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  I said much the same thing to Grace Wingate on the ride back to the Georgetown White House.

  “Don’t you believe in anything?” she asked me.

  “Of course. In the immortality of the human species and the ability of science to ensure that immortality.”

  “But to what purpose?”

  “My Personality Profile says that I am goal-oriented. That is true, but in the short run. I am essentially pragmatic. I am not concerned with teleology. A lot of kaka. A waste of time. There’s too much to be done today. For tomorrow.”

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, she put a hand on mine. She leaned toward me.

  “Will you be my friend, Nick?” she asked. A whisper.

  “Of course.” I smiled. “Do you have to ask?”

  “Do you know what was in Angela’s briefcase?”

  “No. I obviously have no need to know.”

  She sat back, huddled into the corner of the wide seat. She stared at me thoughtfully a long moment. In the gloom she seemed suddenly older, despite the girlish middy, the ashen hair misting about her shoulders. I was conscious of the bare legs, the curve of her upper arms.

  “I want to tell you,” she said.

  “I don’t think you should,” I said.

  “I want to.”

  “Please don’t. It’s wrong for you to talk about restricted material, and dangerous for me to listen.”

  “Then I’ll tell my husband you tried to worm it out of me, that you tried and tried to get me to reveal what’s going on, but I refused to tell you.”

  I looked at her in astonishment. Shocked by her resoluteness.

  “Why would you want to do that to me?” I asked her. “I have done you no harm.”

  Then she was weeping. Hand over her eyes. Shoulders hunched, shaking. Hair a scrim about her face. Little sounds came out of her. My hand crept sideways, found her free hand. She gripped my fingers with surprising force.

  “All right, Grace,” I said gently. “What’s this all about?”

  “Angela,” she said. “And Mike. What she’s doing. With Mike. To Mike.”

  Mike? Chief Director Michael Wingate, manager of the US. It sounded odd. Did President Harold K. Morse’s wife call him Harry? Probably. And here was Grace Wingate worrying. about Mike. Knowing Angela, I thought she probably had cause for worry.

  “Grace.” I said her name softly. I gripped her hand tightly. “I want to be your friend. Tell me what is in Angela’s briefcase.”

  We were on M Street, approaching Georgetown, and she spoke rapidly in her deep, throaty voice. What she told me seemed anti-climactic. But I did not at that point in time fully compute the Washington world. I was not conditioned to assigning operative political values. It was my first experience as a major mover and shaker. Later, when I learned the techniques of power politics, I realized the importance of what Grace Wingate told me that night.

  This had been the sequence of events:

  1. Hyman R. Lewisohn had run a definitive computer study of the US Government’s assets in real property. The inventory included public lands, military bases and hardware, natural resources (estimated), power generating facilities, and such real estate as shipyards, factories, homes, universities, hotels, motels, schools, zoos, wholesale and retail businesses, etc. Most of the last-mentioned had reverted to US ownership upon the default of government loans or for nonpayment of voluntary contributions.

  2. The total proved simply astonishing. The US was by far the largest landholder, the largest shipbuilder, the largest everything in the world. This enormous capital had been amassed not deliberately but by a slow process of accretion, almost by accident. The US Government now owned and operated, either directly or through license, hamburger stands and swimming pools, parks and playgrounds, macaroni factories and airlines, golf courses and bordellos, bridges and distilleries, shipping lines and private mints, an orchard in Florida, and a trout stream in Oregon. Even whole towns that had grown up about military bases.

  3. It was determined that all these enterprises were under the direction of or operated by several Public Service departments. Natural Resources handled public lands and parks. Commerce handled hotels, motels, factories, stores. Bliss handled nursing homes, hospitals, recreation facilities. Agribusiness handled farms, food processing plants, supermarkets. And so forth.

  4. Lewisohn’s plan was to maximize income by bringing all US Government profit-making properties under the management of a new Public Service department, the Department of National Assets. He argued that by centralized control, modern management techniques, stricter accounting procedures—by operating US-owned business as an efficient conglomerate might—income from government property could be increased by 38.6416 percent and result, if desired, in a 4.2674 percent tax reduction.

