The Governor's Lady (25 page)

Cooper tapped on the door and eased it open. Mickey’s eyes were closed.

“Mother …”

“So?”

Cooper told her the basics—the storm, the Guard, Wheeler.

Mickey nodded. “You’ve talked to Pickett?”

“Yes, I have, and we struck a deal. Pickett really screwed up last night, and right now, his ass is in a sling. I’m going to try to get him out.”

“And what did you get?”

“He’ll stay out of my way.”

Mickey opened her eyes now. “You believe him?”

“For now, he has no choice.”

A slow smile spread across Mickey’s face. “Well, good for you. So don’t stand there scratching your ass, go to work.”

Cooper didn’t move. “Pickett said something just now. He said, ‘I told her this wouldn’t work.’ Want to tell me what he meant by that?”

Mickey made a face, stared at the ceiling, then looked back. “Go tend to business. Then we’ll talk.”

They piled into Ezra’s Humvee—Cooper, Wheeler, and Grace. They picked up Rick at his apartment.

“Here’s the deal,” she said. “Grace, you are now my executive secretary. You run the office. Mr. Tankersley is joining the presidential campaign, so Mr. Kincaid will be my chief of staff. There’s a lot I don’t know, so help me. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me what I need to know. Ezra, that includes you. We’ll mess up some, but that’s okay as long as we’re trying our best. Especially today. Right now, we’re going to the command center at Public Safety.”

“Do the folks at the command center know that?” Ezra asked.

“No,” Cooper said, “we’ll make it a surprise.”

As the Humvee crept through the capital streets, Cooper got her first look at what the snow had done. It was chillingly quiet, nothing moving, not a soul in sight. Most of the street lamps and traffic lights were dark. Abandoned vehicles clogged the streets. The metal awning of a storefront had collapsed under the weight of snow. Power lines down, broken limbs everywhere, a city trapped in crushing whiteness.

It took almost thirty minutes, easing around obstacles and taking detours, but they finally reached the Public Safety Department, a hulking five-story building, narrow, tinted windows chiseled into granite, looking warily beetle-browed across the Capitol complex. Like the
Capitol, it had an underground garage with an entrance at the rear. As the Humvee approached, Cooper was surprised to see two young officers standing guard. Bundled in camouflage parkas, cradling automatic weapons, they looked pinch-faced and thoroughly miserable.

“What’s this about?”

“Trooper cadets,” Ezra said. “Two of ’em there twenty-four hours a day.”

“Why?”

“Part of their training. After September eleventh, Homeland Security said law-enforcement facilities should tighten things up, so Colonel Doster turned the place into a fortress. Besides the two kids here on the sidewalk, there’s a couple more on the roof with a fifty-caliber machine gun and a grenade launcher. Everybody inside packs a sidearm, and there are weapon stashes throughout the building.”

Cooper turned to Wheeler. “Did you know that?”

“Not the machine gun and the grenade launcher.”

As the Humvee turned into the entryway, one of the cadets stepped in front, blocking the way, while the other approached the driver’s side.

Ezra lowered the window. “Governor Lanier,” he said.

The cadet pulled a walkie-talkie from a parka pocket.

“Put that away,” Ezra said, his voice steely. “I told you, it’s the governor. Now, step aside and maintain radio silence. That’s an order.”

The cadet backpedaled, waving to his partner to get out of the way. Ezra stomped on the gas, and the Humvee roared past into the garage.

They crowded into an elevator, Ezra punched in a code on the keypad, and they descended with a lurch.

“Down?” Cooper asked.

Ezra arched his eyebrows. “Wait ’til you see this place.”

The doors opened to a cavernous room filled with consoles and electronic gear, one wall taken by a huge, blinking map of the state. “Mission control,” Ezra said. The only thing missing was people. Troopers clustered around a television set in a far corner, a couple of military types at the big map. Otherwise, the room was empty. Intermittent crackle from radios, the insistent beeping of a telephone, the mutter of a local weathercaster from the television.

One of the troopers looked up, did a double take, and scurried toward the elevator. He wore gold leaves on his lapels and a look on his face that told Cooper she was the last person on earth he expected to see. “How the hell did you people get in here?” he blurted.

“Hey,” Ezra barked, “this is the governor, Major Kavanaugh.”

Kavanaugh looked thoroughly nonplussed. He was sallow-faced with fatigue, uniform rumpled, one hand rubbing furiously at his stubble of beard, gaze dancing from one member of the group to another. And then he spotted Wheeler. “Well, he can’t come in here. Press ain’t allowed in the command center.”

“Why not?” Cooper said.

Kavanaugh waved an arm, taking in the room and maybe, she thought, even the heavy artillery on the roof. “This is a secure area. Everybody’s gotta have clearance. No press people got clearance.”

“Lots of high-powered stuff going on here, I can see. A real hotbed of activity, Major,” Cooper shot back. “Well, Mr. Kincaid isn’t press. He works for me. So do you. All these people here work for me, and since I’m the governor, they have clearance.”

Kavanaugh backed away. “I’ll have to talk to the colonel.”

“Where is he?”

Kavanaugh pointed to a row of glass doors at one side of the room that led to what appeared to be offices and a conference room. Through one door, Cooper saw the squared-off forms of Colonel Doster and Major General Burgaw. Burgaw, at least six inches shorter than Doster,
was snarling up into the colonel’s face, just inches away. Doster was snarling back.

She started toward the doors, then spun back on Major Kavanaugh. “What are those two young people doing out there on the sidewalk in front of the garage?”

