“If, if,” Bill faltered, “if you want to talk to him, I can arrange a videoconference.” He hadn’t talked such a thing over with the attorney general, but he assumed that it was his decision. Fielding would record the whole thing. It would certainly be the smoking gun. “If, you know, you want privacy — if you need to talk about something only with him, something that’s too personal to talk over with someone, you know, else…” Like me, he thought. The assassin’s target. “Your line would be totally secure,” he pledged, lying with a suddenly steely conscience.
“No,” she finally muttered. “If you say he’s all right, that’s good enough for me.”
Bill had misplayed his role. Perhaps he had overplayed it. He rolled his back to her. She made no move to lie in a more comfortable repose. His sheet, in fact, disappeared millimeter by millimeter into her clenching hands.
“Do you… want to?” she asked tentatively. Wide awake. Terrified and alone.
“I’m tired,” Bill answered.
She almost instantly rolled onto her side facing away from him. Fielding had warned him — daily—“No changes in routine… especially intimate routine. She’ll be sensitive to any backing away.”
Bill desperately wanted to end the charade there. That’s what any decent man would’ve done for the woman he loved. And he did love her! Or maybe he couldn’t love anybody. He had done nothing to get Rachel back. Not even return her desperate calls from Hong Kong. Why didn’t he just shout out, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party!” Or better yet whisper it. “Don’t say or do anything, Clarissa. Everybody knows. You’re in huge trouble, but you’ve got my undying support!”
And the hell with every American who thinks otherwise. He would resign. Abandon the throne for the woman he loves during time of war for national survival. It would be, he knew, a quixotic suicide dive into the history books. And what in God’s name would Stephie think about it as she returned to the front line?
“Beginning at 0800 hours tomorrow morning,” the E-mail sent anonymously to Clarissa had read “monitor the subject closely and report immediately — immediately — any changes in security or any unscheduled movements that the subject makes.”
“Subject,” was the way the plotters referred to him. “Target,” was what Fielding had said that word meant. Clarissa had read the same E-mail.
She sighed, just then, from somewhere behind his back.
Bill rolled over and put his arms around her, which she instantly seized and pulled tighter. He kissed her thick hair, which smelled as always, of the same fragrance. Some scent, Bill thought as he inhaled greedily for the last time, whose origin he would never know. She turned to him. She felt warm against him. His desire for her rose. “Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked.
She froze for a moment, then rolled away again. She isn’t going to tell me, Bill thought. Amazed. Shocked. She knew they were going to kill me and hurl America into nuclear war, and she wasn’t going to say anything at all.
He rolled away from her.
14
The Oval Office was brimming with staffers. The White House press officers’ explanation to journalists about the activity was that, “This is a get-back-to-work day for the president.”
Bill sat at his desk ignoring the energy secretary’s report as Hamilton Asher entered the room. The FBI Director grinned and shook hands with Bill’s inner staff, working his way to the president.
“Hamilton?” Bill said, not extending his hand.
“Mr. President,” Asher replied, smiling. “I appreciate you inviting me to the NSC meeting.”
“It’s about time the FBI returned to the table,” Bill offered in a flat, unconvincing tone. He felt no charity toward Hamilton Asher. He intended to attend the man’s execution.
“And here are the disks,” Asher said, putting the slim envelope on Bill’s desk. “They contain the video files that you requested.” Asher lifted his fingers off the slim package and took a step away. He looked at his watch and said, “The meeting’s about to start.” He departed within seconds. Within seconds more, the Oval Office was empty.
Clarissa sat next to her father, but could get nothing out of him. Bill had asked her to attend the NSC meeting, mumbling something about important developments. It was her first time in the Situation Room since just after their Christmas Eve meeting with Han Zhemin at Camp David. Clarissa bit her nails thinking, Han Wushi! They’ll want a report about Han Wushi’s rise to popularity and power.
Her father stared at her. He was pale, crinkled, and sagging, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he peered at her with pity. “You look sick!” she whispered, mainly in anger. He sat there, slack-jawed, and said nothing. “What’s wrong?” He just shook his head. “Why are you here?” she asked. He shrugged. “Talk to me!” she exclaimed, raising her pitch but not her volume, which remained inaudible to the others gathered around the long table.
“I love you,” was all he said.
They’re going to kill Bill! she realized instantly. They’re going to assassinate him right now. She rose and…
Her father’s suddenly strong grip hurt her wrist as he pulled her back to her seat. He held her hand under the table. Despite her twisting he wouldn’t let go. Her father had gripped her wrist roughly the way he had when she had misbehaved — a means of brutish control. It was his only form of abuse or corporal punishment. “Let go!” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“It’s too late,” he said.
She ceased her struggles immediately. “No-o-o. No, no!”
Hamilton Asher entered the briefing room, causing a stir.
A muffled thud from above sounded as though someone had dropped a heavy book on the floor above. Only there was no floor above. The Situation Room was a hundred feet beneath ground level. Every general, cabinet officer, and aide looked at the ceiling in unison. For a single, awful moment, time stood still for everyone in the conference room.
The phone rang. General Cotler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stabbed a button on the speakerphone. Sounds of shouting and confusion filled the background as a shocked, female aide shouted. “The president! There was an explosion! In the Oval Office!”
Cotler boomed, “Has the president been harmed?”
“He’s dead!” she screeched.
Clarissa’s world shattered to pieces. She rose halfway but was pulled back to her seat by her father’s grip. “I’ve-got-to-go. I’ve-got-to-go. I’ve-got-to…” She started to cry. Her father put his arm around her.
“They’re all dead!” the aide continued. “That whole side of the building is gone! Aw, God…!”
“Get the vice president,” Secretary of Defense Moore ordered. A communications officer went to work.
“We’re at risk here,” General Cotler noted. “We’re all bunched up.”
“You go,” said Secretary of State Art Dodd to Bob Moore. “Get somewhere safe. Quickly.”