  5. Chief Director Wingate, his staff and directors were enthusiastic about Lewisohn’s proposal. But the creation of a new Public Service department would necessitate enabling legislation from Congress. Wingate wasn’t so enthusiastic about stirring up the Whigs (formerly the Republican Party). And they would certainly be stirred up by the revelation of the incredible total of real property held by the US Government that would have to be made in any Congressional hearing on a bill to create the proposed department.

  6. Angela Berri had suggested a way out of the difficulty. Instead of a new department, a new section in the Department of Bliss, which she ruled, would be established. New sections were purely an administrative matter and required no Congressional approval. The new section would perform all the functions of the new department proposed by Lewisohn. It was a detailed prospectus for this new section that Angela was carrying in her chained briefcase to discuss with the Chief Director.

  Dear Angela! For an ef on the suck, I could understand how tempting the new section must seem. All that love rolling in from government properties all over the world. If she skimmed only one-tenth of one percent, she’d be the wealthiest ef in the world within five years. Temerity! Greed!

  “I’m not sure I can do anything about this,” I said slowly to Grace Wingate. “If your husband wants to avoid a Congressional confrontation, I can’t see any choice but to opt for Angela’s plan. ’ ’

  She turned away from me, staring out the window.

  “She owns you, too, I suppose,” she said dully. “You’ve probably used each other.”

  “Yes, we’ve used each other,” I said. “No, she doesn’t own me. Give me a little time. Maybe I can compute something. If you want me to be your friend, if you want me to help you, you must trust me. Can you do that?”

  She turned to look at me. Despair in those dark eyes.

  “I have no choice.” she said. “Do I? I have nowhere else to —I can’t let her—They—she and Mike—Nick, I want to keep my husband! But she—and she thinks I—you don’t know what she—’ ’

  “I know, Grace,” I murmured. “Believe me, I know. I’ll do everything I can. I’m on your side.”

  She leaned forward, kissed my cheek swiftly, pulled away. We stopped before the barred gate. Guards came over to inspect us.

  We found Angela Berri and Chief Wingate seated casually in a parlor-type room in the front of the house. It was furnished with three TV sets, a game table, a cellarette on wheels, and slightly worn chintz-covered armchairs and sofas. Angela no longer had her briefcase. There was nothing in the manner or appearance of either of them to indicate how their discussion had gone. Perhaps I imagined they were seated an unusual distance apart.

  Wingate rose to greet us.

  “Good meeting?” he asked his wife.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Let’s have a nightcap,” he said.

  He glanced at me, made an almost imperceptible motion of his head. Obediently, I followed him over to the cellarette. He busied himself with the bottle of apricot-flavored petroqueur and four small, stemmed glasses.

  “Did you attend?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yes, sir. I did.”

  “Reactions?”<
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  “Certainly not apocalyptists. Quite the contrary. I think they’re harmless.”

  “They are,” he said. “At this point in time.”

  “Not politically oriented,” I observed. “Unless what I saw was a front.”

  “No, it’s operative,” he said. “I had them profiled. Nick, that suggestion of yours for a new Department of Science. ...”

  “Department of Creative Science, sir.”

  “Yes. Spell it out in a personal letter to me. Purpose, organization, staff, estimated budget, and so forth.”

  “Be happy to, sir.”

  He handed me two filled glasses, looked swiftly at the chatting efs, turned back to stare into my eyes.

  “No need to go through channels,” he said quietly. “Bring the prospectus directly to me. Don’t mail it. No endorsement copies. You compute?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  We each carried two glasses back to the efs. Wingate handed one of his to Grace; I gave mine to Angela. We sat in a rough square, efs at the ends of a sofa, ems in distant armchairs. Each in a corner.

