“It’s madness,” the President said, “to spread that nuclear stuff around. Add a trigger to it and we’ll all be fissioned and fusioned, vaporized.”

“Only,” Grady reminded him, “if you add the trigger. Nobody’s adding the trigger.”

The President’s handsome, craggy face canted to one side, an attitude familiar to the readers of the world’s illustrated gazettes; evidence, it was claimed, of cerebration. He blinked a few times before he said, “Nuclear is out. It’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Grady asked reasonably. “That’s what you said when I told you we were raising fifty million dollars to get you elected.”

“Christ sakes, we simply can’t do it.”

“That’s what our Board said when I came to them for the fifty big ones.”

The President rearranged his face to say something. He stared off into space, looking for a teleprompter.

“We intend to at least match it,” Grady purred, “when you’re up for reelection.”

“That’s a whole different kettle of fish,” the President said. “Things like that—contributions to your Party and its presidential nominee—that’s what makes America great.” For emphasis he opened a desk drawer and snared a baseball. As he massaged the horsehide, “But you’re talking dual-use doomsday material which an international body of Boy Scouts will scrutinize and, I guarantee, condemn. There are certain procedures set down for the peaceful use of atomic energy. Any transfer of technology has to be approved by the whatchamacallit. You know…”

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.”

“Right,” the President said. For emphasis he whipped the baseball at the backboard, missed by ten feet, hit a portrait of Millard Fillmore in the teeth. He reached down into the desk well and came up with a bowling ball. Christ, I thought, if he throws that…

“And,” the President went on, “we’d have to get the approval of the Limeys and the Frogs and the Krauts and the Russkies and the good Lord knows who else, particularly now that they’re all back in Iraq, although they all of ’em owe me a favor. As for the International Atomic Energy Agency, I know a thing or two about the director general to make him my slave.”

“Then, what, sir, is the problem?”

For a long moment the President was silent. He dropped the bowling ball back in the well with a major thonk and then a few minor ones. He said, “What is it, Joe?”

“What’s what, sir?”

“What’s in it for you?”

Grady’s jaw squared like General MacArthur’s and his eyes locked with the President’s. He said, “I don’t quite know how to say this, sir, but in this age of cynicism and uncertainty, I have a deep commitment to my country.”

I fell off my chair. Grady helped me to my feet.