“A real monster, extremely overpowered. . .”

“How big is it? The size of a bus?”

“No, normal size for a big car, but extremely powerful -- much more, say, than a Mustang or something like that. We did about an hour's worth of crazed driving on these deserted streets, and it was during this time that I mentioned that we should probably go out and have a word with Mr. Colson -- because during a conversation earlier in the evening, the consensus among the reporters at McGovern's party was that Colson was probably the only one of Nixon's first-rank henchmen who would probably not even be indicted.”

“Why's that?”

"He had managed to keep himself clean, somehow -- up to that point anyway. Now, he's been dragged into the ITT hassle again, so it looks like he might go down with all the others.

“But at that point, we thought, well, Colson really is the most evil of those bastards, and if he gets off there is really no justice in the world. So we thought we'd go out to his house -- luckily none of us knew where he lived -- and beat on his door, mumbling something like: 'God's mercy on me! My wife's been raped! My foot's been cut off!' Anything to lure him downstairs. . . and the minute he opened the door, seize him and drag him out to the car and tie him by the ankles and drag him down to the White House.”

“He could identify you. . .”

“Well, he wouldn't have time to know exactly who it was -- but we thought about it for a while, still driving around, and figured a beastly thing like that might be the only thing that could get Nixon off the hook, because he could go on television the next afternoon, demanding to make a nationwide emergency statement, saying: 'Look what these thugs have done to poor Mr. Colson! This is exactly what we were talking about! This is why we had to be so violent in our ways, because these thugs will stop at nothing! They dragged Mr. Colson the length of Pennsylvania Avenue at four in the morning, then cut him loose like a piece of meat!' He would call for more savage and stringent security measures against 'the kind of animals who would do a thing like this.' So we put the plot out of our heads.”

“Well, it would have been a bit risky. . . wouldn't have done the Democratic party any good at all, would it?”

"Well, it might have created a bit of an image problem -- and it would have given Nixon the one out he desperately needs now, a way to justify the whole Watergate trip by raving about 'this brutal act.'. . . That's an old Hell's Angels gig, dragging people down the street. Hell's Angels. Pachucos, drunken cowboys.