The Requiem Collection: The Book of Jubilees, More Anger than Sorrow & Calling Babel: Novel Set

by Eric Black

  The night after the vote was the first of many sleepless nights for President Williams.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ypres, Belgium – Present Day

  President Libby Williams woke up from a peaceful sleep. Light filled the room and at first she thought she must have fallen asleep on the couch in the Oval Office. She opened her eyes expecting the familiar sight of her desk. Instead, she saw the masked faces of doctors around her.

  She was confused. She wasn’t sure why there were doctors hovering above her inside of the Oval Office. Perhaps because of the level of exhaustion from the past several days, she had fallen into a deep sleep and an aide, noticing that she was slow to rouse concernedly called the White House physician and his team to check on her.

  The confusion lasted only a moment longer; then the memory of what happened six hours prior flooded her. She tried to sit up but the doctors pushed against her gently but firmly, not allowing her to rise.

  “Madam President, can you understand my words?” the masked doctor closest to her asked.

  Libby nodded.

  “You’ve been shot,” the doctor continued. “You’re in the recovery room post-op and need to lie back and rest. Your wound is fresh. It is sutured but unnecessary movement could jar the wound and cause you to bleed out internally. Do you understand?”

  Again, Libby nodded. She laid her head back on the pillow and watched as one of the nurses added something to her IV drip. Libby wasn’t sure what it was but it relaxed her almost immediately.

  She closed her eyes. She had been through quite an ordeal and it was all still fuzzy to her. As she rested, she tried to recall all of the details that led to the hospital bed.

  She had traveled to Belgium to attend the commemoration of the anniversary of the Allies victory in World War I. She had just walked onto the stage towards the podium when gunfire went off.

  Her attention was immediately drawn to a man standing to her left, near the monument. She could see the metal plating of the gun glinting in the early morning sunlight. The man held the gun above his head as he was swarmed by Secret Service. Within seconds, he was relieved of the gun and taken to the ground (with a few kicks and punches thrown in for good measure). Before the crowd could react, the gunman was pulled from the congregation and shoved in a vehicle that sped off.

  It all happened so fast she didn’t have time to really take in what was occurring. She felt something brush against her face. Instinctively, she touched her face and then held her fingers out in front of her. She was shocked to see blood.

  For a moment, everything was quiet and it seemed as if she was the only person in an infinite open area. It was in that stillness that she felt the burning in her shoulder. She touched the area and her hand pulled away the color crimson.

  She was losing too much blood to be taken to Air Force One – she needed urgent medical attention. She was loaded quickly into the pre-placed ambulance and her caravan sped off on the pre-planned route. She arrived at the local medical facility two minutes later. The facility was already cleared and she was admitted directly to surgery.

  Six hours later she awoke in the Belgium hospital with strange faces leering over her.

  “You are in the Ypres,” the hospital administrator said to her the next morning. Somewhere in her memory, she recalled a college professor saying that the city of Ypres was nicknamed Wipers by the British during World War I because the name of the town was difficult to pronounce.

  She was still weak but felt better than she had since exiting surgery. “Do you visit all of your patients personally?” she joked with the administrator.

  The administrator smiled. “Only those whose care has international repercussions. Our surgeons have successfully removed the bullet and repaired the damaged artery in your shoulder. You lost quite a bit of blood but are now stable. After a few more days of rest you should be able to move around.

  “You’ll need to be careful as any unnecessary jarring could loosen the sutures and you could bleed out again. In a few days, your wounds will have healed well enough for you to be transferred back to America.”

  The Secret Service agents were nervous. It was obvious to the entire world where the President of the United States was being treated. The United States had just entered the war that was engulfing the world and now its President was in a country just on the northern tip of the violence, unable to relocate. American enemies to the south and west of Belgium were in prime position to weaken the United States through an attack on the nation’s leader.

  American troops were brought in from Germany for additional protection and the airspace over the medical facility was secured by the American military.

  By the third day, Libby was stable and awake most of the day. Secretly, the Vice President had been running the country the last three days while President Williams recovered. That would continue until she reached home and could be evaluated further.

  She was briefed constantly over the next few days on the business of the United States; and she was filled in on the past seventy two hours which had seen her in-and-out of medicinally-induced states of mind.

  It was during lunch on the fifth day that she overheard the doctors talk of another American who was there, who had collapsed just before her speech began and was now in a coma. The doctors were not entirely sure yet why the coma had occurred.

  Libby told the Secret Service that she would like to see the man. The Secret Service had begun preparations to move her from the hospital to Air Force One and did not like that their schedule would be disrupted. Libby didn’t need to insist. She was going to visit the man; it was their job to make sure the hospital was secure for her to visit another area of the facility.

  She made her way to the part of the hospital where the man was kept. The patients in the facility had been transferred to other hospitals in the area but the coma patients stayed put.

  Her shoulder ached as she walked. Her scapula had not been shattered, fortunately, but it had been fractured by the bullet and she was told it would take some time for her shoulder to completely heal.

