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  As the Vice President he was sworn into the nation's highest office when his predecessor was forced to resign after admitting to a mental illness. Mercifully, the news media did not launch a full-blown investigation. Of course there were the routine interviews with White House aides, congressional leaders, and noted psychiatrists, but nothing smelling of intrigue or conspiracy emerged. The former President left Washington and retired to his farm in New Mexico, still respected with great sympathy from the public, and the truth remained locked in the minds of a very few.

  The new Chief Executive was an energetic man who stood slightly over six feet and weighed a solid two hundred pounds. His face was square jawed, with firm features and a brow that was usually furrowed in a thoughtful frown, yet his intense gray eyes could be deceptively limpid. The silver hair was always neatly trimmed and parted on the right side in the homespun style of a Kansas banker.

  He was not handsome or flamboyant in the eyes of the public, but emitted an appealing style and charm. Though he was a professional politician, he somewhat naively viewed the government as a giant team with himself as the coach who sent in plays during the game. Highly regarded as a mover and shaker, he surrounded himself with a cabinet and staff of gifted men and women who made every effort to work in harmony with Congress rather than enlisting a band of cronies who were more concerned with fortifying their personal power base.

  His thoughts slowly focused on the local scenery as his Secret Service driver slowed down and turned off River Road North through a large stone gate bordered by a white rail fence. A uniformed security guard and a Secret Service agent wearing the standard dark sunglasses and business suit stepped from the gatehouse. They simply peered in the car and nodded in recognition. The agent spoke into a small radio transmitter strapped to his wrist like a watch.

  "The Boss is on his way."

  The limousine rolled up the tree-lined circular drive of the Congressional Country Club, past the tennis courts on the left teeming with the staring wives of the members, and eased to a stop under the portico of the clubhouse.

  Elmer Hoskins, the advance man, stepped forward and opened the rear door. "Looks like a good day for golf, Mr. President."

  "My game couldn't get worse if we were standing in snow," the President said, smiling.

  "I wish I could shoot in the low eighties."

  "So do I," said the President as he followed Hoskins around the side of the clubhouse and down to the pro shop. "I've added five strokes to my score since taking over the Oval Office."

  "Still, not bad for someone who only plays once a week."

  "That and the fact it becomes increasingly difficult to keep my mind on the game."

  The club pro came over and shook his hand. "Reggie has your clubs and is waiting on the first tee."

  The President nodded and they climbed into a golf cart and set off over a path that curved around a large pond and onto one of the longest golf courses in the nation. Reggie Salazar, a short, wiry Hispanic, stood leaning on a huge leather bag packed with golf clubs that came up to his chest.

  Salazar's appearance was deceiving. Like a small Andes Mountains burro, he could lug a fifty-pound bag of irons around eighteen holes without losing a breath or showing a drop of sweat. When he was only a boy of thirteen he had carried his ailing mother in his arms with a three-year-old sister strapped to his back across the California/ Baja border thirty miles to San Diego. After the illegal alien amnesty was granted in 1985 he worked around golf courses, becoming a top caddy on the professional tour. He was a genius at learning the rhythm of a course, claiming it spoke to him, and unerringly picking the right club for a difficult shot. Salazar was also a wit and a philosopher, blurting adages that would have made Casey Stengel envious. The President had drawn him in a congressional tournament five years before and they became good friends.

  Salazar always dressed like a field laborer-- denim jeans, western shirt, GI boots, and a rancher's wide-- brimmed straw hat. It was his trademark.

  "Saludos, Mr. President," he greeted in border English, his dark coffee-brown eyes glistening. "Do you wish to walk or ride the cart?"

  The President pressed Salazar's outstretched hand. "I could use the exercise, so let's walk for a while and maybe ride the back nine."

  He teed off and hit a lofting ball with a slight hook that stopped rolling 180 yards up and near the border of the fairway. As he strolled from the tee the problems of running the country melted away and his mind began planning the next shot.

  He played in silence until he dropped his putt in the cup for a par. Then he relaxed and handed his putter to Salazar. "Well, Reggie, any suggestions for dealing with Capitol Hill?"

  "Too many black ants," Salazar replied with an elastic grin.

  "Black ants?"

  "Everyone wear dark suits and run crazy. All they make is paper and wave tongues. Me, I'd write law saying congresspeople could only meet every other year. That way they'd cause less trouble."

  The President laughed. "I can think of at least two hundred million voters who would applaud your idea."

  They continued along the course, followed at a discreet distance by two Secret Service agents in a golf cart while at least a dozen others prowled the course grounds. The banter remained cheerful as the President's game went smoothly. After he retrieved the ball from the cup on the ninth green, his score tallied thirty-nine. He considered it a minor triumph.

  "Let's take a break before we attack the back nine," said the President. "I'm going to celebrate with a beer. Care to join me?"

  "No, thank you, sir. I'll use the time to clean grass and dirt from your clubs."

  The President handed him the putter. "Suit yourself. But I must insist you join me for a drink after we finish the eighteenth."

