glared at Gage. “Now you’re saying my wife set me up?”
“What did your wife ask you to do?”
“Talk to other Muslim professors about writing an open letter for a Xinjiang Web site to protest the bombings.” Ibrahim furrowed his brows and bit his lip for a moment. “I did some research about the Uyghur Jihad on the Internet and about how the Chinese government was moving in millions of Han Chinese in order to make the Uyghurs a minority in their own land. The FBI found it.”
“And who planted the idea in your wife’s mind that you should do it?”
Ibrahim’s hands flew up as if trying to block the implications of Gage’s question, his rising cuffs exposing red scars etched into his skin by the wire that had been used to bind his wrists. He then interlaced his fingers on top of his head and rocked back and forth in his chair like an autistic child, trying to hold on to his sense of reality.
Gage watched his eyes fluttering, his mind disassociating, and his hands gripping the wheelchair arms as though he was anchoring his body against a cyclone that was ripping away the landmarks that defined his world And in Ibrahim’s terror, Gage saw that this wasn’t the first time it had happened.
But then Ibrahim stopped rocking and he whispered to himself, “How could I have missed it? How could I have missed it?”
He looked at Gage and said, “It’s Ilkay. It has to be.”
Ibrahim lowered his arms and tapped the flowchart.
“If I’d flowcharted the last ten years,” Ibrahim said, “all of the arrows would’ve pointed at Ilkay. He was even the one who arranged for me to be released to the Turkish embassy in Riyadh. He helped get me on a flight to Istanbul and then to Beijing.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
Ibrahim shook his head. “I had a breakdown while I was working for the G12. They put me into an institution, and when my head cleared I got permission to travel to Canada. I needed to think things through. After I decided not to go back, Rahmani met me there and smuggled me across the border. I’d done what I wanted to do to get even for what America had done to me and just wanted to be left alone.”
“Get even how? “
Ibrahim didn’t answer. He just stared at the flowchart. Finally, he said, “It doesn’t make a difference. Even if the Chinese framed me, it was the Americans who had me tortured.”
“All Americans?”
“Have any of them been punished for what was done to me?” Ibrahim’s voice rose, almost to a scream. “Anyone at all?”
Gage paused before he answered. The answer was obvious, but maybe not to a man tortured into hating everything American.
“Yes,” Gage said. “Three weeks ago in Marseilles.”
CHAPTER 63
Manton Roberts is calling.” Cooper Wallace’s secretary spoke over the intercom. “He wants to know whether there’s anything you’d like him to do.”
Wallace knew that what he wanted Roberts to do was to cancel National Pledge Day. He’d woken up twice the night before: the first time in a hot sweat, his mind pounding out, Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, and the second time in a cold sweat, the words of “For What it’s Worth” coming at him again. He knew that something was happening, and that what it was wasn’t at all clear.
“I’ll talk to him.”
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel.
Wallace heard the click of the connecting line, then said, “Thanks for calling, Manton.”
“Is there anything-“
“I wish that you’d consider postponing National Pledge Day,” Wallace said. “There’s uneasiness in the country and I wouldn’t want to exacerbate it.”
“I think everyone pausing together will have the opposite effect,” Roberts said. “It will bring us together.”
Wallace felt Roberts’s heavy, evangelical tone seeping into him.
“It will be like a moment of silence at a football game,” Roberts said, “like for fallen soldiers or for police officers.”
“At least keep it short,” Wallace said, “and try to mute the apocalyptic tone that seems to have dominated your recent Sunday services and rallies.”
“I don’t think it’s something that I’m imposing. It feels to me like a welling up of the Holy Spirit.”
Wallace winced. The least attractive aspect of Roberts’s personality was his view of himself not as a self- motivated actor in the world, but as a vehicle of a higher power.
Roberts continued before Wallace had a chance to respond. “Maybe it’s just another way of expressing what you call uneasiness.”
“You could be right.” Wallace felt a sort of relief as he said the words. He did believe in a higher power, and not an impotent one. One that intervened in the world, not observed it like it was a cosmic experiment. But still “Would you consider coming to the White House and leading it from here?” Wallace asked, wondering whether Roberts would rather have the long-term prestige of the place than the immediate thrill of standing before a filled stadium.
“I’d be honored,” Roberts said. “Maybe you could lead the pledge and I’ll say the prayer for President McCormack.”
“We’ll work that out between now and then.”
Wallace’s intercom beeped. “I have a meeting that’s about to start,” he said to Roberts. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Wallace punched the flashing button and said, “I’ll come out.” He then walked from his office and into the reception area. Former president Randall Harris rose from the couch. They shook hands.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Harris said.
Wallace led him back inside and shut the door.
“I expected you’d be dropping by,” Wallace said, directing Harris to one of two wing chairs, then sitting down in the one next to it. “Or someone like you. The president has always had an indirect way of communicating with me.”
In Harris’s stiffening face Wallace saw that Harris knew that was not entirely true, that Harris knew about the private meeting in which President McCormack himself had warned him about Manton Roberts.
Wallace ignored it and asked, “What did he want you to pass on?”
“That you should be prepared to finish out his presidency.”
Wallace drew back. “That’s not what-“
“He doesn’t think he’ll make it.”
“Of course he’s worried,” Wallace said, “but I-“
“It’s not that. He’s had his doctors minimize the seriousness in order to give you breathing space, to reduce the pressure on you by making the public see you as a caretaker for as long as possible.”
Harris leaned forward in his chair. “He realizes that he made a mistake in how he’s treated you over the last few years. Isolating you. I think, and this is just my opinion, that increasingly powerful vice presidents over the years have created an unnecessary imbalance. And in righting it, he’s afraid he overcompensated.”
Wallace used a nod of understanding for his response. It wasn’t an I-told-you-so moment.
“He now realizes that you’ll need time to get your own team together,” Harris said. “Usually new presidents have months for a transition, not days.”
“Is he asking you to help me?” Wallace asked.
Harris shook his head. “I think part of the reason he picked me to meet with you is because he knows I’m in no position to help, or interfere for that matter.”
“Because of Relative Growth?”
