A state of disobedience

He promptly removed himself from view, trying to look as innocent as possible as he did so. From a window lower in the steeple, blending into the shadows at the far side, he kept a watch of the podium where he believed the President was going to stand during the press conference.

Alvin knew little of the personal security measures taken by the Secret Service where the life of a President of the United States was concerned. And he was a hunter. A center of mass shot was natural to his experience, though he had taken head shots when everything was perfectly suited to them. Yet the more he looked at that podium, the more he tried to picture the not very tall woman who was going to stand behind it, the more he realized that a center of mass shot just might not be possible.

Damn, damn, damn. I'm a good shot, Daddy always said so. But a head shot? At this range? I dunno. And, then too, I don't know if'n I can go through with it: looking a human bein' in the face while I shoot her. I dunno. 

Alvin shook his head, uncertain. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. There was a little money in it, but, he thought, Ain't gonna have no use for money where I'm goin'.

He pulled out an old picture of his wife. Even at the best of times, she had been no more than slightly pretty. Yet Alvin had loved her with all his heart. To him, she had always been beautiful, inside and out.

He gazed at the picture, longingly, for some appreciable time. His mind went back to a time he had been happy, to a time when he'd had a decent job, a normal family, a wife. He didn't so much think about as feel the indignation of being subjected to the whims of a doctrinaire and arrogant social worker, of being forced onto charity, of being threatened with the loss of his children.

Alvin closed his eyes, shutting off the image of his wife as she had been when he had first seen her and replacing it with the shrunken, pale, husk of a woman in a cheap hospital bed, with needles and tubes stuck into her as she had been when he had last seen her.

Finally, he was sure. Nope, these people, and especially that damned president, have got to take responsibility for what they done. They had all the power; they're responsible for what happened to me and my woman. I can do this.

Satisfied, he turned his eyes back to the podium.

* * *

Presidential Limousine, Atlantic Avenue,

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Her feelings were all spilled out, from her speech to the convention, leaving the President to feel little but emptiness inside. Even the thought of going to her own, formal, political seppuku did not move her. For Wilhelmina Rottemeyer's impending press conference was for no other purpose than to announce her resignation from the office of President of the United States.

Though her body felt empty, her mind was full, full of thoughts and questions and wonderings. What went wrong? How did it all go so wrong, so quickly? I was at the top, the pinnacle. Not only at the top, but with more real power than anyone, even Roosevelt and Lincoln, had ever had.

Did I move too fast, as Carroll said once? Or did I move too slowly, as Vega insisted? One thing I know I did wrong; I underestimated that damned wetback from Texas. But who would have guessed that that little no-account, who wasn't even independent enough to keep her own name when she married, would have had the will to move her state almost to independence? Breaking me in the bargain. 

Should I have left that old priest alone? Left the anti-abortion nuts alone? How could I? I had a constituency, not the least important part of it, my own federal law enforcement chiefs. How much hold over them would I have lost if I had caved in on the priest? Too much, I think. 

And I had plans, I had dreams, for this country and for the world. Sure I was ambitious for myself, but who ever got anything worthwhile done that wasn't ambitious? I saw a world at peace, because why should anyone fight when everyone has enough? I saw a world where the environment was protected and cherished. I saw a world where everyone was equal . . . well, maybe women a little more equal than men. What was so wrong with that? 

I wish sometimes that there really were a God so that I could ask him what I should have done. 

* * *

Galilee Episcopal Church, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Alvin saw the President's limousine as it turned west off of the main road and onto the hotel driveway. He watched as the President emerged from the vehicle and two men helped her on with an overcoat that seemed somehow very heavy.

He walked, calmly enough, to the rifle, getting behind it and letting the tarp on the bar serve as a rest for his nonfiring hand even as the pedestal holding up the bar served as a rest and brace for his body. Still unseen in the shadows, Alvin took up a solid firing position, looked in the scope, and rested his cross hairs first on Rottemeyer's torso. Then, that view being frequently interrupted by the movement of the security agents, he shifted his aiming point to the President's head. Then he waited, forcing himself to breathe calmly, the breathing itself serving to calm him.

* * *

Cavalier Oceanfront Hotel, Seventh Floor,

Virginia Beach, Virginia

Calm, still, silent—like a praying mantis in ambush, or a Shao Lin monk in training, Smythe had not so much as twitched a muscle since assuming his firing position. He had, in a real sense, become one with the rifle and the view in his scope.