"Maybe so, but if he's right about Margolin, you're defaming the next President of the United States."

"The day that little creep takes the oath is the day I turn in my citizenship."

"You probably won't be alone," Sandecker said sourly. "But your personal feelings don't alter the situation."

Pitt stood unbudging. "I'll call you from Louisiana."

"I was hoping you'd say that. Stay in close contact. I'll do everything I can to help from this end."

"Thanks, you old fraud."

"Get your ass in gear and tell Giordino to stop swiping my cigars."

Pitt grinned and hung up. He finished packing and hurried from the hangar. Three minutes after he drove off, his phone began to ring, Two hundred miles away an ashen-faced Sal Casio despair@gly waited in vain for an answer.

TEN MINUTES AFTER TWELVE NOON, Alan Moran walked through the main corridor of the Capitol, down a narrow staircase and opened the door to an out-of-the-way office he kept for privacy.

Most men in his position were constantly surrounded by a hive of aides, but Moran preferred to travel a solitary trail, unhindered by inane conversation.

He always wore the wary look of an antelope scanning the African plain for predators. He had the expressionless eyes of a man whose only love was power, power attained by whatever means, at whatever cost. To achieve his prestigious position in Congress, Moran had carefully nurtured a billboard image. In his public life he oozed a religious fervor, the personification of the friendly shy man with a warm sense of humor, the appeal of the neighbor next door, ever ready to lend his lawn mower, and the past of a man born underprivileged, self-made.

His private life couldn't have been more at odds. He was a closet atheist who looked on his constituents and the general public as ignorant rabble whose chronic complaints led to an open license to twist and control for his own advantage. Never married, with no close friends, he lived frugally like a penitent monk in a small rented apartment. Every dollar over and above subsistence level went into his secret corporation in Chicago, where it was anded to funds obtained through illegal contributions, bribes and other corrupt investments.

Then it was spread and sown to increase his power base until there were few men and women with top positions in business and government who weren't tied to his coattails by political favors and influence.

Douglas Oates, Sam Emmett, Martin Brogan, Alan Mercier and Jesse Simmons, who was recently released from house arrest, were seated in Moran's office as he entered. They all rose as he took his place behind a desk. There was an air of smugness about him that was obvious to his visitors. He had summoned them to his private territory and they had no choice but to respond.

"Thank you for meeting with me, gentlemen," he said with a false smile. "I assume you know the purpose."