“I thought you were going to get Penny to work behind the scenes,” the President silently accused his absent Secretary of State. “Not make a God damned spectacle of it on Larry King!” But, Penny being Penny, he thought more objectively, what could one expect? They should have known.

  “How we can sit idly by and watch this two-bit little twit get away with it?” Penny declared with the free-swinging rhetoric made possible by being out of office, his twin shafts of nose and jaw framing his indignantly quivering white handlebar mustache, “I cannot see and do not understand!”

  “You think, then,” his obliging host summed it up for him, “that this government should take strong and decisive action at this very moment to stop Sidi once and for all, both for the murder of Creed Moncrief and for the atom bombs Sidi may have.”

  “I do,” Penny said, most emphatically.

  “Well, Mr. President,” his host said, looking directly into the cameras through which he was sure the chief executive was watching, “that leaves it up to you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for another great job in keeping our worldwide audience informed on the ins and outs of American foreign policy. Some ins, some outs! We bring you now Tweezela Tonkela, that beautiful African bombshell from South Africa who is sweeping the world of professional modeling off its feet. Don’t go ’way!”

  Fifteen minutes later, after Tweezela had related the fascinating story of how she had been discovered by an English camera crew in her native Soweto when the new black government of South Africa began the dismantling of all physical barriers between that vast black township and the formerly thriving city of Johannesburg, Bob Alexander came on the regular CNN news broadcast to give the Sidi story another push.

  Bob was the veteran correspondent whose broadcasts during the second Gulf War had made him an overnight sensation after thirty years of journeyman slogging around the world’s hot spots. Chubby-cheeked, baggy-eyed, soft-spoken, and deadly in his open-faced honesty, he covered Greater Lolómé from his base in Riyadh. His sources were excellent and his moral indignation always high.

  It was increased now, he said, “by the cold-blooded murder of a very fine young friend of mine, Creed Moncrief. Those responsible have not yet been identified, but there is good reason to believe that the crime can be traced directly to the door of the Pink House, perhaps to overzealous lieutenants of Sidi, more likely to a cold-blooded order by Sidi himself. And there is another item arousing great concern throughout the whole area: the strong possibility that Sidi may have somehow secured an atomic bomb or bombs from some hidden sinister ally, possibly China or Russia or North Korea, perhaps Libya, perhaps someone even closer to home.

  “Both of these events add up to a major crisis for the United States and its not-always-anxious-to-lead President. It seems imperative, looking at it from here, that the United States has no option but strong and vigorous action against the maverick from the desert who holds absolute power in Greater Lolómé.”

  “Well, the hell with you, Bob,” the President said, using his remote to turn off the huge machine in a corner of the Oval Office. “And you, too, Penny! And you, Larry! And you, Robert and Jim! And you too, Jimmy Van and Able and Sally and Tim and all the rest of you!”

  But, that said and done, Sidi remained. Within the hour the NSC would be meeting again in the Roosevelt Room, and something public would obviously have to emerge from its deliberations. How little or how much he still did not know; but he expected it would have to be much, given the public attention being generated by the media—and, as Ray Stanley told him when he and Eulie Montgomery arrived from Foggy Bottom, by the Hill.

  Passing again under the familiar portico, walking again through the tall glass doors and down the long central hall of the night-hushed mansion, the Deputy Secretary of State felt reasonably encouraged by the way things seemed to be going. From Ray’s rather disgruntled remarks in the limousine, giving her the gist of his earlier conversation with the President, and her quick glimpse of the ubiquitous news programs she had found time to see, she gathered that advocates of a strong response to Sidi were already gaining ground. The President was apparently being smoked out. She couldn’t help being gratified by this.

  That he felt he was being pressured was evident from his rather cool nod as they entered the Roosevelt Room to find the Vice President, Jaime Serrano, and the Defense Department contingent already in place around the table. But his manners, as always, were impeccable.

  “How is Herbie, Eulie?” he inquired gently as she took her seat.

