Unhappy with her response, for the aide knew that Balick would ride him for not getting a straight answer, the aide glumly shook his head and called the White House garage to relay the President's order. Looking over to Vice President Kevin Wojick, in the middle of a conversation with several members of the Security Council, Wilson called, so that everyone in the room could hear, that she was leaving. Then, before she walked out, Wilson added, 'Mr. Vice President, I leave you here to deal with this, this debating society. I will be back in two hours. If in that time you are able to get Chancellor Ruff on the phone and he is willing to speak with me?I mean really speak to me and not simply rehash his 'wounded national pride' speech again?contact me immediately.' Wilson turned to leave, but then paused. Over her shoulder she added with a bitter note in her voice, 'And if you can't have something that makes sense ready for me to listen to by then, please turn out the lights and lock the door before you all leave.'
From across the room, Soares watched Wilson leave. That she, like everyone else on the crisis action team, was tired and very much on edge didn't matter to Soares. It had been a mistake, he now knew, to put a woman like that in the White House. She neither understood the fine rules of the game nor how to conduct herself with the dignity that the office of the President of the United States demanded. While even he had to admit that she often displayed an intuitive knack for resolving difficult problems, her methods of dealing with men of high position, such as himself, were often irritating to the point of disrespect. The party, Soares had decided long ago, had been wrong. The nation wasn't ready for a woman President, especially this one.
It wasn't until she reached Bethesda that the idea of stopping by to see Ed Lewis dawned upon Jan. Though she suspected that he already knew about the German seizure of the nukes, there was always the off chance that he might have gone to bed early. After all, she thought, with his newfound view on life, he just may have gone overboard and started getting all the sleep he needed.
When she turned down the street where Lewis lived, Jan was surprised to see a number of cars sitting in front of Lewis's house and what looked like every light in the place turned on. At first, thinking that he was having a party of some kind, Jan wondered if her attire would be appropriate. Then she dismissed that idea as being foolish. Amanda and Ed Lewis weren't the late-night party type. When she got closer, Jan saw two men standing on the porch and caught a glimpse of another as he disappeared around the house. Her dismay suddenly turned to alarm when she realized that there may have been some kind of emergency or threat. If that was true, Jan thought, then maybe this was the wrong time to pay a visit. But again she dropped that idea. She was, after all, a friend of the family and, almost as important, a news correspondent. As was her habit, once she had made up her mind, Jan pushed forward with the single-minded determination of a charging rhino.
Already upset with the President's sudden and mysterious foray into the night, the members of the Secret Service team that accompanied her were on edge and very nervous. Denied the opportunity to perform a detailed recon of Lewis's house, they attempted to clamp down on everything that went on in the house while President Wilson was there. They, of course, had not counted on Amanda Lewis. Roused out of bed by the sound of voices and the pounding of feet downstairs, Amanda threw on a robe and came down to find her house overrun by stern- faced men and women. One group was in the middle of searching rooms and scanning them with electronic devices while another, who had taken over the dining room as a command center, was busy moving furniture around. One overzealous agent, seeing Amanda descending the stairs, moved toward her in an effort to head her off. He pulled out his badge, flashing it in her face. 'I'm sorry, ma'am. Agent Bradshaw, Secret Service. I'll have to ask you to go back upstairs and remain there while the President is here.'
Unimpressed by Bradshaw's badge, and angered at being ordered about in her own house, Amanda looked Bradshaw in the eye. 'Young man, I am sure you have your duty and your orders. But this is my house. And if you want to walk out of here under your own power, I suggest you let me by.'
Taken aback by the defiance shown by this five-foot-four, 120-pound woman in a bathrobe, Bradshaw was about to call for his supervisor when Amanda pushed by him and headed into the kitchen to make coffee. Not easily put off, he followed her, asking her to go back upstairs. Bradshaw's persistence only served to irritate Amanda. Stopping just short of the kitchen, she turned on Bradshaw. With an angry look on her face and her finger pointed at his nose, Amanda Lewis shouted so that everyone in the house could hear. 'Look, Mr. Special Agent whoever, if you or your friends here dare threaten me one more time, I'll run the whole lot of you out into the snow. Now back off.' Without another word and before Bradshaw could respond, Amanda pivoted on her heels and marched into the kitchen, where two other Secret Service men gave her a wide berth when they saw her coming.
