25
The thaw at the Maryland Point Syncope Facility was not a local event. It extended from the hidden Virginia valley, where the Clark orbiter had made its emergency landing, all the way north across the Appalachians to the Pennsylvania/New York border.
The Indian Head naval base lay well within that region. Saul had gone to bed — alone, and far later than he cared to recall — in a starless night of crackling frost and sudden wind. He awoke to clear, bright morning and the steady trickle of snowmelt from a slate roof. He frowned up at the yellowed ceiling, and realized that he had been roused by a brisk rat-a-tat-tat on the thick oak of the bedroom door.
A head peeked discreetly into the room. “Good morning, Mr. President.” A huge tray loaded with covered dishes went onto the cherrywood table by the door. The head — it was attached to a young woman in an old but well-laundered white uniform — nodded. She withdrew before Saul had time to notice her rank, or wonder what the woman would have done if she had walked in on a naked President. The stock diplomatic answer — “Sorry, madam” — wouldn’t work in this case.
He walked over to the window. It faced west, across the three-mile-wide Potomac. In all that broad expanse he could count just seven vessels. Four were Navy ships, moving away from Indian Head. Saul guessed that they were part of last night’s flurry of activity when word spread along the river of his trip by water to Indian Head. Only one ship now lay at the jetty where he had landed. It was smaller than the frigate that had brought him, and it had the lines of a small tugboat.
The other three were fishing boats, all heading downstream to the bay. The river was a flat calm, and the lines of their wakes lay ruler-straight on the surface.
Good. If Yasmin had any trouble traveling to the Q-5 facility by road, she would certainly be able to get there by water. Which led to one other thought. He walked back to the bed, picked up the unit on the bedside table, and stared at it dubiously. It lacked control panel, display, antenna, and keypad. As he held the truncated black cone to his ear, a voice said, “Yes, Mr. President?”
“What year was this telephonic unit made?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Ask a stupid question. Saul suppressed the urge to inquire if the man at the other end had been sitting up all night, awaiting a possible presidential call. The odd thing was the chatter of children’s voices in the background.
“One of my aides, Ms. Yasmin Silvers, will be visiting the Q-5 Syncope Facility today. In view of last night’s activity downriver, I would like her to have a military escort.”
“Very good, sir. It will be arranged.”
Which ought to be enough — except for a possible excess of zeal. “Not a big escort, please. No more than a dozen.”
A moment’s hesitation, enough to make Saul think his added command was justified. “Yes, sir. Sir, I have two hundred and seventy-three messages for you here, forwarded from Washington.”
“Hold them for me.” A quiet morning, by presidential standards. “It is not necessary for me to meet with Ms. Silvers before she leaves. And if convenient to Captain Kennecott, I will be ready for a review of the base in thirty minutes.”
“Do you wish to speak with him, sir? He is right here.”
And probably has been, poor devil, since before dawn. “Yes, put him on, if you please. Captain Kennecott? Good morning to you. Yes, it looks as though we have a much better day for a tour than yesterday. No, as a matter of fact I haven’t tried it yet. But I’m sure the food will be fine.”
Saul hung up, reflecting that in many ways it was better to be asked about a meal before you tasted it. A relay of cooks had probably been working on that since before dawn, too.
They had taken no chances. A dozen different dishes sat on the tray. Saul drank hot tea with lemon, ate a piece of brown bread onto which he slathered several ounces of grape jelly, and resisted the urge to explore a large, light blue egg.
Salmonella tested? Not in this universe. The standard household test kit undoubtedly contained at least one chip.
Captain Kennecott was waiting in full dress uniform. He was not alone. Saul accepted a bouquet of thornless red roses from a shy three-year-old toddler whose finger went up her nose as soon as she had delivered her gift.
He smiled and thanked her with grave politeness. 7 am President of all the people. You had to work on that at first, but after two years it became automatic. It was even true. She would remember this seventy years from now.
“Is there anything you would particularly like to see?”
Captain Kennecott’s question was a natural one, but Saul couldn’t answer it. He had come here on inexplicable impulse. Impulse would have to guide him still.
“I would like to see the weapons storage.”
“We had anticipated that.” Kennecott turned and nodded to a woman in civilian dress, who left at once. Saul noticed the captain’s left hand, its skin smoother and whiter than the right. It was a grown prosthesis, a combination of Voorhees-McCall nerve cell regeneration with tissue engineering. The technique was still experimental, no more than five years old. But Kennecott was well over seventy. In which war had he lost it?
The captain had seen his look, and flexed his hand. “Good as new, sir. Feels like a natural arm. I suppose in a way it is. My own DNA, even if I didn’t grow it myself. No chips in it — thank God.”
Saul changed his mind about the captain. Last night he had noticed the big Adam’s apple, tired eyes, and deep-lined cheeks. Kennecott had seemed old and frail, a man out to pasture. Today he was someone who noticed everything, alert and in command, a man who had adapted rapidly to deal with the unexpected factor of a presidential arrival.
Saul tried a guess based on age and casualty rates. “Vietnam?”
Kennecott laughed. “No, sir. I was there, all right, Navy aviator, but I came through without a scratch. Then I was fool enough to do this to myself on a peacetime run. Flying an F-24 modification in ’05.”
“You weren’t invalided out?”
“They tried. I pulled every string in the Disabilities Act.”
They had been walking as they talked, down the slight slope that led away from the Officers’ Mess and the river beyond. The group of well-groomed children had disappeared. The military escort remained a careful ten paces to the rear. The air was so warm and the sun so bright that Saul imagined he could see the snow on either side of the path melting away before his eyes.
Kennecott made a right before they reached the building labeled prominently as Bachelor Enlisted Quarters, and led them on through an open gate. Saul read the sign on the high wire fence: authorized personnel only beyond this point, no foreign. The flower beds and neat shrubs emerging from the snow on either side of the gate seemed incongruously at odds with the brusque sign. The brick building beyond was square, huge, and windowless.
The civilian to whom Kennecott had signaled earlier was waiting at the open double doors. Saul had his first chance for a good look at her. Thin, late forties, maybe five-three, she stood between white-painted shell cases taller than she was. Blond, straight hair. Probably in first-rate physical condition except for the fair skin whose rugged look suggested too much direct sunlight. Why didn’t she replace it with a cultivated mask of her own face, cheap and easy to grow?