By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  “Jesus,” said Dresden, half aloud. “Every Latino in the country is going to be rousted tonight.”

  The bearded man stopped speaking and stepped away. He was followed on the screen by Brokaw, who announced the network was going to replay the tape of the shooting and warned that, as it was after school hours, parents might want to keep their children away from the television set. Dresden leaped forward, slapped a cassette into his creaky old video recorder and, as President Hampton’s figure appeared on the screen, pushed down the record button.

  Now he would have his own tape, which he could examine minutely and professionally in the slowest possible motion. He would prove his point yet. He would win his bet. Dresden knew better than most what a man’s face looks like when he dies from a gunshot. He had been with his father in that Mercedes.

  The network footage ended with a shot of one of the correspondents picking himself up from the ground, his face all dirt and fear and horror. Charley hit the stop button, and then the rewind, and then play. A flickering moment later, President Hampton was visible again, but in vibrating, multiple images. Warped rainbows tracked across the screen. The damned tape recorder wasn’t working properly. He had meant to get it fixed but had put it off. He kicked the recorder hard. The screen went blank.

  4

  The foul weather delayed the vice president’s return from New York for nearly two hours.

  By the time he reached Andrews Air Force Base in the Maryland suburbs southeast of Washington, the weather had changed, not to something better, but to something strange—remnant cumulus clouds dragging in shreds and tangles across a clearing yet darkening sky, their edges glowing with the last pink tinge of sunlight. From the east, the night seemed to follow Atherton’s helicopter up the river.

  As always, the city appeared before them abruptly, a stage setting revealed as though by a suddenly drawn curtain, its entirety contained within the view from Atherton’s window—the Capitol building at the far stretch of the Mall at the right, the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial in odd juxtaposition in the foreground, the curving sweep of the Ellipse leading to the distant focal point that was the White House, President Henry Hampton’s home.

  Atherton remembered March 1981, and Vice President Bush’s tactful gesture. He would do the same. He would not come swooping down upon the South Lawn as though seizing command. He would go first to the Vice President’s House on Observatory Hill, and then arrive at the White House by car, discreetly.

  He pulled at Neil Howard’s arm and told him to pass on the instruction to the pilot.

  “Larry, we’re overdue as it is.”

  “I want to go home. We’ll get to the White House soon enough.”

  His wife, Sally, dressed as though she were still at Stanford in a beige cashmere sweater, plaid skirt, and loafers, came running out of the Victorian mansion known simply as the Vice President’s House at his approach, long dark hair flying behind her. She hugged him very tightly, trembling.

  “Larry, my God. Thank God.”

  He held her a long moment, stiffly, saying nothing. Her body was the first warm thing he had touched that day, but he still felt cold.

  “I didn’t know what to think, Larry. They wouldn’t tell me where you were. They’re saying on television it’s some kind of Latin American plot. God, what’s happening?”

  “I’m all right, baby. Everything is all right.”

  “Is the president okay? The television reports are so confusing.”

  “They say his wound isn’t very serious,” Atherton said with uncertainty. “He went to Camp David.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and started walking with her back to the house. His daughter was not in evidence. “Where’s Cindy?”

  “She went riding out in Middleburg. I think she had trouble getting back. There’ve been a lot of police going up and down Massachusetts Avenue. Did you know they sent marines here to guard the house?”

  “I saw them.”

  “They put a machine gun by the garage. They have it aimed down the driveway at the gate.”

  “Don’t be frightened. It’s there to protect us.”

  “Everything scares me. Especially when you’re gone.”

  “Have a drink with me, Sally,” the vice president said. “In the library.”

  It was his favorite room in this gloomy old house. His wife had ordered a fire to be lighted, making the room cheerier, though Atherton still felt the numbness that had struck him with the first news of the assassination attempt and the heavy civilian casualties.

  The television set was on. Walter Kreski, the Secret Service director, was standing before reporters, attempting to explain that preliminary reports indicated a possible conspiracy and that a number of suspects had been arrested. Yes, they were Hispanic. No, he had no more details to give out, except that the worst appeared to be over and that everything was under control. No, he would not discuss the shooting of bystanders at Gettysburg, except to say that it had been a terrible, terrible accident and that the agent involved had been taken into custody. When the reporter asked about the need for so much security at the White House, ninety miles from the assassination site, Kreski replied that it had been a presidential decision about which he could not comment. He excused himself and walked away, a tall man moving calmly.

  The butler brought the drinks and Atherton took his to the couch, settling back wearily. He allowed himself a large, anxious sip of the nearly straight whiskey, but it did nothing for the coldness within him.

  He would at least have Kreski to turn to. There was no one more reliable in the White House. No one more competent. No one more apolitical. No one more willing to follow instructions, discreetly. No one better placed to determine the president’s actual condition, and what was going on up at Camp David.

  His wife huddled close. Her eyes were red. Except for servants and armed men, she had been alone all afternoon. He put his arm around her once more, just as Tom Brokaw explained from the television screen that the briefing from Kreski had been taped earlier and that the Secret Service director had since left Washington for Gettysburg. Brokaw then interrupted himself to say he had just been informed that the vice-president had returned to Washington but was in an undisclosed location—possibly the Pentagon.

