“Is this about that TV show last night?”

Cam glanced around furtively. No one was listening.

“We have to do something about that,” Maria said emphatically. “The business of government can’t go on with these leaks all the time,” she went on, feigning indignation. “It’s impossible!”

The young man’s attitude warmed. “That’s what the president thinks.”

“But what are we going to do about it?”

“We need a wiretap on Jasper Murray.”

Maria swallowed. Thank God I found out about this, she thought. But she said: “Great—some tough action at last.”

“A journalist who admits to receiving confidential information from within the government is clearly a danger to national security.”

“Absolutely. Now don’t you worry about the paperwork. I’ll put an authorization form in front of Mitchell today. He’ll be glad to sign it, I know.”

“Thank you.”

She caught him looking at her chest. Having seen her first as a secretary and then as a Negro, he was now regarding her as a pair of breasts. Young men were so predictable. “This will be what they call a black bag job,” she said. The phrase meant illegal breaking and entering. “Joe Hugo is in charge of that for the FBI.”

“I’ll go and see him now.” The headquarters of the Bureau was in the same building. “Thank you for your help, Maria.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Dewar.”

She watched him retreat down the corridor, then she closed her office door. She picked up the phone and dialed Fawcett Renshaw. “I’d like to leave a message for George Jakes,” she said.

• • •

Joe Hugo was a pale man with prominent blue eyes. He was somewhere in his thirties. Like all FBI agents he wore excruciatingly conservative clothes: a plain gray suit, a white shirt, a nondescript tie, black toe-capped shoes. Cam himself was conventional in his tastes, but his unremarkable brown chalk-stripe suit with wide lapels and flared trousers suddenly seemed radical.

Cam told Hugo he worked for Ehrlichman and said right out: “I need a wiretap on Jasper Murray, the television journalist.”

Joe frowned. “Tap the office of This Day? If that story got out . . .”

“Not his office, his home. The leakers we’re talking about most likely sneak out late in the evening and go to a pay phone and call him at home.”

“Either way it’s a problem. The FBI doesn’t do black bag jobs anymore.”

“What? Why?”

“Mr. Hoover feels the Bureau is in danger of taking the rap for other people in government.”

Cam could not contradict that. If the FBI were caught burglarizing the home of a journalist, naturally the president would deny all knowledge. That was how things worked. J. Edgar Hoover had been breaking the law for years, but now for some reason he had got a bug up his ass about it. There was no telling with Hoover, seventy-seven years old and no saner than he had ever been.

Cam raised his voice. “The president has asked for this wiretap, and the attorney general is happy to authorize it. Are you going to refuse?”