The Last President

by John Barnes

  He accepted it. “Thanks for delivering this.”

  “Heather and James wouldn’t like it, so don’t mention it to them.”

  “Heather and James are safe back in Pueblo. Or as safe as anyone can be, considering things like poor old Arnie Yang and Allie Sok Banh both were attacked by Daybreak right there in the city. And they don’t like anything they don’t control, because they are intelligence staff, and intelligence staff has been like that since some guy in Sumer was trying to stamp out unauthorized cuneiform.” Phat opened the letter, and read. “She wrote this—”

  “Just this morning, she wanted me to apologize for the last couple pages being so shaky, she literally wrote them on the fly—I should know, I was flying us.”

  He read, folded the letter, nodded. “What do you think of her? Your completely indiscreet unpolished opinion, I mean.”

  “You’re the second RRC person to ask in the last couple of days. She’s young, or she was, but she’s getting older fast. Funny to say that about someone who’s only a year younger than I am, but you know, back before, people had some choices about how mature to be, and now we don’t, and she’s at least willing to be more mature than she was a while ago. She’s much brighter than her public image would make you think. She’s had a lot of godawful shocks and she seems to be willing to learn from them.

  “I think after her involvement in Cameron Nguyen-Peters’s murder, we all thought of her as Barbie Macbeth with a side order of Too Much Jesus, and maybe that’s what she started out as, but she learned from what happened. Or maybe she picked up some more rational ideas from her psycho husband. But however she did it, she’s not putting so much priority on pleasing her idiot religious maniac father, or climbing the Temper power ladder, or collecting cheers from the crowd. I don’t know what’s really important to her, now, and maybe she doesn’t either, but she’s gotten over a lot of her dumber and more destructive ideas.”

  “That’s my impression too.” Phat seemed to be replaying something mentally, nodding as he did. “Chris Manckiewicz says he’s impressed with her, but you know, Chris really does think all the time about how he is writing ‘the first draft of history’ and he thinks we’re all going to be giants and legends in the next generation, so he’s kind of, um—”

  “Easily led into hero-worship,” Bambi finished. “And a little in love with nearly all his subjects, and it’s probably pretty easy for a straight male to be a little in love with this one. I know. Well, the next generation really does need heroes, and Jenny isn’t any worse basis for a hero than any of the rest of us.”

  Phat nodded, having decided, and smoothed out the letter so Bambi could see it too. “I wanted to hear your opinion before I told you why. She’s offering to slam the door shut behind Lord Robert and his horde; she can send a good-sized force north that would make it impossible for them to retreat if we beat them here. And a big smashing victory would probably cement me for the presidential election.”

  “What’s she want in exchange?”

  “Me to be her bad guy. In 2034, which is when my second term would be ending, she’ll be old enough to run for president. By that time she needs the First National Church broken, or at least squashed back into being the very eccentric Post Raptural Church that seemed like a joke when it started, so she won’t have it running a candidate on her right. And she can’t be seen to be the one who suppressed it. It’s actually not a bad deal; I’ll have to tackle the Church early on, anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt to have their main defender quietly cooperating with me.” He tapped the letter in his hand. “If I’m going to be President of the Restored Republic, I will have to deal with worse than a realistic politician that killed an old friend of mine, won’t I? And it’s impossible to know what the specifics of the deal will involve, so we’d basically have to trust each other to keep our word.”

  Bambi nodded. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Well, I’ll say to you what I’d say to her if she asked me. Better to make a deal with a reasonable devil while you can, than with a crazy devil when you have to. But worst of all is to let yourself forget, even for one second, that it’s a devil. Everybody’s accepting a lot. Someday someone will find something they can’t accept, and then we’re all screwed.”

  FOURTEEN:

  THE MAKING OF A DUCHESS

  THE NEXT DAY. ATHENS, TNG DISTRICT. 7:20 AM EASTERN TIME. SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2026.

