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take that chance. Not now. Not with three dead Fibbies hanging around my house.”
    A look of hers went through him.
    All right. So he knew she was a liar and little better than a whore in her thinking. But he also knew there was absolutely
     no way he was about to leave her.

9
    H ENRY D URNING, A tall, physically imposing man with intense eyes, was delivering a lecture before an overflow crowd at Columbia Law School
     in New York. It was one of many such talks he gave at regular intervals from some of the country’s most prestigious platforms.
    Durning used these and other forms of public address because they allowed him to be seen and heard as he wished to be seen
     and heard. He believed every occasion had its propaganda potential. You had an idea, a conviction, a wish, and you disseminated
     it. If you were good enough, if your words took, those who heard you were influenced to feel the same way.
    In his own case, Durning, the United States attorney general, tried to make it known to thinking audiences everywhere that
     even the best of laws were all but worthless unless their true spirit was generally understood, accepted, and put into practice.
    And what was Durning telling his audience today? What quick-fix solutions to the country’s statutory ills was he projecting
     with his usual dynamic thrust?
    No easy solutions. Only his core message that as long as the lawful rights of a single American—male or female; black, white,
     or yellow; native or foreign born—were threatened by prejudice, then the rights of every other American were equally threatened.
    Durning’s message.
    Even-toned, clearly enunciated, it sailed across the auditorium on wings of metaphysical logic. Here on this podium he was
     an authority, the respected head of the United States Department of Justice and onetime war hero, to whom large audiences
     listened with attention bordering on reverence. Were they and he crazy? At times, Durning believed so. But more often he knew
     it was the strength to master your own weakness, and do what you had to do daily and without complaint, that made the only
     true heroes.
    Still, they had hung the Medal of Honor about his neck for a different reason and made another sort of hero out of him. A
     war hero. Maybe they had even made him a symbol. But a symbol of what, Durning didn’t know. Unless it was the image of him
     as a onetime intellectual, a professor of law, no less, who could be trained to kill the enemies of his country with exceptional
     skill.
    The attorney general did not stay long after the lecture. He usually enjoyed the follow-up questioning, the student adulation,
     the coeds with their nubile heat, all moving flesh and shining eyes, the flattering deference of the faculty. Ego food.
Lord, my days are vanity.
But today, in his current mood, Henry Durning was not even tempted.
    Instead, he had his driver take him directly to La Guardia, where a plane was waiting to fly him back to Washington.
    Durning was barely aboard and seated when he was handed a two-hour accumulation of telephone messages. He chose two for immediate
     reply. One was from Arthur Michaels, the White House chief of staff, the other from FBI Director Brian Wayne. Durning called
     Michaels first.
    “What’s doing, Artie?”
    “I don’t like what’s happening at that cult standoff in West Virginia. There’s been more gunfire, and the head nut is talking
     mass suicide if the siege isn’t called off by five this afternoon.”
    Durning glanced at his watch. It was 11:46 A.M.
    Michaels said, “Have you spoken to Brian yet?”
    “No. But there’s a message he called. I’ll get to him next.”
    “When you do, calm him down. A couple of his agents were hit in this latest fracas and he sounded edgy as hell. What we
don’t
need is another Branch Davidian disaster.”
    “Don’t worry,” said the attorney general. “I’ll handle it.”
    There was a short pause. “Hold on a second. The president wants a