  “You know, when I heard the news, my first thought was, now Larry is president. I was horrified to be thinking that, but for all the wrong reasons. I suddenly realized how much I’d hate it if you were president. I hate it that you’re vice president. I wish you had never run. I wish we could go back to California.”

  He rubbed her shoulder. “It’ll all be over soon, baby. Things will get back to normal.”

  “I don’t want that either.”

  On the screen, the network was returning them to the battlefield once more, to the huge clown’s mouth exploding in Bonnie Greer’s face and the crimson plume sprouting from her blond hair. Atherton closed his eyes and leaned back his head. It would be just like 1981, the shooting and falling and screaming; like the small, awful circle in Jim Brady’s head, Bonnie Greer’s mouth turned to maw, over and over and over again, tormentingly, every time he looked at a television set.

  Atherton’s head snapped forward. It occurred to him he had not yet seen any of the footage of Hampton actually getting shot. But he was too late. Brokaw was back on the screen, with great seriousness announcing a commercial. Atherton stood up.

  “I can’t sit here like this, Sally. I have to get to the White House. I just need a couple of minutes to think. Call our Secret Service detail, will you? See if they know where Cindy is.”

  “They didn’t before. I’ll try again.” She took her drink with her, something she seldom did.

  He turned off the television set rather harshly. With his own cold glass in hand, he stepped outside onto the curving wooden porch. The night was fully upon them, but the sky still seemed odd, the wraithlike remnants of cloud now aglow with the reflected light of the city. He began to walk, a sea captain on his deck.
Reaching the side of the house facing Massachusetts Avenue, he paused to peer down through the leafless trees of the hillside at the heavy traffic. In the near lanes, moving toward the city center with surprising speed, was a large canvas-topped truck. Atherton could see the white stars on the side. U.S. Army. Would there be convoys of them next? Bushy Ambrose was a colonel.

  The truck hurried on, passing by the British Embassy and disappearing into the general blur of distant taillights. Atherton stared after it. He wasn’t aware of his wife’s presence until she touched his back.

  “You’re shaking,” she said.

  He drank from his glass, steadying himself. “I’m cold,” he said.

  “Cindy was held up at a roadblock in Virginia. The CIA blocked off Georgetown Pike, Chain Bridge Road, and the Parkway. She had to make a detour down Highway 7 and got caught in the traffic at Tyson’s Corner. She’ll be home soon, though. Agent Leonardi said they were crossing Key Bridge.”

  He didn’t speak until they were once again in the library. His impulse—no, his longing—was to return to the couch and the fire and hear nothing more about this day until he could at last sleep. But they would come for him. He could already hear telephones ringing elsewhere in the house.

  Atherton held his wife’s hand. “You stay here with Cindy when she gets back. Have something to eat. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but it will be late. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone on the phone unless you’re sure it’s me, Shawcross, or Neil Howard.”

  “I thought you said everything was going to return to normal.”

  “Soon enough, baby. But not tonight.”

  Atherton’s small motorcade entered the White House grounds via West Executive Drive and pulled to a stop opposite a side entrance to the West Wing. He hesitated, rubbing his cheek distractedly as a marine guard yanked open the door. He had been dreading this moment since he had first received the news of the attempted assassination in New York. He feared to enter this place. He was trembling again.

  He stepped out of the car, jamming his hands into his coat pockets and nodding to the guard’s brisk “Good evening, Mr. Vice President.” Moving quickly with his small entourage along the crowded, thickly carpeted corridor, he reached his office and shut the door behind him. He had sent Neil Howard to the White House ahead of him. Howard was standing by the fireplace with Shawcross. They had pulled loose their ties, but, contrary to habit, kept their suit coats on. Assassination attempts were formal occasions.

  “First things first,” said Atherton, taking off his own coat and dropping it over a chair as he crossed to his desk. “What is the president’s condition?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “It’s the most important question being asked in the entire world at this moment and the White House can’t answer it?”

  “Not this White House,” said Shawcross.

  “In the United States of America that question has to be answered. At all times,” Atherton said.

  “They put out a two-line statement from Camp David,” said Howard. “The president has been wounded but is well. He is receiving medical treatment.’ It covers everything but is perfectly meaningless.”

  “Sounds like Jerry Greene,” Shawcross said. “Vintage Greene. The president’s communications director is a regular Dr. Goebbels.”

  Someone had lighted the fire. Atherton went to it, standing for a moment, then dropping into an adjacent chair. The numbing coldness had been replaced by fatigue.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s next?”

  “That’s up to you,” Shawcross said. He looked as nonchalant as always. Only his profuse sweating betrayed his anxiety. “In the EOB auditorium you have several hundred members of the press who think there’s been a coup. In the White House situation room you have five members of the cabinet doing their best to give the impression that no one’s in control, here in the White House.”

  “Who?”

