“He has some idea that he can find a weapon of use among the artifacts. I’ve told him we have no intention of leaving this installation. It’s too much of a risk for you, sir.”
“That may be,” said Ethan, “but if we can use the helicopter…I think it’s a risk worth taking.”
“Flying through that sky?” Derryman cast a cold eye in his direction. “You don’t know what it was like in Air Force One from Washington to Salt Lake. Now it would be even worse. That’s a no-go, as far as I’m concerned.”
Dave said, “Mr. President, you need to listen to Ethan. Give him the chance to do what he needs to do.”
“Ethan,” Beale repeated. “That’s a quaint name for a creature not of this world.”
“Sir,” Ethan continued, “I ask you to believe in me. I want to stop this war, and the only way I can do that is with help. Your help, sir. I need to get into—”
“This conversation is done,” said Derryman. “We’re not letting the President leave here. Period, end of story.”
“It’s not the end of it. The Cyphers and Gorgons are going to attack this mountain again, once they’ve finished their own fighting. The next time they’re going to destroy everything.”
“Believe what he says, Jason,” said Jefferson Jericho. “Listen…don’t you remember me? Little Rock, the fund-raising dinner for Bill Clinton in May of 1992. Ginger Wright’s party. I was going by the name of Leon Kushman then. Remember?”
Beale blinked slowly. He seemed to be trying to focus on Jefferson but was having trouble. “I don’t…I don’t think I know you. Kushman?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve met…so many people. So many names and faces. They run together. Excuse me…I have a headache,” he said to the group. “Mandy? Mandy?” He was calling to the First Lady as if she was no longer in her seat, yet she was no more than ten feet away at the end of the row. She finished off her drink and got up, with an air about her of weariness and despondency. Ethan thought that she had simply ceased to care, because in a matter of seconds he gathered the information that she believed both their children to be dead. The alcohol dulled a world of pain.
“I’m here,” she said. “Never far away.” She spoke it like a person in prison chains. She regarded Ethan as one might examine a strange form of vegetation growing from a crack in the sidewalk. Ethan knew she was about to ask What the hell are you supposed to be but even that seemed to be too much of an effort for her. She let the caustic question die.
“You did a very good job, sir,” Derryman told him. He clasped the President’s thin shoulder. Jason Beale was a shadow of himself. The President had to be reminded and encouraged to eat even one meal a day. “You always do a good job,” Derryman said. “Go rest now. Listen to some music. Amanda, please remind him to take his meds at five o’clock.” Ethan picked up the thought from Derryman that Beale was on a number of medications, including an antidepressant, and that the First Lady’s medicine was found in a bottle of whiskey. The supply of that was almost gone; she’d been going through it faster and faster. Of the original two cases there were only three bottles left. Derryman was worried about what was going to happen to the First Lady’s mental health when she could no longer self-medicate.
She took her husband’s arm and started to lead him out of the studio, her own balance precarious. Beale turned back toward his chief of staff. “Vance,” he said, with a quick darting look at the alien peacekeeper, “we’re safe, aren’t we? I mean…what he said…about the Gorgons and the Cyphers attacking. We’re safe, aren’t we?”
“I told you, sir, that the breach was taken care of. We did have some intruders, as I explained, but they were turned away.” Derryman gave extra emphasis to that word. “There is no safer place for you and the First Lady to be.”
“Thank you.” Beale’s tormented eyes in the wrecked face found Ethan again. Like a frightened child he asked, “You won’t hurt us, will you?”
“No sir. I want to help, not hurt.”
“I guess…we can’t lock you up, can we? What you did to the gates…no use locking you up.”
“That’s correct.”
Beale could add nothing more to that; his mind was already nearly overwhelmed. He nodded at his wife and together they approached the door. It was unclear who was holding who up, and which was in the better shape of the two.
“Leon Kushman!” Jefferson said before they could get out. “Now my name is Jefferson Jericho! I was an evangelist, on television! Remember me?”
The President suddenly stopped just short of the door. He glanced back. “Oh…yes…that man. I do know that name from somewhere.”
“It’s me! I’m him!”
“Go rest, sir,” Derryman said. “There’ll be time to talk later.” After the President and the First Lady had gone and the door had closed behind them, Derryman let go a long sigh. He rubbed the side of his head that was still in pain. “It has been very, very difficult,” he said.
“It’s not going to get any easier,” Dave answered. “Do you really film him, or is it just for show?”
“He likes us to burn a DVD of the telecast so he can watch it back and critique himself. This has been going on since we got here, every two weeks. I put together the reports. He thinks there’s still some organization to the armed forces, and they’re out there fighting. If he didn’t have that belief…he’d be long gone by now.”
“When they come again,” Ethan said forcefully, “they will destroy this mountain and everyone in it. I’ll try my best to protect you, but I am not infallible. I regret the death of Mr. Jackson, that I couldn’t save him. When are you going to tell the President about that?” Derryman did not reply, but the peacekeeper had his full attention. “Both the Cyphers and the Gorgons want me, because they know I’m something different that they don’t understand,” Ethan said. “If they can’t capture me—which they can’t—they’ll have to make sure I am contained…another word for dead. This body can be destroyed, but not the essence of what I am.” Ethan answered Derryman’s next question before he could ask it. “No, I can’t just leap from body to body…I need time to integrate myself into the form. And time is what we don’t have, sir. It is important—essential—that I get into the S-4 installation. Looking for what, I don’t know, but there must be something I can use.”
“I’ve told you, the President can’t—”
“Your world is going to die,” Ethan said. “All of you—your entire civilization—will die. I can understand that you don’t want to put him at risk, but there is no other way.”
“Listen to him,” Jefferson urged, almost pleading. “Please…listen.”
“No,” Derryman said firmly. “You listen. I have worked for Jason Beale for the greater part of fifteen years. I’ve seen the ups and downs, I’ve seen everything. He is barely hanging on, and so is she. They both know their children are probably dead. I am not going to send him out there in a helicopter flying to New Mexico with those things in the sky. If they’re so bent on destroying you, they’ll shoot that ’copter down in a matter of seconds. No. Now…I’ll take you to the cafeteria, you can get some food. Do you eat?” he asked Ethan.
“The body requires it.”
“If my high school biology teacher could see this!” Derryman said. His face contorted for a few seconds, and Dave thought he was close to jumping his tracks too. “I hope she died in her sleep before all this started!”
“Is this how your world ends?” Ethan asked.