“Guard duty,” he said, drawing himself up to full height.

“In a snowstorm?”

“You never can tell when they might—”

“Terrorists?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with conviction.

“Well, they are, as of this moment, relieved of guard duty. Get ’em in here and get ’em thawed out. We need people. And the bunch on the roof, too.”

She strode quickly to one of the glass doors, snatched it open, and stepped inside. Doster stared, speechless. Burgaw sized her up, nodded. Doster’s tall form was stuffed into a freshly starched uniform with eagles on the shirt collar. Burgaw—stocky, block-shouldered, square-jawed—was in desert tan fatigues.

“Is this a shooting war?” she asked. “If it is, I’ve got the big gun.”

Burgaw straightened, halfway to attention. Doster gave a disbelieving shake of his head, as if she might be an apparition.

If Pickett and Plato are putting out the word
, she thought,
Doster hasn’t gotten it yet
.

“Is there a problem here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Burgaw said. “There sure is. The colonel is having a hard time accepting that we’re getting our butts in gear.”

“I haven’t seen anything that gives you authority,” Doster growled.

“Well, gentlemen,” she said, and handed each a copy of the authorization Grace had typed up.

Doster’s face flamed. His eyes danced across the page, then looked up at her. His mouth started to form what might have been the name
Pickett
, but he checked himself.

“Colonel Doster,” she said, “do you see whose name and signature are at the bottom of that piece of paper? Do you have any question that, as governor, I have the legal authority to mobilize the National Guard?”

“Well …”

“Hear me,” she said, biting off the words. “I do have the authority, and since you work for me, you will do what you’re supposed to do, and I will decide what that is.” Doster’s eyes went wide. “We have a mess on our hands. We don’t have time for turf battles or pissing matches. We cooperate or we fail. Anybody who can’t handle that needs to go home and build a snowman. Is that clear?” She looked from one man to the other.

“Yes, ma’am, Governor,” Burgaw said firmly.

Doster shrugged. “I reckon.”

She gave them a thin smile. “Good. General, keep doing what you’re doing. Colonel, pry your people away from that TV set out yonder, get those cadets off the sidewalk and the roof, put everybody on the phones. Call every law-enforcement agency in the state, find out as much as you can about who needs what.” She glanced at a wall clock. “In forty-five minutes, we’ll get together and see what we know.” Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her handbag. It was Carter. “Let’s get to work,” she said.

They left, and she let the phone ring while she slumped into a chair, took a deep breath, tried to still her trembling hands.

“Hi, honey.”

Carter’s voice was high, strained. “Mom, what the heck’s going on?”

“We have some snow, son.”

“No, I mean with Dad.”

“What about Dad?”

“He’s throwing things. He’s in this little office, him and Plato, and there’s stuff flying around. A telephone, things off his desk. I stuck my head in and asked him what was wrong, and he yelled, ‘Ask your mother!’ ”

A moment while her mind raced.

“Well?” he insisted.

“Honey, it’s nothing you need to—”

“Dammit, Mom!”

“We’re working out lines of authority.”

“What do you mean, lines of authority?”

“Carter …”

“Tell me!”

“About who’s the governor.”

After a long silence, he said, “You are.”

She felt a rush of gratitude. “Thank you.”

“Goddammit! You mean he never meant to let you—”

“But I’m going to do it anyway, and I’ve told him that. I imagine that’s why he’s throwing things.”

“I’m coming home,” he said. “I can help.”

Yes. Let him. An ally, God bless him
.

But instead, she said, “No. You are not going to be in the middle of this, and you’re not going to take sides. You signed on with Dad. You’ve got a job to do, and you’re going to stick with it.”

“Dad’s gone ballistic. I can’t handle that.” He sounded close to tears.

“He’ll cool off. We’ll work this out, Carter.”

After a long moment, his voice came raggedly over the connection. “Is it bad there?”

She forced a laugh, trying to break the tension. “The snow or the people?”

“Both.”

“Well, son, I just kicked some uniformed butts. The snow may take a bit more doing.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too. Don’t worry.”

“Are you kidding?”

She hung up, set the phone on the table beside her, and stared at it for a moment. It rang again. She gave a groan and picked it up.

“Cooper, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do what, Plato?”

“Change the game plan.”

“Plato,” she said, “as far as I’m concerned, there was never but one game plan, and that was for me to do the job. If you and Pickett had a different idea, that’s your problem. And right now, I don’t give a rat’s ass about your problem. I’ve got plenty of my own, and your meddling has made the situation infinitely more complicated.”

“Pickett is afraid—”

“I know, that I’ll screw it up. Maybe I will, but I’ll make it clear to everybody that it’s
my
screwup, not Pickett’s.”

“You’re firm on all this?”

“Goddamn right, Plato. Now, are you doing what Pickett and I agreed you’d do?” She looked through the glass door into the command center. General Burgaw was huddled with several of his staff people. Doster was nowhere to be seen. “Have you and Colonel Doster had an enlightening conversation?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Look,” he said. She could tell he was trying to keep his voice even and reasonable. It was one of Plato’s most effective ploys. He could eviscerate you but sound thoroughly reasonable doing it. “If you’ll just let the people there—”

“The people here are a big part of the problem. Doster and his folks have been sitting around all night. General Burgaw’s hands have been tied because nobody would give him the green light to get the Guard moving. And the two of them are in a pitched battle over who’s in charge. Truth of the matter, nobody is. They don’t even know who the governor is. I asked my husband an hour ago to make that clear to
the people down here, but it appears he’s been too busy throwing telephones to talk on one.”