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When they were alone, the Vice President and the inner five members of the Cabinet again raised the issue of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
It was the Attorney General who brought it up. Quietly and regretfully. Odell was on the defensive. He saw more of their reclusive President than the others. He had to admit John Cormack appeared as lackluster as ever.
“Not yet,” he said. “Give him time.”
“How much?” asked Morton Stannard. “It’s been three weeks since the funeral.”
“Next year is election year,” Bill Walters pointed out. “If it’s to be you, Michael, you will need a clear run from January.”
“Jesus,” exploded Odell. “That man in the White House is stricken and you talk of elections.”
“Just being practical, Michael,” said Donaldson.
“We all know that after Irangate, Ronald Reagan was so badly confused for a while that the Twenty-fifth was almost invoked then,” Walters pointed out. “The Cannon Report at the time makes plain it was touch-and-go. But this crisis is worse.”
“President Reagan recovered,” pointed out Hubert Reed. “He resumed his functions.”
“Yes, just in time,” said Stannard.
“That’s the issue,” suggested Donaldson. “How much time do we have?”
“Not a lot,” admitted Odell. “The media have been patient so far. He’s a damn popular man. But it’s cracking, fast.”
“Deadline?” asked Walters quietly.
They held a vote. Odell abstained. Walters raised his silver pencil. Stannard nodded. Brad Johnson shook his head. Walters agreed. Jim Donaldson reflected and joined Johnson in refusing. It was locked, two and two. Hubert Reed looked around at the other five men with a worried frown. Then he shrugged.
“I’m sorry, but if it must be, it must.”
He joined the ayes. Odell exhaled noisily.
“All right,” he said. “We agree by a majority. By Christmas Eve, without a major turnaround, I’ll have to go and tell him we’re invoking the Twenty-fifth on New Year’s Day.”
He had only risen halfway when the others reached their feet in deference. He found he enjoyed it.
“I don’t believe you,” said Quinn.
“Please,” said the man in the Savile Row suit. He gestured toward the curtained windows. Quinn glanced around the room. Above the mantel shelf, Lenin addressed the masses. Quinn walked to the window and peered out.
Across the gardens of bare trees and over the wall, the top section of a red London double-decker bus ran along Bayswater Road. Quinn resumed his seat.
“Well, if you’re lying, it’s a hell of a film set,” he said.
“No film set,” replied the KGB general. “I prefer to leave that to your people in Hollywood.”
“So what brings me here?”
“You interest us, Mr. Quinn. Please don’t be so defensive. Strange though it may sound, I believe we are for the moment on the same side.”
“It does sound strange,” said Quinn. “Too damn strange.”
“All right, so let me talk it through. For some time we have known that you were the man chosen to negotiate the release of Simon Cormack from his abductors. We also know that after his death you have spent a month in Europe trying to track them down—with some success, it would appear.”
“That puts us on the same side?”
“Maybe, Mr. Quinn, maybe. My job isn’t to protect young Americans who insist on going for country runs with inadequate protection. But it is to try to protect my country from hostile conspiracies that do her huge damage. And this ... this Cormack business ... is a conspiracy by persons unknown to damage and discredit my country in the eyes of the entire world. We don’t like it, Mr. Quinn. We don’t like it at all. So let me, as you Americans say, level with you.
“The abduction and murder of Simon Cormack was not a Soviet conspiracy. But we are getting the blame for it. Ever since that belt was analyzed, we have been in the dock of world opinion. Relations with your country, which our leader was genuinely trying to improve, have been poisoned; a treaty to reduce weapons levels, on which we placed great store, is in ruins.”