  She stood above the only other American citizen in the building not with the Presidential party. She asked the doctor his name and the doctor replied that the man’s name was Vincent Shakespeare.

  After sitting next to him for a few minutes, she returned to her room where she would wait until she was moved to Air Force One and then back to the White House. As she waited, she thought on her husband. He had arrived the night of her shooting and had stayed by her side the entire time. With news that she would be released that day, he flew back to Washington ahead of her so he could assist with preparations for her arrival. She had aides that would take care of everything but as her husband he wanted to make sure that he was facilitating her care.

  She didn’t notice at first because she was lost in her thoughts but slowly she began to realize she didn’t feel so well. She thought at first she was just tired but then the poor feeling grew deeper and she thought she might vomit.

  The tried to motion to one of the agents near her but her hand would not rise. She looked down at her side weakly and realized she could not move at all on her left side. She tried her right arm and found that she could not move that side of her body either. She tried to call out but the words did not come.

  In fear she looked around the room, not understanding what was happening. Then, her world went black.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Washington, D.C. – November 1917

  Libby opened her eyes and saw she was in the Oval Office. She sighed. It was just a dream.

  The room was dark but she noticed right off that the room smelled strange. She was lying down on the couch in her office and stretched out her legs; the couch was shorter than it should have been. Plus, she realized the couch was leather while her couch had a cotton covering. Her first thought was that one of her staff members was playing some sort of joke. We’ll see how funny it is when I find out who it is.

  She sat
up and looked around the room, which was very dark, darker than it should have been with the glow of Washington, D.C. shining in from the exposed window. She glanced over at the window behind her desk and saw only darkness. Is the power out?

  She walked to the doorway and flipped the light switch. When the dim lights did come on, they illuminated the deep green walls of the room. The walls should have been cream.

  She turned towards the Resolute Desk. But instead of her desk, another desk sat in its place and she recognized the desk immediately as the Theodore Roosevelt Desk.

  Confused and angry that the joke had moved to a new level, she exited her office. She should have come out at the end of the hallway facing the Roosevelt Room. Instead, she faced the offices down the hallway from the Oval Office.

  Outside of the room, a Secret Service agent noticed her. “Sir, are you okay?”

  “Sir?” she questioned. She turned and faced the agent squarely. She did not recognize him. “Where is Clark?” she asked, referring to the head of her security detail.

  She paused for a moment after she spoke. She had a deep voice for a woman but her voice sounded deeper than usual. She cleared her throat hoping it would help and turned her attention back to the agent.

  The agent looked at her strangely. “I’m not sure who you’re talking about, sir.”

  Libby was angry. “Enough with the sir. I want to know who you are and I want to know where Clark is.”

  “Mr. President, are you sure you’re alright? You seem…”

  “Agent, I am certainly no Mr. Now if you want to keep this position, you’ll tell me where the head of my detail is.”

  “President Wilson, I don’t understand. I head your detail and have done so for years. I…”

  “Wait,” Libby interrupted, “what did you just call me?”

  “President Wilson, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

  Libby turned and walked back into the Oval Office, shutting the door on the alarmed agent. She walked over to the desk and saw a small mirror. It seemed strange to her that a mirror would be on the desk but she ignored that and picked it up. Looking in, she was taken aback to see the face of Woodrow Wilson looking back at her.

  She dropped the mirror and it bounced off the desk and rolled to the floor but the dark green carpet kept the mirror from breaking. What’s going on? she screamed inside her head.

  She looked down at the desk and saw a calendar. It was November 1, 1917.

  Not knowing what to do, she leaned down and picked up the displaced mirror from the floor. The simple act delayed the response she knew she would have to deliver. She couldn’t see how what she was experiencing was real but the feeling inside of her wouldn’t fully allow her to think she was dreaming either.

  Daily she was forced to make tough decisions that would affect hundreds of millions of people. She was used to knowing exactly what to do as the moments came. But now, she was entirely unsure of her next move. She had no direction.

  Instead, she looked in the mirror and smiled. Smiling back at her was Woodrow Wilson. She showed her teeth and the reflection showed those teeth back. She couldn’t explain it – somehow she was still herself but seen by others (including herself) as the twenty-eighth President of the United States.

  A knock on the door distracted her from her thoughts. She walked to and opened the door and there stood Edith Wilson, the First Lady. First Lady Wilson was someone whom Libby had always respected. In 1919, after her husband’s stroke, she opposed Vice-President Marshall’s assuming of Presidential power and took on many of the Presidential responsibilities herself. As a result, she was nicknamed the Secret President and even the first female President of the United States by others in the cabinet.

  In 1916, she took over her husband’s scheduling, something that had always been taken care of by the Chief of Staff (called Secretary in those days). She was a strong woman, similar to Libby and Libby could relate to some of her struggles in politics.

  Libby was a little taken aback by seeing Edith out of awe and surprise. Not that she should have been surprised that President Wilson’s wife would be around but she was still grappling with the fact that she had somehow become Woodrow Wilson.

