Allie had Lyle throw an extra bucket of coal into the fire under the hot water tank. From the locked steel box at the back of her bedroom closet, she took pre-Daybreak lavender Castile soap and Wild Turkey, plus Kona that Lisa Fanchion had given her in appreciation of the tax exemption on coffee.
Her scalding shower was at least five times as long as the ration, and in no way “cool and comfortable” as Graham Weisbrod’s housekeeping directive had specified, but more along the lines of “sinfully decadent.”
So bizarre. Before, she’d never really understood that Graham was serious about this good-gov shit. Allie’s family had “dove ourselves neck-deep in politics as soon as we ditched the boat and got the vote,” she remembered Uncle Sam saying, literally while he was teaching her to work the cash register. “Before you buy a business, buy the cop and the judge so you can keep it, Allie.”
Snug in her thick terry bathrobe, she drizzled the scarce and wonderful bourbon into the pot of Kona, poured a cup, and settled in to work. The drink burned down her throat like hot, slick ebony inlaid with gold; she drew the fumes from the cup into her nose, sighed, and reached for the first memo.
“So the summit was aborted,” Mr. Darcage said. “And you got to see your ex, and, I should guess, impress him. How fortunate all around.”
She put her feet down abruptly, crossing her legs under the desk and tugging at her robe. Who the fuck lets him in? Lyle? Gotta know! “Ever think about knocking or maybe showing up in regular hours?”
“My employers would be delighted if you’d meet with me openly and regularly; the tribes crave recognition.” He stepped out of the dim shadows in the corner of the office; in the flaring lamplight he seemed more gaunt, his face more lined, almost ancient, but his precisely geometric beard and hair were black as pitch. His eyes bulged slightly, his lips were too thick, and there was a patch of old acne scarring along one sideburn.
“That’s not what I meant. And you know it.” She held her robe closed with one hand, as if afraid it might pop open; her other hand reached under her desk, seeking the pistol—
The space was empty.
Darcage set the pistol down on the desk in front of her. “I don’t want you to keep loaded guns around.”
“I do many things you don’t want me to.”
“You think you do things I don’t want you to. You don’t ask, often enough, what I want you to do.” He gestured toward the gun lying on the desk. “That’s why I had to unload the gun for you. I shouldn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t have to do that for you.”
His repetition was annoying her, and she said, “I get it.”
“Of course you do.”
“Why did you come here and why am I not throwing you out?” she asked, as much to herself as to him. He sat with one leg running along the edge of her desk, curled against the other, a supported flamingo, and leaned slightly forward, but did not speak. I could suddenly bite his nose and it would serve him right. I wonder if he’s trying to see down my robe. She resisted the urge to look down or yank it closed; can’t let him know he’s bothering me. Come on, talk, asshole. This silent act is creeping me out. “You work hard at telling me what I don’t want.”
“That’s because you’re not always clear about what you do want. Don’t you want to make things run smoothly? Don’t you want all the good relations you can possibly get?”
I know what I don’t want: to be caught in just my bathrobe, here in the middle of the night, with contraband bribes on my desk and what’s obviously a Daybreaker agent alone with me. “What did you have in mind?”
The silence lay in the room like a dead cow on the floor, too big to go around, impossible to climb over without admitting that there was something in your way. The lamplight from her desk lamp flickered and danced. Little kid campfire trick, Allie thought, wishing she could disdain it. Shine light up on a face from underneath and it looks scary.
“Don’t worry about seeing Doctor Yang again; he is on the right side and more attuned to your needs than you might think. In fact, he’d like to hear from you; why don’t you write him a letter?”
The light flickered slightly. She looked up. He wasn’t there. Her coffee was now too cool, anyway, the Wild Turkey wasted, the Kona wasted, and she felt sad and lonely. Maybe she’d go down to the main bedroom and curl up with Graham tonight; he always liked it when she did.
She poured her pitcher of Turkey and Kona down the sink, rinsed everything thoroughly, blew out the lamp, and took the back stairs passage down to the main presidential suite.
Darcage had not concealed that Daybreak was more interested in Arnie than they were in her. It bothered her; she didn’t like being second to anybody.
2 DAYS LATER. WAPAKONETA, OHIO. AROUND NOON EST. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2025.
Larry handed Jason a GPO brochure-map from the 1990s, Scenic Waterways of Ohio and Indiana. “Look up Wapakoneta.”
“I know that town name for some reason.”
“Yeah, you do, but it’s not the reason I’m interested in.”
“Just look up,” Chris said, pointing to the landmark sign forty yards down the road. It was like ten thousand other historic-landmark signs that appeared outside almost every small town in the Midwest, except that this one said:
“I’d forgotten that, Larry. Probably hadn’t thought about it since fifth-grade American history. Crap,” Chris said, an odd, desperate strain in his voice. “I remember when the moon was a good thing. My dad watched the landing on TV when he was a little kid, I guess along with everybody, and… I don’t know, I guess you had to be in that generation, but to a lot of people, it meant a lot. Now… we look up at the moon, and we’re scared.”
Larry sighed. “Yeah, but what I wanted Jason to read was this.” He pointed at the old map-guide.
Jason read aloud. “The Auglaize River is canoeable from Wapakoneta, a small town pronounced Wop Ock Kuh Net Uh. (Many Ohioans shorten it to Wapak, pronounced Woppock.) The Wapakoneta Canoe Trek Company, just downstream of the Hamilton Street Dam, has canoes and kayaks for rent from mid-June to mid-October. May not be accessible in low-water years. Shouldn’t be a problem, it’s rained like a real booger for an hour or two almost every day since we landed. And, okay, Larry, I see where you’re going with your idea. It says, The Auglaize River flows north to the Maumee at Defiance, down which canoes can continue nearly to Toledo.”
“Unh-hunh, and Toledo’s a port on Lake Erie, and there are Provi garrisons on the western side of Lake Erie—Put-in-Bay, Kelleys Island, Port Clinton, and Sandusky.”
“You’re figuring that if we can get canoes—”
“Never walk when you can ride, son, stay in gummint service and you’ll learn that’s a rule.” Larry grinned. “Along with always patronize anybody with less time-in-grade than you have. Anyway, that’s my thought. And looking up ahead, at least it looks like the town hasn’t been burned.”