  Salazar beamed like a lighthouse. "An honor, Mr. President." Then he trotted off toward the caddy shack.

  Twenty minutes later, after returning a call from his chief of staff and downing a bottle of Coors, the President left the clubhouse and joined Salazar, who was sitting slouched in a golf cart on the tenth tee, the wide brim of his straw hat pulled low over his forehead. His hands hung loosely draped on the steering wheel and were now encased in a pair of leather work gloves.

  "Well, let's see if I can break eighty," said the President, his eyes glistening in anticipation of a good game.

  Salazar said nothing and simply held out a driver.

  The President took the club and looked at it, puzzled. "This is a short hole. Don't you think a number three wood should do the job?"

  Staring at the ground, the hat hiding any facial expression, Salazar silently shook his head.

  "You know best," the President said agreeably. He approached the ball, flexed his hands on the club, arched into a back swing, and brought the head down gracefully but entered into a rather awkward follow-through. The ball sailed straight over the fairway and landed a considerable distance beyond the green.

  A perplexed expression spread across the President's face as he retrieved his tee and climbed in the seat of the electric cart. "That's the first time I've ever see you call the wrong club."

  The caddy did not reply. He pressed the battery pedal and steered the cart toward the tenth green. About halfway down the fairway he reached over and placed a small package on the dashboard shelf directly in front of the President.

  "Bringing along a snack in case you get hungry?" asked the President good-naturedly.

  "No, sir, it's a bomb."

  The President's eyebrows pinched a fraction in irritation. "Not a funny joke, Reggie--"

  His words suddenly choked off as the straw hat rose and he found himself staring into the indigo-blue eyes of a total stranger.

  <<3>>

  "Please keep your arms in their present position," said the stranger conversationally. "I am aware of the hand signal you were advised to give your Secret Service people if you thought your life was endangered."

  The President sat like a dead tree, disbelieving, more cur
ious than afraid. He couldn't trust himself to speak at first, to assemble the right words. His eyes remained locked on the package.

  "A stupid act," he said finally. "You won't live to enjoy it."

  "This is not an assassination. You will not be harmed if you follow my instructions. Do you accept that?"

  "You've got guts, mister."

  The stranger ignored the remark and kept talking in the tone of a schoolteacher reciting class rules of conduct. "The bomb is a fragmentation type that will shred any flesh and bone within twenty yards. If you attempt to alert your bodyguards I will detonate it with an electronic control strapped to my wrist. Please continue your golf game as if nothing is out of the ordinary"

  He stopped the cart several feet from the ball, stepped to the grass, and glanced warily at the Secret Service agents, satisfying himself that they appeared more intent on scanning the woods around the course. Then he reached in the bag and pulled out a six iron.

  "It's obvious you don't know crap about golf," said the President, mildly pleased at gaining a small measure of control. "This calls for a chip shot. Hand me a nine iron."

  The intruder obliged and stood by while the President chipped onto the green and putted into the cup. When they set off for the next tee, he studied the man seated beside him.

  The few strands of gray hair that strayed beneath the straw hat and the lines bordering the eyes revealed an age in the late fifties. The body was slender, almost frail, the hips slim, a good match for Reggie Salazar except this man was a good three inches taller. The facial features were narrow and vaguely Scandinavian. The voice was educated, the cool manner and the squared shoulders suggested someone who was used to authority, yet there was no hint of viciousness or evil.

  "I get the crazy impression," said the President calmly, "that you staged this intrusion to make a point."

  "Not so crazy. You're very astute. But I would expect no less from a man with your power."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "For the sake of conversation call me Joe. And I'll save you asking what this is all about as soon as we reach the tee. There is a restroom there." He paused and removed a folder from inside his shirt, sliding it across the seat to the President. "Enter and quickly scan the contents. Take no more than eight minutes. Linger beyond that time and you might arouse the suspicions of your bodyguards. I needn't describe the consequences."

  The electric cart slowly eased to a halt. Without a word the President entered the restroom, sat down on the john, and began reading. Precisely eight minutes later he came out, his face a mask of confusion.

  "What kind of insane trick have you hatched?"

  "No trick."

  "I don't understand why you went to such elaborate lengths to force me to read comic-book science fiction."

  "Not fiction."

  "Then it has to be some sort of con job."

  "The Jersey Colony exists," said Joe patiently.

  "Yes, and so does Atlantis."

  Joe smiled wryly. "You've just been inducted into a very exclusive club. You're only the second President ever to be briefed on the project. Now I suggest you tee off and I'll flesh out the picture as you continue playing around the course. It won't be a complete picture because there is too little time. Also, some details are not necessary for you to know."

  "First, one question. You owe me that."

  "All right."

  "Reggie Salazar?"

  "Sleeping soundly in the caddy shack."

  "God help you if you're lying."

  "Which club?" Joe asked blithely.

  "A short hole. Give me a four iron."

  The President swung mechanically, but the ball flew straight and true, landing and rolling to within ten feet of the cup. He tossed the club at Joe and sat heavily in the cart, waiting.

