There was a moment of silence. “That wasn’t quite…” the Advisor began.
“I think you have summed things up very well, Joe,” the President said. “Now how can we accomplish what we need to do?”
It was very interesting, the President thought, doing his job without being attached to it. He had decided he would be President when he was nine years old, and he’d worked toward that goal with every conscious moment since, until he’d finally succeeded in his ambition. He used to care so very deeply about every aspect of being the President, of working out every angle of every situation. He had loved it all, the brainstorming, the defeats, and victories. He had given it his all. His ego had been involved. But now his ego was gone. Just… gone. He was doing the same job, making the same decisions, but it just didn’t have much to do with him anymore. This situation would be fascinating, at least if he were capable any longer of being fascinated.
In the end, he sent two carrier battle groups into the Western Pacific, though was careful to keep them out of the area where the Chinese missile was supposed to land. Both the Secretary and the Advisor seemed reasonably content with the situation.
“By the way,” he asked the Secretary. “What are the Gamsakhurdians up to?”
“Sir?”
“You know. Last week’s crisis. Georgia and Latvia.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was going to brief you, but—”
“I know, Darrell. We’re all very busy.”
“The Russian President told our ambassador that he was shocked at what his people were up to.”
“Do we believe he didn’t know?”
“As long as it suits us to. Right now it suits us to the ground. At least some of the paramilitaries have been recalled. The rest seem without direction. We are assured that heads are rolling in the Kremlin.”
“Latvia is safe,” the President smiled.
“For the present, sir. Yes.”
“The thought of a safe and free Latvia shall warm my cockles on frosty mornings. I’ll talk to you later, Darrell.”
He handed the phone to Stan Burdett, who put it on its cradle. The President turned, looked out the window at the clouds far below.
“China is attacking Taiwan on a symbolic level,” he told Stan. “By firing missiles over it. We are defending Taiwan on a symbolic level by sending two carrier battle groups. The symbols will clash harmlessly somewhere in the Western Pacific, and no one will be hurt. It’s all very dreamlike and in its way profound, isn’t it?”
Stan looked at him, adjusted his thick spectacles. “May I join you, sir?” he said.
“By all means.”
Stan sat across from the President, put a hand on his knee. “Are you all right, sir?” The President looked at him. “My wife is dead, my oldest friend is dead, the country just had its guts ripped out, and the Chinese are shooting missiles in the direction of our ships. Other than that, all is well with myself and with the world. How are you, Stan?”
“You’re not…” Stan licked his thin lips nervously. “You’re not depressed?”
“Depressed? No. I am strangely placid. And you?”
“Because—you know—it would be understandable if you were depressed. If you were, say, feeling tired and rundown all the time, if all you wanted to do was sleep…”
“I don’t sleep much,” the President said. “You people won’t let me. Why do crises always seem to happen at two in the morning?”
“I just meant depressed, you know,” Stan said unhappily. “In the—you know—clinical sense.”
“I’m not depressed in any sense,” the President said. “I eat well and I sleep well, at least when I have the opportunity. I do my job. You just saw me deal with a major international crisis without pulling my hair out or going into a crying jag.” He peered at Stan. “Are you depressed, Stan?”
“No, sir. I’m concerned.”
“That’s kind of you.” The President patted the hand that Stan had left on his knee. “But you don’t need to worry.”
“Sir, I—”
“Do you know, Stan,” the President went on, “I have inquired three times as to your wellbeing, and you have not answered at all?”
“Sir?”
The President leaned toward Stan. “How are you, Stan? That’s what I was trying to get at. How are you?”
“Oh. I am—okay. I guess. Sir.” Stan smiled nervously. “The thing is—Mr. President—you seem, I don’t know—unengaged.”
“Ah.”
“As if you—as if you’re just going through the motions, as if your real thoughts are elsewhere.” The President ventured a mild frown. “And why should that be a problem, Stan?” The press secretary seemed startled. “Sir?”
“What’s wrong with a president who’s detached? Who—” The President made a stirring gesture with his hand. “Who goes through the motions. As long as they’re the right motions, what difference does it make?” He looked out the window again, at the clouds below. “If I send two carrier battle groups to Taiwan, does it really matter to the carrier groups if my heart and soul are in it? Will it matter to the Chinese? Will the Chinese be able to look into my soul and determine whether or not the carriers matter to me? Or will the Chinese decide that what matters is the carrier groups?” The President patted Stan’s hand. “I think they’ll decide that it’s the Seventh Fleet that matters. Not my level of engagement with the Seventh Fleet.”
He turned, looked back at the window. “After all, when you’re dealing with an earthquake, you don’t inquire as to the earthquake’s state of mind. You just deal with the earthquake. The Chinese will deal with the reality of the Seventh Fleet. I don’t expect a problem.”
Stan looked deeply unhappy. He took a deep breath. “Mr. President, I think that perhaps you should talk to somebody.”
The President peered at him. “I’m talking to you. I talk to people all the time. Practically every minute.”
“I mean a professional, sir. A psychologist. After all, you’ve been going through a lot. You—” The President returned to his cloudscape. “I talk to enough people as it is, Stan. Now, what I need you to do is work out what you’re going to tell the press about the Taiwanese crisis once we return to D.C. You heard what we’re going to do, and I’m sure you know how to spin it. Unless you’d rather have Aaron Schwarz down at State give the briefing…?”
“I’ll do it, sir,” Stan said quickly. He rose from his seat. He did not seem to have been comforted in the least by this conversation.
The President’s eyes tracked the clouds. “Don’t worry, Stan,” he said. “I’m not asleep at the switch. I’m doing my job.”
“Yes, sir.” Stan made his way out, closing the door securely behind him. The President looked down at the clouds, skating brightly above the warm green earth. Clouds that were the same things as earthquakes. Sort of. Weren’t they?
Omar rented a backhoe from Judd Criswell to make certain the graves at Woodbine Corners were properly set up. As a man with a career in law enforcement, he very much appreciated the dangers of shallow graves. He chose a very remote part of the parish, in old Bart Cattrall’s back sixty acres near the bayou. Bart used to plant the field in cotton, but two years ago he’d had a crippling stroke, and he’d let his land lie fallow two seasons now. He kept claiming he was going to plant it, but he never did. By noon Omar figured he had things well in hand, but by one o’clock everything had gone to hell. The dozen or so cases of diarrhea that Wilona had mentioned in the Clarendon camp had turned into a hundred. And the day after that, three hundred.