"For the love of humanity, Mr. President."
"For the love of a balanced budget, Senator. Where do you expect the funds to support your program to come from?"
"You might begin by cutting back the budget of Meta Section."
So there it was. Congressional snoops had finally breached the walls of Meta Section. It had to come sooner or later. At least it was later.
He decided to play it noncommittal. "Meta Section?"
"A super-classified think-tank you've supported for years. Surely, I don't have to describe its operation to you."
"No," the President said evenly. "You don't."
An uncomfortable silence followed.
Finally Burdick forged ahead "It took months of checking by my investigators-you covered the financial tracks very cleverly-but they finally managed to backtrail the source of the funds used to raise the Titanic to a supersecret organization, operating under the name of Meta Section, and then ultimately to you. My God, Mr. President, you authorized nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to salvage that worthless old wreck and then lied by saying that it costs less than half that amount. And here I am only asking for fifty million to get the children's medical bill off the ground. If I may say so, sir, your odd sense of priorities is a bloody crime."
"What do you intend to do, John? Blackmail me into signing your bill?"
"To be perfectly candid, yes."
"I see."
Before the conversation could go on, the President's secretary entered the room.
"Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. President, but you asked to check over your appointment schedule for this afternoon."
The President made an apologetic gesture to Burdick. "Excuse me, John, this will only take a moment."
The President scanned the schedule. He stopped at a name penciled in for 415. He looked up at his secretary, his eyebrows raised. "Mrs. Seagram?"
"Yes, sir. She called and said she had traced down the history of that model ship in the bedroom. I thought perhaps you might be interested in what she discovered, so I squeezed her in for a few minutes."
The President held his hands over his face and closed his eyes. "Call Mrs. Seagram and cancel the four-fifteen appointment. Ask her to join me for dinner on board the Presidential yacht at seven-thirty."
The secretary made the notation and left the room.
The President turned back to Burdick. "Now, John, if I still refuse to sign your bill, what then?"
Burdick held up. his hands. "Then you leave me no choice but to blow the whistle on your clandestine uses of government funds. In that event, I fear you can expect a scandal that will make the old Watergate mess look like an Easter egg hunt."
"You'd do that?"
"I would."
An icy calm seemed to settle ever the President. "Before you dash out the door and waste more of the taxpayers' dollars on a congressional hearin
g over my fiscal maneuverings, I suggest you hear from the horse's own mouth what Meta Section is all about and what they've produced in the defense of the country that keeps us both gainfully employed."
"I'm listening, Mr. President." Good.
One hour later, a thoroughly subdued Senator John Burdick sat in his office and carefully dropped his secret file on Meta Section into a shredding machine.
77
It was a staggering sight to see the Titanic propped high and dry in the huge canyon of a dry dock.
Already the noise had started. Welders were attacking the clogged passageways. Riveters were hammering against the scarred hull, beefing up the temporary repairs made at sea to the jagged wounds below the waterline. Overhead, two sky-reaching cranes dipped their jaws down into the darkened cargo holds only to have them reappear minutes later with mangled bits and pieces of debris clutched in their iron teeth.