But the stupid idiots were not supposed to get themselves arrested by the Washington fucking police.

The president was in the Bahamas, due back tomorrow.

Cam called the Plumbers’ office. Tim Tedder answered. “What are you doing?” Cam said.

“Weeding files.”

In the background, Cam heard the whine of a shredder. “Good,” he said.

Then he got dressed and went to the White House.

At first it seemed that none of the burglars had any direct connection with the president, and throughout Sunday Cam thought the scandal might be managed. Then it turned out that one of them had given a false name. “Edward Martin” was in fact James McCord, a retired CIA agent employed full-time by CREEP, the Committee to Re-elect the President.

“That does it,” Cam said. He felt crushed and devastated. This was terrible.

Monday’s Washington Post carried the information about McCord in a story bylined Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Still Cam hoped the president’s involvement might be covered up.

Then the FBI stepped in. The Bureau began to investigate the five burglars. In the old days, Cam thought regretfully, J. Edgar Hoover would have done no such thing; but Hoover was dead. Nixon had installed a crony, Patrick Gray, as acting director, but Gray did not know the Bureau and was struggling to control it. The upshot was that the FBI was beginning to act like a law enforcement agency.

The burglars had been found in possession of large amounts of cash, new bills with sequential numbers. This meant that sooner or later the FBI would be able to trace the money and find out who had given it to them.

Cam already knew. This money, like the payments for all the administration’s undercover projects, came from the CREEP slush fund.

The FBI inquiry had to be shut down.

• • •

When Cam Dewar walked into Maria Summers’s office at the Department of Justice, she suffered a moment of fear. Had she been found out? Had the White House somehow discovered that she was Jasper Murray’s source of inside information? She was standing at her file cabinet, and for a moment her legs felt so weak she feared she might fall.

But Cam was friendly, and she calmed down. He smiled, took a seat, and gave her the adolescent up-and-down look that indicated he found her attractive.

Keep on dreaming, white boy, she thought.

What was he up to now? She sat at her desk, took off her glasses, and gave him a warm smile. “Hi, Mr. Dewar,” she said. “How did that wiretap work out?”

“In the end it didn’t give us much information,” Cam said. “We think Murray may have a secure phone somewhere else that he uses for confidential calls.”

Thank God, she thought. “That’s too bad,” she said.

“We appreciate your help, all the same.”

“You’re very kind. Is there something else I can do for you?”

“Yes. The president wants the attorney general to order the FBI to stop investigating the Watergate burglary.”