Empire (36 page)

LaMonte went on about Porter's years of service, but Cecily knew positive spin when she heard it. It was clear that the impasse with Congress over Porter's confirmation had become a serious barrier to getting anything done, not to mention a hazard to the country, since the United States was currently without either a Vice President
or
a Speaker of the House, making the eighty-four-year old Senator Stevens the next in line. Nobody liked that situation, least of all Stevens himself, who had even less interest in acquiring the presidency than LaMonte Nielson had had.

So there had been a compromise, and it involved Porter walking away. From everything—since his successor at State, Sarkissian, had already been confirmed, and no SecDef nominee could get past Congress, there was no government job open to Porter at the moment, and little likelihood that he would be confirmed even if there were. So he had suddenly acquired a strong wish to retire from public life, possibly to write and teach.

The real question, though, was whom President Nielson would tap as his new Vice Presidential nominee. He must have discussed it with the leaders of both parties, and they must have agreed, or they would not be sharing the podium right now. Was it somebody on stage, or someone waiting in the wings? It was hard to imagine any of the cabinet officers being acceptable. Was it one of the majority leaders?

“As you know, this office was thrust upon me by the Constitution and the action of enemies of this country. I did not seek it. I had spent my public career as a strong partisan, willing to compromise with members of the opposition party, but always aware of which side I was on.

“What America needs right now is not to take sides. Not a Republican or a Democrat, but a Vice President who can symbolize and represent national unity—America at its best, without division, without rancor, and with the full support of both parties in Congress.

“That naturally means reaching outside the two-party system, outside of the ranks of those who have sought public office. Over
the past three years, starting as a frequent consultant to the National Security Adviser, then a full-time aide, and finally for the past month as the National Security Adviser, Averell Torrent has established a brilliant record of public service in a time of national crisis.

“I have never asked him if he was a Republican or a Democrat. I have never needed to. He is a loyal servant of the Constitution and of all the people of this country. I have come to rely on his wise counsel. It is no disrespect to the others who have held the office of the Vice President of the United States to say that it is my firm belief that it has never been held by a person of such wisdom, such intellect, and such a vast breadth and depth of knowledge.

“In some ways, the vice-presidency is a thankless office. But under recent Presidents, the Vice President has been relied on more and more to oversee ever-more-important aspects of government. It is with the full and, dare I say, enthusiastic approval of the leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress that I assure you that I will continue that practice and expand upon it. When he is confirmed, Averell Torrent will be a part of every decision I make as President in fact, he already is—and he will have far-reaching authority of his own, under my direction of course—in fact, he already does.”

With that, President Nielson beckoned Torrent up to the lectern to make a short statement of acceptance—he said almost nothing, keeping his demeanor grave and managing to wear an expression of benign puzzlement, rather like someone who has been given a very lavish gift but didn't really need it and has no idea where to put it.

Then the party leaders in Congress came forward and they started taking questions. Torrent was deferent—his answers were brief and almost invariably referred the questioner to the President or to the Congressmen.

But to Cecily, it looked like a tour-de-force performance. He wasn't playing to the room, he was playing to the camera. His voice was quiet and steady, his face calm, his expression pleasant enough, but full of dignity.

He's running for President already, thought Cecily. He's creating an image that the voters want to see. He could not have placed himself better. The consensus choice of both parties in Congress. Appointed in order to bring all factions of the country together. Young but not too young. Attractive, intelligent, but not bookish or aloof. Look at him laugh at LaMonte's little jest. Natural, easy laughter, his whole face involved in the smile. The twinkle in the eyes. But not so handsome he doesn't look real. Not so brilliant he doesn't look approachable. He's never run for office but he knows how to create an image and he's creating it.

Was it even possible for him to run? Of course it was. It was nearly August, but both political conventions had been postponed in the wake of Friday the Thirteenth. The Democratic convention would be first, in mid-August; the Republican convention right before Labor Day. The Democrats had their likely candidate, who had been about to announce her choice for vice-presidential nominee when the assassinations happened; she had held off since then because it was hard to know, until things settled down, how people would perceive candidates who were strongly identified with the progressive movement within the Democratic Party. She might need to reach for a more moderate running mate than she would otherwise have chosen.

No one had locked up the Republican nomination. And now there was a real chance that the nomination might go to Averell Torrent. Everyone in that room knew it. President Nielson had practically said it—what the country needs right now is someone to bring people together. A moderate, a nonpartisan. If that was so good a trait for the Vice President, it would be ten times more important for the President who would be chosen in November.

No one knew what the political fallout of Friday the Thirteenth and the Progressive Restoration's takeover of New York would be. Up till this moment, President Nielson had looked confused and powerless—because, up till this moment, there had been no good choices available and no power he could exercise without potentially devastating consequences. At a stroke, his nomination of Torrent,
and its acceptance by both parties in Congress, made Nielson look far more effective and struck a blow to the heart of the Progressive Restoration's charge that the Republican administration was a bunch of fanatics who had trashed the Constitution.

In short, if Torrent was the new face of the Republican Party, would state legislatures be so eager to follow along with the push to join with the Progressive Restoration?

Of course, everything depended on how well Torrent stood up to the scrutiny the media would now put him through. His life would be researched and dissected. It helped that he was married to a shy but lovely woman and had two attractive sons and a pretty daughter, all in their teens—the family would be splendid as an image of stability. Even though Torrent had long traveled the country lecturing and giving seminars, there had never been a breath of scandal about sexual peccadilloes. He had inherited a little family money but lived rather simply and while his speaking and teaching fees were respectable, they were not exorbitant. He was not, by any modern standard, rich. It would take fifty Torrents to make an Oprah, by Cecily's rough estimate.

