Jeffrey felt disappointed.
Jeffrey reminded himself that Ilse had personal needs he could barely fathom. What was it like to lose your whole family and your country in one blow? What was it like to be torn from teaching at the University of Cape Town and thrown into a bloody coup and then a bloodier war? If Ilse hadn’t been attending a marine biology conference in the U.S. when the trouble started, she might well be dead now too, strung up with her relatives. On top of everything else, she’d played a key role in several recent nuclear demolitions, and must still be reeling mentally from hand-to-hand combat with kampfschwimmer at least as much as Jeffrey was. Kampfschwimmer terrified Jeffrey, and
A senator wormed his way over, someone Jeffrey recognized from the newspapers. He chaired an important congressional subcommittee. The senator brought a staff photographer in his wake and quickly struck a dramatic pose, shaking the Medal of Honor winner’s hand in both of his own. Jeffrey tried not to blink when the flash went off. The senator disappeared in the crowd as quickly as he’d materialized.
“Son!”
Jeffrey recognized his father’s voice. He turned. His father came over from out of the crowd, accompanied by Jeffrey’s mother. Both were very well dressed, for the special occasion. Jeffrey’s dad, Michael Fuller, wore a gray pinstripe suit that fit him perfectly, even though, like many people, he’d lost a lot of weight since the start of the war. His red-, white-, and blue-striped tie’s Windsor knot was also perfect.
“How are you feeling now, Mom?” Jeffrey was naturally concerned. Her color was healthy, but Jeffrey knew this was mostly due to makeup.
“Good, Jeffrey. Today I’m feeling very good.” His mother grinned. When he’d first learned she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer, he worried he might not even have a chance to say good-bye.
Jeffrey’s mom hugged him, and he hugged her back very hard.
“I won’t kiss you on the cheek this time,” she said puckishly. “I got enough lipstick on your face already, posing for all those cameramen.” Jeffrey’s mother had had emergency surgery less than two months before, and then a new chemotherapy protocol that specifically targeted cancer cells. The treatments were very effective, and were over so fast you hardly lost much of your hair. Her latest medical imagery scans showed her body free of all tumors.
“I managed to escape my various sycophants and camp followers,” Jeffrey’s father said. Michael Fuller chuckled; he had a biting sense of humor. He and Jeffrey’s mother had been right up front at the formal ceremony this morning, when the president of the United States presented the Medal of Honor to Jeffrey in the Rose Garden. Now, with the president off on other pressing duties, Michael Fuller was holding court himself. Since the war began he’d had a meteoric rise in the Department of Energy. Instead of being a local utility regulator, that middle- management bureaucrat Jeffrey remembered from his teen years, his dad had become a savvy political appointee in the nation’s capital, one of the dozen most senior people in the DOE.
“You look unhappy,” Michael said.
Jeffrey shrugged. “It all gets pretty wearing.” He gestured with his eyes toward the crowd, which kept churning and babbling nonstop. “How do you stand it?”
“It’s an important part of my job, the mingling,” Michael Fuller said. “
“This isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, Dad. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve had a microphone jammed in my face since lunchtime.”
“Most of the people in this town would kill to get the exposure you’re getting today.”
Jeffrey made a sour face. “They don’t
“Jeffrey,” his mother tried to soothe. She touched him on the shoulder. “Your father and I both learned to enjoy meeting so many new people all the time. It’s a big game. Don’t take everything so seriously.”
“I don’t have entirely good memories from when I was stationed in Washington,” Jeffrey said. At the Pentagon, a few years before the war.
“Huh?” Michael said. He’d been distracted, giving an obviously phony smile as someone important-looking went by. The woman, whoever she was, gave him a pleasant but equally phony smile, then nodded at Jeffrey before she disappeared on the way to the bar, trailed by a retinue of followers of her own.
Jeffrey wanted to change the subject, but his father wouldn’t let him.
The man grew stern. “I think, in all honesty, you’ve taken enough of a break. Lord knows when you’ll have a chance to be with so many important people again. I want to see you out there, making contacts, not hiding in a corner like a scared little kid when the grown-ups have company.”
That made Jeffrey angry.
Michael Fuller chuckled. “See, son? I know how to push all your buttons. I sit in my office and push people’s buttons all day. You need to master the trade yourself if you expect your career to move up much further.” He pointed at Jeffrey’s Medal. “That thing might get you as far as full captain by pure momentum, but that could be as far as you ever go. If this war ends and we win it, and you don’t get killed or maimed, you’ll never make admiral once you get tagged as a wallflower.”
“Ouch,” Jeffrey said. Of course, his father was spot on. Jeffrey could see telling signs of why Michael had been chosen for Washington — and promoted again once he got here — amid major personnel shake-ups since the outbreak of the war.
“Listen to your father,” Jeffrey’s mother coaxed, but there was a hint of steel in her voice too, and this surprised Jeffrey.
“Speaking of which,” Michael said, “I need to get back to the fray myself. There are people I want to talk to, and people who want to see me…. There’s the deputy secretary of defense.” He pointed. “You only get the Medal of Honor once, presumably.
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Anything. Nothing. Two or three minutes is plenty. He knows who you are, believe me, but Washington people have very short memories. Make sure he
“Good-bye, dear.” Jeffrey’s mother gave Jeffrey an encouraging pat on the cheek, then walked away holding her husband’s arm — gliding across the ballroom floor, the perfect undersecretary’s spouse.
Jeffrey felt pretty small. He tried to build up the nerve to go talk to someone important.
Jeffrey was standing near a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, covered by plush maroon-and-white curtains drawn closed. Idly, he pulled back the edge of a curtain and peeked outside.
The panes of glass were crisscrossed with strips of tape to keep them from shattering in a blast. Right outside the windows, Jeffrey was confronted by a solid wall of sandbags.
Jeffrey put his face closer to the window and peered as far as he could to the left. There was a sliver of a view, looking down into the wide ravine of scenic Rock Creek Park. He could barely make out part of the big stone archway bridge that carried Connecticut Avenue across the ravine. The sky was clear, not yet growing dark. Looking directly up, Jeffrey saw the high, fast-moving contrails of a pair of fighter jets, on combat air patrol over the capital.
Jeffrey pulled himself away from the window and pulled himself together. He stood up straighter and took a deep breath. He saw someone he’d been introduced to briefly before, the four-star admiral who was commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Jeffrey decided to follow his father’s advice now. He’d go chat the admiral up.
Before he got there, a murmur of surprise and interest rippled through the crowd. Heads all turned in unison to the entry doors to the ballroom. Even the TV floodlights focused that way.
Over the loudspeakers, someone announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”
