“I appreciate that, Doctor—”
“Simon. Nurse Simon, or just Simon.”
“I’m sorry, Simon. Yes, please — she should go to the hospital right away.” Breanna looked up at Reid, who was staring at her with the most concerned expression she’d ever seen on his face.
“We’re going to need you or, uh, someone to meet her at the hospital,” said Simon.
Today, of all days, thought Breanna.
“Someone will be there,” she told him, barely remembering to ask which hospital before hanging up.
“Your daughter?” asked Reid.
“Just a silly sports injury,” she said.
“Do you want me to fill in?”
Breanna was torn between the impulse to run to her daughter’s side and the briefing she was supposed to give.
“Let me get Zen on the phone,” she said. She forced a smile. “I think he’s on hospital duty today.”
Zen was in the middle of a committee hearing when his legislative aide, Steph Delanie, tapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s your wife,” she whispered. “Urgent.”
Zen gripped his wheels — after all these years, he still preferred a nonpowered chair — and backed away from his spot at the table. He caught the eye of the committee chairman, who nodded, then turned and went out into the hall with Delanie. Another member of his staff, Jason Black, stood nearby with a cell phone.
“Probably forgot where I hid the peanut butter,” said Zen, trying to joke as he reached for the phone. “Hey, babe, what’s up?”
“Jeff, they’re taking Teri to the hospital. She hurt her leg. She’s OK, but they want X rays to make sure. Can you go over? I’m — I’m just on my way to see the President and the National Security Council. I’m right outside the door.”
“Where is Teri? Is she OK?”
“Yes, she’s OK. The school nurse called. They want to take her there as a precaution and I said fine. The nurse is a he, by the way.”
“Which hospital, Bree? Is she all right?”
“She’s
Zen could withstand any amount of pain without whimpering — he might complain, curse, and stomp things with his fist, but never whimper. If his daughter or wife had a cold, however, he suffered incredibly. There was simply no way he could be stoic when either of them was in pain.
“She’s at Dominion,” added Breanna, a little less emphatically. “In the emergency room.”
“I’m on my way. I’m there.”
“Jeff—”
“She’ll be fine Bree. I have it under control.”
Zen hung up. He told Delanie to have the rest of his day’s schedule canceled, then had Jason Black accompany him to the hospital.
Black was just out of college, low enough on the totem pole that a boring job like escorting the senator seemed exciting. Ordinarily, Zen might have regaled him with stories about how boring the hearing had been, or the New York congressman who was rumored to be sleeping with his campaign coordinator, but he was too focused on Teri to think about any of that. He drove himself — he could never have been patient enough to let someone else take the wheel.
Black, sitting in the passenger seat, fidgeted silently the entire way. He longed to ask Zen some questions about his days at Dreamland, but was afraid of offending him. The senator could often be heard complaining to Delanie and others about how boring and stale those stories had become.
A security guard tried to wave them away from the staff parking area as they pulled up.
“That’s for staff,” shouted the man, running over as Zen backed from the wheel and pushed the wheelchair into the lift next to the door. “You have to move!”
The door opened. The forklift-like elevator pulled Zen out of the van and began lowering him to the curb. The appearance of an obviously handicapped man gave the guard pause — but only for a second.
“Sir, I’m sorry. You can’t park here,” said the guard, toning his voice down. “It’s for doctors and nurses.”
“I outrank them,” Zen barked, rolling toward the door.
“Now listen,” blustered the guard. “I don’t care if you are handicapped. That’s not where you park.”
Black had to run to catch up to his boss. Zen reached into his pocket as he caught up with him and grabbed his keys.
“Move the van so Barney Fife over there doesn’t have a heart attack. I’d hate for Pete to lose another constituent.”
The electric doors opened and Zen glided inside the emergency room. One thing about hospitals — they were generally easy to get in and out of if you were in a wheelchair.
That was about the only nice thing Zen could ever say about them.
“I’m Senator Stockard,” he announced to the nurse at the desk. “You have my daughter here for X rays.”
The word “senator” jarred the nurse, and for a second she wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. Before she could say anything, a doctor came out from the office area.
“Senator Stockard, I’m glad you could get here so quickly,” he said as he walked over. “I’m Mike Watson. Dr. Bozzone called me and asked if I’d come down and check out your daughter personally.”
“Who called Billy?”
“Might’ve been your wife, Senator.”
“She’s always a step ahead of me. Where’s Teri?”
Dr. Watson — his name had been a source of jokes since med school — led Zen back through the halls to the X-ray department. Teri was sitting on an examining table, waiting as one of the techs readied the machine. A member of her school staff was sitting in the corner, a magazine on her lap.
“Daddy, what are
“Hey, angel. I was looking for someone to play golf with. The doctors mentioned you were here, so I postponed the game.”
“You don’t play golf.” Teri gave him a mock frown, then leaned down from the table to give him a kiss. “Where’s Mom?”
“With the President.”
Teri frowned. She had expected her mother, not her father. She loved them both, but it was her mother who always showed up at times like this.
Plus, she had said she would.
Zen read the disappointment in her face. “Mom’s working hard,” he told her. “She had something very important today.”
“I know.”
He decided it was better to change the subject. “What, are you bucking for a chair like mine?”
“Oh get out.” She hopped down from the table and began dancing around. “See? I’m fine.”
“Probably, but let’s let the X ray determine that,” said Dr. Watson.
The National Security Council met in a secure conference room well below ground level in the White House “basement,” but the room was bathed in what to the naked eye seemed like perfect daylight. The environmental controls kept the room precisely at 68 degrees, a fact that occasionally irked the President, who preferred a slightly cooler temperature, but allowed it to remain there out of deference to her aides and cabinet members’ comfort.
A rectangular table sat at the center of the large room. A video screen tilted upward in front of each of the thirty-six places; the screens were tied into a conferencing system as well as the secure intelligence intranet. Each seat was equipped with a bank of secure communication lines, allowing text and e-mail as well as scrambled voice and video.
