The First Lady rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop whining. Pull yourself together and start getting ready for your news conference. I’m going next door to my office to freshen up.”
“Wait a minute,” the President said. “You just gave him a hundred billion dollars. Where are we going to get that? Congress won’t go for it — they wouldn’t give Yeltsin shit after I begged them to. The American people won’t go for it, they want it for the cities, for health care, AIDS, whatever … and our allies sure as hell won’t pitch in.”
“I said … I’ll take care of it,” the First Lady said firmly. “After all, look what that attack averted — World War Three. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter who launched the weapon, it was our attack, our plan, and it just saved the asses of governments all over the world. We’ll get the money from them, even if we have to break their fucking arms to do it.”
“But, honey, this is blackmail. Sen’kov blackmailed us, now we’re going to blackmail our allies?”
The First Lady shrugged. “It’s a small price to pay to have a Russian president in one’s back pocket,” she said, patting her hair. “That attack killed a lot of Russian military commanders and right-wing neo-Communists, and we can certainly prove it was Sen’kov who gave us the information. Valentin Sen’kov belongs to me — I mean, us—now. Besides, it’s only money, dear. Now come with me and I’ll spruce you up before the press conference. As to what you should say, I think the best course would be …”
As she talked on, the President and First Lady headed toward the door leading to the other West Wing offices. A Secret Service agent, who’d been in their presence the entire time, opened the door for them to exit. The President was about to go out first, then he noticed the look from his wife. He stepped back. “After you,” he said tightly.
“Always.” She smiled, marching forward.