"Quite right, sir."
"But independence is the bedrock of our national character. We pride ourselves on not only our national independence but our personal freedom. Our individuality is what makes us American."
"And we encourage that. It is why America is our most productive colony."
Colony.
It was as if all of the air had been vacuumed out of his lungs. He licked his lips, trying to drum up some saliva. He had never been so frightened in his life. Not during his first term as a senator when he'd been broke and read in the newspaper that the staff member with whom he had been having an affair was about to file a multimillion dollar sexual harassment suit against him, not when he'd been on the Armed Services committee and a right-wing wacko who had |; threatened his life showed up after hours at his home. He did not know why he was so scared, but he was, and the Oval Office felt suddenly hot, stifling. Five minutes ago, he had intended to keep one of his minor campaign promises to the nation and lay off some members of the White House staff. Now he was cowering before a group of servants, intimidated by their unnatural calm, by their proper British accents. He felt powerless, impotent, emasculated, but he forced himself to maintain the facade, to keep up the benevolent leader demeanor. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't believe you."
"That's perfectly all right, sir. Nixon and Carter had a difficult time believing it as well." Crowther smiled. "Ford and Reagan accepted it instantly."
He couldn't resist. "Clinton? The Bushes?"
"They all got used to it, sir. As will you."
"So you're saying the United States is ruled by ... ?"
"The queen."
"But the queen's a figurehead as well. Britain has a parliamentary democracy—"
The butler chuckled. "Parliamentary democracy? No such thing. Again, it keeps the peasants happy, makes them think they're somehow involved. The truth is, the prime minister's like you. A front. It's the queen who runs everything. Always has, always will."
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"I don't accept this. I was elected by a majority of the citizens of the United States to be their leader, and I will not take orders from anyone else."
"Oh yes you will, sir. You will take your orders from the queen."
Adam faced the butler. "And I damn sure won't take any orders from a two-bit monarch with a tabloid—"
"Stop right there, sir." There was something threatening in the butler's stance now, an intimation of menace in his voice. "You will bow before the queen and you will most assuredly submit to her authority."
"And if I don't?"
"We had Kennedy shot; we can arrange something for you as well."
There was silence in the Oval Office.
He faced Crowther, trying not to let his nervousness show."The queen ordered—?"
"The queen had nothing to do with it, sir. It was a decision by the operatives in this country, based on her own best interests. She was never told." He paused. "There are a lot of things we have not told the queen."
"Then you are disloyal."
"I beg to differ, sir. Sometimes the queen does not realize where her own interests lie. It is our responsibility to determine what is best for her and best for the motherland and carry out those actions to the best of our abilities."
The butler looked from Adam to Simons. "I'm sure you two would like to be alone for a while so you can ... absorb all this, so we will leave you in peace." He motioned with his head and the maid nearest the door opened it. The servants began filing out. "When would you like to meet again, sir?"
"Never."
Crowther chuckled. "Very well. You will let me know."
He let himself out of the room, closing the door behind him with a flourish that could only be considered mocking.
Adam turned toward his chief of staff. "So what do you make of that?"
Simons was shaking his head, still not able to speak.
"You think it's true?"
Simons nodded. "Looks that way."
"So what do we do?"
"What can we do?"
"Before we can do anything, I need to know the chain of command. Are we going to be simply following orders, or are we going to be given a certain level of autonomy?"
Simons smiled wryly. "You mean, is the queen a micro-manager?"
Adam snorted. "The queen. Can you believe this shit? Did you ever, in your wildest fucking dreams, ever think that something like this could happen?"
"What amazes me is the extent of it. They've corrupted our history from its simplest to its most complex level, from grammar school civics to graduate public policy. Every single person not directly involved in this ... travesty believes the same lie. In all my years in politics, in all my years of public life, I've never even had any suspicions that something like this could be the case."
"I was a senator for twelve years," Adam said. "How do you think I feel, knowing that all of my effort and hard work was merely irrelevant grease for the public relations machine?" He kicked the swivel chair behind his desk. "Fuck!"
"What are we going to do?" Simons asked.
"I don't know."
"What do you want to do?"
Adam thought for a moment, looked at him. "I want," he said quietly, "to secure our country's independence."
***
They met that night, his election team, in a Denny's coffee shop. Derek, his dirty trickster, was along to scan for bugs or other listening devices, and when he'd checked the table and the surrounding plastic plants and had set up a small black square to detect long-range microphone waves, they started talking.
"The first thing we need to do," Simons said, "is get the First Lady out of here. We need to send her on a goodwill trip to Japan or something. Get her as far away from British influence as possible. Who knows how low they'd stoop?"
Adam nodded. "Agreed."
Paul Frederickson cleared his throat. The secretary of state had been with him ever since his first senatorial campaign and, next to Simons, Adam trusted his opinion more than anyone else's.
"Go ahead, Paul."
"I think what we need to do first is discover the extent of the infiltration. This Crowther told you that all of the previous presidents had come around. Does that mean that they'd been converted, that they truly believed this was the best form of government for the United States, or does that mean that they accepted the way things were but didn't like it?"
"I would suspect the latter." Ted Fitzsimmons.
"We need to talk to them, find out how much they know. They can probably tell the players well enough to put together a scorecard we can use."
"Good idea," Adam said.
"We need to know about the various branches as well. Judiciary? Do the members of the Supreme Court know? Legislative? Any senators? We know that not all of them know, but maybe some of them do. FBI? CIA? Branches of the military? We need to be able to assess our strengths and weaknesses before we can formulate a plan of action."
They talked through the night, into the wee hours of the morning, and Adam could barely keep his eyes open by the time they left the restaurant and split up. He felt good, though. Assignments had been delegated and at least a rough idea of where they were headed had been hashed out. He no longer felt as hopeless and despairing of the situation as he had when he'd called the meeting.
He said goodbye to Simons on the sidewalk, then got into the presidential limousine. "The White House," he told the driver.
"Yes sir." The man started the car, looked at him in the rearview mirror, smiled. "God save the queen."
Adam forced himself to smile back. "God save the queen."
The military was all his.
It was the best news he'd had all week. The only hold the British had over the armed forces was the basic lie, the knowledge that each and every person in uniform believed that the United States was a sovereign nation and that they were supposed to uphold the U.S. Constitution, democracy's blueprint.