With an impatient gesture Todd said, “I don’t mean that. I mean he could work with me. He could even run for office.”
“I’m sure that is the furthest thing from his mind.”
Todd leaned back in his chair again and turned his gaze toward the ceiling. “You know, the Vice-President isn’t going to get the party’s nomination automatically. She’s going to face some stiff opposition from Masterson and his coalition.”
“I am not very familiar with American politics,” Brumado murmured.
The young man said almost dreamily, “You tell your Indian that if he finds something really good up there he can write his own ticket when he gets back. He could hold the balance of power at the national convention, you know that?”
Brumado was not certain that he was hearing correctly. “Are you saying that you would abandon the Vice-President if it seemed expedient?”
“Oh no, of course not!” Todd smiled like a cobra. “But after all, the most important thing is for the party to nominate the man-I mean, the candidate-who can win the election in November. Isn’t it?”
Brumado was not staying at the Jefferson Hotel. That was far too expensive for him. During these weeks in Washington he lived in the Georgetown home of a friend who was away in South Africa on State Department business. The house was a pleasant old red-brick Colonial, beautifully furnished and staffed by a cook and butler.
Edith Elgin lived there, too. Almost.
As soon as Edith had shown up in Washington Brumado’s internal warning system began sounding alarms.
“Dr. Waterman replied to your message, did he not?” he had asked Edith.
She had tracked him down at a congressional committee hearing and walked with him out of the Capitol and along Maryland Avenue toward the NASA headquarters building. The trees were still green and in full leaf, the sunshine warm, the sky bright blue. Yet the breeze had a tang in it, the first snap of autumn’s coming chill.
“Oh yes, he surely did. It was a kind of impersonal message, though.” She laughed lightly. “More like a scientific report than a message from a friend.”
Brumado looked at her closely as they walked along. “You were more than friends, I take it.”
She returned his steady gaze. “Yes, we were. But we both knew it would end when he left for Mars.”
“I see.”
They strolled along slowly. To passersby they looked almost like father and daughter, although pedestrians in the Capitol Hill area were accustomed to seeing older men with good-looking young women. Brumado wore a conservative gray pinstriped double-breasted suit, Edith a midthigh dark skirt, off-white blouse, and cardinal red blazer.
“I was wondering,” Edith said, “if I might interview you-about some of the things Jamie told me.”
“For your network?” Brumado asked.
“It would help me to nail down a permanent job.”
They stopped at a corner traffic light. Brumado had seen Jamie’s message to her. There were no private transmissions from Mars; project officials screened everything.
“You want to make a big story out of Waterman’s desire to change the mission plan and make a traverse out to the Grand Canyon,” he said.
She admitted it easily. “I can use Jamie’s tape by itself if I have to. But I’d rather have you and maybe some of the project administrators telling your side of the story.”
The light changed. Brumado gripped Edith’s arm as they hurried across the street. He was thinking furiously. This woman could destroy everything. She could set the Vice-President back on the warpath.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said when they had safely reached the other side of the intersection.
“A proposition?” Edith smiled at him.
“I propose a deal,” Brumado said. “You can stay with me and get all the information about the expedition that you want-if you promise not to release anything until the team is safely back on Earth.”
Edith frowned with puzzlement. “I’m not sure I understand…”
“You can become the unofficial biographer of the Mars mission. Go where I go. No doors will be closed to you. You will see everything and meet everyone.”
“But I can’t put any of it on the air until the mission’s finished. Is that it?”