The Multiple Man

The bed was loaded with sensors, she meant, and my temperature, heart rate, breathing, and everything else—including conversation—was being monitored automatically at the nurses’ station somewhere outside the room.

Will I live? I asked myself. A subtler question than that nurse knew.

She left the room momentarily and came back with a tray of food. To my surprise, I was really hungry. I went through the chicken dinner in record time. Even demolished the pasty-looking bread slices. No wine. Just milk and coffee. I drank them both.

The nurse took the tray and left. I remained sitting up in the bed, with no way to crank the damned thing down again. Not that I wanted to. I was feeling okay now. For the first time, I studied the room I was in. Not much to see. One chair, a bureau made of walnut veneer, pastel green walls, a mirror—I looked seedy, needed a shave, but otherwise unhaggard—one window, a doorless closet in which hung the clothes I’d come in with, and the door to the corridor outside.

Which opened, just about then, to admit the President.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised. He looked drawn, strained. Must’ve been one helluva day for him.

He reached for the room’s only chair as the door clicked firmly shut behind him. I had a chance to glimpse the corridor. There were soldiers out there. Armed.

The President sat down like an old man, slowly, painfully. He looked as if he hadn’t slept for a long time.

“My father’s dead,” he said wearily.

“It was self-defense,” I answered. “I saw it. He shot at Hank and…”

“He shot at you, Meric. He was trying to shut you up once and for all. Solomon killed him to get even for McMurtrie. Half the agents there were McMurtrie’s friends. They damned near pinned a medal on Solomon.”

I thought about it for a moment. “Guess I missed today’s press briefing.”

“I guess you did. Hunter handled it.”

“How’d he explain…?”

“He didn’t. He said you’d collapsed at your desk and had been taken to Walter Reed Hospital. Most of the press corps seemed surprised but not suspicious. One of them… a new man, from Boston…”

“Len Ryan?”

The President nodded. “He wanted to interview you here in the hospital. We let him see you this afternoon, while you were asleep. That seemed to satisfy him.”

“He wanted to make sure I was alive.”

“Apparently.”

“Sir,” I asked, “you are John, aren’t you?”

“Yes. There are only three of us left. It’s getting easier to guess, isn’t it?” He smiled, but it was the kind of smile a soldier makes after a battle, when he’s come through it alive but most of his buddies haven’t.

“Hunter didn’t tell them anything about last night?”

“Two nights ago. It was two nights ago that it all happened.”

“I’ve been conked out that long?”

“You took a powerful dose of tranquilizer.”

“But nothing was said to the press?”

“No. Not a thing. My father’s going to officially die of a heart attack in Aspen in a few days. Robert is out there now, getting things arranged. Laura…” He stopped, and for an instant I thought his control was finally going to break. But he went on, “Laura is going on a round-the-world trip. Under heavy guard. We agreed to keep her out of it, to keep the marriage going for the rest of my term. It won’t be the first White House marriage between enemies.”

“You’re going to try to cover up the whole story?”

His eyes flashed. “Try to?”

“You can’t keep it quiet forever.”

“For God’s sake, Meric, haven’t you had enough?” His voice rose. It didn’t get louder, but it got an edge of steel to it. An edge that could cut.

“What do you…”

“Four of us killed. My father. He may not have been the closest father a man ever had, but he’s dead. My wife. Because of you.”

“I didn’t…”

“You didn’t pull the trigger, but if you’d kept your damned mouth shut none of this would have happened.”

“And you’d be dead.”

“Maybe.”

“And Jackson would be on the throne.”

“It’s not a throne.”

“It would be, once he got his hands on it. He was insane, sir. Crazy. Power-mad.”

“He was my brother!”

“He would’ve killed you in a hot second! He killed three of your brothers. You were going to get yours right there in the Capitol. He told me so.”

He glared at me, teeth bared, hating the whole ugly business and hating me because of it.

“It’s true, sir. He would’ve killed you and taken over the Presidency and turned this nation into his own private dictatorship.”

“He couldn’t have gotten away with that.”

“He would’ve tried. He would’ve demolished everything you’ve been trying to accomplish. And you know damned well there are plenty of people around this town who would’ve gladly helped him do it. Including your father.”

The President looked away from me. He pushed himself up from the chair and went to the window.

After several minutes of silence, he said, very low, “You’re right. I know you’re right. But it still doesn’t go down very easily.”

“I don’t see how it could.”

He turned back toward me. “All right. It’s all over with. Finished. The ship of state has weathered another storm. The problem is, what do we do next? There are still some odds and ends to clean up.”

“Where are Vickie and Hank?”

“Solomon is in protective custody over at the FBI Center. They’ve pumped him full of truth drugs and wrung him dry, but otherwise he’s unhurt.”

“And Vickie?”

“She’s being held in one of the Federal housing developments in Anacostia. She has a very nice apartment and two friendly women security guards to see to it that she’s comfortable. Apparently she’s quite anxious to find out what happened to you.”

I let out a sigh of relief that I hadn’t known was in me.

“That brings it all down to you, Meric,” the President said.

“What do you mean?”

He spread his hands in a gesture somewhere between disgust and helplessness. “I can put Hank Solomon in a bottle and make certain he never bothers me. I can see to it that Ms. Clark is bought off, or moved out of the way…”

“You’d better not…”

“Listen to me,” he said, and it was a command. He pulled the chair around backwards and sat on it again. “My real problem is you and your damned Boston conscience. Are you going to keep quiet about this business or aren’t you? I can handle the others, but only if you stay shut.”

He folded his arms on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. He was smiling! He was enjoying this… this game, this deadly round of give-and-take. It was the kind of thing he’d been born—no, raised—to do. The battle of wills. The old political infighting: I’ll give you this if you’ll give me that.

I looked at him for a long, long time. Seemed like years. Must have been a few minutes, at least.