by John Farris
The remaining nine participants included Wanda Chevrille, head of the CIA, a woman with a nun's peaceful face and a complex mind; Nick Grella, head of the intelligence division of the Secret Service; Admiral Wesley Sobieski, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and John Wellford McGarvey, who had been Clint Harvester's Chief of Staff for his first two years in office. McGarvey had resigned after one too many personality clashes with Rona.
Buck Hannafin began the conference in his usual blunt beetle-browed manner.
"To borrow Ronald Reagan's conception—I believe he borrowed it from someone else, but never mind—we have an evil empire in our midst. The basis for a fascist dictatorship authorized by Executive Orders has been in place for some time. The architects of this seditious conspiracy are, of course, Rona Harvester and her paramour Victor Wilding."
The representative from the CIA shook her head in silent disgust.
Nick Grella said, "This won't be in the news tomorrow, but while Clint Harvester was posing with his golf clubs at Burning Tree today, the Secret Service was formally booted out of the White House. The 'presidential' signature on the change-over memo has to be a forgery, but a good one. We probably couldn't get a consensus on the forgery from the FBI's handwriting experts to take to the Attorney General. Meanwhile I have twenty-four hours to turn over our files to MORG."
Admiral Sobieski had been looking over copies of the Executive Orders that McGarvey had thoughtfully taken with him after losing his job. The Admiral whistled dismally.
"I knew some of these existed, but my God! Where did this one come from? EO 13083 wipes out the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution! All state and local authority is revoked." He looked at Roswell Fullmer. "Can this be challenged legally?"
"There is an avenue for challenge, Wes," Fullmer said. "Public outrage, heavily endorsed by the media, prompting a constitutional amendment supported by men of individual honor, personal character, and absolute independence, as Daniel Webster once described our Senate." He smiled, nostalgia in his peacock-blue eyes. "The good old days, we like to think."
"There's still a handful left in Congress to defend the high ground," Buck said. "But the ablest legislator I know on the Hill is leaving after this term to take over the family banking business."
"We've still got you, Buck," McGarvey said.
"Long as my pacemaker holds up, John. Let us not forget how I've survived. My forebears had a good bit of money laid by, so unlike Lyndon and his ilk I never had to steal an election to get my start in politics. And I never did acquire the stink of ambition."
Admiral Sobieski tossed aside his copy of the Executive Orders.
"Hell, the military complex is relegated to managing public transport, utilities, and food distribution!"
"One critical function of martial law," McGarvey said. "Which of course supports the dictatorship disguised as executive fiat. All power is converted to the presidency, overnight; but indisputably we have a captive President, incapable of making rational decisions."
"Quite a setup," Buck commented. "But as things stand right now, Clint Harvester is both Rona's strength and the fatal flaw in her lofty ambitions. Executive Orders can't be countermanded. Therefore Clint has to be removed, legally, from office as soon as possible. And there's no EO granting Rona the right of succession."
"We hope," Wanda Chevrille said, leaning into the conversation like a chess master about to pounce. In concert with all of Clint's loyal supporters, she thought Rona was trash. "But Mrs. Harvester has long been using Eva Peron's career as a template. She has popular approval. All that appears to be lacking now is an adequate pretext."
Buck stroked his forehead, keeping his eyes down momentarily. He knew what the pretext was, and it gave him heartache to conceal this knowledge from friends.
"If there is such an order," Fullmer said, "it's of recent origin, and Justice would have no difficulty proving the order a fraud, once Clint Harvester's true mental state became public knowledge." He looked around at his guests. "Unless, of course, all members of the judicial and executive branches, and most of us sitting here, are scheduled to become unpersons."
That earned a full minute of uneasy contemplation, the participants moving, emotionally, closer to each other. Admiral Sobieski, the only one there who was drinking hard liquor, poured himself another bourbon.
"EO 1099," Buck said. "With the communications media in the hands of our new government, only Rona Harvester's voice will be heard in the land."
Further silence.
Buck continued, "Unless Clint Harvester recovers his faculties and his own voice. Highly doubtful. Rona will martyr him before that happens."
