The Coming (27 page)

"We seem to have lost—"

"The vice-president," Davis cut in, "has not been sworn into office…" He paused, listening. "And cannot yet speak as president. The laws of succession are plain, and there is no need for a special election."

"Chief Justice West is hurrying to Walter Reed as we speak," Lamb said. "He was en route to New York when this disaster struck."

The bartender realized he'd been cleaning the same glass for several minutes, ever since the emergency signal came from the cube. Someone broke a rack with a loud crash.

"Hey!" He spun around. "You show some respect?"

It was Leroy, a tall white guy, dealer. "I'm payin' for this table by the hour. You show me some respect." He lined up an easy shot and hit hard with a lot of draw,
whack
-thump
,
and the cue ball glided back to its starting place. "She was the worst president we ever had. So somebody finally punched her fuckin' ticket. What took so long, is what I wonder."

"You a hard fuckin' case, Leroy. She was a nice lady."

"Nice lookin'," said a short fat man at the bar. "I wouldn't go no farther than that. People in Washington didn't think much of her."

"You think much of them?"

A woman in a sparkly silver shift, blue eyes and black skin like the bartender's, smoothed a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. "I'd like a whiskey, Miguel." She put another bill on top. "And anybody else who wants one."

"When did you start drinkin', Connie?"

"Just now. A little ice?"

Leroy came up, emptied his glass, and put it on the bar. "I'll have one for her vaporized ass."

"Somebody gonna vaporize
your
ass someday, Leroy," Connie said. "You ought to get in some other business. The people you run with."

He pointed up at the cube, which was back to Cool Moon Davis. "Not as dangerous as those guys." Miguel poured four glasses, one for himself, and slid them over. "Or the frogs, if it's them that did it."

"That would be crazy," Miguel said. "The French don't want us in the war."

"So the damn Germans."

"Doesn't have to be a foreigner," Connie said. "People in this room who'd do it if the price was right."

"Ooh-woo." Leroy sipped the neat liquor. "My ears are burning."

"It's a hell of a thing," the short man said. "No matter who gets it. It's not American."

"Is now," Connie said. She looked back at the cube as it switched back to the Walter Reed hospital room.

The cube room at the prison was crowded and silent, both rare. The warden had given permission to open the cells so that everyone could get to the news. Bobón and three other guards covered the doors, armed with tanglers, but nobody was going anywhere.

Bobón was still sorting out the murder he'd witnessed this morning. Not the first one, but Ybor was just a nice kid who hadn't hurt anyone. Why'd the warden have to drag him in there to watch? And now this damned thing.

Maybe it was all just a long nightmare. Maybe he would wake up and it would just be another morning. But he'd felt that way before, and it never worked. Just in stories.

Why did so many people feel so bad about the president? Well, she's pretty and smart and powerful, and maybe people who like one don't like the other.

At least she never could of felt anything. That boy this morning went through all kinds of hell before he died. He couldn't get it out of his head.

The inmates knew. The way they looked at him, it's like they thought he did it. Not this time. Towelheads, watch out, though.

Davis had shut up and they switched to a local reporter.

"—here at the International Plaza, we'd like to get the reaction from some of the students here, pardon me?"

The young man turned around and revealed a diamond-shaped scar on his cheek, a member of the Spoog gang. "I ain't no student fugoff," he mumbled in passing.

Great assignment. "Young man, could you give me your reaction to the tragedy in Washington?"

He was small and frail and red-eyed. "I really don't know anything. Was he crazy? He must have been crazy?"

"Some people have said he never got over his experience in the Gulf," Daniel prompted.

"I had an uncle there, and an aunt, and there's nothing wrong with them," he said, looking intently at the ground, and wandered away.

A pretty young woman approached, tailored suit, smile. "Pardon me, ma'am, could you—"

"No! Leave me alone!"
She whacked him hard on the shoulder with her heavy purse, aiming for his head.

Like a message from the gods, a little voice in his ear said, "Switching to network in five."

"Twelve pounds of C-9 is enough to demolish a good-sized house," a man in army fatigues was saying, the smoldering ruins in the background. "That was probably in case he got stopped at the door."

"Pauling might have used a little less explosive," Marya muttered
sotto voce,
"if he'd known he was going to give us Davis on a platter."

"Who's next in line if Davis dies?" Rory asked. "He looks like he'd blow over in a strong wind."

"Cabinet members, I think. It's not my beat. Maybe the president of the Senate, R. L. Osbourne. She's better than most."

As they found out in a few minutes, though, Senator Osbourne had been in the meeting room and was among the dead. So were the chief of staff, the attorney general, and the UN ambassador, as well as the administrators of Defense, Energy, the CIA, FEMA, and NASA. LaSalle liked to have all her cabinet together when she made her pronouncements, watching them for shifts of allegiance.

There would be a fundamental realignment of power in Washington, as soon as everyone came back. Marya had been right about the exodus, politicos prudently putting some distance between themselves and ground zero. Of course, the explanation was that they wanted to be with their families in this time of tragedy, and their families happened to be out of town, or at least were able to catch up with them there.

The vice-president didn't live through the hour. They watched the chief justice swear in Cool Moon Davis, inside a fast helicopter headed for Camp David. Then they saw a few minutes' coverage of the traditional riot in Washington, confined to a few blocks downtown, the looting and arson quickly discouraged by armored shock troops from the D.C. Police department and an air-mobile civil disturbance unit from the National Guard. No soldiers or police were hurt.

"I'm going to watch the rest of this at home," Rory said. "I feel like people are looking at me. You're welcome to come along."

"Thanks," Marya said. "I wouldn't mind getting away, either. Of course they'll call as soon as I get my shoes off."

They stopped by Pepe's table on their way out. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow," she said. "It'll just be chaos. I'll call if anything comes up."

"Thanks, Rory." They nodded at each other for a moment, not able to say anything, and she left with the newsie.

"Will you come stay with me tonight?" Lisa Marie said hoarsely. "I just can't…"

"Sure." He was holding her hand, and briefly clasped it with his other. "Nobody should be alone now."

"I never even liked her," she said. "Did anybody you know?" Pepe shook his head. "But this is too horrible."

"It's not like America," Pepe said. "I guess it is
now,
but it's the sort of thing that happens in little dictatorships. Despot of the month."

"I wonder whether that old man will be able to hold things together." Davis was standing in a press room now, his hand to his ear, relaying his staff's answers to questions.

"He won't have to do much. I don't suppose he's made an unassisted decision in the past decade. If we make it through the next few hours, things will get sorted out."

"You think the Islamic Jihad might…"

"If I were him, I'd be more worried about the Democrats than the Muslims. They probably have a competency challenge all worked out. If I were them, I'd wait a decent interval, and give him a chance to do some really unforgivable things. Then start the impeachment process, more in sorrow than in anger."

She tilted her head at him. "You really know a lot about American politics."

"More than I do about Cuban. I had to study it for the blue card, and got kind of fascinated." He made a mental note to watch his step, not reveal too much sophistication. Lisa Marie was no danger, but there would be a lot of press and government around soon.

"Your aliens." She pointed at the cube.

Davis peered intently. "Would you repeat the question?" A reporter asked whether he intended to follow LaSalle's aggressive strategy toward the Coming.

He looked at her with robotic blankness for a long moment, an expression that was already familiar. "I don't want to say anything specific about that. Anything at all."