  “Hanging on,” she said.

  He shook his head and uttered a sympathetic sound.

  “If there’s anything Helen and I can do—”

  “No, thank you, Mr. President,” she said. “You’re very kind, but, there isn’t much anyone can do, except—think good thoughts.”

  “You have ours,” he assured her, his tone so kindly that it almost destroyed her tightly held control.

  It had been a long, trying, desperately wearying night, during which Herbie tossed and turned and called out for her approximately every twenty minutes, or so it seemed. He had the means of releasing the painkillers into his bloodstream himself, whenever the pain became too great; but when she suggested gently that he do so and let her get at least a little sleep with which to prepare for what was certainly going to be a busy day ahead, he had whispered with the stubborn insistence of the dreadfully ill, “I want you to do it.”

  So she had, and sleep had dwindled to a few hasty catnaps. She had come to her office this morning exhausted and not feeling up to any major battles. She hoped now that the President would yield gracefully and not insist on one. The arrival of Eldridge Barnes, obviously agitated and ready for combat, appeared at first to threaten that.

  “Mr. President!” he said tersely, taking his seat and looking around the table with a cursory nod. “I hope we can conclude this meeting with reasonable speed.”

  “Oh?” the President said, sounding a little edgy in response to the CIA director’s peremptory tone. “Why is that?”

  “Because I am leaving for Greater Lolómé at midnight,” Eldridge Barnes said, “and I don’t intend to miss my plane.”

  “Are you now?” the President said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I considered it an internal CIA matter,” the director said. “I didn’t think it was necessary to get your approval on everything.”

  “Perhaps not,” the President said, an ominous little glint in his eyes. “However, as a matter of courtesy … What are you going to do in Greater Lolómé, if I am permitted to ask?”

  “Escort Creed Moncrief’s body home,” El Barnes said. “I feel he deserves the honor.”

  There was silence for a moment, broken when the President, across whose face various thoughts, all quite obvious, had passed, finally said, “Well, well,” in a thoughtful voice. “What plane are you going to use?”

  “Commercial, over,” El Barnes said. “Unless you wish to send me on Air Force One.”

  “Or Two,” the Vice President volunteered earnestly. “I’d be happy to cooperate—er,” he added hastily as the President’s expression turned to an open scowl, “that is, if—if it’s okay—that is—if you agree, Mr. President.”

  The President sighed heavily and spoke in a tired but amiable tone, his mood, as so often, apparently changed in an instant.

  “Everybody is so busy,” he said. “And I’m always the last to know. Thank you, Hank, that’s magnificent of you. And don’t think I haven’t thought of something like that, El. I won’t send Air Force One—or Two—but I don’t object to your going. It would be a very fitting gesture—certainly a dramatic one that would make many of the points I think we wish to make in this situation. I just wish you’d told me earlier; we could have announced it from here in time for the evening news shows. Which were not, as some of you may have had time to notice, particularly kind. However, El, go—go. And God bless. I assume Bill Bullock is making arrangements from that end.”

  “Oh, yes,” Eldridge Barnes said, relaxing now that he had won his point with much less turmoil than he had anticipated. “Army helicopter to Riyadh, air force jet to Frankfort, to Andrews. Along with, I might add, Regina Gates, who has already come down from Lesser Lolómé and is in Bill’s embassy. I thought it best to order her home for a while until we see what’s going to happen, particularly being a woman in a Muslim country. Not that we expect Lesser Lolómé to be attacked, of course, but”—he paused and gave the President a challenging look—“or do we?”

  “Not if I can help it,” the President said.

  “And how do you propose—?” the CIA director inquired. “Have you and Ray worked it out?”

  “Ray has,” the President said. “See what you think.”

  And he nodded to the Secretary of State, who proceeded to outline for them the suggestions he had made to the President that morning. As expected, the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs expressed considerable alarm at the thought of placing two aircraft carriers in what could only be interpreted as a hostile stance.

