aid: "The Rocket story was great, Tommy. A real
writing job. You've got the touch, when it comes to a ticklish news
release--"

Shandor allowed an expression of distaste to cross his face. He looked
at the chubby man across the desk and felt the distaste deepen and
crystallize. John Hart's face was round, with little lines going up from
the eyes, an almost grotesque, burlesque-comic face that belied the icy
practical nature of the man behind it. A thoroughly distasteful face,
Shandor thought. Finally he said, "The story, John. On Ingersoll. Let's
have it, straight out."

Hart shrugged his stocky shoulders, spreading his hands. "Ingersoll's
dead," he said. "That's all there is to it. He's stone-cold dead."

"But he can't be dead!" roared Shandor, his face flushed. "We just can't
_afford_ to have him dead--"

Hart looked up wearily. "Look, I didn't kill him. He went home from the
White House this evening, apparently sound enough, after a long, stiff,
nasty conference with the President. Ingersoll wanted to go to Berlin
and call a showdown at the International conference there, and he had a
policy brawl with the President, and the President wouldn't let him go,
sent an undersecretary instead, and threatened to kick Ingersoll out of
the cabinet unless he quieted down. Ingersoll got home at 4:30,
collapsed at 5:00, and he was dead before the doctor arrived. Cerebral
hemorrhage, pretty straightforward. Ingersoll's been killing himself for
years--he knew it, and everyone else in Washington knew it. It was bound
to happen sooner or later."

"He was trying to prevent a war," said Shandor dully, "and he was all by
himself. Nobody else wanted to stop it, nobody that mattered, at any
rate. Only the people didn't want war, and who ever listens to them?
Ingersoll got the people behind him, so they gave him a couple of Nobel
Peace Prizes, and made him Secretary of State, and then cut his throat
every time he tried to do anything. No wonder he's dead--"

Hart shrugged again, eloquently indifferent. "So he was a nice guy, he
wanted to prevent a war. As far as I'm concerned, he was a pain in the
neck, the way he was forever jumping down Information's throat, but he's
dead now, he isn't around any more--" His eyes narrowed sharply. "The
important thing, Tommy, is that the people won't like it that he's dead.
They trusted him. He's been the people's Golden Boy, their last-ditch
hope for peace. If they think their last chance is gone