"He wouldn't have had the brains to do it. Everything was handed to that man on a platter. World War II, everything. I had to fight for what I got. No one ever loved me for myself. Not even the wife. Not really."

"Sir, you called me for something?"

"In that bureau drawer is a red telephone. It will be yours when I am no longer President." The thought overwhelmed him and he sobbed.

"Sir."

"Just a minute," he said, regaining his composure. "All right. When that day happens, you will have that phone. Don't use it. They're bastards and disloyal and never think of anyone but themselves."

"Who, sir?"

"They're murderers. They get away with murder. They go around our country murdering civilians and you're going to be responsible for them when you're President. How do you like them apples?" The President served up a delicious grin amidst his banquet of tears.

"Who are they?"

As the former President explained it, John Kennedy-who never got blamed for anything-was really the one who had started it. Code name: CURE. "Basically, they were a vicious, disloyal pack of killers who couldn't be counted on in a crunch. When things were going well, they were your babies. But when the going got tough, so did they. They got going."

"You still haven't explained, sir. I will need an explanation."

The President explained. CURE had been organized because the government had come to fear that the Constitution could not survive the spread of crime. The government needed an extra boost in that department. But the extra boost itself was a violation of the Constitution. So without getting caught or blamed, with nary a peep from the newspapers or from anyone else, that good old liberal John F. Kennedy had plucked a CIA man out of duty and set him up with a secret budget. It was a vast secret budget. It had a network throughout the country, and no one except the head of it-a New Englander who looked down on people from California because they weren't born rich-knew about it. It had an enforcement arm too-a homicidal maniac psychopath, and his teacher, who was a foreigner, and who wasn't white.