Agnew raised an eyebrow. ‘Why would it change anything?’
‘I had a reporter ask me that question at Walter Reed,’ Kraig said. ‘It was a strange question, but it had me thinking in the car. What if it were possible to incapacitate a public official intentionally, as a form of terror?’
‘Hmm,’ Agnew mused. ‘The Ipcress File. Is that what you’re thinking of?’
‘Yeah. If you can’t kill a guy, or force him out through scandal, you mess up his mind somehow.’
‘Science fiction,’ Agnew mused. ‘But anything is possible.’
There was a silence.
‘Why don’t you fly out there and see what you can learn?’ Agnew asked.
‘Iowa?’
‘Yeah.’
Kraig nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘But first go home and get a good night’s sleep,’ Agnew said. ‘I have a feeling the next few weeks aren’t going to be fun.’
Kraig gave Agnew a long look. ‘Right,’ he said.
Kraig stood up and left the office.
Kraig didn’t get home to his Virginia condominium until after eleven. He was looking forward to a shower and an evening of reading and music.
His profession forced him to read newspapers avidly and to be aware of current events and the trends behind them. He got so sick of the real world after a day of work that he couldn’t bear to watch television at home. He listened to a lot of music – Coltrane and Miles Davis when he was younger, but increasingly Beethoven and Mozart – and read novels. He looked for stories as far removed as possible from this time and place. Mark Twain was a favorite. So were Balzac and Dumas. He liked to immerse himself in the longer Dostoyevsky novels, and sometimes even read Shakespeare.
He had weights in his basement, and always found time to do some bench pressing and curling. He ran in the mornings to keep his legs in shape. Since his divorce he found concentration and work easy, but sleep difficult. In some ways the loneliness of his profession suited him. In other ways he felt empty and rootless, adrift in a life that didn’t really belong to him.
He e-mailed his daughter in Florida every day, and spoke to her on the phone once a week. She was ten now, and very busy with her own life. He spoke to his ex-wife as seldom as possible.
The apartment building loomed before him with its combined aura of home and of homeless-ness. Lights were on in all the units except his own. Sighing, he turned off the car.
There was a girl sitting on the steps. As he drew closer, carrying his briefcase, he recognized the aggressive young reporter from the foyer at Walter Reed.
‘No comment,’ he said. ‘I’m off duty.’
‘My name is Karen Embry,’ she said, getting to her feet and holding out a hand. ‘I don’t want a story.’
Kraig stood looking at her without taking her hand. She was of medium height, maybe five five, but she seemed smaller because she was visibly underweight. The journalist’s typical lean-and-hungry essence was evident in her, but there was something else as well, something downright undernourished and, Kraig thought, sad. She had long dark hair, which she obviously made the most of. Her complexion was fair, her eyes large and dark. She was very pretty, or would have been had she been anything but a reporter.
These impressions kept him from sweeping by her into the condo without a word.
‘If it isn’t a story, what do you want?’ he asked.
‘Just a couple of minutes of conversation,’ she said.
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he said.
‘I work long hours,’ she said. ‘My sources tell me that Everhardt is really sick. That there’s no way he’ll be coming back.’
Kraig shrugged. ‘I really couldn’t say. I’m not a doctor, Miss – what did you say your name was?’
‘Embry. Call me Karen.’ Now that his eyes were adjusting to the dim light Kraig saw that there was something unusual about her features. Something European, perhaps – though there was no trace of an accent in her voice.
‘How come I haven’t met you before?’ he asked.
‘I moved down here from Boston fairly recently,’ she said. ‘I’m working freelance. I specialize in public health stories.’
‘That’s nice,’ Kraig said.
There was a silence. The reporter knew Kraig wasn’t going to give her anything she could use. But, like any good journalist, she wanted to establish him as a contact.
‘I heard it was something about the decision-making process,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Everhardt. Something to the effect that he can understand things – some things at least – but can’t make decisions based on what he knows. So he can’t act. He’s paralyzed.’
Kraig turned toward the parking lot, beyond which a sad vista of apartments and two-story office buildings blocked the horizon.
‘No comment,’ he said.
‘I heard the White House is really worried,’ she said. ‘Without Everhardt for the polls, they’re not sure the president can hold off Colin Goss.’
‘I’m not a pollster,’ Kraig said.
She nodded. ‘A lot of people are concerned about the viability of the administration. The voters are terrified of another nuclear attack like the Crescent Queen. Goss has been pulling a lot of strings in Congress. If anything happens to make the president look weaker than he is already, there might be a resolution asking him to resign. This Everhardt thing certainly doesn’t make him look stronger.’
Kraig said nothing. He knew Colin Goss was putting pressure on the administration. Frankly, he thought it would be better for the country if Goss was in that hospital bed instead of Dan Everhardt. Goss was a true menace. In this sense, Kraig did have a political mind.
‘That’s not my department,’ he said.
There was a silence.
‘I heard that some of the doctors think Everhardt’s problem may be functional,’ she said.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Kraig asked.
‘Mental. Emotional. Everhardt has been under a lot of stress recently. Maybe he cracked under the strain.’
Kraig was looking at her face now. There was an odd concentration in her eyes, almost an animal concentration. He wondered for a split second whether she was on something, some sort of upper. But he rejected the idea. She was simply a newshound, ready to knock down any obstacle that stood between her and a story. Her kind didn’t need uppers. The stories themselves were their drug.
‘Everhardt is a good man,’ she said, ‘but he’s not really cut out for the presidential wars. Consider the way Colin Goss had him buffaloed on Washington Today. Maybe the pressure was getting too great for him.’
Kraig cut her off. ‘I don’t have anything for you,’ he said.
‘As I say, I don’t want you to leak anything,’ she said. ‘I just want …’
Kraig gave her a dark smile. ‘What is it you want, Miss Embry?’
‘Call me Karen. Please.’
Kraig was not taken