hear the joking words “God didn’t help.”

Christian said, “What the hell, you only gave him seven days.”

Kennedy laughed. “And he’s a busy man,” he said.

So they had gotten into the car. They had a wonderful day. Kennedy had never been more witty, had never been in such high spirits. He was full of plans, anxious to get his administration together and make wonderful things happen in the four years to come. He seemed to be a man who had reconciled himself to his misfortune, renewed his energies. And it almost convinced Christian.…

•  •  •

Christian Klee started making arrangements to leave government service. One of the most important things was to erase any traces of his circumventing the law in his protection of the President. He had to remove all the illegal computer surveillances of the members of the Socrates Club.

Sitting at his massive desk in the Attorney General’s office, Klee used his personal computer to erase incriminating files. Finally, he called up the file on David Jatney. He had been right on this guy, Klee thought, this guy was the joker in the deck. That darkly handsome face had the lopsided look of a mind unbalanced. Jatney’s eyes were bright with the scattered electricity of a neural system at war with itself. And the latest information showed that he was on his way to Washington.

This guy could be trouble. Then he remembered the Oracle’s prediction. When a man rises to absolute power, he usually gets rid of those closest to him, those who know his secrets. He had loved Francis for his virtues. Long before the terrible secrets. He thought about it a long time. And then he thought, let fate decide. Whatever happened, he, Christian Klee, could not be blamed.

He pressed the delete key of the computer and David Jatney disappeared without a trace from all government files.

Just two weeks before President Francis Kennedy’s inauguration, David Jatney had become restless. He wanted to escape the eternal sunshine of California, the richly friendly voices everywhere, the moonlit, balmy beaches. He felt himself drowning in the brown syrupy air of its society, and yet he did not want to go back home to Utah and be the daily witness to his father’s and mother’s happiness.

Irene had moved in with him. She wanted to save on rent money, to go on a trip to India and study with a guru there. A group of her friends were pooling their resources to charter a plane and she wanted to join them with her little son, Campbell.

David was astonished when she told him her plans. She did not ask him if she could move in with him, she merely asserted her right to do so. That right was based on the fact that they now saw each other three times a week for a movie
and to have sex. She had put it to him as one buddy to another, as if he were one of her California friends who routinely moved in with each other for periods of a week or more. It was done not as a cunning preliminary to marriage but as a casual act of comradeship. She had no sense of imposing, that his life would be disrupted by a woman and a child made part of his daily living.

What horrified David most of all was that Irene planned to bring her little boy with her to India. Irene was a woman who had absolute confidence that she could make her way in any world; she was certain that the fates would be good to her. David had visions of the little boy sleeping in the streets of Calcutta with the thousands of the diseased poor of that city. In a moment of anger he once told her he could not understand anyone’s believing in a religion that spawned the hundreds of millions who were the most desperately poverty-stricken in the world. She had answered that what happened in this world was unimportant, since what happened in the next life would be so much more rewarding.

Jatney was fascinated by Irene and how she treated her son. She often took little Campbell to her political meetings because she could not always get her mother to baby-sit and was too proud to ask too often. She took him with her sometimes even to work, when the special kindergarten he attended was closed for some reason.

There was no question that she was a devoted mother. But to David her attitude toward motherhood was bewildering. She did not have the usual concern to protect her child or worry about the psychological influences that could harm him. She treated him as one would treat a beloved pet, a dog or a cat. She seemed to care nothing for what the child thought or felt. She was determined that being the mother of a child would not limit her life in any way, that she would
not make motherhood a bondage, that she would maintain her freedom. David thought she was a little crazy.

But she was a pretty woman, and when she concentrated on sex, she could be ardent. David enjoyed being with her. She was competent in the everyday details of life and was really no trouble. And so he let her move in.

Two consequences were completely unforeseen by him. He became impotent. And he became fond of Campbell.

He prepared for their moving in by buying a huge trunk to lock up his guns, the cleaning materials and the ammo. He didn’t want a five-year-old kid accidentally getting his hands on weapons. And by now, somehow, David Jatney had enough guns to deck out a superhero bandit: two rifles, a machine pistol and a collection of handguns. One was a very small .22-caliber handgun he carried in his jacket pocket in a little leather case that was more like a glove. At night he usually put it beneath his bed. When Irene and Campbell moved in, he locked the .22 in the trunk with the other guns. He put a good padlock on the trunk. Even if the little kid found it open, there was no way he could figure out how to load it. Irene was another story. Not that he didn’t trust her, but she was a little weird, and weirdness and guns didn’t mix.