Heather thought she’d never seen a harsher message greeted with more smiles. Still, this would probably be a bad time to tell Cam he’d make a good dictator.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. CASTLE CASTRO. (SAN DIEGO. CALIFORNIA.) 12:04 P.M. PST. THURSDAY. OCTOBER 31.
The guard at the main gate was nice and polite even before he saw David Carlucci and Family, and Larry Mensche and Family, on the guest list that Bambi had submitted. “You’ll be glad to know,” he said, “that Mr. Bolton’s family joined us earlier, and of course we’re glad to have all of you—let me just get full names and relationships for everyone—”
Carlucci nodded. “David Ignatius and Arlene Mather Carlucci, we’re married, and these are our son Track Palin Carlucci, and daughter Ann Coulter Carlucci.” The two teenagers looked embarrassed; the boy said, “My friends call me Paley,” and the guard added (Paley) after the entry.
“And they call me Acey,” Ann said, “like the initials but A-C-E-Y.”
“They do not, you made that up, you just want them to—”
“Here at Castle Castro, we will call you Acey,” the guard said, firmly, “since you want us to. And Mr. Mensche, is there just you?”
“Lorenzo Isaac Mensche,” Mensche said. “And call me Larry. Just me, my ex is someplace in Nevada and our grown daughter is up in Oregon. And—uh, excuse my asking, but what the hell do you suppose that is?”
The grinding and squealing sounds from the wheelchair itself were only part of the effect; the tires had been replaced with what looked like a wrapping of old socks, and behind it, a bicycle kid-trailer, with more sock-wrapped wheels, held bottles of beer and cans of Spam piled in a jumble on top of a sleeping bag. Both the wheelchair and trailer sported jaunty American flags, and the man in the wheelchair looked about as much as one can look like a biblical patriarch with a samurai sword on his lap and a shotgun hanging from a strap.
“Hi.” His grin was immense. “My name’s Patrick Lamont O’Grainne, and I believe I have a reservation.”
The guard glanced down, and said, “Another Bambi Castro guest. Of course. Even when she was in high school, Ms.Castro always brought in the most interesting people.” He drew his semaphore flags and began sending to the next station up the hill. “We’re very glad to have you all here.”
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. WASHINGTON. DC. 3:08 P.M. EST. THURSDAY. OCTOBER 31.
“I really appreciate the ride, and the chance to talk with you privately,” Graham Weisbrod said, pushing his glasses up his nose and peering intently at Shaunsen.
“Well, there’s so much to get done,” Shaunsen said. “We’ve got a crisis here, and if we play it right, it’ll be the New Deal all over again, with a Democratic majority for the next—”
“Mr. President, I’m as loyal a Democrat as you are, sir, and we are not going to win this election—”
Shaunsen shook his head. “Crises come and crises go, Secretary Weisbrod, but Americans always want hope, and we are the party of hope. That’s one of the problems with your whole Department of the Future; it’s unnecessary and trivial. Everything that really matters goes on forever. When things get smashed up, the country rebuilds, and the Democrats lead it. Sure, it’s bad right now. It was bad when the Depression hit, and after Pearl Harbor, and after the Federal Reserve bombings. But times like this are when we show the voters we can make the money move and get things done.”
All right, I’m going to hate myself if I don’t try, so here goes. “Mr. President, do you realize that we can’t reliably deliver mail from here to Richmond, there are now fifteen states from which we have only had satellite photos in the last twenty-four hours, all communication is down with Ottawa and Mexico City, let alone Europe or Asia… and we have people going hungry ten blocks from the White House because there isn’t any food—”
“If Congress acts fast, we’ll have the money—”
“You can create the money, but they can’t eat it.” Good God alive, I feel like his reality therapist. If the National Unity Guards there weren’t giving me the fish-eye I’d slap the son of a bitch, I swear to god I would. “No one in the Northeast urban strip from Boston to Richmond can reach adequate shelter or food in time. Within a week, the first bad storm is going to kill tens of millions of Americans at a minimum. Right now, the best hope we’ve got is that there are little towns all over the country managing to organize things within a few miles of themselves, and we’re only hearing about them from ham radio operators who are just barely managing to keep their stations on the air—”
“Every one of those little towns will see a nice big grant, I guarantee it, for all the good work they’re doing.” Shaunsen reached out and touched his knee. “Graham, you are such a sad worrier, and the public always wants a happy warrior. We’ll make it all work, and the economy is going to take off like a rocket once we get these programs running. You’ll see. I’ve always said, you think about the future so much, you don’t see the long run.”
The limo zigged and zagged past the wrecks on the street; no one came out to look at it, perhaps intimidated by the Secret Service, perhaps just not caring about it anymore.
40 MINUTES LATER. THE WHITE HOUSE. WASHINGTON. DC. ABOUT 4:00 P.M. EST. THURSDAY. OCTOBER 31.
Forty minutes since Weisbrod arrived at the White House, and he’d spent all of it sitting in the Secret Service break room while the people dithered about allowing him in to see Roger Pendano. The Secret Service people were pleasant, polite, and much less formal than he’d ever seen them, but his thoughts were mostly on his old student. What if he’s so far gone in madness, he can’t recognize anyone? What if—
One of the Secret Service returned to the room and said, “Secretary Weisbrod, I’m supposed to take you to see President Pendano now. The doctor wants you to know he’s not in the best shape. He said you should go as soon as the president starts to look tired or sick, because his health is precarious. Okay?”
“You’ve got it. He was my friend a long time before he was president, I won’t do anything to endanger or hurt him.”
“Just passing it along because the doctor told me to, sir. Right this way.” Two years ago Pendano had said he did not want to live in rooms where the First Lady had spent her last few months dying, and that any living space more than a comfortable minimum made him feel like he was “rattling around with no place to be.” He had moved up from the traditional Second Floor to the Third, into a bedroom with space for clothes and bed, with an adjoining sitting room for reading and watching television. They had put in a small kitchen so he could have food without bothering people, and a connecting door to a tiny guest bedroom for rare visits from his grown daughter. The mostly unoccupied floor below him gave him the quiet he craved.