  “Nick,” the Chief said, rather languidly, “that suggestion of yours for a new Department of Science. ... I wonder if you appreciate the political problems involved in getting a new Public Service department approved by Congress? The opposition would be heavy: the small but loud group that is against any extension of PS hegemony, obsos, the antiscience faction, antiabortionists, most religionists, rulers of existing government research sections in other departments, and industrial lobbyists with sweetheart contracts with those sections. A can of worms. It wouldn’t be easy to get the enabling legislation passed.”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t, sir.”

  “But suppose we decided to make a fight for a new department,’ ’ he said casually. “Any suggestions on tactics?”

  I caught a warning glance from Angela. Wingate was, I knew, drawing me out on the possibility of creating Lewisohn’s new Department of National Assets. He had no way of knowing I recognized his stalking-horse. Nor did Angela. She was concerned only that I might say something to endanger her plan. But I could safely ignore her warning; I could always plead ignorance and innocence.

  “I don’t believe the establishment of a new department would present insuperable difficulties, sir,” I said pompously. Ingenuous I. “It seems to me one way to approach the problem would be to introduce—at the same time you introduce the new department bill—another bill so controversial, so certain to arouse strong passions and angry dispute, that with all the howling going on—media debates, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, and so forth—why, you might stand a much better chance of slipping by your new department bill with a minimum of opposition.”

  He stared at me a moment. Expressionless. I risked a quick glance at Angela. If looks could stop, I would have been cremated in my armchair.

  “A throwaway bill,” Wingate mused. “Something we know will be defeated. But we put up a valiant fight. It takes off the heat. In other words, a decoy bill. I do believe you have a talent for politics. What you suggest—”

  At that precise instant. Explosion. Loud. Heavy thump. Ground tremble. Inside me. Tinkle of broken glass. Softer thump. Wisconsin Avenue or all around? Shake and flutter. Looks. Frozen. Caught. Shatter of automatic rifle fire. Boom of flechette guns.

  Wingate: “Down on the floor! All of you!”

  Angela a cat. Up. Two quick steps. Soft, gymnastic roll onto one shoulder. Then. Under a table. Hands and knees. Spine arched. Head up. Lips drawn back. Snarling.

  Door burst. Black zipsuits.

  Ems kneeling. Glass breaking. Another thump. Mirror shattered. Myself moving in a dream. Stop-action. Down on one knee. A razor stripe across the back of my left hand. Shallow slice. Dark blood welling. No pain.

  Wingate at the window.

  “Goddamn it, get down! Sir!”

  A red zipsuit inside. Door slammed and bolted.

  “Down! Down! Down!”

  Grace Wingate gliding to her husband. Grasping his shoulders. Turning him. Interposing her body between him and the jagged windows. Hugging him close. Looking into his eyes. Angela spit-ting. Furious. The efs magnificent.

  A chatter of gunfire from black zipsuits at the windows. Smoke. Smell. Sharp crack. Whine of steel splinters. Portrait of John Quincy Adams with three eyes. Final burst. A human wail. High-pitched scream.

  Silence. We wait. Trembling. Black zipsuits reload. With shaking hands. I look down. A few drops of urine. Nothing shows. But I know. Wingate goes to the cellarette. Begins to fill glasses. Steady hands.

  “Oh,” he breathes. “Ah,” he breathes. “The worst this year. ”

  He turns. Sees my blood, starts toward me. I wave him away, knot a handkerchief, pull it tight with my teeth. Angela crawls out. Straightens up. White.

  “Stay here,” Wingate says. Rushes out.

  The black zipsuits are still at the windows. Not moving. I take them brandies. They drink. Not taking their eyes away from the night.

  Wingate comes back with a kit. My wound is ridiculous. A slice across the knuckles. Already clotting. I dab it, tape it. The bandage stains slowly. Then stabilizes. Angela grips my arm, her grin a forgiveness. Grace Wingate kisses my cheek. Again. Soft, yielding lips. Syrupy as her voice. Her body would come apart in my hands. Just disintegrate. No. Unfold. And reveal mysteries.

