Daryl smiled. ‘Seriously, Gordon, how do you feel?’
‘What did that drunk cowboy say down in Dallas?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t in Dallas.’ Gordon looked at him. ‘What did he say?’ Daryl added quickly.
‘“Rode hard and put up wet,”’ Gordon replied in a lifeless voice. ‘Listen, Daryl. I’d like to talk about what happened.’
‘Yeah, well… I’ve moved on, Gordon. Got a job at a company in Chicago that makes biodegradable bags for potato chips. Hires inner-city workers. Donates one percent of its payroll to liberal causes. That kinda shit. You didn’t get my card?’ Gordon shook his head. ‘I guess you don’t get to read your own mail any more.’
‘Are you… wed to this potato chip thing?’
Daryl stared back at Gordon, then spun and began to pace. ‘I don’t need this shit in my life right now, Gordon! Jesus! I’ve got a job. I’ve got a contract on a house in an upscale white neighborhood on the North Shore. I’ve had two offers to join country clubs that are worried about discrimination lawsuits and are willing to waive my initial membership fee, which is like forty thousand bucks!’
‘Sounds like a good deal,’ Gordon said. Daryl was standing at the window. His fingers separated slats at eye level. His back was to Gordon. ‘I mean, if this thing has some career potential…’
‘“Career potential”!’ Daryl exploded. He spun to face Gordon.
The door opened. Two Secret Service agents stood in the narrow space looking in.
‘Could we have some privacy?’ Gordon said. The men disappeared. He turned to Daryl. ‘I’d like you to be my Chief of Staff.’
Daryl snorted in derision. But he couldn’t quite keep the sickly smile from parting his lips. ‘You’re serious.’ He shook his head. ‘Man, I thought you had better political sense than that. What’s in that IV bag? Demerol? Morphine?’
‘I need you, Daryl. I’m all alone. Stuck in this bed. I don’t know the people who work for me. They don’t tell me things I need to hear. I find out more from listening to that,’ he said, jabbing his thumb at the window, ‘than from talking to my advisers. I need somebody I can trust.’
Daryl snorted again — this time in amusement. ‘Running for cover, are they?’
‘Like scalded dogs.’ They laughed. Gordon cherished the moment despite the pain. ‘Daryl, I’m going down in flames, here. I need you.’
‘To do what, Gordon?’ Daryl asked. He hovered close by Gordon’s bed. The hook was in deep.
‘Pull up a chair.’
‘I wish you’d worn a tie,’ Gordon mumbled to Daryl, who stood at the head of his bed. The National Security Council was about to convene their briefing. Entering the now map-filled room were some of the most powerful people in Washington.
Each new political animal to arrive sized up Daryl — the new beast at the watering hole. Each smiled and greeted Gordon and then Daryl — the latter with an abundance of grace and enthusiasm. ‘I remember you from the… the Houston convention, wasn’t it?’ the Secretary of Defense said. ‘You were a floor manager, tha-at’s right!’ He shook Daryl’s hand a second time as if Daryl had not yet been properly greeted.
‘Daryl’s going to be my Chief of Staff,’ Gordon lobbed into the gathering.
Good-natured smiles never left the faces of the well-mannered men and women. They descended on Daryl again. Shaking his hand anew. Congratulating him. Even grabbing and squeezing his shoulders with both hands. But by lunchtime, Gordon knew, the long knives would be out. Dirt dug up and leaked to the press. Snide remarks made off the record. Political sabotage of the upstart challenger. Gordon decided to turn the tables on the previously secure Cabinet heads.
‘Daryl has agreed to take a look at the staff — from top to bottom — and make recommendations.’ The grins now grew slightly more strained. Some even dropped the effort altogether. ‘Since I’m laid up here indefinitely, Daryl is going to have carte blanche to trim things up for the rough sailing we’ve got ahead of us.’ Always good to use sailing metaphors, Gordon thought. ‘Except high-level positions, of course.’ Gordon smiled. Everyone smiled back. I’ll make those calls myself… after Daryl’s recommendations.’
Their ears were all twitching at that. No longer did they lap at the still pool. They now scoured the terrain for the sound of breaking twigs that announced the approach of a predator. It was probably enough of a charge, Gordon decided, to break up the liaisons and cliques and make it every man for himself. If not, he could up the voltage. Like Daryl had said after Gordon had sold him on the plan but then began to falter — ‘Hey, Gordon. Fuck them! You’re the President of the United States!’ The pain from his laughter was still fresh — Gordon had had to work hard to keep the grin off his face.
Chin stopped long enough to look at his new watch. The impressive radium dial glowed in the dark. They had two hours to be in position for a dawn attack. But the going was slow through the thick woods and heavy snow. It was then that the worst happened.
A stunning display of noise and fire tore the forest apart. Chin was so shocked by the violence of the explosions that he didn’t dive to the ground as he’d been taught. He sank onto his haunches and sat — his head swimming. In the moment before the second wave of explosions, Chin willed himself down into the powdery snow. A tidal wave of fire passed over him. In the aftermath, he heard the crackling of dry evergreens and the wails of the wounded.
But they weren’t through. The ground slammed against him time and time again. He was covered in snow falling from thick branches. He was suffocating. He struggled to rise up for air. But when he got to his knees he still couldn’t catch a breath. The searing licks of heat flashed yet again.
Snow fell from the limbs above and bounced from the ground in a fine mist of ice crystals. Chin inhaled them with all his might — breathing ice amid raging fires.
When Chin awoke, he was all alone. The cloak of darkness and silence had again descended on the woods. His head hurt so much the first thing he did was probe his bristly scalp for a wound. There was none. But his limbs were numb from the cold. When he half rose, his skin tingled like at the onset of a fever. He retched.
Over and over Chin’s stomach heaved until it was empty. The effort drained him so completely he collapsed back into the snow. There he lay. Sweating and cold. For how long he couldn’t tell. He rested his eyes. Time seemed to slip. He was cold.
The sky was noticeably lighter. The attack should have begun already. But there was no sound of fighting. Chin listened more closely. He’d not yet seen combat. But he’d listened to the sounds. They could hear the attacks on the big American base miles away. For several days they had listened as they waited for their turn to come. But Chin heard nothing at all now. Nothing but the silence of the empty forest.
He struggled to his knees. The world was spinning. He almost blacked out completely when he rose to his feet. A bitter pit of nausea still burned in his stomach. Chin had to support himself with his hands on his thighs. He stood bent half over around the source of the pain. When he finally straightened, he saw immediately what had not been obvious before.
The forest was shattered. Healthy evergreens were cracked in two. Green bristles littered the snowy ground. Huge splinters of shredded white wood protruded from broken trunks like exposed bones.
And there were gaping black craters. Yawning holes blasted out of the earth by huge explosions. The closest lay less than fifty meters from where Chin stood.