We went back upstairs and I found the girls were off in Mary Beth's room and Charlie went in search of them. I sat down next to Anna Lee and said, "Tyrone told me you tried to reach Roscoe, but they were locked down. Did you ever reach him?"
"No. Can you call him?"
"You bet." I wasn't terribly surprised. When we went to DEFCON Three, they locked up the military bases, and by definition West Point was a military base. They had probably issued bazookas to the cadets and told them to man the wire. I looked around the room and found my Personal Assistant, Mindy, and waved her towards me. Mindy had been my assistant since my Congressional days, had followed me to the West Wing when I became the VP, and was still with me. How she had managed to do all that and get married and have two kids at the same time was a most impressive feat of time management!
"Grab a pad and pen and start taking some notes." I pulled out my cell phone and called the switchboard. "Get me the Superintendant of West Point, or if he's not there, whoever is in charge. Call me back as soon as you can." I flipped the phone shut and said, "As soon as they call, we'll get you on the line with Roscoe. Mindy, we'll probably need to make some arrangements to get him back here."
"Thank you, Carl.", Anna Lee said.
"Did you and Harlan ever talk about where he wanted to be buried?" Marilyn and I had decided on a small public cemetery in Dulaney Valley. Since I wasn't Catholic, we couldn't both be buried in a Catholic cemetery. "I can make arrangements for Arlington, I'm sure."
She shook her head. "No, Harlan wanted to go home. He wanted to be buried at the family plot in Buckminster."
"Fair enough." Just at that, the phone I was holding buzzed. I flipped it open. "Hello?"
"Lieutenant General William Lennox, sir. How can I help you?"
"General, thank you for calling. Are you still on lockdown there?", I asked.
"No sir, but we have been conducting drills and inspections. Is there a problem, sir?", he asked.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. You have a cadet there, a first class cadet, Roscoe Buckminster. We just discovered his father was at the Pentagon when the planes hit. I need to speak to him, please."
"Yes, sir. Give me five minutes and I'll get him."
"Don't say anything to him, General. Let me do that. Afterwards, I'll need to speak to you again." I could hear the phone being set down, so I handed it to Mindy. "Keep an ear on that. When you get somebody, I'll take it. Thanks." She took the phone and nodded and moved away, to sit at a dining room table.
It took a little over five minutes, but not by much. I had no doubt that I had just initiated a world class goat rope at the Military Academy, which would have been funny any time but now. Who was this Buckminster kid? Where was he? What was he doing there? Get his ass in here! NOW!
I simply sat there quietly, with Tyrone to one side, while Marilyn and Anna Lee commiserated with each other. I gathered one of the problems was a snafu with the switchboard. They had recognized Harlan on my list of Anytime Anywhere callers, like the Tusks, Marty, Brewster, Suzie, and most of Marilyn's family, but somehow had missed Anna Lee. I would have Mindy look into that. I was jolted out of that reverie when I heard Mindy say, "Please hold for the President of the United States." She came back to us and handed me the telephone.
I wasn't sure if I was going to be speaking to the General or Roscoe. "Hello?", I said.
"One second, Mister President. I have Cadet Buckminster here.", answered Lennox.
There was a bit of phone shuffle, and then Roscoe's clear tenor came through. "Cadet Lieutenant Buckminster!"
I glanced at his mother and decided it would be better for me to break the news. "Roscoe, it's Carl Buckman."
"Yes, sir, Unc ... Mister President."
"Roscoe, I have some bad news for you. Your father was at the Pentagon when the plane hit. I'm sorry, son, but your dad didn't make it."
I caught a hitch in his voice. "Dad ... he's..."
"Roscoe, I have your Mom here. Hold on." I handed Anna Lee my phone and then sagged back into the cushion. There is no good way to do this. Some people simply can't do it. They can't say the words. I remembered back when Mark and Lauren had their accident on my first go, and lost their oldest girl, Nicki. Gabriel was my boss at the time when I was running Cooperstown and got the job of calling me, and through me, telling Marilyn. He literally couldn't say the words, but kept spouting things like,
Gabrieclass="underline" 'Nicki had a bad accident.'
Me: 'How bad?'
Gabrieclass="underline" 'Bad!'
Me: 'How bad?'
Gabrieclass="underline" 'Real bad.'
Me: 'Gabe, how bad?'
Gabrieclass="underline" 'Bad.'
It took me about a half dozen or more tries to get him to say the words, that Nicki was dead. He simply couldn't do it. It would have almost been funny, if it wasn't so horrid.
I sat there with my thoughts as Anna Lee cried and talked to her son, and then she handed the phone back to me. I picked it up and held it to my ear. "Hello?"
"It's General Lennox, sir. You asked to speak to me."
"How is Roscoe, General?
"He's a bit in shock. As soon as we hang up I am going to speak to his tactical officer and get some of his friends to be with him.", I was told.
I wasn't sure what a tactical officer did, but it wasn't important. "General, I don't want to upset your applecart, but I assume you have some procedure for compassionate leave in a case like this."
"Yes, sir. We'll figure something out and try to get him home tomorrow. If he can't fly, we'll get him on a train to New York, and then he can get a train from there."
"The airports will be opening again tomorrow, but I'm not sure when he'll be able to fly. Just get him to the nearest airport tomorrow and I'll get a plane there. I'll let you talk to my assistant about that. Hold a second." I held out my hand and gave the phone to Mindy. "We can send my G-IV to pick him up. Fly him back here and then we'll fly the family to Mississippi as needed. Figure it out with the General."
"Got it." She took the phone.
I turned to Anna Lee. "We'll get Roscoe back here. After that, we'll get you and the family and Harlan back home. Call me when he gets here. If you can't reach me, call Marilyn. We'll give you Mindy's card, too."
"Thank you." She gave me a funny look. "You're really the President, aren't you? If Harlan was here he would be laughing his ass off at you right now."
I snorted out a laugh of my own. "He'd have died from laughing too hard, and we'd be back here anyway! He never did have a good thing to say about politicians after he spent time with me on Armed Services!" I shook my head and smiled in remembrance of him.
"I know you're going to be really busy, but if you could come to the funeral ... I mean, I know that you can't do that stuff now, but maybe call us that day.", she asked.
"Call us when you have the details. Give me a day's notice and I'll see what I can do." I told her. The Secret Service was going to hate it, but if I could swing it, I would.
We all went over to the Naval Observatory and went to bed. I didn't bother listening to the late night television. I was heartily sick of the 24 hour news stations trying to come up with one more piece to yap about. By now the conspiracy theorists were claiming that I had managed to do all this, because I was actually a secret member of a terrorist group, so that the Muslims could take over the world. If they only knew how right they were (although not in the details!) If it was important, somebody could wake me up. I went to bed thinking about my actions this last week. Was I right or wrong? I had tried every way I could to avoid this, yet here I was.