  “We lost an em on the gate,” Wingate reported. “Three injured. They lost four stopped. Two injured. All of them. We think.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “Oh . . . who knows. Animals.”

  The Chief ordered an escort to see us back to the Watergate Complex. A gray sedan preceded us. Driver and three armed guards. A gray sedan followed us. Driver and three armed guards. The red zipsuited officer in command was an ef. She insisted on ushering us safely inside the door of Angela’s apartment. When the door was closed, locked, bolted, chained, I glanced through the peephole. A black zipsuit stood outside.

  “Welcome to Washington,” Angela said. “District of Columbia.”

  “But the love isn’t bad,” I said, and we both laughed.

  When Maya Leighton and I had arrived late that afternoon, I had been impressed by the apartment. Now, after an evening in the Wingates’ pleasant, comfortable, lived-in, slightly shabby home, these rooms seemed stagy. Everything glistened or glowed. Ashtrays were not only empty but polished. Artificial elegance.

  When we had arrived, Angela had not yet returned from her office. A serving ef in an earth-colored zipsuit let us in, showed us the two double bedrooms, nests. We bathed separately, changed into our uniforms, waited with a drink for Angela’s return.

  She rushed in, stroked palms, gave Maya a sharp, searching look, then disappeared to dress for dinner with the Chief Director. While she was absent, and Maya and I sat in silence, sipping vodka-and-Smack, Art Roach rang the chime. He was wearing his red zipsuit.

  What a chilly, bloodless em he was. He inspected Maya Leighton -drowsily, blinking. I recognized the look. There are certain surgeons who enjoy cutting. The two departed, for an evening of fun

  and frivolity. I had already warned Maya. I could, I told myself, do no more.

  Now. Angela and I safe inside the guarded door. We were sunk in uncomfortably soft armchairs. Enveloped. Drowning. She stared at me.

  “You’re a fool, Nick,” she said. Finally.

  “A fool? How so?”

  “When the Chief asked you how he might pass a bill for a new department.”

  “So ? I answered him as honestly as I could. Would you have me stutter, ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I have no idea.’ Then he would have thought me a fool. And you a fool for giving me my rank. Is that what you wanted?”

  “Oh . . . no.” She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. You just didn’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Nothing. You have no need to know. I wonder if your secretary is home?”

  I waved toward the door of the s
econd bedroom.

  “Take a look,” I told her.

  She rose, kicked off her shoes, padded to the bedroom door. She opened it, peered in cautiously, closed the door.

  “She’s here. Sleeping naked.”

  “Any obvious cuts, bruises, contusions, welts, or scratches?” She looked at me curiously.

  “Ah,” she said, “I see you know Art Roach. No, she looks rosy and whole.”

  We looked at each other and laughed. We were both very vulgar objects.

  “Speaking of wounds,” she said. “How’s yours?”

  “I’ll survive,” I said. “How often does that happen?” “Assault on the Chief? Third time this year. It’s always pillowed. The neighbors are all in PS. No one talks.”

  “He was good. So was his wife. Lovely ef.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked toward the bedroom door. Seeing, I knew, the naked Maya sprawled sleeping.

  “I’m charged,” she said.

  “That’s understandable.” I nodded. “Violence. Danger. Adrenalin.”

  “Don’t you feel it?” “Of course. Flip a coin?”

  “Don’t be silly. Is she het or bi?”

  “Bi. I think. Don’t really know, ma’am.”

  “Would you mind if I tried?”

  “Not at all. But Roach probably just used her.”

  “So?” she said. “That just makes the cheese more binding.” “You’re a dreadful ef.” I laughed.

  “I know.” She smiled coldly. “Dreadful. An object inspiring dread. And don’t you ever forget it, Nick.”

  She went into Maya’s bedroom. Closed the door behind her. In a moment I heard a burst of laughter. Then murmurings. Then silence.

  I stood up, stretched, looked around. I poured myself a petronac at her futuristic bar, then slumped down again in that womb-chair. I sipped the brandy and, for a moment, plotted her destruction.