  “We bow our heads around here, when we talk to God,” an old man in a ministerial robe said to Jenny.

  She ignored him, keeping her head upright and her eyes open. Her father was down front, repeating, “We just want to begin with a little prayer here to kind of unify things, so if you’d all bow your heads . . .”

  “Bow your head for God,” the old man said again.

  Jenny turned to him. “God is not asking me to, you are. And because people like you presume to speak for God, I don’t feel safe closing my eyes and looking down, because I can’t trust you. I will talk to God my way; you can do what you like.”

  She must have spoken louder than she intended, because she saw her father look up at her, see who was standing next to her, and give a tiny but stern shake of his head. The old minister moved sideways as if he had received an electric shock, and walked down the aisle to join the extremist caucus that sat just right of the aisle. Reverend Whilmire’s lip twitched slightly, as if the incident had amused him, but all he said was, “Let us pray.”

  It was a rambling, complicated prayer that verged on being a full-fledged lesson, with many citations in the form of “As you clearly told us in the verse of your word found in the book of . . .” Jenny smiled to herself. Most of the time when she was growing up, her father had complained about that format for prayers, “as if God hadn’t read the Bible very well and needed footnotes, or like he was the Holy Tax Auditor and you were trying to argue the rules with him.” Apparently Reverend Whilmire had come to the realization that whatever God might like, his followers wanted this.

  When the prayer wound down through the last complex footnote and faded out in a burst of HOLYS, ETERNALS, DIVINES, and THEE-THOU-THY-THINES, the Reverend Whilmire announced, “I would now like to present my own daughter, Jenny Whilmire Grayson, who has recently returned from the expedition into the Lost Quarter, for her full report on the tragic situation there.”

  Jenny walked down the aisle wondering how many of those billowing black robes concealed pistols. Probably they wouldn’t do anything that overt. At least not right in front of Daddy. Probably.

  She couldn’t help noting, when she glanced toward the too-small population of uniforms on the other side of the room, that their holsters were empty. Funny nobody ever mentioned such a useful rule in political science class: in a revolutionary situation, the side of the legislature that has to check weapons at the door is losing.

  This was only supposed to be a report and a discussion, but she wasn’t sure how soon that might change. She had heard distant shooting on her way here. It seemed as if in every block, some building had a cross, a fish, a star-stripe pattern, or “1789!” painted on its burned and blackened walls. Jardin had told her, unofficially, that there were anywhere from five to ten politics-connected deaths in Athens per day. A few officers had declined to be part of the Army delegation on the Board because they were afraid of being helplessly disarmed and surrounded by so many National Church people.

  She did her best to tell the story absolutely straight, not minimizing the disaster, but also pointing out that the advantages were still mostly with the United States. “In short, there is little hope of destroying tribal power in the Lost Quarter, particularly the Castle Earthstone version, at least not for a year or two, unless they very badly overextend or make other big mistakes, and so far Lord Robert has not been making many mistakes. There is a fairly high chance of another defeat at Pale Bluff, and both s
ymbolically and logistically, that’s much worse. The land routes west are looted and burned out, and the tribes depend on looting to survive, so they’ll almost certainly go down the Wabash and the Ohio for a drive into the middle of the country, probably a mass raid of opportunity, and because Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas are lined up with the Temporary National Government, that will hit our particular government and people very hard. They can hurt us, very badly, and we need to fight them wherever we can, but they still take many more deaths than we do in every encounter, and in the long run they don’t do anything to rebuild their strength.”

  “Till now.”

