"Gentlemen," said Plant seriously. "I suggest we get to work. Try to calm yourself, Edgar. We'll meet here again in an hour's time."
When the two men returned to the Oval Office with the drafted document, they found Stone in an attitude of despair. He listened blankly as Bacon read the finished product, signed it where and when he was asked.
"Just words," he said listlessly. "Like all the words I've been spouting for twenty years, they don't mean a thing. Hayes does his talking with a gun, and soon Denisov will do the same. What now, Jordan? What of the Joint Chiefs—-will they betray us, too?"
"I don't know," said Plant levelly. "But as to your first question, I'd say we have to send our communication to the Secretary, then prepare a full statement to the press. We've got to get this thing out in the open. We've got to tell the truth, then let the people decide."
"Of course you're right." Stone paused, then said simply. "Should I resign, Jordan? You're much more qualified to handle this—-"
Plant stood up and waved his hands in desperate denial. For though his life's whole ambition could there be suddenly realized, he saw in the sharp clarity of his mind, heightened and given truer perspective by the crisis which hung thick all around them, that it would be wrong, and possibly disastrous, to assume the Presidency now. And though much that was good in him lay fallen by the way, discarded and forgotten among the endless compromises needed to keep him on the road to his one desire, he too had a line he would not cross.
TOO MANY FAIRY TALES AS A CHILD, he told himself. But once made, his decision was final. He could not sell all that he was, for any price.
"No, Edgar. Don't resign. The last thing we need now is added instability. We may find ourselves in the midst of a Constitutional crisis soon….. Don't you see?" He felt a strange passion rising inside him. "It's not just you or I that are under attack, but the whole system. The work of Jefferson and Adams, and so many others, is receiving probably the toughest challenge it's ever faced. But it's never cracked before, and believe me, there've been plenty of chances. You," he said slowly, emphatically, "are the duly elected President of the United Commonwealth. Hayes is no more than a crazed demagogue with a gun. We've got to hold on to that. We've got to hold on….."
And then suddenly, incredulously, he laughed. And in that momentary freeing of the heart, so long caged and disciplined toward a single end, he felt a childish joy, and release so pure that warm tears started at his eyes. Stone looked at him, bewildered.
"Don't you see it, Edgar? Don't you really? The only difference between us is that you never let yourself play the hero in schoolyard games, thinking you weren't good enough, or just being bitter about your father, or some other damned thing. You're no worse than I am, believe me." Slowly he mastered his mirth, though the feeling of defiant freedom lingered. "We're neither one of us heroes, my friend; but it seems we're all we've got. You need more illusions, Edgar—-they keep you longer from the void. Try on the mask of virtue next. It may save our asses yet."