“I assure you, America still has heroes we can look to for the strength, leadership, and wisdom we need to rebuild.” He paused, turned, looked directly at Patrick, and nodded before turning back to the microphone. “We lost many good men and women in the American Holocaust of 2004, but I can tell you, my fellow Americans, that the soldiers who served us so well trained an entire new generation of capable men and women to take their places. Thanks to them, America is in worthy hands.
“As the new commander in chief, I’m telling you this: Mourning time is over. It’s time to start the rebuilding. The wounds are well on their way to being healed — now it’s time to start exercising the muscles, retraining the mind for the challenges that lie ahead, and getting back into the race — the race to ensure and defend peace, democracy, and freedom here in America and around the world.”
And with that, the inauguration of the forty-fourth president of the United States was over. Again there was no applause, no music, no marches, no parades, no cannon salutes. The officials on the dais were quickly led to waiting armored, stretch Suburbans and whisked away, and the crowd was left to depart the ceremony in cold, stony silence, ushered off by troops in full combat gear.
Maureen Hershel and Patrick McLanahan sat in the back of their armored car, holding hands, staring silently out the thick smoked-glass windows. A television broadcast was replaying the swearing-in and address, but they had the sound turned off. No one spoke. The only sound came from Maureen, a quiet gasp of surprise as they passed the skeleton of a billboard on the main highway, blackened and crumpled from the effects of one of the four nuclear blasts that had devastated this area. A single tear rolled down her cheek; she did not have the will to wipe it away.
It felt as if she were on a state visit to some Middle Eastern or African nation that had been embroiled in a long and bloody civil war, like Lebanon or Sudan. But this was America, and she was the new vice president of the United States. And that damage hadn’t been caused by rioting, vandalism, or civil war — it had been caused by several thermonuclear explosions, right here in the heartland. It was her problem now.
“It’s okay, Maureen,” Patrick said. “It will be rebuilt. All of it.”
She turned and saw him looking at her carefully, and she smiled contentedly. They hadn’t seen very much of each other since he’d returned from combat operations in Siberia and she’d gone on the campaign trail, understated as the campaign had been. But since the election, they’d seen quite a bit of each other. She was with him and his son, Bradley, when he received his third star from former president Thomas Thorn at a Pentagon ceremony, and today he’d been with her at her swearing-in as vice president.
But now she was on her way to Washington, and…well, she might be the vice president, but she had no idea where Patrick was going. She and most of the world had fully expected McLanahan, the hero who’d ended the American Holocaust by leading a sneak attack on Anatoliy Gryzlov’s underground bunker and killing the Russian president before he could launch another nuclear strike on the United States, to be chosen as Kevin Martindale’s running mate. But Patrick was a military airman, not a politician. Besides, he and Martindale had too much of a history of doing things by circumventing established procedures, if not outright lawbreaking. America didn’t need that kind of worry now.
“Billboards — or air bases?” she asked.
“Maybe neither,” Patrick said. “It’s like the president said, Maureen — we’ve been forced to rebuild. The question becomes, do we rebuild the same things all over again, or do we build something new and different? If there’s a better billboard or a better air base, now is the time to make it a reality.”
“Martindale got that from you, you know.”
“I think I got it from him and Brad Elliott a long time ago,” Patrick said. “Brad never looked at a system or attacked a problem like others did, even if it hurt his reputation and his career. Kevin Martindale was smart enough to let him do his thing, even if he was hurt politically. I was content to be a bomber jockey until I met Brad Elliott and Kevin Martindale.”
Maureen took a deep breath, and Patrick could hear the little catch of apprehension in her throat. “Jesus, I’m scared,” she said. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m the vice president of the United States, and I have no idea what that means.”
“Yes you do,” Patrick said. “You might not know it now, sitting in this cold limo driving past farms and homes leveled by a nuclear bomb, but when you sit down at your desk in the White House and assemble your staff around you and the president asks for your advice, you’ll have an answer. You’ll know what to do.”
She looked at him and smiled, thankful for the reassurance. “Will you come to Washington with me?” she asked.
“If you’d like me to, I will.”
“I couldn’t do it without you.”
“Yes you could,” Patrick said. “I’d be happy to be with you, in Washington or anywhere.” He turned and stared blankly out the window. “I think the third star was a retirement present from Thorn. He knew I was on my way out before I did.”
“You’re not out unless you want to be,” Maureen said.
“I’ve led crews and units and commands long enough — I think it’s time to support some important people for a while,” Patrick said. He turned back and looked at the vice president seated beside him, clasping her hand tightly. “Could you stand to have Bradley and me hanging around, Maureen?”
“Of course I could,” she said, a little laugh of joy escaping from her lips as she spoke. But then she averted her eyes, and when she raised them back to his, they were deeply probing, careful to look for any sign of hesitation or equivocation. “The question is, Lieutenant General Patrick Shane McLanahan — could
And her heart, which was moments ago filled with such happiness and love, broke — because he hesitated, and he looked away, and he stared that damnable ten-thousand-yard stare. She held on to his hand tightly, and he did likewise — but she knew he was gone.
The car phone rang in the distinctive two-ring style. An aide reached for it, but Maureen, still unaccustomed to others answering her phone for her, picked it up immediately. “Yes, Mr. President?” she said.
“Call me Kevin in private, Maureen,” Martindale said. “Our first order of business once we get back to Washington is to start lining up the Cabinet and senior-adviser posts. We meet with the congressional leadership first thing in the morning, and I want our names and talking points nailed down tight. Too bad we can’t fly back together, but that’s the rules.”
“I’ll be ready when I get back, Kevin. You’ve got my list and my bullets; send over your changes, and we’ll merge them together.”
“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to steal Patrick away from you on the trip back. We’ve got a lot of things to discuss.”
Maureen hesitated, looked at Patrick’s faraway expression, then said in a sharp but pleasant voice, “In fact, I do mind, Kevin.” Patrick glanced at her with surprise through narrowed, quizzical eyes. “When we get back to Washington, you can have him. He’s mine until then.”
Martindale chuckled. “You crazy kids,” he said. “Put him on.”
Maureen handed the phone to Patrick. “Yes, Mr. President?” he said.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Maureen, Patrick: If we’re going to work together, I want you to call me Kevin. Save the formalities for the public. I may be the senior partner, but I consider you my partner. Clear?”
“Not exactly, Kevin.”
“Feel like wearing a business suit instead of a flight suit for a while?”
“Doing what, sir?”
“Special assistant to the president,” Martindale said. “I’m going to ask for an emergency two-hundred-fifty- billion-dollar budget to quickly rebuild strategic offensive and defensive forces. You know there’s going to be a huge food fight on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon on what the new force should look like once those kinds of budget numbers are introduced. I want you to help me sort through the noise and help me pick the right programs to support.”
“I’m a bomber guy, Kevin,” Patrick said. “You know that. Folks think I’m already too biased.”
“Can you be honest with me and everyone you deal with, Patrick?” Martindale asked. “I think you can. You saw firsthand what we faced. You need to find the right systems that will help prevent a repeat of those attacks.
