Holdout: A Novel

by Jeffrey Kluger

Sonia jumped up, pushed off the person who was holding her—vaguely registering that, yes, it was Raymond. She sprang for the fence, climbed it one-handed, rolled over the barbed wire, barely feeling the tattooing of wounds it was leaving across her body, and half climbed, half jumped down to the ground.

  And then, broken and bleeding, sobbing and gasping, she rose to her knees and held open her arms, and Oli sprang into them. She held him fast and rocked him slow and repeated his nickname over and over, and he hugged her back and he said her name too. Sonia kissed his hair and smelled the wood smoke in it.

  Holding Oli in her single, undamaged arm, she rose unsteadily to her feet, hobbled toward the other boy, the burned and murdered boy, the one with the crisscross of scratches who had not been spared the way the living boy she was holding had been. She dropped to her knees beside him, leaned forward, and kissed his scorched and blackened forehead.

  “I am so, so sorry,” she whispered to him. That was the last thing she was aware of as the world fell away and she slipped into the painless bliss of unconsciousness.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives was frowning at his chamber. Standing on the dais, running his eyes across the historic room, he could see even without a roll call that he did not remotely have a sufficient head count for the vote he needed to hold today—on the bill formally known as H.R. 5898: An Authorization and Mandate for Military Pacification of Contested Regions in and Around the Amazon Basin in Cooperation with Partner Nations. It was informally known simply as the Intervention Bill. All of the 435 House members were present in Washington, and all of them had shown up in their offices—early, even, which quite astonished the Speaker—to be on the floor at precisely 9:00 a.m.

  But it was now past 9:00 and most of them were no-shows so far. Part of the problem, surely, was that cursed video from the Amazon. None of the members of the president and Speaker’s party much wanted to discuss it, but it was all that the press would want to ask them about the moment they poked their heads out of their offices to make their way to the House chamber. It would be awfully hard to defend voting against a bill that would put an end to the horror that was captured in those four minutes of video, and none of the members wanted to try. The other likely reason they were all running late was that they were doing precisely what the Speaker had done this morning, which was to find the nearest TV—in his case in the cloakroom off the House floor—to watch the dramas unfolding in the streets of Washington as well as in space.

  The coverage of the demonstrations and the imminent vote had been constant and often dramatic, as aerial footage taken by helicopters showed the astonishing scale of the crowds that had assembled in Washington. The mass of people was being led by an incorrigible law student the Speaker had been told was named Laurel Cady, who never seemed to leave the microphone on the stage that had been set up on the National Mall, west of the Capitol Building and east of the Lincoln Memorial. In between the speeches she and other pro-intervention activists had been making all day, she repeatedly led a maddening call-and-response.

  “The burning . . .” she’d call out.

  “Will stop!” the crowd would answer.

  “The killing . . .”

  “Will stop!”

  “The people . . .”

  “Will rise!”

  “The jungle . . .”

  “Will live!”

  It had begun forming a rat-a-tat rhythm in the Speaker’s head that he couldn’t shake. Even when Cady and her crowd weren’t chanting, his thoughts and his very footsteps seemed to bounce along in the maddening cadence.

  But the astronaut’s illness was what people were really tuning in to see. Apart from the few times Boysen and Beckwith spoke privately in a doctor-patient consultation, every bit of the air-to-ground chatter about Beckwith’s raging meningitis was being reported—and heard. The very real possibility that she would die in service of an Earthly cause had turned her into even more of a folk hero in the past twenty-four hours than she had been before, with tracking polls showing her approval rating at 77 percent. Meantime, public opinion of the president’s plan to kill this morning’s bill had continued to slide, with 57 percent of those polled favoring intervention and the bill that would permit it, 43 percent opposing, and an unheard-of 0 percent undecided on the matter. What had seemed like a safe vote for the one-third of the House plus one more member the Speaker would need to deny a two-thirds majority and sustain the president’s veto now looked like a political risk.

  At last, at 9:35, the sergeant-at-arms approached the dais and confirmed that the entire House was at last in attendance. The speaker nodded his thanks and gaveled the session to order.

  “The members will consider H.R. 5898: An Authorization and Mandate for Military Pacification of Contested Regions in and Around the Amazon Basin in Cooperation with Partner Nations,” he called. “Will the clerk please read the bill?”

  The clerk did just that, briefly taking the dais and reading again the name of the bill and its provisions, specifically citing “Congress’s war-making authority, a legislative power equal to or superseding the executive power, including but not limited to determining the time, place, and manner of American military action.” That was a claim, not a constitutional fact, one that judges up and down the federal system would surely love to get their hands on but would not get the chance, since approval for a protracted battle in the courts while the jungle kept burning was polling at a vanishingly small 9 percent, as of this morning. Unless the president and the Congress were interested in committing political suicide, today’s votes would thus decide the matter: A two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress would mean intervention; less than two-thirds in either chamber would mean none.