Cecily liked LaMonte, and felt a great loyalty to him. So she was also a little sad. This appointment made it absolutely clear that LaMonte had no desire to run for President himself. He would go down in history as a caretaker President. And Cecily knew that was exactly what he hoped for—he would want to be remembered as a man who executed the office faithfully, and walked away from it as soon as he had done his job.

In all likelihood, he would probably return to the House. The new laws of presidential succession did not necessarily require that he resign his House seat, and Cecily tried to remember if he had or not. She didn't think so. In such a time of crisis, nobody was agitating for a by-election in Idaho yet. Or maybe he had already quietly let it be known that his name
would
be on the ballot in November—running again for Congress. Nobody would dare to run against him or try to replace him.

So everybody was happy, really. The country was better off. LaMonte had quite possibly changed the momentum and the direction of the national mood.

Now all that was needed was for Rube's jeesh to find the smoking gun—the place where all these Progressive Restoration weapons had been made, where their soldiers had been trained. And maybe, just maybe, proof that the rebels had been ready to take advantage of Friday the Thirteenth because they had planned it. Right now that charge was a staple of the far-right pundits, but it was dismissed as absurd by nearly everyone else. Cecily knew that because the traitors obviously had to have contacts inside the White House and the Pentagon, it was easy to assume that the treason came from the Right, not the Left—the opposite camp from the Progressive Restoration.

But she knew better. The lurid details of Reuben's murder by his secretary had gone through the normal media nonsense—claims that his secretary had probably killed him because they were having an affair, or because he had backed out of their treasonous conspiracy at the last moment and tried to save the late President. Cecily did her best to ignore such things because they would only make her crazy and she could do nothing to stop them.

She knew that the FBI had turned up the fact that while DeeNee had never done anything illegal or even questionable—or she could never have been cleared to work where she did in the Pentagon her friends from college remembered her as being a fervent radical of the Left, even by the standards of American university English departments. The FBI found no links to any particular movements—DeeNee had not been a joiner—but there was no way to pretend that there was much chance that whatever conspiracy she had been a part of was of the Right. But since the report on Reuben's murder was now tied up in the report on the Friday the Thirteenth assassinations, nothing had been made public. She had found out only because LaMonte told her.

“I'm not going to make it public and I hope you'll respect that decision,” LaMonte had said. “If it leaks that she was a campus
leftist, it will be interpreted as an attempt by my administration to blame the Left, which means the Democrats, for Friday the Thirteenth. It would only be more divisive. When we get the full answer, then we'll publish it and damn the consequences. But until then, Cecily, let them babble on the television and don't let the nonsense bother you. The truth
will
come out in due time, and your husband
will
be recognized as the hero and patriot and martyr that he was.”

But LaMonte would probably not be in office when the final report was ready. Someone else would be. If it was the Democratic candidate, Cecily had little faith in her letting a report that implicated anyone from the Left ever see the light of day. Maybe it would be Torrent. But would he allow a divisive report to be issued, given that he would be trying to hold the factions together?

Then again, he was bold enough to use Reuben's jeesh as a fighting force to make surgical strikes to work against the rebels wherever one of their minor strongholds had been found. Maybe he would be wise enough to regard the provable truth as the best road toward reconciliation.

Cecily pinned her hopes on Cole and Reuben's friends. If Torrent was right, and these lakes in Washington were the stronghold of the rebels, maybe they would find there the proof that would reveal who was responsible for Friday the Thirteenth—and for Reuben's murder. Reuben would be completely exonerated. Their children could grow up without a taint of treason attached to their father, but could take pride in him.

The press conference was over. But Cecily's thoughts had taken her down an emotional road she usually stayed away from. All she could think about was Reuben.

Sandy came up to her after the reporters rushed out to file their stories or do their standups in front of the “Gettysburg White House.” She saw Cecily's attempt to hold back tears and said, “My dear, I know you aren't moved by Torrent's appointment.”

“No, no,” Cecily said. “It's Reuben, that's all.”

“You've hardly given yourself a chance to grieve.”

“Work is the cure,” said Cecily. “I was just thinking about our kids and how the world would view their father as they grew up.”

“The world will honor him, or the world can go hang,” said Sandy. “Meanwhile, give yourself a break. Nobody's going to get any serious work done today anyway, it will all be buzz and whisper and speculate. It's a field day for the pundits, in and out of the President's staff. Go home and come back tomorrow.”

It was good advice. But when Sandy said to go home she meant one thing. To Cecily it meant another.

She could hardly go “home” to the little house where Aunt Margaret was looking after the kids—the last thing they needed was to see their mother as an emotional wreck.

So she got in her car and drove out of the secured area and drove down U.S. highway 15 to Leesburg, and then down Route 7 through the familiar sights of Loudoun County. She had been so immersed in the war they were fighting that she had almost forgotten that most of America didn't know they were fighting a war. People might be keenly aware of and troubled by the fact that New York City and the state of Vermont were not under the active authority of the U.S. government, that Washington State was neutral at best, that other states might join the rebellion—or the “restoration”—and they no doubt had strong feelings about it. But they were still going to work and doing their jobs, shopping at the malls, eating at the restaurants, watching the phony reality shows of summer, or going to the summer blockbuster movies. Cecily wondered briefly whether current events had helped or hurt one of her and Reuben's favorite series,
24
. Did it now seem too close to painful reality for people to enjoy it? Or was its sometimes far-fetched plotting now completely vindicated by events that were even less probable than the conspiracies on the show?