reach him, get the joint chiefs together for a conference call and notify me when they’re ready.” He poured the shot glass of bourbon over two ice cubes in a small water glass and added enough water to bring it three quarters of the way from the rim. “Next, try to reach the vice president. No, try to find her first. See if her plane has left. Whenever you reach her, notify me immediately. I want to talk to that bi…
that lady.” He stirred his drink, tasted by downing a third of it, then held still for a moment while it burned its way down and began warming his body.
Back behind his desk, the president continued. “Call my quarters and tell the family I’ll be staying here overnight. There’s too much going on to leave the office. I’ll try to get a nap here if I can. Get the speechwriters and press secretary. Have them fix up a denial of Santes’ story, but include a statement that both of those crazy fools involved with the Harcourt virus are leaving office ‘for the good of the country’, but don’t phrase it that way. The speech writers will know what I mean. And finally, get that colonel in Atlanta on the phone. I have some orders for him. That’s all; now get busy.”
Mylan Credence left the president sitting at his desk, sipping bourbon and sifting through briefs that had been stacking up. The president was rubbing his eyes as he closed the door behind him. Then Credence began trying to sort through everything the president wanted done while thinking that maybe Lurline had the right idea. Resignation was beginning to sound like a preferable option to this madhouse.
“Mr. President, I won’t help you brush this under the table. I joined the ticket because I honestly felt it would help our party govern better. I’m sorry to see I made a mistake. I won’t deny this story under any circumstances, and I won’t return to Washington.”
“But Marlene, we’ll be thrown out of office.”
“Perhaps, but I swore an oath to defend the constitution, not the office. This is the right thing to do. Edgar and General Newman should be arrested and tried.”
“I’ve asked for their resignations.”
“And have you gotten them?”
There was silence at the other end of the line, allowing Santes to hear the barely audible hum of the big jet she was on descending toward Atlanta. When the president came back on the line he simply said “I’ll talk to you later.”
Thoughtfully, she handed the phone back to an aide and considered what to do. “Call the local media in Atlanta. Tell them I’m having a followup press conference at the CDC. Give them approximate times. Tell them to contact the CDC for more details. Then send the press back here. I’ll want to talk to them before even stepping off the plane.”
Too bad, General Newman thought. We could have worked with the man. He picked up his phone and gave a set of coded signals to one of his operatives while glancing down at his wastebasket, where lay the tatters of the resignation document an aide had prepared after hearing the president call for it. The frightened aide had hurried away while Newman muttered to himself. If that fucking Marshall didn’t know how to run the country, then by God, he did. It was the president who was going to leave office, though not in a formal way. He was seeing to that right now. And after that—well, after Marshall was gone, there would be some real changes made. America had been let itself be a doormat for those gook countries too long. By the time he was finished, they’d be singing a different tune. He grinned crazily. If any of them were left.
Edgar Tomlin had prepared and signed his resignation, but not yet sent it to the president. He was staring despairingly down at the one page statement when the General called.
“Edgar, just sit tight. I have the situation under control. I’ll take care of the president. You take care of that Santes bitch.”
“How?”
“You know how, Edgar.”
“I don’t want to go that far. It will be traced back to us and we’ll be executed! Besides, the president is denying the whole thing. We’re safe.”
“You damn fool, don’t you think you’re a dead man if you back down now? You can’t quit. You sit tight or I’ll take care of you myself. Hear?”
Edgar Tomlin put down the phone, wishing he had called a halt to the process when he had a chance. But then, he reflected, after I provided the funding, it was inevitable that it would go on to a conclusion. And isn’t this what I wanted? A world without blacks, the Arabs no longer dictating policy to us because of a geological accident that located them on top of hundreds of billions of barrels of oil? Maybe Newman can handle it. He who rides a tiger… the old adage drifted through his mind as he slowly tore the resignation into strips and fed them to his shredder. Then he gave the orders. It would have to be done in a hurry. Fortunately, he had been making plans, though he had hoped it would never come to this.
John Dawson wiped beads of perspiration from his wife’s dark colored face. “Can I get you some more pain medicine, honey? Anything?”
His wife gripped his hand. “John, I’m sorry, I’m not very brave. Could… could you get me enough to just end it? You know there’s no hope.” She grimaced as another wave of excruciating pain swept over her body.
He squeezed her hand, feeling all the love he held for her welling up inside, creating almost as much ache in him as the Harcourt virus that was ravaging her body was inflicting on her.
“All right,” he said, choking the words out. He released her hand and went to prepare a solution that would ease her out of life in dignity. As he mixed it he heard President Marshall at another press conference, denying again that he was covering anything up. John Dawson didn’t know if that were true or not, but he did know from the conversations in the oval office he had begun recording once his wife fell ill that if he were not complicit in knowing how the virus began, he was certainly in sympathy with its consequences. It was time to release the recordings. It would mean his job, possibly prison, but he no longer cared. The light of his life was going to be permanently dimmed as soon as he returned with the medicine.
In the big ward at the CDC where treatment facilities had been set up, Leroy Barclay lay dying. He had little regret. Life had never offered him much, he thought. And all because I was born black. Well, if he had to go, he intended to see that some of the damned white men who had made life miserable for his people went with him. That was possible now, and his first target would be one of the highest officials in the government that had been guilty of so much of the oppression and exploitation. He thought of the gun concealed beneath his body and tried to look sick instead of guilty as the secret service agents roved through the room, searching for possible threats. The patients weren’t forced to undergo body searches and the metal framework of the bed made metal detectors effectively useless. After a while they left, but he waited. He would be able to hear them coming when it was time; a political entourage would make lots of noise.
Silas Morgan could practically feel the cancer eating away at his body. He ignored the pain while he cradled the sniper’s rifle in his arms. This would be a long shot, but well within the realm of possibility for him. Marine snipers were the best in the world, and he had been among the best of the best. He knew he was doing a good thing. General Newman himself had recruited him. Well, not personally, but he had assurances that the general and others high in government were behind the effort. That’s what was needed to put the country back on the right path, a path where the niggers and Jews and Spics were kept in their place instead of being allowed to run free, acting like they were just as good as whites. Shit, they even let them marry traitorous white sluts now and it was
The little pill in his shirt pocket would take care of that, and also exclude any possibility of giving up the men he worked for.
In the distance, the throng was gathering, getting ready for the president’s appearance. He eased the barrel