  “Yes, Colonel Streen, you’re right. Till now. Lord Robert’s heresy is in some ways more threatening, because he’s not trying to exterminate the human race, so he takes some care of his forces. But in other ways, honestly, he’s a plain old conquering tyrant, and he’s not very well armed, as long as no one supplies him, and there’s nobody behind him—he doesn’t have an assistant or a lieutenant worth talking about. When he does make a mistake he won’t have much to recover with; he has an army and a territory that he has to keep together, so there’s something for our armed forces to fight; and anyway, he might be killed in battle or the RRC might arrange something, and that will be the end of that menace. So for the moment Lord Robert’s True Daybreak might get farther and win more battles than, what would you call it? Daybreak 1.0? but you have to keep in mind he’s much more vulnerable too. His castle can be taken and torn down, his army can be defeated and broken instead of just scattering into the woods to fight again, they have crops we can burn and kids they’ll cut a deal to save.”

  One of the reverends growled, “No deals with the Antichrist.”

  “I think it would be better to just knock him flat if we can, rather than cut a deal with him—but I don’t think he’s the Antichrist, either. And if we can’t beat him right this minute, better to get a deal and then thrash him later. That’s what I think.” She looked around the room and saw some heads nodding, some arms folded, on both sides of the political divide.

  “I’m going to take a moment to mention I’m proud of my daughter,” Reverend Whilmire said. Thanks, Daddy, that felt like a pat on the head. “I suggest we take a few minutes’ break to caucus and consider our options.”

  In a large, comfortable room that had probably once been some athletic official’s office, he said, “I am proud of you, you know, and I do admire you. Your role is unBiblical but you are playing it so well.”

  “My role is what it needs to be,” she said, “and I believe I already made it clear that I’m no longer giving you a vote about it.”

  “You did. Since you won’t take my advice, though, I thought you might be willing to take my offer. The First National Church has adherents in places other than the Christian States of America, and we must never forget that the eventual goal is to have all the old states rejoin under a fully Christianized Constitution. We needed the first President under the Restored Republic to be someone who would work toward that goal, and we still do. And if the arrangements are coming unraveled, then we need the right first president for the CSA even more urgently. And so, even though you and I have some very deep disagreements theologically, it seems to me that with what you have shown you can do—”

  “Daddy, are you suggesting you want to run me for president? Has it occurred to you that it’s eight years till I’m eligible under the Constitution?”

  “The Constitution was made to serve America, not vice versa. The country needs a popular, effective Christian president—”

  “And a woman president? Wouldn’t that be an unBiblical role?”

  “It would. But these things can be changed over time—”

  “Not if we’re in Tribulation, Daddy. Less than six years left to go before Jesus shuts the whole show down, if you’ve been telling people the truth.”

  Whilmire gaped at her; his face was slack, but blood was rushing into it. “You are mocking me!”

  “You don’t believe it yourself, do you? You know in your heart that you are going to have to come up with some reason, when it gets to be seven years from Daybreak day, why that wasn’t the Rapture, and it didn’t start the Tribulation.”

  “My faith in the Bible is deep, complete, and not the issue here. You will not speak to your father that way.”

  “Or are you just hoping it will work out? You want it to have been the Tribulation, you don’t want to be wrong, but at the same time you’re afraid you might be, even if you won’t admit it, so you keep making plans for what to do if the world doesn’t end like you expect, because—”

  He shouted; no words, just a cry as if he’d been punched in the stomach, and stormed out.

  THAT EVENING. PADUCAH, KENTUCKY. 5 PM CENTRAL TIME. SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2026.

  “But you have seen him,” General Phat said, mildly, looking up from the maps spread out on his desk. “Twice since you’ve been here, and we’ve tried to make sure that happens. You just saw him this afternoon when he came to pick up the volley guns. The blackout will last till midnight tomorrow, at longest, and then you can fly over to Pale Bluff. I’m sorry that we’ve needed you and your plane so badly, or if it’s made you feel like my chauffeur.”

  Bambi nodded at the apology. “Look, I know you’ve only asked me to fly these missions because they were absolutely necessary, and I know I saw Quattro a couple hours ago. But there’s nothing left on our slate for tomorrow morning and blackout doesn’t start till noon, and there’s more than enough daylight for me to make Pale Bluff easily if I go right now, and the plane’s fueled up and ready. And yes, I just plain want to be with my husband tonight, and I’m not technically under your command, I’m an RRC op helping you out, and for that matter, that’s my airplane.”

