 The novel ends with grounds for hope, as the President agrees to pardon the wrongly-convicted Radenbaugh, then forms a commission (including Collins and Pierce as members) to clean Tynan's evil influence out of the FBI and overhaul it; after that, he promises to discuss, with Collins, a comprehensive program of economic and social legislation which will be intended to solve the problem of crime, the original problem that had actually led Tynan to hatch his plot in the first place.