  “Our guys. I think their guys are probably on their way to Camp David. The secretary of defense has come and gone.”

  “There are none of Hampton’s people in the White House?” Atherton said.

  “The budget director is believed to be holed up in a back booth at Mel Krupin’s. Except for Weigle, and more about him later, the Hampton contingent here is fairly low echelon.”

  Weigle was Hampton’s press secretary. It was typical of his relationship with the president that he had been left behind at the White House while Hampton had gone to Gettysburg to make a speech.

  “Let’s have more about Weigle now,” said Atherton.

  “Walt Kreski tried to go over to the EOB to calm down the press corps. It was the consensus in the situation room that he should. Weigle tried to stop him. He said only he was authorized to make statements. But the esteemed secretary of state overruled him.”

  “Has Weigle gotten through to Camp David?”

  Howard shrugged. “He hasn’t made any statements.”

  “Here in the federal city,” Shawcross continued, “we have a number of military units milling about, all apparently under the radio-telephone command of Colonel Irving Ambrose. And, at the Pentagon and wherever our servicemen and -women so proudly serve, there is a condition of alert known as Def Con Three. For a while they had it up to Def Con Two. I don’t know if they’re genuinely paranoid or what, but they’re playing this terrorist conspiracy thing for all it’s worth.”

  “They have every right to be paranoid. Did Ambrose order the alert?”

  “No, the esteemed national security adviser, from his home, with the subsequent approval of the esteemed secretary of defense. It’s the first thing he did when he heard the news. He told the JCS he thought it wise.”

  “It is unwise. The SAC missile people’ll have all their console keys out, waiting for the phone to ring. Get to the JCS and see if they can’t step down to Def Con Four. I’m still the crisis manager here. What else?”

  “Every member of Congress and half the uncrowned heads of Europe have called asking for a fill, and the hotline teletype with our Russian brothers has been humming rather briskly. Eighth Army command in Seoul reports some sporadic firing up on the DMZ.”

  “And Honduras?”

  “All quiet.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What else?”

  “Aside from the stock market digging itself a new cellar and some rioting here and there, we have the matter of Daisy Hampton. She’s still in the East Wing, in the family quarters.”

  “Has she talked to the president?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  “Has anyone? Is there anyone in the White House who has talked to the president of the United States?”

  “The secretary of state got through to Peter Schlessler up at Camp David. He said the national security adviser would get back to him directly. He said the president’s personal physician had arrived and was administering emergency treatment to the patient. Some military medical staff from Fort Bragg are en route. A big team.”

  “We’ve made contact with the president’s chauffeur,” Atherton said. “How marvelous.”

  His nerve was coming back. Perhaps it was because he at last had something to do, that he could take action, affect matters.

  “All right,” he said. “Disperse the group in the situation room. Tell the esteemed secretary of state to get back to his office and to summon the Soviet ambassador there at once. Inform everyone there will be a cabinet meeting at eight A.M. tomorrow and a meeting of the National Security Council, such as we can find of it, along with my staff, at nine P.M. tonight.”

  “Can you do that, Larry? What about the president?”

  “An excellent question, isn’t it? If they want to countermand me, fine. Keep Camp David informed of everything. In the meantime, I’m going to do the best I can to restore a little order to this situation.”

  He was completely in control of himself now, in command.

  “What ar
e you going to do now?” Howard said. “Go over to the EOB? Want me to work up a little statement?”

  “No. First things first. I’m going to see Mrs. Hampton.”

  “You’d better bring some bourbon. She’s probably out by now.”

  The First Lady was alone in her private sitting room. She sat in the dark by the odd half circle window, the light from the streetlamps illuminating her face. The view was of the Treasury building, one of the bleaker prospects from the mansion. Her face was bleak as well. She had been one of the great beauties of Virginia when Hampton had carried her off to Colorado. As with many Virginia women, she had not survived transplantation well.

  “Daisy?” He closed the door quietly behind him, shutting out, among others, the First Lady’s press secretary and her chief of staff, a pudgy young man with fluttery hands.

  She said nothing. He approached and touched her shoulder, leaning over to look into her face.

  “Daisy?”

  She looked away, to the table beside her, picking up a glass unsteadily. She sipped from it twice, then turned her sodden eyes to him.

  “Have you come to take me up there, Larry? I don’t want to go up there.”

  “Daisy, I’m just here to see you.” He gently squeezed her shoulder. She seemed so frail.

  “Sit down, Larry.”

  He did so obediently, taking a chair opposite. There were sirens in some distant street.

  “I knew this would happen,” she said finally. Her speech was slurred, and he had to listen with care. “I told him this would happen. Told him. When he stirred up that damned war, I told him.”

  “Daisy …”

  “It’s finally happened, Larry, and you know what? I’m almost glad. Mr. Vice President Laurence Atherton, sir, the First Lady is almost relieved that her husband’s finally been shot. Not dead. I don’t want Henry dead, Larry. I love him, Larry. I still do love him. But since he’s going to live, I’m glad they shot him. Maybe now he’ll change. Maybe he’ll give it a rest now.”