Finally, Catherine reached out for her husband’s hand and sandwiched it between hers.
“Lawrence, this has to stop,” she said.
“This. What do you mean by this?” he asked.
“This, everything, all that you are doing, Lawrence.” Her voice was choked. She struggled for control. “The camps, Lawrence. You’re locking Americans into concentration camps. The identification cards. Lawrence, this has to stop.
“The violence, Lawrence. It just breeds more violence. Didn’t the Israelis learn that lesson? Bombs and retaliation didn’t cure anything; they just led to bigger bombs and more retaliation. That will happen here, Lawrence. That’s what you are inviting into this country. Bigger bombs. More retaliation. The man I love, who I still love, that man knows what is right and what is wrong. Lawrence, all this, what you are doing, it’s wrong. So wrong.”
“Goddamn it, Catherine.” Each word was louder than the one before. “I don’t need some Jiminy Cricket conscience. I need a wife who supports me. Your job is to back me up. I need you to do your goddamn job right now. That’s what I need, Catherine.
“This country is under attack. Foreign soldiers. And Americans. I’ve got six million so-called Americans who chose sides, chose sides against the rest of us. They made their decision. I made mine. I’ll lock every damn Jew up if they make me do it, by God I will.”
Catherine uncoiled her legs and swung them off the bed. She stood facing her husband, pulling her robe tightly around her. She’d struggled all day about how to approach her husband. Evidently, she’d failed.
“Some people won’t stand for this, Lawrence,” she said calmly. “I won’t stand for this.”
He sat in the bed, saying nothing.
“You know, Lawrence, I was going to give a speech at that march asking people to understand you, to support you, asking them to appeal to the good and kind man I married. That speech is in the trash now, Lawrence. Wait until you hear the new speech. Because you know what, Lawrence, you know what?” Her voice rose to match her husband’s.
“What?” he responded, his anger at this woman mixing with the desire he still felt for her, had felt every day of his presidency, and well before. “Tell me what.”
“When you hear my new speech, Lawrence, you are going to be so, so pissed.”
She turned quickly. If she’d been wearing a long dress rather than a terry bathrobe, the dress would have swirled in a circle around her. She walked from the presidential bedroom, leaving the door open.
The next morning, President Quaid summoned Carol Cabot to the family dining room, where he sat at a table picking at an omelet. He barely turned his head to acknowledge her.
“Carol, the First Lady is ill, or tired, or something,” he said without looking at the woman. “She should go to Camp David, to rest. Seclusion. She needs seclusion.” He paused for a few seconds. “She may not agree, but make sure she goes anyway.”
Cabot wrestled against the tiny facial muscles that struggled to lift the ends of her mouth into a smile.
“I understand, sir,” she said. “When should she leave?”
Quaid sat back in the chair, pulled it closer to the table, lifted his coffee cup and sipped, then replaced it gently on the table. “Right away, Carol,” he said. “This morning. Make it happen.”
An hour later, Quaid heard the sound of Marine One, the huge presidential helicopter, landing on the South Lawn. He walked to the window and watched as Catherine Quaid marched across the grass to the waiting machine, surrounded by what looked like an honor guard of six Secret Service agents. She walked up the steps into the helicopter.
The president stared at his wife. Suddenly, he noticed an object on her arm.
He balled his right hand into a fist, drew back his arm and punched with all his weight straight at the center of the window, then screamed in pain. Not even a rifle bullet traveling at supersonic speed could pierce that glass.
Cradling his hand, blood starting to ooze from the bruised and torn knuckles, he muttered softly, “That bitch, that fucking ungrateful bitch.”
He looked out the window one final time and saw Catherine at the top of the steps. She turned and waved to the perpetual crowd of tourists that clung to the far side of the iron fence surrounding the White House, snapping photos.
Those tourists with the sharpest eyesight or longest telephoto camera lenses saw a yellow, six-pointed star pinned to her left sleeve.
CHAPTER 66
Ben and Abram rose before dawn. Wearing bathing suits, they jumped into the chilly pool and pulled themselves around the edge of the water to the deep end. Shapiro took a breath, then dove to the bottom. The bomb was surprisingly light in the water.
They carried the bomb to the glider, still inside its enclosed trailer, hitched to the Pathfinder. It settled into the plane’s rear seat. Shapiro buckled the five-point safety harness around the cylinder, snugging it into place.
Goldhersh ran to the garage, saying over his shoulder that he had a surprise for Shapiro. He came back staggering under a weight that was heavy even for him, carrying what appeared to be small, vinyl-covered blankets.
“My cousin Herman,” Abram said as he dropped the blankets on the ground with a thud. “He’s in the dental supply business. I thought of these.”
He lifted one blanket from the pile and handed it to Shapiro, who bent his knees under the surprising weight.
“For when you get X-rays,” Abram said. “You know, they go over your lap so you don’t fry your balls with the radiation. I told Herman not to ask any questions. He said to make sure he got them back. Guess I’ll have to write him a check.”
They draped the heavy blankets around the bomb, covering it as best they could.
“Maybe that will help hide the radiation,” Abram said to Shapiro. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
The men went inside to join the others, gathered around the kitchen table, their morning ritual. Sarah puttered at the stove, serving coffee, carrying fruit and cereal to the table. Abram Goldhersh was fidgety as a ten-year-old the morning he was to pitch his first Little League game. He sat. He jumped from his chair to look out the window. He sat and shoveled Cheerios from his bowl into his mouth.
“I was up all night,” he said, speaking to Shapiro. “I decided. I’m going with you.”
“We went through this, Abram. No.”
Sarah opened her mouth. Her husband silenced her with a stare. He spoke to Ben.
“I went through everything in my mind, every step. Tell me, can you put the wings on your plane by yourself?”
Shapiro opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. There had always been somebody to help put the plane together—a tow pilot, another glider pilot. There wasn’t much involved in getting the plane ready for flight, just mounting the wings and the tail surface.
In the past, when Shapiro traveled with the plane, somebody always showed up to help, and if nobody was available, he waited. He pictured himself parked at the small field he’d selected, home to the Mid-Maryland Soaring Society. Glider in its trailer. A surly tow pilot standing with his arms crossed saying he didn’t do heavy lifting.
And an atom bomb sitting in the rear cockpit, with every cop in the country searching for it.
Not a moment for patience, Shapiro thought.
“Okay,” he said. “You can come, then drive the car home. Make us harder to trace, I suppose.” Shapiro lowered his voice so only the burly man sitting to his right could hear. “You do know, Abram, that there’s no room in the glider for you. You wouldn’t fit, not with the bomb, even if I agreed to take you.”