  “Are you sure that’s what we ought to do?” Arlie McGregor inquired. “After all, that’s a pretty warlike gesture, Mr. President.”

  “That’s what I want you all to discuss,” the President said.

  “The basic question to my mind is, can you do it?” Eulie Montgomery said. “And if so, how fast?”

  “We can do anything we’re asked to do,” General Rathbun said, sounding a bit starchy. “And in twenty-four hours or less. Is that saber-rattling enough for you, Eulie?”

  “I don’t want to rattle any sabers,” she said, voice tired from her difficult night and tired from having to fight the endless policy battles around which State revolved at an endless pace. “I just want us to make adequate response to both Creed’s death and to the presence of A-bombs and missiles beneath the Pink Palace, that’s all. If you can do it, and that rapidly, fine, I’m for it. I’m for anything that says: This time we mean it.”

  “Yes,” the President said dryly. “Thank you, Eulie. You do spell it out, don’t you?”

  “Somebody has to,” she said, adding, again in a voice uncharacteristically dispirited, “Mr. President.”

  “All right,” the President said. “So what do we do? Jaime?”

  “Unless Arlie and Bill are going to absolutely refuse to send the aircraft carriers”—Jaime Serrano began, and paused to stare at them pointedly.

  “Oh, hell,” Arlie McGregor responded, looking disgruntled but bowing to what appeared to be inevitable, “of course they’ll go if you want them to, Mr. President. Against our better judgment, but—”

  “Swatting a gnat with a two-by-four,” Bill Rathbun grumbled.

  “We’ll see,” the President said. “I have to stress that this is a planning meeting, not an action meeting.”

  “Oh?” Eulie Montgomery said, dismay apparent and combativeness reviving. “I thought you called us here because you felt it was time to make some firm decisions?”

  “I want to be ready to make them,” the President emphasized blandly. “A lot of things have to be taken into consideration. I just want everything in place.”

  “All right,” she said, becoming more animated as she rose to the challenge. “How about”—and she began making notes as she spoke, on one of the big yellow legal notepads they all had at their places—“‘The government of the United States has received with anger and repugnance the news of the barbaric murder of Creed Moncrief, a member of the staff of the American embassy in Greater Lolómé City.

  “‘We call upon the Government of Greater Lolómé to bring to justice immediately the perpetrators of this barbaric act, and to make reparations immediately to Mr. Moncrief’s family and to this Government for this monstrous and inexcusable act.’”

  “Isn’t that a little strong, Eulie?” Ray Stanley inquired. “How about ‘has received with dismay and deep concern’ the news of the murder, leaving out ‘barbaric,’ of Creed Moncrief, et cetera … ‘Those responsible for this act,’ leave out ‘perpetrators’ and leave out ‘barbaric’ … ‘Reparations for this grievous act,’ leave out ‘monstrous and inexcusable’ … Wouldn’t that achieve the same result without using unnecessarily inflammatory and provocative language?”

  “Why not be inflammatory and provocative?” Eldridge Barnes demanded before Eulie could respond. “It was the barbaric act of a barbaric and monstrous man who deserves every condemnation we can give him, plus adequate—and I do mean adequate—punishment for his crime. I’m with you, Eulie. Let him have it.”

  “You would be, El,” the Secretary of State observed. “Creed was your man. You have a direct interest.”

  “We all have a direct interest,” Eldridge Barnes snapped. “Every decent person on this earth—assuming there are any left—has an interest. Monsters shouldn’t be allowed to get away with monstrosities, although of course they always do thanks to people like you, Ray, who don’t have the courage of their convictions.”

  “I think,” the Secretary said mildly, “that I have the courage of my convictions. It’s your responsibility to contemplate and prepare for the brutal barefaced realities; it’s mine to protect all the necessary niceties that hold some sort of civilized discourse together. I think I’m as anxious as you are to discipline this slimy character—this two-bit little twit, as Penny Sims calls him—this monstrous little twit, as you and Eulie see him, and as we all see him, in reality. But I think we can do it more diplomatically and still be just as forceful.”