  "Well, then. . ." Joe began as he accelerated toward the green. "In 1963, only two months before his death, President Kennedy met with a group of nine men at his home in Hyannis Port who proposed a highly secret leapfrog project to be developed behind the scenes of the fledgling man-in-space program. They were an `inner core' of brilliant young scientists, corporate businessmen, engineers, and politicians who had achieved extraordinary success in their respective fields. Kennedy bought their idea and went so far as to launch a government agency that acted as a front to siphon federal tax money for what was to be code-named Jersey Colony. The pot was also sweetened by the businessmen, who set up a fund to match the government dollar for dollar. Research facilities were created in existing buildings, usually old warehouses, scattered around the country. Millions were saved in start-up costs, while eliminating questions by the curious over new construction of one vast development center."

  "How was the operation kept secret?" the President asked. "Surely there were leaks."

  Joe shrugged. "A simple technique. The research teams had their own pet projects. Each worked at a different location. The old act of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. The hardware was farmed out to small manufacturers. It was that elementary. The difficult part was coordinating the efforts under NASA's nose without letting their people know what was going on. So phony military officers were moved into the space centers at Cape Canaveral and

  Houston, also one at the Pentagon to backstop any embarrassing probes."

  "Are you saying the Defense Department knows nothing of this?"

  Joe smiled. "The easiest part. One member of the `inner core' was a high-ranking staff officer, whose name is of no importance to you. He had no problem burying another military mission in the labyrinth of the Pentagon."

  Joe paused as they pulled up beside the ball. The President played another shot as if he were sleepwalking. He returned to the cart and stared at Joe.

  "Doesn't seem possible NASA could be so completely hoodwinked."

  "Again, one of the Space Administration's key directors belonged to the `inner core.' His vision was also that of a permanent base with limitless opportunity instead of focusing on a few temporary manned landings on the lunar surface. But he realized NASA couldn't do two complicated and expensive programs at the same time, so he became a member of the Jersey Colony. The project was kept secret so there would be no interference from the Executive Office, Congress, or the military. As things turned out, it was a wise decision."

  "And the bottom line is that the United States has a solid foot on the moon."

  Joe nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr. President, that is correct."

  The President could not fully comprehend the enormity of the concept. "Incredible that a project so vast could be carried off behind an impenetrable curtain of security, unknown and undiscovered for twenty-six years."

  Joe stared down the fairway. "It would take me a month to describe the problems, the setbacks, and the tragedies that were suffered. The scientific and engineering breakthroughs in developing a hydrogen reduction process for making water, an oxygen-extraction apparatus, and a power-generating plant whose turbine is driven by liquid nitrogen. The accumulation of materials and equipment launched into designated orbit by a private space agency sponsored by the `inner core.' The construction of a lunar transfer vehicle designed to ferry it all from earth orbit to the Jersey Colony."

  "And this was done under the nose of our entire space program?"

  "What was advertised as large communication satellites were disguised sections of the lunar transfer vehicle, each containing a man in an internal capsule. I won't go into the ten years of planning for that moment or the remarkable complexity of their linkup with each other and one of our abandoned space laboratories that was used as a base for the vehicle's assembly. Or the breakthrough in designing a lightweight, efficient solar electric engine using oxygen as the propulsion fuel. But the job was accomplished."

  Joe stopped to allow the President to hit another shot. "Then it was a matter of gathering up the life-support systems and supplies already sent into orbit and transporting all of it, actually towing it like a tugboat, to the predetermined site o
n the moon. Even an old Soviet orbiting laboratory and any useful piece of space junk were pulled to the Jersey Colony. From the beginning, it's been a no-frills operation, the pioneering trek of man from his home on earth, the most important evolutionary step since the first fish struggled onto land over 300 million years ago. But by God, we did it. As we sit here and talk ten men are living and working in a hostile environment 240,000 miles away."

  As Joe spoke his eyes took on the look of a messiah. Then the vision faded and he glanced at his watch. "We'd better hurry along before the Secret Service wonders why we're lagging. Anyway, that's the gist of it. I'll try to answer your questions while you play"

  The President stared at him in awe. "Jesus," he groaned. "I don't think I can absorb all this."

  "My apologies for throwing so much at you in so short a time," said Joe swiftly. "But it was necessary."

  "Where exactly on the moon is this Jersey Colony?"

  "After studying the photographs from the Lunar Orbiter probes and Apollo missions, we detected a geyser of vapor issuing from a volcanic region in the southern hemisphere of the moon's far side. Closer examination showed it to be a large cavern, perfect shelter for locating the initial installation."

  "You said ten men are up there?"

  "Yes."

  "What about rotation, replacements?"

  "No rotation."

  "God, that means the original crew who assembled the lunar transport have been in space six years."

  "That's true," acknowledged Joe. "One died and seven were added as the base was expanded to support more life."

  "What about their families?"

  "All bachelors. All knew and accepted the hardship and risk."