  “Woodrow, are you okay?” The concern in her voice was evident. The fact that she didn’t call him Woody or Tommy as she sometimes did was enough to show that she was worried.

  “Why do you ask?” Libby answered, realizing once again that she spoke in a deeper voice, which now seemed explained.

  “Don’t try to fool me Woodrow Wilson, you know exactly what I mean. Joe said you were acting strange. He said you asked him some unusual questions and then ran back into your office.”

  The stress and the unusualness of the situation almost made Libby laugh. She stopped herself but she couldn’t suppress a smile. She knew right away she had made a mistake.

  “Do you think this is funny?” Edith almost shouted. “Here I am worried to death about you as it is, about you cracking up during a war. And you show the agents that might be true, yet you think that is funny.”

  Libby had to put her head down to keep from laughing out loud. Edith took that as a sign that her husband was worn physically and stressed out. Libby waited for the reaction that didn’t come and when it didn’t she looked up at Edith. She could see that Edith’s expression had softened.

  “I’m sorry to worry you, dear,” Libby repeated the line her husband had said to her many times. It felt strange. At the same time, however, she felt equally excited and guilty. She was playing the role of Woodrow Wilson, a very successful President. Now that she had come to a very small level of understanding about her situation, she was beginning to embrace it.

  At the same time, she also felt guilt as she knew that Edith Wilson was living out her life unsuspecting there was anything unusual about her husband. Edith was living through a stressful period of her life yet Libby was enjoying the moment.

  Edith looked at her husband with soft eyes. “Look, I know it hasn’t been easy. This is the largest war our country has been engaged in since our own Civil War. But you know that I’m here for you. We’re in this together. If you can’t talk to me, I can’t help you.”

  Libby let Edith embrace her and hoped that the embrace would not be accompanied by a kiss. She was not sure how she would handle that. When they parted, Edith looked seriously at her husband. “Now get yourself together. You have a cabinet meeting in an hour.”

  Libby started to ask her why she would have a cabinet meeting in the middle of the night but as she was about to reply, she looked out of the window behind the desk and saw that the horizon has begun to turn pink in anticipation of the rising sun.

  “I’ll be ready,” she promised the First Lady.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Passchendaele, Belgium – November 1917

  Vincent woke up on the killing field. At first, he was not aware of where he was; all he saw was mud.

  His first thought was that he had been knocked down by the mob. His last memory was of seeing the President of the United States shot. The gunfire rang out but the sound came after the shirt of President Williams exploded in red.

  That was when the pain came to him. The vision of President Williams covered in blood dissolved into a dull grey. A throb in his temple became his world before that world turned black; and then there was nothing.

  The sound of gunfire brought him back. The first thought that came to him was that the President had been shot again. Then, the smell came. His nose was filled with the stench that only death can bring – spilled blood and that which escapes a gutted corpse. The smell brought him to full awareness.

  He turned his head and saw the dead all around him. It seemed the assassination of the President had turned into a full scale assault and everyone in the audience was now lifeless.

  A large explosion filled the air and he swore it was cannon fire. The surprising sound almost caused him to instinctively sit up but a deeper sense of survival forced him to s
tay where he was. All around him he could hear men screaming – some in fear, some in rage, most in pain. These screams were accompanied by the boots of men driving through mud, gunfire and something hitting the earth. He had never actually heard that sound in person but had seen plenty of war movies. There was no mistake – he had just heard a mortar explode.

  He exhaled and his breath turned to vapor. As he gained a sense of himself he realized he was cold and wet. He turned his eyes to the sky and could see the rain falling.

  He tried to turn over onto his side but found that he was impaled in deep mud that impeded his movement. It was like being stuck to a piece of fly paper. Instead, he settled with turning his head to discover he was lying face-to-face with a man – a boy really – who couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The young man’s stomach had been ripped to shreds by gunfire and his burnt intestines lay on the ground in front of him. The dead man’s hands lay frozen on his abdomen: his last act in life was to try to push his organs back inside of him.

  Vincent could feel the vomit burning the back of his throat. He fought it off for as long as he could. He was able to turn away from the dead body but at the moment he faced the other direction, he retched until his stomach hurt.

  When he finally stopped, he opened his tear-blurry eyes and expected that it had been only a dream. But his opened eyes showed him that he was still in same place, in the same position. The mud was just as thick as it had been before. The sounds around him, if anything, seemed more intense. The rain above him was illuminated by the constant exchange of propelled explosives.

  Vincent looked around and fully took in his surroundings. He was still not sure where he was or how he came to be there. Only moments before, he had been standing in front of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium.

  His great-grandfather had been among the unknown buried after the Battle of Passchendaele, whom the memorial honored. He was not one hundred percent sure that his great-grandfather had died there but was at least ninety five percent sure. He had spent years doing the research and all of it led to his great-grandfather having fought in the Second Battle of Passchendaele with the British 5th Army. All of the unclassified field reports indicated that his great-grandfather was among those killed in action during the sixteen day battle, although a body was never officially recovered.