It suddenly occurred to Will that he had lost the election, and he felt momentarily nauseated. He drank some orange juice and felt better. “I’ll get the papers,” he said.
He walked through the darkened living room, undid the latch on the front door, opened it, and stepped out onto the porch. Suddenly, he was blinded by a hundred flashes, and a roar of voices washed over him. Blinking, shielding his eyes from the continuing flashes, Will looked around him. Except for his block, the street was full of people, press, and cameras, held at the cross street by police, and the sudden din was amazing. The police removed the barricades, and the crowd rushed toward the house, stopped only by another cordon of barricades at the foot of the steps.
Kate came to the door. “What the hell is going on?” she asked.
Kitty Conroy, Tim Coleman, Moss Mallet, and Sam Meriwether broke through a cordon of police and rushed up the front steps of the house. “You won!” Kitty shouted over the noise.
“What?” Will yelled back.
Kitty shouted into his ear, “There was a huge rush of after-work voters in California, and most of the absentee ballots were for you; those two things put us over the top. Efton is conceding even as we speak!” She handed him a copy of the national edition of the New York Times. “This edition went to bed at midnight.” EFTON DEFEATS LEE, the banner headline read.
Will stood, dumbfounded, staring at the newspaper. His parents joined him on the porch, and Kate slipped an arm around him.
“Wave at the people, dear,” she said. “Try not to look semiconscious.”
Will waved at the crowd and held up the newspaper, to the crowd’s delight.
“Smile,” Kate said. “Presidents have to smile a lot.”
Will smiled, showing all the teeth he had.
At first light, Zeke was eating a bowl of homemade granola when his son, Danny, came down the stairs from the log cupola carrying an assault rifle, a 9mm pistol strapped to his side. The boy was pale. “What is it, son?” he asked.
“They’re coming through the trees,” Danny said, and his voice trembled.
“Wake up your mother and your sisters and get them armed,” Zeke said, “then come upstairs with me.” Zeke ran up to the cupola and looked down the hill. Men in camouflage suits were creeping up the incline in squads, one group taking shelter and covering, while another group ran ahead a few more yards. They were three hundred yards away, Zeke calculated, using the distance markers he had placed. He checked the wind sock and adjusted the telescopic sight on his rifle for distance and windage. He heard Danny coming slowly up the steps behind him. “Hurry up, goddammit!” he yelled. “We’ve got to pick off as many as we can before they get any closer.”
“No, sir,” the boy said quietly. He sounded very shaky.
Zeke turned and looked at Danny. He was holding the Glock pistol out in front of him. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded.
“I’m not going to let you get Mama and the girls killed,” Danny said. “Nor me, neither.”
“You holster that weapon and get to a gun port,” Zeke commanded. “We’ve spent two years preparing for this, and we’re not going to screw it up now.”
“You brought this on us,” Danny said, “and you’re not going to stop until we’re all dead.” His voice was stronger, now. “And I’m not going to have it.”
“You’ll do as you’re told, boy, and you’ll do it right now!” Zeke yelled at him.
“No, sir, I won’t,” Danny said, pointing the pistol at Zeke’s head.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Zeke shouted.
“No, sir,” Danny replied, “but you have.” He pulled the trigger.
It was the loudest noise Zeke had ever heard.
Down the mountainside, the FBI agent in charge heard two shots. He picked up a handheld radio. “Shots from the house,” he said. “Everybody hold your positions.” He trained his binoculars on the house and waited. Nothing happened for a good two minutes, then the front door opened, and a teenage boy walked out, his hands in the air, followed by a woman and two girls. “Hold your fire,” the agent said into the radio. He stood up and walked up the hill, motioning a squad of agents to follow him.
He stopped ten feet short of the little group. “Stand still, son, while my people search you,” he said.
The boy and the women were quickly frisked. “Everybody’s clean,” an agent said.
The agent relaxed a little. “Good morning, folks,” he said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Danny Tennant,” the boy said, “and this is my mama and my sisters.”
“Where’s your father, Danny?” the agent asked.
“He’s up in the cupola,” Danny replied, pointing to the top of the house.
“Is he going to give us any trouble?” the agent asked.
“No, sir; he’s dead. I shot him.”
The agent took a quick breath, then motioned to his men. “Take a look inside,” he said, “and be careful.”
Three minutes later they returned. “Tennant’s upstairs,” an agent said. “He’s dead, like the boy said. There’s nobody else in the house.”
The agent took Danny’s arm and walked him toward the front porch. “You want to tell me what happened, son?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Danny replied, “but it’s gonna take a while.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world,” the agent said.
67
Will Lee stood coatless in the bright January sunshine on the steps of the United States Capitol and tried not to shiver in the stiff breeze that snapped at the numerous American flags in his immediate vicinity. Only Kate knew he was wearing his ski underwear.
He had been president for less than sixty seconds, and as he waited for the roar of applause to die, he considered his position. He had a twenty-two-vote majority in the House of Representatives, a result, he knew, of the reaction of voters to the disgraceful Republican conduct of the Clinton impeachment proceedings. He had cleverly reduced the two-vote Republican majority in the Senate to one, by, with George Kiel’s consent, appointing as secretary of state a Republican senator whose home-state Democratic governor had appointed a Democrat to the remainder of his term. Having worked for many years to befriend Senate Republicans, he had no doubt he could swing a couple of their votes when it counted.
He had, after a select committee had recommended her, appointed his wife to the position of Director of Central Intelligence, and he fully expected her to win confirmation by the Senate, on the grounds that she had earned the job by means other than by sleeping with the president. As a result, he reckoned, he had a better-than-even chance of discovering who had really killed Jack Kennedy and if a spaceship had actually crashed at Roswell, New Mexico.
He glanced over his shoulder at Joe Adams, who was beaming broadly at him as he pounded his hands together, and who looked greatly relieved no longer to be president.
He looked at his parents, who had stopped applauding and, instead, had their arms around each other.
He looked at Peter and, finally, at Kate, and he thought that she had never looked happier, when sex was not involved.
All was as right with the world as it would ever again likely be, unless he could, by force of his long experience and personal leadership, make it even better. He was determined to do so.
He looked into the crowd of one hundred thousand inauguration attendees and into the lenses that connected him with a hundred million other of his countrymen.
“My fellow Americans,” he began...
Acknowledgments
I want to express my deep gratitude to Gladys Justin Carr, my editor for many books, who is retiring. During our work together she has always been very supportive, and her acute editorial judgment has improved every manuscript I have sent her. I wish her the happiest of retirements. Her assistant, Dierdre O’Brien, who manages a thousand details, also has my sincere thanks.