"What are you saying, Buck?" Wanda asked, eyes narrowing.
"I'm saying that past a certain point in her ambitions, Clint is more useful to Rona dead than he is alive. I do believe the thought has crossed her mind."
"Leapin' Jesus," McGarvey said, not disagreeing. He knew Rona Harvester better than anyone else in the room.
Buck nodded gravely, then looked at the head of Secret Service Intel.
"Nick, what are the chances we could get Clint to ourselves long enough to have him certified incompetent by psychiatrists? Forget about his personal physician, Tray Daufuskie is already compromised."
"How much time are we talking about?"
"I'm no head doctor, but I did some asking around. Four hours maximum."
"With MORG in control of White House security now—no chance."
"What if we kidnap him, then?"
"Get real, Buck," Wanda cautioned.
He smiled. "In a manner of speaking. I figure what we need to do is make Clint available for evaluation without anyone knowing what's going on." He looked at Nick Grella.
"As I told you, we no longer have responsibility for the President. End of story, as FLOTUS likes to say."
"You don't have access to him at the White House. When is the President most vulnerable, if you don't mind giving up a few trade secrets?"
"No secret. 'Rawhide' is vulnerable to unplanned access when he's anywhere but inside the White House. On the campaign trail. Official state visits. Vacations. I hated those trips to the western White House."
"Yeah, why? It's a ranch. Four people per square mile out that way."
"The Big Country Ranch covers about twenty thousand acres. The President and Mrs. Harvester don't like having company when they're out riding, which they do every day at Big Country, weather permitting. They ride hard and fast—that's a nightmare in itself, trying to maintain a visual without the aid of a helicopter or light plane. And there's always the chance, although they're both accomplished equestrians, that 'Rawhide' might take a fall and break his neck. They can easily shake off our guys riding security. The Harvesters enjoy getting all lathered up, hot and bothered you might say, then hopping off their mounts in a secret place and, uh, having sexual relations."
Wanda Chevrille, whose nickname at the CIA was the Virgin Queen, winced slightly. "In spite of his condition, do you suppose they are still ... having relations?"
"From what we hear," Nick said, "it's just about all he wants to do these days."
"Did Rona ever ride by herself?" Buck asked.
"Now and then, when the President had business to take care of."
"I mean, totally alone."
"I believe so."
Buck Hannafin and Nick Grella looked at each other for a time. Nick was uneasy; Buck shifted his weight in his leather club chair and bore down on him, a flash in his eyes like sharp sabers rising.
"Let's hear it, Nick. What do you know?"
Grella said, "It won't be announced for a day or two, but before we got booted off the POTUS detail Zephyr penciled in a week at Big Country for some R and R. They're scheduled to leave on Sunday."
"That figures. Rona has the brass balls of a Minoan bull, but she's kept Clint on display at the White House as long as she dares. We have some time. A few days, week at the most. No doubt in my mind that while the President is relaxing out
west he'll meet with an unfortunate accident. Around the stables, or when he's at full gallop across the prairie."
Wanda Chevrille looked as if she might be wanting to ask Buck to "get real" again, but she reconsidered. Except for two or three nervous coughs there was silence in the room. Buck Hannafin scanned concerned faces and faces with the sickly expressions of long-time public servants with nowhere left to scramble.
"Do we do this?" Buck demanded. Menacing, outraged. "Do we try to save Clint Harvester and put Rona behind bars where she belongs? She's got conquest on her mind and an exit planned for the rest of us, an exit as swift as strychnine in the throat of a rat."
