Aftermath

10

The snowfall had dwindled to a few random flakes. A cold night breeze blew from the north, and the curious odor that it carried made the waiting woman wrinkle her nose in disgust.

Muffled in a long black coat and with a black woolen scarf covering her face, she was sitting on the lower level of the great memorial. At the sound of footsteps she rose to place her back against the stone wall. Her gloved right hand slipped into her pocket.

The man approached confidently and quickly, saying when he was still ten steps away, “It’s all right, Sarah. Don’t put a bullet through me.”

She relaxed as soon as she heard his voice, and removed her hand from her pocket to show a wicked ten-inch blade. “Knife, not gun.”

“Very wise. Most of the guns don’t work anyway.” Nick Lopez made a careful survey of their surroundings. As the woman had done, he sniffed the air. “Pretty rank up here. This is the first time I’ve been outside the Federal Enclave in over a week. Now I can see why.”

The air carried multiple odors, burning wood and paper and plastic mingled with the sweet reek of animal putrefaction and decay.

“It’s coming in from the north. I gather it’s much worse up there.” Sarah Mander moved forward and turned to ascend the steps. “Apparently martial law isn’t working worth a damn outside the Beltway. Good thing there are no media outlets. They’d be having a field day with the bodies and the burning.”

“Still plenty of media types around, itching to do what they’ve always done. That’s one reason I felt I had to see you in a place without eyes and ears.”

“I wondered why you dragged me out here.” Sarah Mander paused in the shadow of the great seated figure and stood staring up at it. “What you have to say had better be good. I didn’t enjoy the walk over, and I don’t like the idea of walking back. And this place is freezing.”

“Then I’d better get right down to business.” Lopez moved closer. With his tall pompadour hairstyle he towered over the woman by nearly two feet. “You must be getting the same briefings on the House side as I hear in the Senate. How’s it look?”

It was a question rather than the information that she wanted, but after a moment she nodded and said, “Four days ago I’d have sworn that this country was down and out. Power grid dead, information network destroyed, data bases vanished, no working infrastructure. Looting and rioting along the eastern seaboard, thousands freezing to death in Chicago and Minneapolis. Nothing much of Florida south of Orlando after the second hurricane, and lots of California wiped out by mud slides. Horrible. For a while I worried about outside attack, because all our weapons had turned to junk. Then I said to myself, who could possibly want our problems?”

“I can add to your list. I’ve heard of starvation and cannibalism in the Dakotas, there’s nothing civilized in Houston or Kansas City after the second round of fires and floods, and tornadoes took out most of Oklahoma City. We’ve had it easy by comparison. But you said that was the way you felt four days ago. How about now?”

“Now?” Sarah Mander paused, her gloved hand at her chin. “You know, I really think we’ll make it. We had running water for an hour this morning — no way you’d drink it, of course — and my staff reported a flicker of power for a few minutes in the electric grid. I heard people laughing in the Rayburn Building for the first time in weeks, and one of my aides actually used the words ’next year’ in a report.”

“It’s the same on the Senate side.” Lopez took a step closer to the statue. “So things are looking up. Which brings me to the main point. How do you see our chances with what we’ve talked about for the past year?”

Her laugh was humorless, muffled by her scarf. “Are you kidding? The country may recover, but our plan doesn’t have a prayer now. It’s the old story: in a time of crisis the power always swings back to the presidency. Any ideas of tilting control more our way died on February 9. We just didn’t know it then. You’d better not have dragged me out in the cold and dark to argue that point.”

Nick Lopez stood by the base of the great statue. With his height and coloring and dark cloak, he was like a carved icon himself. He nodded slowly. “I agree with you. The supernova changed the game. We don’t have a chance.”

“So why are we standing out here?” “Every problem is also an opportunity.” “Nick, do you mind? Save the platitudes for the public appearances.”

“Sorry. Only, this time the cliché happens to be true. I realized it yesterday, when I was listening to the acting chief from Navy describing loss of naval capability. Apparently the only branch that’s working right is the submarines.”

“I knew that. The deep subs weren’t touched.” “But while old Rumfries was droning on I decided that although we may be in deep shit, every other country in the world is a lot worse off. This may not be the right time for a power struggle between branches of our own government, but it’s one hell of a good time to show the rest of the world who’s boss.”

“Still smarting over last year’s put-down at the Korean reception?”

She saw his teeth flash in the gloom. “Me? Worried by some half-assed ignorant wog who treated me like a teaboy? No more than you were, by your Indonesian visit and the words of the honorable Mr. Sutan concerning the place of women.” He waited, watching her face change in the gloom, and at last added, “That was four years ago. Elephants and Sarah Mander. But I’m telling you, this could be payback time.”

She was silent for half a minute, staring toward the city. New fires had broken out to the north, pillars of orange topped by dense black smoke that was blowing toward them. Finally she shook her head. “And I’m telling you, the President is more powerful than he’s ever been. Are you proposing to take on Saul Steinmetz?”

“Not today, thank you. I don’t much like him, but he’s a tough son of a bitch. We don’t do this without Saul Steinmetz, Sarah. We do it with him, with presidential consent and cooperation.”

“You mean we try to talk him into it?”

“I mean exactly that. We pitch the idea of a Pax Americana — naturally, for the good of the rest of the world.”

“But this country would have total domination. Nick, he’ll never go along with it.”

“Are you sure? Look at it from the point of view of Saul Steinmetz. You made it all the way to the presidency. Where can you go next? Nowhere but down, writing your memoirs and opening libraries and sinking into senility — unless someone can point out some new goal, something to make you unique even among Presidents.”

“Suppose he did bite on it. What’s to stop him forgetting who suggested the idea in the first place?”

“It could happen. That’s our risk. It would be our job to find friends and recruits in the White House, just as an insurance policy. We should be able to do that.”

“And our reward, if we succeed?”

“Pretty much what we ask for. It’s not Steinmetz’s habit to be stingy with his friends. I’m sure we could find positions of power and influence — abroad or at home. It’s a new world out there, Sarah. We could probably do anything that we really want to.”

“Anything?”

He did not answer, but followed her as she walked forward to the north boundary of the monument. Together they stared toward the restless, crippled city.

“I think so,” she said at last. Her eyes reflected the smoky, ruddy glow of the distant fires. “You’re right, it’s a whole new world out there. If not this, then what? So. Who’s going to make the call to the White House, you or me?”