Critical List

Marshall Goldberg, M.D.


The FBI Director had told Dan Lassiter a lot of surprising things about Lem Harper -- none of them good. It made Dan realize how little he understood his old friend's mentality. Or what Lem might want of him at twoin the morning.

Physically, Lem was as imposing as ever: a hulking black giant almost seven feet tall whose great breadth of shoulder was further accentuated by his flat stomach. But he had aged strikingly in the years since Dan last saw him. His stubby hair and beard were nearly white and his erect, military carriage had become stooped, favoring his stronger right leg. Lem was ill, Dan thought. Was this why he had come to see him?

"You know you'll be taking on one big motherof a job as Secretary of Health," Lem began.

"Yeah, I do know," Dan replied. "I lie awake nights worrying about it when people like you aren't keeping me up telling me."

"Okay, Doc," Lem said, taking command of the conversation. "You should also know that you've got a two billion dollar swindle in misused federal health care funds to worry about."

"What? What'd you say?"

"You heard right. Two billion dollars. An impressivesum, ain't it? Bound to impress even the most professional swindlers. Only the bunch behind this were amateurs, and what's worse, they stole the money from sick people. That worth your staying up a while longer to hear?"

Dan stared at him in consternation. "Damned right --if you can prove it."

"Oh, I can prove it," Lem said confidently."Wouldn't be wasting your time if I couldn't. It took two months to put together, but the proof's all here." He patted the suitcase he had brought with him. "A lot of it's been photocopied illegally, some even stolen, but we didn't have no choice. Not after they murdered Artemus Hill, the black man I told you about who first tumbled to it."

"Okay," Dan said, after taking a long moment to digest Lem's stunning disclosure. "Assuming what you just told me is true, and you've got the goods on the crooks, let's get down to the gut issue: what do you want me to do about it?"

"You got a Senate hearing coming up end of next week, right?"

Dan nodded.

"Well, between now and then I want you to go over all the documents in that suitcase, prove to yourself everything I told you is the truth, and then go before that Senate committee and those TV cameras and tell the whole country about it."

"Do you?" Dan said wryly. "I figured as much. I can even understand what you hope to accomplish. What I don't quite get is why you picked me for your spokesman. Your sacrificial lamb. Because we both know that's what I'll be. If the President ever got wind of it, he'd withdraw my nomination instantly. Don't you want me to be Secretary of Health?"

Lem shrugged noncommittally. "You'd make a good one, I got to admit. But whether or not I want you in the job ain't important. The big question, I suppose, is how bad you want it?"

"You suppose nothing! You had all this figured out days, maybe weeks, ago. Only why me, Lem? Why shoulder me with the responsibility? You got a damned fine black man sitting on the Supreme Court. Why not take your suitcase full of documents to him?"

"That's a possibility, too. There're all sorts of ways we can go -- some better than others. Whether you do it or not, the story's going to get told. That ain't what's making you squirm right now. You know it still comes down to a question of rightand wrong: what means more to you -- satisfyin' your ambition or your conscience."

"Why not both?" Dan countered. "Why not let me get confirmed and then break the scandal? That
way I could run the clean-up from the inside."

" 'Cause you ain't going to get confirmed, Dan. You might not even make it to the Senate hearing
next week."