CHAPTER 15
PLENTY COUPS, MONTANA • JUNE 6 • 1:20 P.M. MDT
After a morning of wind surfing and shell collecting, Eden Waring's doppelganger met her best friend Victor Wilding for lunch on the terrace of the Muronga Reef Club, of which he was a part owner. The stone-paved terrace was shaded by several gazebolike structures with thatched roofs. A few yards away the white sand beach sloped into the shallow lagoon, turquoise near the shore, deep blue beyond the coral reef where gulls, frigate birds, and a few boobies soared. The dpg looked around contentedly. Away from the beach she had slipped on a lime-yellow shantung lounger split up one side to the waist. Behind the terrace and the firewalkers' pit were luxury log-and-thatch bures grouped around patios and small saltwater swimming pools. Looming over the resort, an ancient eroded volcano overgrown with jungle blocked a third of the still-unclouded sky. She had been there long enough to know that by midafternoon clouds would gather, the short driving rains would come. Time then to curl up for a nap in her hammock. She wasn't quite aware of just how she passed the time each day. Swimming, sailing, tennis, snorkeling from an outrigger canoe. Sunrise, noon heat and humidity, fine sand like hot velvet to her bare feet, sweat, torrents of rain, cool baths. A wardrobe to die for, selected in the resort's boutique. Torchlit evenings, guitars, dancing, good-looking boys, all of them hitting on her. But she couldn't; she knew Victor wouldn't approve. Tropical darkness lit by distant storms, star burn and yellow moon, long waves spilling across the reefs. All of this was a satisfying blur in her mind. She couldn't have said how long she'd been there. She had an even, deep tan. Days, weeks? What did it matter?
"Having a good time?" Victor Wilding asked indulgently.
"Oh, I love it here!" She looked at him as if she were afraid the query was a prelude to bad news. "I don't have to leave yet, do I?"
"Stay as long as you like, Eden."
She smiled gratefully. "What are we having for lunch?" She looked at the laden table. Sliced pineapple, melons, small red bananas, other fruits she couldn't identify. Mahimahi filets, Thai chicken curry, and garlic prawns simmered in copper chafing dishes.
"Help yourself," Wilding invited her.
"What can I give you?" the dpg said, remembering her manners.
"I think I'll just have a little of the broiled fish, and some sweet potato too, Eden."
Her smile faded a little. She was used to having him call her by that name, but still she couldn't help feeling like an impostor. Too bad she couldn't remember her own name. Or where she had come from. She wanted Victor to like her for herself alone, not because she reminded him of someone. But the uneasiness was just something that lay under the surface of bright, enjoyable things like a school of tiny dark fish packed together but easily scattered when she waved a hand through the water.
They ate and chatted, and the dpg looked up from time to time with her happy smile as she was greeted by other friends passing their table. She had made so many friends since she'd been at the Reef Club.
"Do you have anything planned for this afternoon?" Wilding asked casually.
"Steve and Gerry. You know them; they're here on their honeymoon?"
"From Australia."
"Yes. They said something about the three of us jeeping over to Tiara Falls later. Do you think that would be okay?"
"Fine with me, Eden. I hoped we might go for a walk after lunch. There's someone I'd like for you to meet."
The Turtle Airways seaplane from Nadi was coming in to land on the calm surface of the lagoon, bringing new guests to this small island retreat on the Koro Sea, picking up those whose vacation time was over.
"Oh, is he coming in on the plane?"
Wilding shook his head. "No. He's been here on Muronga for many years. His place is down the road about half a mile."
"Sure, Victor. No problem." The dpg cut into a saucy chicken breast on her plate.
Marcus Woolwine, seated next to Victor Wilding, said, "Time out."
Wilding said, "Eden?"
She looked up, fork halfway to her mouth. She smiled tentatively. Wilding said, "Red light."
A change came over her. Nothing dramatic. Her movements slowed somewhat. She chewed the bite of chicken she had taken from her plate, still looking at Wilding, and through him with the expression in her eyes that Robert Louis Stevenson, also a sojourner in these and other Pacific isles, had described as "A fine state of haze." The dpg was not aware, nor had she ever been aware, that Marcus Woolwine was at the table with them intently monitoring what he considered to be his creation through his mirrored sunglasses.
She was, in fact, in an ordinary cafeteria setting, one of several identical, except for thematic decorations, cafeterias found throughout the Plenty Coups facility. It was no closer to the South Seas than some framed reproductions of paintings by Paul Gauguin that broke up the monotony of the surrounding concrete walls. The food she ate was real. Everything else she saw and felt relative to her environment had been provided for her by Woolwine. Yet he wasn't quite satisfied.
