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they gonna do, blackmail?”
    Benjamin said, “No, no, that's not the way it works. They're waiting for an October Surprise.”
    Meehan shook his head. “I don't know what that is.”
    Jeffords explained, “Elections are held early in November. You hit the other side late in October with some really bad press, they don't have time to counteract it.”
    Meehan said, “Counteract? If this is such hot stuff, how do you counteract?”
    “Given time, Francis,” Benjamin said, “and the spin doctors at our command, we could counteract the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and you'd
vote
for Pontius Pilate.”
    Jeffords said, “That's why they save the Surprises for October. No time to massage the news.”
    “This is October,” Meehan pointed out.
    Benjamin said, “And now we come to you.”

11
    “ Y OU WANT ME to get it,” Meehan said.
    “As I said,” Benjamin agreed.
    “With our assistance,” Jeffords pointed out.
    “There, you see,” Meehan said, “there's our problem.”
    Benjamin said, “
Our
problem?”
    “You don't trust me,” Meehan told him, “and you're right. You give me a doorway and a running start and I'm outa here.”
    Drily, “We know that,” Jeffords said.
    “We all know that, or I wouldn't mention it. On the other hand,” Meehan said, “I don't do my best work with amateurs in the room.”
    Jeffords, again on the edge of being miffed, said, “Meaning?”
    “It's the old carpenter-to-homeowner wage scale,” Meehan explained. “Twenty-five dollars an hour to do the job, thirty-five if you watch, forty-five if you help. I don't want you to watch, and I
sure
don't want you to help. So you'll have to leave me alone to do it my own way, and as soon as you do, I'm outa here.” Meehan spread his hands. “I'm sorry, but there it is. I'd lie to you if I could, but we all know the situation.”
    Tentatively, Benjamin said, “A mere observer could—”
    Meehan shook his head.
    Benjamin and Jeffords frowned at one another, baffled. Jeffords said, “He refuses to do it if we observe, but he says himself if we let him out of our sight, he'll disappear, so he
still
won't do it.”
    Meehan wished he could help here, because he really
didn't
want life in a federal pen, but what was the alternative? In truth, Francis Xavier Meehan, though very bright, did not know how to think ahead. Witness his ruined marriage, his not very stellar criminal career, his very presence in the MCC. If he'd had a motto, other than the ten thousand rules, which was more mantra than motto, it would have been “one problem at a time.”
    Most of the guys he knew were the same. The people who thought ahead were the ones with the jobs and the mortgages and the car payments and the Tuesday night bowling leagues—how could Meehan
ever
know for sure where he'd be on a given Tuesday night?—whereas the guys like Meehan got whatever was going by.
    He said, “Maybe…”
    They both looked alert. Everybody in the room, including Meehan, waited to hear what he was going to say next.
    “Maybe I could give you advice,” he said.
    Jeffords, looking insulted again, said, “Advice? About what?”
    “About the heist. You keep me here, tell me the setup, I'll give you the best advice I got, very professional, you go collect your Surprise, and then we shake hands and I walk away.”
    Jeffords and Benjamin exchanged a look. “Not exactly what we had in mind,” Benjamin said.
    “But the only possibility, apparently,” Jeffords said. “And if we put this one back, look for another one, that's
more
time gone, and maybe second-best. And we do have people willing to go in and do it.”
    “Willing, yes,” Benjamin said, and shrugged. “All right, we'll try it.” Turning to Meehan, he said, “The gentleman who now has the package is a supporter of the president's challenger, the candidate on the Other Side. In fact, a very large contributor to his campaign.”
    “A contributor's plane,” Meehan said, dawn breaking. “Now I get