The Collection

'That's for Hector,' I said softly.

I stood there for a moment more, watching him swing, and I actually did feel bad. No one deserved what had hap­pened to the Big Man, and I was glad he'd escaped, glad he wouldn't have to suffer it anymore.

But I was also glad he was gone.

I walked out of the bedroom, down the hallway to the front of the house, where I found one of his men eating crackers in the kitchen.

'Call the cops,' I said. 'He's dead.'

The flunky looked at me dumbly. He knew what had gone down, but it still seemed to catch him off guard. 'What'll I tell them?'

I patted his cheek on my way out. 'Don't worry. You'll think of something.'

I walked outside and got in my car, driving as quickly as I could away from the house. The air in the vehicle was sti­fling, but I didn't mind, and I felt as though I'd just been re­leased from a prison as I followed the dirt road through the desert, past the crosses and the doll parts and the skull-headed scarecrows, toward the distant white smog of Phoenix, shimmering in the heat.

Colony

When H. R. Haldeman died, I found myself thinking about the labyrinthine nightmare that was Watergate. Which led me to think about conspiracy theories. What if Haldeman wasn't really dead? I thought. What if he was only pretending to be dead but had really gone underground?

Why, though? What would be the reason?

Years later, when Hong Kong reverted back to China, I was reminded of Britain's war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands (or Islas Malvinas). I had not known until the war that Britain had any remaining colonies. I'd been under the impression that the em­pire was history. Obviously I was wrong, and I won­ dered if there were other far-flung properties under British rule that I did not know about.

Somewhere down the line, those two unrelated bits of random speculation coalesced into this story.

***

It was awkward.

He had campaigned on a cost-cutting platform, pledging to reduce spending and staff, and now with the White House employees all assembled before him, he wanted to remain impassive, impartial, detached.

But he could not. These were real people before him. Real people with real jobs and real bills to pay. On the cam­paign trail, they'd been merely a faceless statistic, a theoret­ical conceit. But now as Adam stared out at the faces of these workers, many of whom had been employed here for longer than he'd been alive, he felt embarrassed and ashamed. He realized, perhaps for the first time, that his de­cisions for the next four years would have human conse­quences, would take their toll on individual lives—not an earth-shattering conclusion by any means, but one which he now understood emotionally as well as intellectually.

He was not going to go back on his promises, though. As hard as it was, as painful as it might be, he was going to stick to the specifics of his campaign platform. There would be none of the waffling and indecision and half measures that had so afflicted his predecessors.

Hell, that's what he had criticized and run against in his bid for the presidency.

It was why he had been elected.

He'd been intending to announce the layoffs here and now, to do the firings en masse and get them over with, but he could not. Instead, he smiled out at his domestic staff and gave a generic 'We're-All-In-This-Together, Let's-Put-Our-Petty-Differences-Aside-For-The-Good-Of-The-Country' speech. It had worked well in Dallas and Tampa, had knocked 'em dead in a longer variation at the nominating convention and after the general election, and it sufficed here in a more specific, more intimate incarnation.

He smiled and waved at the applauding workers, walked away, and turned toward Tom Simons, his chief of staff, as he headed down the hall to the Oval Office. 'I want a list of all employees, their job positions, and their years of service. Also get me that cost-cutting analysis we put together.'

'You got it.'

'I'll speak to the groups individually, by job classifica­tion, explain the situation.'

Simons nodded. 'You want to do it in the Oval Office?'

'Yeah.'

'I'll get right on it.'

They parted halfway down the corridor and Adam con­tinued on to the Oval Office alone. He was struck each time he entered the room by how small it was. All the rooms in the White House were smaller than he'd imagined them to be. The building had been designed and constructed a long time ago, of course, but he'd expected the rooms to be big­ger than those in his Palm Springs house, and the fact that they weren't left him feeling disappointed and a little un­easy.

He walked over to his desk, sat down, swiveled his chair I, around to look out the window. He was filled with a strange I lethargy, a desire to just sit here and do nothing. For the first I time in his life, he had no real boss, no one standing over I him, and if he chose to unplug his phone and spend the afternoon staring out at the lawn, he could do so.

Power.

There would be demands on his time, of course. Obliga­tions and commitments. A lot of pressure, a lot of responsi­bility. But the federal government ran itself for the most part. He didn't need to micromanage everything. And if he wanted to, he could simply let it all slide.

No. He had to stop thinking that way. He had gone after this job for a reason. He had ideas. He had an agenda. And I   he planned to go down in history as an effective activist, as a competent administrator and visionary leader, not as the first slacker president.

Simons led in the first group of employees—butlers and maids—sometime later, and Adam stood, smiling blandly, wanting to appear friendly and personable but not wanting to instill a false sense of security. 'I'm sure Mr. Simons told you why I've asked you here to the Oval Office.' He nod­ded toward the chief of staff. 'As I'm sure you're well aware, we have a fairly serious budget crisis facing us this year, and as I'm sure you're also aware, I promised the American people that I would cut government spending by a third and that I would not exempt myself from this edict. I will receive no special privileges but will sacrifice along with everyone else. This means, I'm afraid, that we will be eliminating some White House staff positions. We've looked at this from every angle, and while we've considered cutting the total number of employees by doing away with certain departments, we have decided that it is fairer to sim­ply cut each department by a third.'

A balding elderly man in a butler's uniform stepped for­ward. 'Excuse me, sir?'

Adam held up his hand. 'Don't worry. The layoffs will be by seniority—'

'There aren't going to be any layoffs, sir. You can't make any cuts in staff.'

Adam smiled sympathetically. 'Mr.—?'

'Crowther, sir.'

'Mr. Crowther, I understand your concern, and believe me I sympathize.'

'I don't think you do understand, sir. I'm sorry, but you can't fire any of us.'

'Can't fire you?'

'We report directly to Buckingham Palace.'

Adam looked over at Simons, who shrugged, equally confused.

'We're not under you. We work for you, but we're not employed by you. Sir.'

Adam shook his head. 'Hold on here.'

'We report to Buckingham Palace.'

He was growing annoyed. 'What does Buckingham Palace have to do with anything?'

'Ahh.' The butler nodded. 'I understand now. Nobody told you. No one explained to you.'

'Explained what?'

'You are not the head of the United States government.'

'Of course I am! I'm ... I'm the president!'

'Well, you are the president, but the presidency is a fic­tion, a powerless position created by the Palace. The presi­dent is a figurehead. Someone to make speeches and television appearances, to keep the masses happy.'