"Is something wrong?" Wilding asked.
"I can't be sure. I thought I detected a slight hesitancy when you address her by name, almost as if she isn't certain whom you're speaking to. Haven't you noticed it?"
"A time or two. Just now. That momentary blank look. But it's as if, you know, I'm breaking into her thoughts. Everybody's like that. And she does get those little spells of blankness even when I'm not talking to her. They're like petit mal seizures."
"Oh, yes," Woolwine said a bit huffily, "that will often happen, when we're doing a massive sensory override. It's a matter of fine-tuning the psychoactive drug protocol."
"Otherwise she seems fine to me," Wilding said in a mollifying tone. "Remarkable. But when will we know if she's retained her powers?"
"We'll know more after Phase One is completed this afternoon. But I shouldn't worry. In the meantime we might as well let the dear girl finish her lunch."
Wilding looked at Eden Waring's doppelganger again. She had swallowed the bite of chicken. The hand with the fork rested on the table beside her plate. Her lips were parted. She was rocking, from the waist up, ever so slightly, still with that look of somnolent delight in her half-closed eyes.
"Eden, green light."
With no visible indication that she had been in a state of hypnotic suspension, the dpg transferred her fork to her left hand, picked up a knife, and cut another piece of chicken. Marcus Woolwine, who still did not exist for her on her present level of consciousness, continued to watch her carefully, reaching up to slowly paw his sunlamped bald head. As if he had stored something on a back shelf of his own mind, and now was unable to locate it.
"What's his name?" the doppelganger asked Wilding.
"Excuse me?" Wilding said, his own thoughts interrupted. "Oh, you mean—his name is Robin."
The dpg flashed a smile at an imaginary someone walking past their table, waved to someone equally imaginary coming in from the nonexistent beach wearing a sarong and an orange flower in her hair.
"Any friend of yours is a friend of mine," she said.
CHAPTER 16
MADISON, WISCONSIN • JUNE 6 • 2:45 P.M. CST
Eden had been in the city for less than an hour when she realized, with feelings of intense disappointment and burgeoning panic, that they were in the wrong place.
&nbs
p; From the terrace of the top-floor suite of their hotel she had a wide view to the north and west. There was good sailing weather today, and more boats than she could count were tacking across Lake Mendota. The sun was reflected from the dome of the University of Wisconsin's observatory. The campus was huge, several square miles of it along the shore, a mix of ivied old brick and colonnaded limestone buildings and newer, steel-andglass high-rises. Awesome, compared to Cal Shasta, which had not existed thirty years ago. But Wisconsin wasn't the university she had seen during Dreamtime. The lake, largest of the two within the city limits, was the wrong size and color, blue instead of greenish brown. And it was in the wrong place, too close to the campus.
Eden rubbed her temples, closed her smarting eyes, and tried to concentrate. It wasn't the kind of headache that accompanied her periods but the kind that usually resulted from being in the hot sun too long. Yesterday and this morning it had been mild and not sunny in southern California, with low clouds most of the day. She had left California with Tom Sherard before nine A.M., in a Citation jet from Santa Barbara airport. She had dozed part of the way, dreamed of swaying gently in a hammock on the patio at home while Winky, her aging Lab, lapped at her dangling hand with his warm wet tongue. Then she had awakened to a full-blown and scary hallucination.
A man she'd never seen before was sitting opposite her in one of the deep leather swivel chairs aboard the Citation X. An old man, but fit-looking. He had a bald head tanned cinnamon-brown and he wore mirrored sunglasses, in which Eden saw her reflection clearly. His mouth moved as if he were speaking to her, but she couldn't hear a word. They were at twenty-eight thousand feet over the Midwest. Other than Tom and herself, she knew there were only two pilots and a flight attendant aboard the corporate jet. According to her reflected image, she was wearing a lei of red and white hibiscus flowers.