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By Root 1822 0

a duty so basic that few ever thought about it, beyond those who actually undertook it-and not always enough of them. Literally millions of people, directly or indirectly, entrusted their money to him, and that gave him the theoretical ability to be a thief on the cosmic scale. But you couldn't do that. For one thing, it was illegal, and you ran the risk of rather substandard federal housing as a result of it, with very substandard neighbors to boot. But that wasn't the reason you didn't. The reason was that those were people out there, and they trusted you to be honest and smart, and so you treated their money the same as you treated your own, or maybe even a little better, because they couldn't gamble the way a rich man did. Every so often you'd get a nice letter from some widow, and that was nice, but it really came from inside. Either you were a man of honor or you were not, and honor, some movie writer had once said, was a man's gift to himself. Not a bad aphorism, Winston told himself. It was also profitable, of course. You did the job in the right way, and chances were that people would reward you for it, but the real satisfaction was playing the game well. The money was merely a result of something more important, because money was transitory, but honor wasn't.

Tax policy? Winston asked.

We need Congress put back together first, remember? Ryan pointed out. But, yes.

Winston took a deep breath. That's a very big job, Ryan.

You're telling me that? the President demanded then grinned.

It won't make me any friends.

You also become head of the Secret Service. They'll protect you, won't they, Andrea?

Agent Price was not used to being pulled into these conversations, but she feared she'd have to get used to it. Uh, yes, Mr. President.

Things are just so damned inefficient, Winston observed.

So fix it, Ryan told him.

It might be bloody.

Buy a mop. I want your department cleaned up, streamlined, and run like you want it to make a profit someday. How you do that is your problem. For Defense, I want the same thing. The biggest problem over there is administrative. I need somebody who can run a business and make a profit to cull the bureaucracy out. That's the biggest problem of all, for all the agencies.

You know Tony Bretano?

The TRW guy? He used to run their satellite division Ryan remembered his name as a former candidate for a senior Pentagon post, which offer he'd turned down flat. A lot of good people declined such offers. That was the paradigm he had to break.

Lockheed-Martin is going to steal him away in a couple weeks, at least that's what my sources tell me. That's why Lockheed's stock is nudging up. We have a buy-advisory on it. He gave TRW a fifty-percent profit increase in two years, not bad for an engineer who isn't supposed to know beans about management. I play golf with him sometimes. You should hear him scream about doing business with the government.

Tell him I want to see him.

Lockheed's board is giving him a free hand to-

That's the idea, George.

What about my job, I mean, what you want me to do. The rule is-

I know. You'll be acting Secretary until we get things put back together.

Winston nodded. Okay. I need to bring a few people down with me.

I'm not going to tell you how to do it. I'm not even going to tell you all the things you have to do. I just want it to get done, George. You just have to tell me ahead of time. I don't want to read about it in the papers first.

When would I start?

The office is empty right now, Ryan told him.

A final hedge: I have to talk to my family about it.

You know, George, these government offices have phones and everything. Jack paused. Look, I know what you are. I know what you do. I might have turned out the same way, but I just never found it satisfactory, I guess, just to make money. Getting start-ups off the ground, that was something different. Okay, managing money is important work. I didn't like it myself, but I never wanted to be a doctor, either. Fine, different strokes and all that. But I know you've sat around a lot of tables with beer