The Collection

They met that night, his election team, in a Denny's cof­fee shop. Derek, his dirty trickster, was along to scan for bugs or other listening devices, and when he'd checked the table and the surrounding plastic plants and had set up a small black square to detect long-range microphone waves, they started talking.

'The first thing we need to do,' Simons said, 'is get the First Lady out of here. We need to send her on a goodwill trip to Japan or something. Get her as far away from British influence as possible. Who knows how low they'd stoop?'

Adam nodded. 'Agreed.'

Paul Frederickson cleared his throat. The secretary of state had been with him ever since his first senatorial cam­paign and, next to Simons, Adam trusted his opinion more than anyone else's.

'Go ahead, Paul.'

'I think what we need to do first is discover the extent of the infiltration. This Crowther told you that all of the previ­ous presidents had come around. Does that mean that they'd been converted, that they truly believed this was the best form of government for the United States, or does that mean that they accepted the way things were but didn't like it?'

'I would suspect the latter.' Ted Fitzsimmons.

'We need to talk to them, find out how much they know. They can probably tell the players well enough to put to­gether a scorecard we can use.'

'Good idea,' Adam said.

'We need to know about the various branches as well. Ju­diciary? Do the members of the Supreme Court know? Leg­islative? Any senators? We know that not all of them know, but maybe some of them do. FBI? CIA? Branches of the military? We need to be able to assess our strengths and weaknesses before we can formulate a plan of action.'

They talked through the night, into the wee hours of the morning, and Adam could barely keep his eyes open by the time they left the restaurant and split up. He felt good, though. Assignments had been delegated and at least a rough idea of where they were headed had been hashed out. He no longer felt as hopeless and despairing of the situation as he had when he'd called the meeting.

He said goodbye to Simons on the sidewalk, then got into the presidential limousine. 'The White House,' he told the driver.

'Yes sir.' The man started the car, looked at him in the rearview mirror, smiled. 'God save the queen.'

Adam forced himself to smile back. 'God save the queen.'

The military was all his.

It was the best news he'd had all week. The only hold the British had over the armed forces was the basic lie, the knowledge that each and every person in uniform believed that the United States was a sovereign nation and that they were supposed to uphold the U.S. Constitution, democracy's blueprint.

But he was still commander in chief.

It was a loophole, although not a particularly practical one. What could he do? Stage a coup and invade Britain? It would look like war. People would think him a dangerous lunatic, irrationally attacking a longtime ally, and he'd be in­stantly impeached. He needed to wage a backstage battle, a behind-the-scenes war. He needed to free America from Britain without letting the public know. He needed to make the myth a reality.

But how?

War at least was feasible. He was commander in chief, and the military was one thing he did legitimately control. It was messy, but as a last resort it might have to do.

There was a knock on the door of the Oval Office and Si­mons entered, carrying a manila folder stuffed with papers.

'What have you found out?'

The chief of staff sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the desk and leaned forward, whispering, 'The Secret Service is all theirs. Technically, the FBI's under their juris­diction as well, but we seem to have most of them. The di­rector has assured me that as many operatives as we need are at our disposal.'

'Do you believe him?'

'Do we have a choice?'

'What about—'

'The other presidents? They won't talk. I don't know if they've been bought or threatened, but we can't get word one out of them.'

'I can't believe that.'

'Maybe they got to them before we could.' He paused. 'The Bushes seemed scared.'

'CIA?'

'Theirs.'

Adam thought for a moment. 'The director can get us op­eratives?'

Simons nodded.

'Crowther. The butler,' he said. 'I want him gotten rid of.'

'Do you think that's a good idea?'

'Consider it the first shot. We'll gauge from their reac­tion how they'll respond to ... other incidents.'

For the first time since all this had started, Tom Simons smiled.

In the morning, his breakfast was not made, his clothes were not ready. When he returned to his bedroom, the sheets had not been changed.

'You'll pay for this,' one of the maids hissed at him in the hallway.

He smiled at her, leaned forward. 'You're next,' he whis­pered, and he was gratified to see a look of fear cross her face. 'Now make my fucking bed.'

He continued down the hallway, feeling good. Simons had called first thing with the news: Crowther had been taken care of. Somehow, just knowing that cheered him up, made him feel better. The entire atmosphere of the White House seemed to have changed with this one bold stroke. He had been skulking around for the past two weeks, certain that the staff saw him as yet another weak puppet who had been cowed into submission, but now he walked boldly through the corridors, noting with pleasure that the domes­tic workers were all in fear of him.

Maybe they would be able to pull this off.

The others were waiting for him in the conference room. Derek had already swept the place for bugs and positioned his listening-device detector on the table, and twin sets of FBI agents were positioned at the doors.

'So what's our next move?' Adam asked.

Paul Frederickson looked up at him. 'Nixon.'

'Nixon?'

The secretary of state nodded. 'I've been thinking about it for the past week. If the president is only a figurehead, then all that hype about Nixon's so-called imperial presi­dency has to be British disinformation. How could Nixon try to circumvent the Constitution and grab additional powers for himself when he never had the power attributed to him in the first place?'

Adam smiled. 'Yes! He put up a fight. He tried to do what he was elected to do.'

'And they crushed him. They must have been behind his disgrace.'

'Get me whoever you can from Nixon's cabinet and staff, people who would know about this.'

'Done,' Frederickson said. 'Haldeman's already on his way.'

'Haldeman?' Adam frowned. 'I thought he was dead.'

'Reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. He's in hiding.'

'Good,' Adam said. 'Now we're getting somewhere.'

Simons spoke up. 'Crowther said that Carter didn't buy into it either. You think—?'

'Carter wouldn't talk to us, but we could feel out some of his underlings, see what we can get.'

Adam nodded. 'Do it.'

'Those Clinton scandals must have been played up for a reason as well. The pressure was kept on him even after he left office.'

'Look into it.'

There was a knock on the south door and one of the FBI agents opened it carefully. He spoke for a moment to the person outside, and then the door opened wider. Larry Her­bert, Frederickson's assistant walked in.