“I did, didn’t I?”
“What happens now, sir?”
“Now I’m thinking that alcohol is not a traditional Jewish vice, but maybe I ought to give the wine another try.” Saul raised his head, and their eyes locked. “Actually, I’m thinking that in a couple of days, you and Auden Travis will have to work together again — or one of you will be leaving. Maybe both of you. Do you want that?”
“No, sir.” Her voice was a whisper. “I don’t. I really don’t.”
“I thought not.”
“I love my job with you.”
“So there will have to be apologies, won’t there? On both sides.”
“Yes, sir.” Her face was pale. “There will be apologies.”
“Very good.” Saul stabbed savagely at a piece of fish with his fork. “I know this was hard on you, Yasmin; but it was necessary. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but I insist on civility between members of my personal staff. Otherwise working together is impossible. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. End of that subject. Let’s return to our previous topic.” From the miserable expression on her face, he was not sure that she remembered what it had been. He prompted: “I’ve been confined to the White House. I receive a ton of reports every day. And everything that I hear or see has been filtered.”
That got through. She sat upright in her chair. “Not by me, sir.”
“By you, and by everybody else. This isn’t just Saul Steinmetz complaining. The same thing happens to every President. People tell a chief executive what they think he wants to hear. Rosy economic reports, high popularity figures, promising international changes, you name it. There’s a competition to be the first with good news. Anyone who tells bad news tends to get weeded out — even if all the real news is bad.”
“I don’t hide bad news from you, sir.”
“You try not to. And I love you for it.” Saul wondered about that choice of verb, but Yasmin perked up visibly. Anyway, it was too late to change what he had said, and he went on, “I need inputs that tell it straight. Before the gamma pulse, I thought I had a way through the shield of people around me. My office was wired for direct data feeds. I could switch from space cameras to farm country to undersea to almost every state and city in the world. When I lost that service I felt I’d been blinded. Until it comes back there’s only one answer: I have to get outside the White House and see for myself. Inspecting places like this is important. And I need help — I can’t be everywhere. I’ll give you just one example. The Q-5 is listed as a ’small’ facility for extended syncope, but over eleven thousand prisoners are there — including murderers, human monsters, and a number of the country’s most dangerous convicted terrorists. I have seen not one word about the condition of Q-5 in any report. When you go there to find your brother, I want you to keep your eyes open and give me a briefing when you get back to Washington. Something is happening at Q-5, but I don’t trust my military advisers to understand what. They see everything through their own filters.”
“I’ll do my best. It will be difficult with Raymond to worry about, but I’ll try to be objective.”
Saul nodded and became quiet. He remained that way for a long time, slowly eating. So long that at last Yasmin, restored by wine, time, and silence to some of her natural sassiness, felt curious enough to prompt him.
“Sir?”
Saul looked up at her. She smiled, a warm but tentative smile.
“You said you had another reason for coming here to see me, sir. A personal reason. If you would like to tell me about that, I’d very much like to listen.”
16
You heard talk of electrical power returning to the whole city, but so far there was no sign of it. The candles, flickering low, turned the long basement room to a maze of shadows. Auden Travis didn’t see where Nick Lopez came from, but suddenly the Senator was smiling at his side.
“No rush, Auden, but it’s thinning out.” Lopez gestured to the door, where half a dozen men were putting on their coats. “Jeremy and Raoul would never dream of saying anything — we could stay here ’til dawn if we wanted to. But it’s close to two o’clock.”
“It can’t be that late.” Auden looked at his wrist, where of course there was no working watch. “It feels about ten o’clock.”
“Believe me, it’s not.” Lopez took Travis’s elbow. “They have to get up in the morning for work — and so do you.”
“I suppose so.” Auden moved toward the door at Lopez’s gentle urging, but before he arrived there he turned his head for a final look down the room.
“Enjoy it?” Lopez asked quietly.
“I had a wonderful time, Senator.”
“Nick.”
“Nick.” Travis took a deep breath. “I know this will sound corny, but I haven’t enjoyed an evening as much as this in my entire life. It makes me feel almost guilty, having such a great time when the city and the world is such a mess.”
“It is a mess, but not because of anything we did. I’m glad you liked it. I hope you’ll come again.”
“I’d love to. If I get invited.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be silly. Couldn’t you see you were the hit of the evening?”
“I thought it was my imagination. Everyone was so friendly to me.”
“And why shouldn’t they be? You are gorgeous. And you deserve a few hours of pleasure. You work much too hard, you know. I hope Saul appreciates you.”
“Oh, he does.” But Travis couldn’t erase the memory of the President running off after that whore, Yasmin Silvers. He wanted to pour out the truth to Lopez, but he couldn’t do that. “The President entrusts me with a great deal of information,” he said at last. Except why he sent her to the syncope facility, then went running off after her. Though the last part isn’t hard to guess.
“He trusts you because you can be trusted,” Lopez said. “I trust you already, and I don’t know you well.”
They retrieved their coats in silence and went to thank Raoul and Jeremy in the kitchen, who both gave Auden a hug and said, “Be sure to come again.”
“He will,” Lopez said. “I’ll talk him into it. And now let’s see what the weather is doing out there.”
They left the apartment and started up the steps from the basement to the ground level. At the top the Senator patted the pockets of his overcoat.
“Uh-oh. My hat. I put it on the entrance table when I came in. Wait here, I won’t be a second. Maybe you can take a look and see if it stopped snowing.”
When he returned Auden was standing at the top with the outside door cracked open an inch. He had his eyes closed, but he turned when he heard Lopez’s footsteps.
“It’s not nice at all out there, sir. Freezing cold and deep snow.”
“For God’s sake, Auden, are you trying to make me angry? I’m not sir, I’m Nick. I’m your friend, not your superior officer.”
“I’m sorry. Nick. It’s hard to get used to it. You’ve been Senator Lopez in my mind for so long.”
“Like some crumbling relic?”
“I didn’t mean that at all. Nick.”
“I believe you. Just what is it doing outside?” Lopez opened the door wide, and a blast of air and flurry of snowflakes blew in. “Jeez. Not nice doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s hell out there. Dangerous, too, without our security escort.”