When Bill came to the end of the rope, the faces of the people who greeted him were familiar. “How are you doing, Mr. President?” came the salutation from a Republican senator whose hand Bill shook.
“Well, I’m getting by, Jim,” Bill replied before moving on to shake the hands of the junior members of Congress.
“You gutless bastard!” came the shout of a Democratic congressman from Florida. The noise and commotion in the rotunda quieted noticeably as everyone’s head turned to the man, including the watchful gaze of half a dozen Secret Service agents. Bill stepped up to the seething man, whose face was set in a sneer. “You come up here smiling like you’re at some goddammed campaign stop and meanwhile my district and a hundred thousand of my constituents are in Chinese hands!”
A new person — Frank Adams, Bill’s chief of staff — appeared at his side. “We’re late, Mr. President.” He grabbed Bill’s elbow and tried to lead him away from the ugly scene.
Bill pulled free. “Listen, this is a terrible time for America,” Bill reasoned, “and especially for our countrymen who find themselves trapped behind enemy lines. I pledge to you, their elected representative, that I will do everything in my power to aid them and to…!”
“Oh, bullshit!” the man interrupted. “You really ‘feel their pain’, don’t ya? You goddamned traitor! While my people are bein’ worked to death in slave labor camps, you’re shackin’ up with a Chinese-sympathizin’ whore!”
Baker gave him a hard punch, which landed squarely on the congressman’s face. A hundred flashes went off in the harsh glow of the television lights. Cameramen jostled for a better view. The man collapsed into the arms of his colleagues, and the Secret Service took over from there. The coats came off their arms to reveal not pistols but Uzis. A dozen new agents appeared from out of nowhere and roughly parted the shocked and stirring crowd. They expertly whisked Bill into a nearby office. By the time the door was closed behind him, Bill’s instant of satisfaction at decking the congressman had given way to sickness and regret over the act.
No one said a word. The office was filled with people, but they were all stone-faced and armed. They didn’t look at Bill. They looked at the doors. They listened to their earphones. Some watched video screens worn instead of wristwatches. Outside, there was commotion. Bill could hear loud speeches rife with indignation and condemnation being served up to dozens of cable news networks. Clarissa’s name came up several times. Bill winced each time he heard it. Shouts of “Down here!” by journalists and “Halt!” by Secret Service agents descended into fruitless requests by the press for access to their president, all of it caught on camera.
But inside the office — in the eye of the storm — there was total silence.
The agent in charge nodded at one of his men, who unlocked and opened the door. A gush of angry noise poured through the narrow crack. Frank Adams slipped inside and then pressed the door closed with his back.
He heaved a deep sigh, looked at Bill, and arched his brow. “Well, I just spoke to Tom Leffler. He’s canceled the briefing.” Bill’s eyes closed, and his head drooped. He nodded slowly. “Oh, and it gets worse,” Adams reported. “I asked the leadership — the Republican leadership — to have Capitol Hill police clear the halls and provide a way for you to get out of the Capitol without being molested, but they refused. You’re gonna have to do your exit in front of God and everybody.”
“We can get you out of here, sir,” suggested his special agent in charge.
“I’m not going to exit this building through any tunnels,” Bill declared.
“Keep your chin up,” Adams advised.
Bill squared his shoulders, set his jaw, and tugged his suit into place. Adams opened the door to a dozen flashes and the blazing lights of television cameras. Bill followed the agent in charge down the hall amid his phalanx of bodyguards.
“Is it true that you’re having an affair with the Speaker’s daughter?” came the shouts.
“Is Clarissa Leffler a Chinese agent?” drew Bill’s angry stare.
But the reporters’ questions were nothing compared to the gauntlet that Bill ran next. As he turned a corner, the corridor was lined with congressional staffers and aides, who began to “boo” their president. Bill stared at them and felt a rush of fear — of panic — as the young aides and secretaries practically doubled over with the effort, wearing faces set in angry masks. The change had come over them almost instantly. One waved a sign over his head with a hastily scrawled “Shame!” written on it. All of it was, he knew, being broadcast live to the people he was supposed to lead in a war for survival of their nation.
Han Zhemin watched the American television coverage of Bill Baker’s punch in slow motion from half a dozen different camera angles. He felt a mixture of intrigue and bemusement. No one did scandals as well as the American press. Within minutes, the networks had come to common agreement on a name—“Clarissagate”—though each now possessed its own proprietary title screen. Most of the graphics, which signaled a return to the coverage following brief commercial interruptions, were variations on the same them: a montage of photos of the president and his mistress superimposed over the presidential seal or the White House. And every comment by anyone willing to appear on screen — of which the number seemed limitless — interrupted regular programming as “breaking news” and led to a rehash by expert commentators, who summarized what had happened so far in the hours-old scandal.
He changed channels and saw stock footage of the attractive young woman in a strapless evening gown at a fund-raiser for her father. Coincidentally, Han noted, the fund-raiser had been held in the same city where Han now sat. Nice shoulders and slender neck. Pretty face. Han smiled.
When he looked up, he saw Wu. Someone had let him into Han’s office unannounced. He stood beside his father’s desk staring at the television. He wore camouflage battle dress and webbing that to Han — in the fleeting impression made by his sudden appearance — made him look like a soldier. His features were still those of a child, unlined by worries or age. But his back was straight. His shoulders broad. His hair was shorn. And his face and neck were tanned.
Wu turned his attention to his seated father, who quickly looked away. On television, an angry Tom Leffler stood before a cluster of microphones, and Han raised his TV’s volume. “…nothing to say to him. If he has something to say to me, he knows where to find me.” The old man left the podium to a torrent of questions. “Can you still work with the president?” and “Has your daughter confirmed to you that she is now living at the White House?”
“Wu,” Han said after muting the television, “we live in interesting times.” The pictures switched to a sneering Bill Baker, whose car entered the White House gates with the president staring straight ahead and ignoring the clamoring reporters and flashing cameras. “You magnificent bastard!” Han shouted at the screen, laughing. “Fucking the daughter of the Speaker of the House!”
And you were always better than me. Han thought, but didn’t say.
He handed Wu a memorandum authored, Wu read, by both Han and Wu. It was addressed to the prime minister and marked “TOP SECRET — EYES ONLY.”