Read The Multiple Man for Free Online

at . . ."
    "Robert," I snapped, "turn your scrambler on, please."
    He blinked once, and I saw his shoulders move. His hands were out of the screen's view. I flicked on the scrambler at my end, and the little phone screen flickered briefly. Then the picture steadied again.
    Before His Holiness could say anything, I popped, "Robert, you know what happened last night."
    "Last night?"
    To hell with it. I knew he knew. I was certain of it. He's closer to the President than McMurtrie or me or any of his staffers. He's the President's surrogate father, for Christ's sake.
    "A body was found in the alley behind Faneuil Hall. It looked exactly like James J. Halliday. I mean exactly. And it's not the first time it's happened, either."
    His face went dead white. Wyatt had never seemed too strong; he was frail and slow-moving, and he always had a pale, waxy look to him. But the last hint of color drained from his face. His left eye ticked uncontrollably, several times.
    "Last night, you say?" His voice was barely audible.
    "You didn't know about it?"
    "Not this one."
    "I've got to see the President," I said again. "This is too big to keep out of the news indefinitely. If there's a plot to slip a double into his place . . . or if they've already . . ."
    "They?" The strength flowed back into him. He frowned at me. "What do you mean they? "
    "How the hell do I know? The Russians. The Chinese. The Saudis. Somebody's trying to get a man who looks exactly like the President into places where the President is. Who and why?"
    He said firmly, "That's a matter for the internal security people, not the press secretary."
    I made my voice as stubborn as his. "Robert, sooner or later I'm going to have to either tell what I know to the press, or try to hide this from them. I won't act in the dark; I'm not going to be a trained parrot. I want to see The Man this morning. I want to make sure that he's the same man I agreed to work for."
    His mouth opened, but no words came out. Not for several seconds. Finally he glanced down for a moment, then looked back at me and said, "Eleven forty-five. The Vice-President will be in with him, too, but I suppose it's a matter that you should participate in with them. And then you can stay for a few minutes after the Vice-President leaves."
    I nodded. "Oval Office?"
    "Yes."

    Visitors to the White House go in through the East Wing and are guided past the showy open rooms on the ground and first floors: the library, the diplomatic reception room, the East Room, the Green Room, that stuff. The President's Oval Office is on the other side of the mansion, in the West Wing, overlooking the Rose Garden. No tourists.
    There was the predictable line of tourists winding all the way around the block and disappearing behind the tree-shaded curve of South Executive Avenue. I could see them from my office window. Somehow, even this early in the day, they looked worn and bedraggled, kids whining, heat making their tempers short. They looked like a line of refugees whose only sacred possessions were cameras and souvenir balloons.
    I took the underground slideway to the White House. It saved time and aggravation. There was a uniformed Marine Corps guard at the basement entrance to the slideway in my building; a half-dozen or more of them in pillboxes along the cleanly tiled tunnel, armed with automatic rifles and God knows what else; and another squad at the end under the White House. When the elevator opened in the West Wing's corridor, a trio of Secret Service agents, all in civvies and very polite, walked me under the identification arch.
    The arch is like the old-fashioned inspection machines they have at airports, where they check you and anything you're carrying for weapons. But at the White House, the advanced technology of the identification arch checks your fingerprints, retinal patterns, voice-print, physiognomy, and weight, all in the three seconds. it takes you to walk through the portal. All you have to do is say your name