  “I don’t see how,” the director of the CIA said bluntly. “I’m past pussyfooting, myself. I’ve had it.”

  “Yes,” the President said. “Well. No doubt language can be perfected once we have the basic framework. Go on, Eulie.”

  “Which means it will be smoothed down to nothing,” she observed with a revival of her usual tart honesty.

  The President smiled. “You underestimate me. Go on, Eulie.”

  She gave him one of the “Eulie’s looks” that could “make even the stoutest hearts in the department,” as Ray put it, “quail before her.” But she resumed as directed.

  “‘Further,’” she said, “‘this Government has learned with the deepest concern’—this is the place for that phrase, Ray——‘that there is a strong possibility that the Government of Greater Lolómé has come into possession of one or more atomic bombs and the means to deliver them—’”

  “Are we ready to go public with that yet?” Jaime Serrano interrupted with real concern.

  “I wonder,” the Vice President echoed earnestly. “It might not be quite the right thing, do you think? Maybe the two things should be kept separate, I’d think.”

  “That’s what we really have to decide, Hank,” the President said. “It’s the basic question.”

  “It seems so to me,” the Vice President said, looking pleased.

  “I have no doubts,” Eulie remarked, “providing—providing—we’re prepared to back it up with the sternest possible warning. ‘To wit—’” she smiled a rather grim smile and interjected, “I don’t want to shock anybody, now, particularly you two gentlemen at the head of the government”—the Vice President looked even more pleased at his inclusion—“but, ‘to wit:

  “‘This Government wishes to warn the Government of Greater Lolómé most emphatically that if the Government of Greater Lolómé does not immediately comply with the inspection procedures of the International Atomic Energy Agency as outlined in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty signed by the Government of Greater Lolómé on November 3, 1996, the Government of the United States will immediately request a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to take such disciplinary action against the Government of Greater Lolómé as the facts may warrant.’

  “In a separate statement issued through you at the Pentagon, Arlie,” she concluded, “delayed perhaps twenty-four hours, with no reference to this statement at all, I would make the bare announcement that two aircraft carriers, the US what’s-its-name and the US whoever-you-are, have taken up new positions in the Gulf.

  “Then I would sit tight for maybe another twenty-four hours to give him an opportunity to pull in his horns and comply, and if he doesn’t, I’d issue another even stronger statement from this office announcing that we will go to the UN and seek a resolution imposing sanctions.”

  For a few moments they were silent, studying their own notes which they had made as she went along. Then Ray Stanley cleared his throat almost apologetically and gave her a smile.

  “Again, Eulie,” he said, “I’m afraid there’s a difference of opinion at State. ‘Warn the Government of Greater Lolómé most emphatically’—I don’t think ‘warn’ is necessary, it’s obvious we’re being emphatic—delete ‘immediately comply’ simply ‘comply’ will do … ‘immediately request a meeting’ of the Security Council, ‘immediately’ not necessary … ‘Disciplinary’ action, too schoolmarmish, ‘appropriate’ action more suited … and I’d hold up the carriers for maybe a week, to allow him full time to comply and not give him the feeling he’s being pressured.”

  She uttered a sarcastic snort. “For God’s sake, why not? He should be pressured! In other words, you want to take all the urgency out of it, as much as possible, right down the line. I can’t go along with you, Ray. I think we’ve got to be tougher.” She turned to the head of the table and demanded bluntly, “What do you think, Mr. President?”

  “Eulie, Eulie!” he said in a fond tone that told her he was preparing to dodge. “You are so positive. We do want to put on the pressure, yes. At the same time, we don’t want to get too harsh about it because presumably he is going to back down and we’ll still have to be dealing with him on a relatively civilized basis for quite a long time to come.” He smiled and glanced at the director of the CIA. “Unless El can foment something and get him overthrown. I’m sure El would like to try.”