We Know

The lead jogger approached swiftly, smelling of deodorant, his hand in his unzipped fanny pack. I recognized him as James, the Secret Service agent who'd stood post in Caruthers's conference room. How easy it would be for him to slap cuffs on me and shove me into one of the waiting SUVs. But instead he said, "Sir, if you don't mind?"

He waited stoically while his counterpart frisked me. Then they nodded at Caruthers and gave us a ten-yard standoff, facing away, ready for incoming threats. As Caruthers approached, slightly wobbly on his venerable knees, the SUVs pulled in around us, sealing us off from the open roads. Caruthers leaned over, catching his breath. "I'm sorry about this, Nick. You know how it goes."

"Doing their job."

His eyes took in the Band-Aid on my cheek. "They always do."

"Still no warrant out on me?"

"Nothing official, at least through our channels." He pursed his lips. "You know that's probably bad news, right?"

Pain throbbed through my head, a party favor from the impromptu surgical shindig. I glanced nervously at the jogger-agents, intently facing away from us. "Can we talk a bit more privately?"

Caruthers said, "James," and the men nodded and slid to the far side of the SUV perimeter.

I remembered the president's velvet-smooth voice through the phone, his veiled warning for me to steer clear of Caruthers: You wouldn't want to meet with someone like that, Nick. Certainly not twice. What might this rendezvous bring down on me?

I gestured at the agents. "They've seen me. Us, together."

"We were seen together a few days ago, too. What's the difference?"

"What I know now. Who they tell."

"This is my detail, Nick. I trust these men. Plus, I deal with folks all the time. As do all my people. No one can know what came from whom."

"They can guess."

"They sure can. I'm not going to pretend there's no risk involved. You're too smart to buy that pitch. Listen, son, you called me. If you're too uncomfortable to talk…" He waved an open hand at the road.

Grimacing, I looked at all that assembled manpower, all those concealed weapons that could be swung my way at a moment's notice. Caruthers's challenge brought back Frank, sipping his coffee in the dark, the TV screen finally at rest, having shown run after catastrophic run of JFK's limousine. All you can rely on is a man s character. Not what he says or promises, but what he does. What you do is the measure of a man.

I sidled a half step closer. "Would you believe that Bilton was behind a massive cover-up?"

I waited for the shift behind the eyes, the stalling-for-time grin, the nervous glance to the agents. But either Caruthers had a heightened tolerance for conspiracy theorists or he'd learned never to rule anything out. He worked his gum. The coarse hairs of his eyebrows twisted this way and that over those intense irises.

"It's part of the job description of the chief executive," he said. "It depends-"

"On what's being covered up."

He nodded. "Bilton's a gray suit and a trademark, a company man. He's subject to the pressures we're all subject to, but he yields to them a little more readily than the rest of us, flows with the prevailing current. He knows he is where he is because powerful forces wanted him there. So why reflect, let alone resist? His principles are convenient and poll-tested, and that means he can be convinced of anything."

"That's a political answer."

"I'm a politician, Nick. Now, can we get on with whatever this is?"

"It wasn't Mike Milligan in that nuclear power plant. It was a former California State Police officer named Charlie Jackman."

Caruthers's brilliant green eyes held on me until

I looked away. He dotted his forehead with the hem of his shirt and blew out a breath. "The crime-scene reports and DNA analysis say different."

"They were made to say different."

"Okay, so what was a former California State Police officer doing in San Onofre?"

"Jackman worked Bilton's detail when Bilton was governor."

"Go on."

I slid the ultrasound from the envelope and handed it to him. "I believe that this shows the illegitimate daughter of President Bilton."

"Looks like a fetus."

"And she was born seventeen years ago. There's a paternity test, too."

He held the ultrasound to the sun. The human curl, bulb head and bean body. "Jesus." He looked around, as if for somewhere to sit, but settled for putting his hands on his knees, the stiff sheet bowing to the side. He was still breathing hard from the run. "Jesus, Nick. And the paternity test is conclusive?"

"All the attention I've been getting sure as hell shows it's real. But as for court-of-law conclusive? I'm not a lawyer. I'm not an agent. I'm just a guy who got pulled into the wrong situation."

He cocked his head. "We both know you're not as uncomplicated as you like to pretend. So let's drop the pretense." His mouth was drawn, etched with innumerable tiny lines. The sun came through his hair, turning it gold.