Frustrated, his face red from embarrassment, Bradshaw turned around just in time to see Jan come through the front door at the other end of the hall. Without so much as a pause, Jan headed straight for the door of the study where she knew she would find Lewis. Recovering from his brush with the congressman's wife, Bradshaw hurried down the hall to head Jan off. Shoving his arm in front of Jan's face just as she was about to open the door, Bradshaw yelled in Jan's ear, 'Hey, you can't go in there.'
Already charged up from having to deal with the Secret Service men at the front door, Jan backed off half a step, turned to face Bradshaw, and thrust her finger up at his face. 'Look, mister, I'm in no mood to play cowboys and Indians with a troop of overgrown boy scouts. Either move it or lose it.'
Tiring of being abused by pushy women, Bradshaw was about to grab Jan's arms to push her away from the door when Jan lifted her right foot and brought the heel of her boot crashing down on the toe of Bradshaw's shoe. Shocked by her sudden attack, caught in midstride, and overcome by immense pain, Bradshaw lost his balance. While he was trying to grab his injured foot with one hand while flailing the other one about in an effort to find something to grab to keep from falling, Jan pulled the sliding door of the study open and popped in.
Though she knew that the President was there, it still came as a surprise when Jan saw Wilson seated among the haphazard stack of books, files, and stray papers that Lewis found comforting. Lewis, seated at his desk with his feet propped up, looked over to Jan. 'Welcome, Jan. We were just talking about you when we heard your rather vocal introduction to the President's bodyguard.'
Jan blushed slightly, looking over at Wilson and then at Lewis. 'I apologize for intruding like this, Ed, Madam President, but I was on my way into the office and thought you might not have heard the latest news from Germany yet. And then when I saw all the people running about your house, I was worried that something had happened to Amanda or you.'
With a smile, Lewis invited her to take a seat, if she could find one. Wilson, surprised by Jan's appearance, glanced over at Lewis after he made the offer to Jan to join them. Noticing Wilson's look of concern, Lewis took his feet off the desk and leaned toward Wilson while Jan searched for a clear place on the floor to dump a stack of books she had removed from the least cluttered chair. Without waiting for Jan to finish, Lewis started in on the President. 'See, that's just the kind of thing you are going to have to stop doing. Geez, Madam President, the whole world knows we've screwed the pooch on this one. So why hide it? It's time you came out, just like you did with me, with hat in hand and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.'
Though her predecessor had warned her that Lewis could be a dangerous political adversary, not to mention brash and downright disrespectful on occasion, Wilson appreciated that Lewis had much going for him. Everyone in Washington agreed that he was one of the few people in Washington she could trust in a pinch. The former President himself, despite his warnings to Wilson, had used Lewis during a particularly sensitive crisis with Mexico. Through this and other such coups, Lewis had earned a reputation for being one of the most politically astute and respected authorities on international affairs in Washington. There had even been serious discussion about asking Lewis to serve as Wilson's Secretary of State instead of Soares.
Suspecting that Chancellor Ruff wasn't in a mood to listen to either her or Soares, a man many Europeans had difficulty dealing with, Wilson decided that she would take the former President's advice. Of course, she also remembered his warning: 'Lewis has a tendency to come on like a down-home good old boy, so don't be offended by his manner.' Taking Lewis's comments in stride, Wilson was about to respond, when her comments were pre- empted by another interruption at the study door. This time it was the appearance of Agent Bradshaw.
Barreling in, Bradshaw looked at Jan, now seated across from Wilson, then at Wilson, before he began to apologize for letting Jan in. Wilson, however, was tired of being interrupted, first by Jan, now by Bradshaw. Already uneasy about coming to Lewis like this and the manner in which he was treating her, Wilson, in a momentary flaring of her temper, cut Bradshaw short. 'Look, Bradley, or Banden, or whoever you are, get out of here and close the door.'
Totally frustrated and in pain, Bradshaw closed the door, catching a glimpse of Jan just as she canted her head, smiled, and waved 'bye to him.
Pausing a moment to pick up her train of thought, Wilson continued where she had left off. 'In principle, I