  At last, when the reading of the bill was done, the Speaker opened the floor for voting. The smart betting still had the bill passing by a predicted vote of 277 to 158—a landslide by most measures, but short of the two-thirds vote of 290 to 145 that would be necessary to override the president’s veto. But the prediction might not hold, and if the Speaker lost just thirteen nay votes, the House would have effectively brushed the president of the United States aside and would then send the issue of the intervention across the Capitol, where it could fight for its two-thirds in the Senate.

  Almost immediately, the Speaker sensed trouble. Forty-seven electronic voting stations were positioned around the floor—small green, red, and yellow buttons built into the chamber’s wooden railings, armrests, and desks. Members would insert an electronic identification card into a slot and vote either yea or nay. Five large viewing screens in the front of the chamber—evocative of the much larger, sleeker screens at the front of the twin Mission Control rooms in Moscow and Houston—would record the members’ votes.

  Those votes were coming in slowly. The fiercest intervention opponents voted straightaway, inserting their cards and fairly punching the red nay button. The most enthusiastic supporters did the same, jabbing at the green yea—some of them actually fist-bumping after they did. But even after fifty minutes, just 298 votes out of the 435 had been cast. They broke more or less as they were expected to break—194 yea to 104 nay so far—still shy of the two-thirds pace needed to beat a veto. Then the voting stalled.

  “We’re seeing a lot of conferring and muttering there on the House floor, but not a lot of voting right now,” observed the CNN anchor.

  The Speaker nodded down to his majority leader and whip, who were already working the floor, in an unspoken command that they work it harder and faster. Three more votes popped red on the screen, changing the total to 194 to 107 and bringing the nay side a tiny bit closer to the 146 needed to support the president. Then a whoop went up from the minority party as all at once, at eight different voting stations, eight different yea votes lit up green, pushing the total to 202 in favor and 107 against. Every single one of those votes wa
s from a member of the president’s party, and every single one of those members was from a district that had fallen hard for Beckwith and whose voters had been pressing their elected officials to get behind the intervention she was pushing—with the release of Sonia’s video only ratcheting up the pressure. Every single one of them also left the chamber as soon as the votes were cast, knowing that somewhere in the White House, the president was watching the broadcast.

  “We could be seeing the first real effects of that look inside the Brazilian camp,” the anchor said.

  Two hundred and fifty miles above, Beckwith herself was watching and pumped her fist into the air.

  “You following this, Houston?” she called into her mic. Her voice was barely a croak, but it was a happy croak.

  “Not allowed to watch, station. On duty,” Jasper said. “But we’re getting word. I hear you’re doing OK.”

  “We’re doing OK,” she echoed.

  Still, it was not OK enough to crack the two-thirds ceiling. On the networks, however, the chatter was now that most or all of nine other members whose districts had swung Beckwith’s way were likely to switch their votes too. If all of them voted yea, the projected vote total would rise to 288 to 147—only two shy of the needed 290. The mere existence of such a prediction might make it self-fulfilling, with opposition to the bill collapsing in the face of forecasts of its victory.

  At that moment, two of the nine members did break, stepping forward to vote yea. Almost as one, the remaining seven huddled, then slipped their cards in the slots at the voting stations and punched the red or green buttons. Five of the seven voted yea. The vote now stood at 209 to 109—with momentum overwhelmingly on the yea side.

  But the majority leader and whip did not become majority leader and whip because they were bad at their jobs, and they were deftly working the floor—calling in favors, threatening careers. They buttonholed loyal members to buttonhole wavering members to remind them of the anger of the caucus and donors that would be the wages of a betrayal. A yea vote might mean easier treatment in the press back home today, but it would also mean a nasty fight in the primary election next year.

  With that, the defections began to slow. Four representatives in the president’s party running in touch-and-go districts who had not voted yet strode simultaneously to four different voting stations. The cameras closed in on them and the newscasters fell silent—and they cast four nay votes at once. On the floor, the opponents of the bill applauded and embraced.

  With those votes, the rest of the House members, from both parties, appeared to find their spines—conscious that the TV cameras were watching, conscious that so were the voters, and conscious too that enough was enough and that those same voters wanted the matter settled for good and all. With that, they fairly mobbed the voting stations. The 209 votes in favor surged past 260, closing in fast on the 290 needed; the 113 against moved at more of a creep toward the 146 needed to scuttle the bill, but a little flock of six nay votes came in, and the Speaker allowed himself a brief flicker of hope. That was followed, however, by a larger bunching of nine yeas. The teeter-totter played out until at last the yeas bumped up to 285, and the nays followed to 141. Both sides were five votes from victory—as silence fell in the chamber.

  Then, from the back benches, five freshman members from the president’s party, five members who had been in Washington for just over a year and knew that one day, at some point in their time in Congress, they might be called upon to cast a vote that would require them to choose between their conscience and their jobs, huddled and murmured to one another. They had all surely hoped they could put off so politically mortal a vote for years, but the matter had arisen today and would have to be decided today. They rose as a group, strode to five adjacent voting stations, slipped in their cards, and almost in unison voted a deciding and quite possibly career-killing yea.

  Cheering erupted among the 290 members who now stood on the old chamber floor in veto-proof unison; tears and whoops and hugs and leaping broke out among the demonstrators in Washington; and 250 miles above, a single, sickly astronaut wept in relief and joy. Alone on his dais, the Speaker at last cast his own now-pointless vote, becoming part of the minority that could do nothing at all to change the outcome of what had happened here today.