  Since arriving here on Friday, she had ferried General Phat to half a dozen locations where he had applied some good old-fashioned shaking and desk-pounding to get troops and materiel flowing toward Pale Bluff. She had watched him push the people of Green Bay, New State of Superior, to load a whole supply and troop train and get it rolling in less than a day, persuade a militia regiment from Kentucky into moving a week early, and bring together another locomotive and string of boxcars in the ruins of St. Louis.

  If Lord Robert’s horde didn’t hit till Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, as expected, the reinforcements and supplies would reach Pale Bluff first, and they would have a good chance to break Lord Robert’s horde before it got any farther. Till then, it was a race, and decades of leading troops had taught Phat that nothing caused motion like a demanding superior arriving in person. So they had flown, and flown, and flown again, the general scribbling fresh orders on his pad in the Stearman’s front cockpit, then jumping out the moment they were on the ground, running off to cajole or bellow, whichever seemed to work, coming back almost as soon as Bambi had the Stearman refueled and checked out for takeoff again.

  Quattro’s last couple of days had been similar. After refitting the Gooney as a gunship/bomber, he had begun flying out children and the disabled from Pale Bluff, and flying in specialty weapons and crews from wherever they could be rounded up, together with experienced officers. With some coordinating and risky overuse of radio, it had been contrived that Quattro and Bambi had been on the ground in the same place for about forty minutes yesterday and twenty minutes today, spending most of the time clinging to each other.

  “I know I’m being kind of ridiculous,” Bambi said. “And we’re not quite newlyweds, and sometimes we spend weeks apart, but . . . maybe it was just the way he reacted when he thought you were going to abandon Pale Bluff, the way he was when he decided to come out here, he just seemed like he’d made up his mind to die here—”

  “I think I can understand your feelings.” Phat rested his hands flat on his desk and said, “And if you were going to apologize for Quattro’s impulsive actions—”

  “I wasn�
��t.”

  “Well, I was about to say you shouldn’t. He made us try, and it wasn’t till we started trying that we saw it might be possible to win. We need about three days of luck, and then maybe we can pin Lord Robert’s horde between a fortified Pale Bluff and a rebuilt Army of the Wabash and send him back to hell where he belongs.”

  Bambi said, “But here’s what’s worrying me, and nobody seems to be answering me. We know that at Lafayette, Lord Robert pulled out a sizable force and let them sleep on the rafts most of the way, then had them run to the battlefield in a long burst and surprise us by getting there early. His forces started landing at St. Francisville this morning. I mean, Quattro flew over and shot up their advance guard, but he said the river was solid rafts and canoes for miles upstream. We had to call back the snag-cutting operation that was supposed to help block them because it was already too late.

  “Nobody answers me when I ask, so what’s to stop Lord Robert from just doing it again? What if an advance guard of tribals run all the way and hit Pale Bluff before we’re ready?”

  “It’s thirty-seven miles from St. Francisville, which is the nearest point.” General Phat stretched his thumb and index fingertips across the map, not quite reaching all the way between the towns. “That’s a marathon and a half, Bambi, they’re not going to run all that way and then assault the walls—”

  “All right, so they’d have to do something more complicated.” She set her thumb on St. Francisville and her index finger a comfortable distance to the west. “They could, that’s the point. Maybe one team runs halfway, carrying supplies, and sets up a camp for the main force that were quick-marching empty-handed behind them.” She closed her thumb up to her index finger. “Then the main force walks in, eats, gets a night’s sleep, eats again, and . . .” She rotated her hand and brought her thumb down easily on Pale Bluff. “Tomorrow afternoon. It would still be way before we’re ready—and in the middle of the blackout, so our planes will be on the ground and our radios turned off.