  “The chair votes nay,” he declared to the chamber that was not listening. “The measure passes 290 to 145.”

  Then he rapped the gavel once and hurried out through a side door. In the distance, through the walls and corridors of the grand, historic building, he could just hear the voices outside.

  “The burning . . .” the Cady woman cried.

  “Will stop!” the masses answered. And the rhythm resumed in the Speaker’s head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It took two full hours after Sonia cut herself on barbed wire, broke her wrist in a fall, pounded the ground in grief, gathered Oli up in relief, kissed the child who had not survived, and then lost consciousness before she received any medical care at all. There were too many people grievously burned for any of the SSA doctors to tend to someone whose wounds were not life-threatening.

  Finally one of the doctors splinted Sonia’s arm as well as was possible in the field, then gave her a painkiller, tipping her into a deep sleep that would keep her still for hours. Raymond and Oli stood by her side while her wrist was being wrapped and the medicine was being given; then Raymond lifted her in his arms—she was so small, he marveled, so light for someone who contained such energy—carried her back to the showpiece camp, and found a corner for her in the infirmary building. The cots were all occupied by people who had been hurt in the stampede to the front gate, but Raymond spied a clear spot on the floor near a wall, laid Sonia down, and built a little berm of blankets around her—a boundary that provided no actual protection but would signal to the surrounding crowd that she was to be left alone. Oli climbed in and curled up next to her, his head on her chest.

  Raymond then hurried back to the main part of the western camp. The waspish helicopters and the larger firefighting airplanes had done a good job of extinguishing the blaze that had consumed part of the camp, and the Consolidation soldiers even produced heavy metal shears to cut the two padlocks holding the gate closed, allowing the doctors inside. Most of the work the SSA teams were doing involved assessing the worst of the burned and wrapping their alternately blistered or blackened limbs and torsos. Their howls were terrible—as raw as their flesh—and it was a mercy for both them and the doctors when a needle was slid into an arm, sending one more person into an even deeper unconsciousness than Sonia’s. None were carried back to the infirmary building in the showpiece camp. There was not nearly adequate care for them there, but there was little to help them here at the main camp either. Without proper hospital treatment they would surely die of infection or dehydration within the next few days.

  The only hope for the victims was the helicopters from the Mercado camp and the other nearby hospitals, which had been summoned by radio but would need to fight through the smoke of the surrounding fires to cover the distances from Bolivia and Peru, at least doubling the travel time. When they at last arrived—five of them from Mercado, along with at least three dozen more from other SSA, UNICEF, and Red Cross camps—the doctors began carrying the worst of the injured people over to them and the pilots hopped out to help. Raymond scanned their faces as well as the backs of their heads if they were turned away, looking for the bald patch, the waxy skin, and the missing ear that would indicate Jo. It was just after he had made his third trip to a helicopter helping to load the injured that he spotted him about twenty yards away. He called his name and sprinted toward him, and Jo turned and grabbed Raymond in a surprisingly rough and emotional embrace.

  “You’re not dead,” he said, turning Raymond this way and that looking for signs of injury.

  “Not yet. Not hurt much either,” Raymond answered.

  “The girl?�
��

  “Back at the infirmary. She’s banged up but not burned.”

  “Can she travel?” Jo asked.

  “She can. She has to,” Raymond said. “She’s going to need a surgeon.” Jo looked alarmed and Raymond added, “Shattered arm. She’ll live.”

  Jo glanced at his helicopter as the SSA doctors finished loading another burn patient, bringing the total to four so far. “I can fit four more injured with just enough left for you and her.” He looked at his watch. “Wheels up in ten minutes. Go.”

  Raymond tore off for the showpiece camp, stumbling repeatedly on roots and rocks, then barreled through the back gate and into the infirmary building. It was even more packed with people than it had been when he’d left, but his blanket berm had done its work and Sonia had been left alone on her patch of floor. Oli leapt up as he approached, interposing himself between Raymond and Sonia as if to protect her.

  “It’s OK,” Raymond said, out of breath. “We’re leaving—all of us.” He scooped up Sonia and, with Oli tailing him, ran back out of the building, across the grounds, and back west to the main camp. Jo saw him approach and waved him off.

  “The girl only,” he shouted. “No locals unless they’re injured.”

  Raymond tried to call an answer but was too winded, and settled simply for shaking his head in a vigorous no. He reached the helicopter, and Jo helped him hoist Sonia onto the floor inside. Then Raymond reached down and picked up Oli, but Jo stood in his way.

  “I said no locals,” he repeated.

  “He’s coming,” Raymond said as Oli squirmed in his arms, reaching for the helicopter door through which he could see Sonia.

  “It’s the rule,” Jo said. “It ain’t mine, but it’s the rule.”

  “What rules?” Raymond shouted furiously. “What fucking rules?” He freed up one arm, restraining Oli with the other, and swept it in the direction of the burned people in the filthy camp. “Do you see any rules here? There are no rules left!”