The General's President (54 page)

The president let his eyes close.

The hospital was scarcely more than a mile from the Hilton; in under three minutes from the shooting, they were at an emergency bay, where a gurney waited. Gil stayed with the president, gun in hand now, all the way to surgery.

Then, hard grim eyes paying no attention to the other agents there, he squatted outside the door until someone brought a folding chair. He'd been assigned to protect the president that day, and the president had been shot.

FIFTY-ONE

Corridor traffic was sparse but purposeful. Within minutes, several doctors entered or left the president's operating suite, under the hard, evaluative eyes of agents. Occasional other hospital personnel passed by on unrelated business. Another agent arrived, relieving Gil Rogers, who left to be debriefed. Overall, the mood in the corridor was one of tense waiting.

The hospital lobby was briefly overrun by media people, until hospital management had the Metropolitan Police clear them out. Then thirty were allowed to return inside. About half an hour after the president had been wheeled in, Lois Haugen arrived, pale and thin, with Cromwell beside her. The eyes of the cameras followed them compulsively toward an elevator, and one team—cameraman and interviewer—moved to intercept. One of the Secret Service men stepped between and snatched the microphone.

"I ought to shove this up your ass," he said. Bitterly. And audibly. There was a patter of applause from people waiting in the lobby. The newsman, flushing, retreated, and the agent tossed the microphone after him.

Cromwell recognized the agent; he'd seen him on shift at the White House. Frank something.
He'll probably get a reprimand from uplines for that
, Cromwell thought as they got on the elevator.
I'll write him a commendation. If I have to be president or acting president, I might as well get some satisfaction out of it.
When they got out on the president's floor, he drew one of the other agents aside and learned Frank's last name, Shapiro. "Shapiro's a good man," Cromwell said. "Tell him not to worry about what happened in the lobby."

They were led then to a small sitting area near the operating room. To wait.

***

Stephen Flynn had hesitated to go to the hospital. Even in lay garb he might be recognized. He'd almost surely be recognized if he was with the first lady's party, and he could imagine what the media might make of that. "Priest with stricken president." But he wanted to be on hand, in case there was anything he could do. If Arne
was
dying...

So he called the hospital, that they'd be expecting him, then went by cab. Wearing his "camouflage"—a business suit. It was a bright still day with the temperature surely more than fifty degrees: God's earnest money on the coming of spring. Truly, Gurenko had turned off the winter machine. Flynn wouldn't have been surprised to see a robin on the hospital grounds.

None of the news people so much as gave him a glance. He showed his driver's license at the reception desk, where they checked by phone with the presidential party, then sent him up with an orderly to guide him. On the president's floor, an agent checked him out at the elevator, then using a little belt radio, called the agents in the waiting area. One of them came to get him, one who knew him; they were taking nothing for granted.

Lois met him with a smile. "They just told us," she said; "his condition's been upgraded to serious. He's going to be all right." She paused. Her eyes had welled, but her voice never quavered. "I thought he would. Because I'm going to be, and I don't believe God intends us to be separated—not for long anyway."

***

The debrief of the three Secret Service men who'd brought the president to the hospital uncovered the fact that Haugen had appointed Valenzuela vice president. Milstead was notified at once, and Milstead called Valenzuela, who then became acting president and was sworn in. Cromwell learned of it when he returned to the White House, and was surprised, almost dismayed, to feel a pang of disappointment before the wave of relief.

***

Radio, television, newspapers, all covered the situation closely and soberly. The president had been shot twice. One bullet had struck his raised left arm, fracturing the humerus but not touching the brachial artery, and one had struck his chest, penetrating an intercostal space; punctured the pleura and the left lung; broke a rib in back; then broke and holed the scapula, emerging much flattened. The most serious danger had been death from profound shock.

Two other people had been shot: Major James Jackson, Army Medical Corps, and a Secret Service man, Agent Wayne Trabert. Neither wound was critical, but Major Jackson's face would require reconstructive surgery; the bullet had had a hollow point.

There had been just one assailant. He'd carried press credentials and a Walther PPK 7.65 mm pistol whose seven-round clip he'd emptied in less than two seconds. A television camera woman had struck his arm upward in mid-burst, otherwise more people would have been hit. She'd also sunk her teeth into his jaw and hung on. Then a Secret Service man had slammed into them, bearing them to the pavement, where he covered the assailant with his body while others closed around them to keep people from killing the gunman.

The assailant's name was Crainey Branard. He was a TV newsman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a convert of the Stalwart in God Church of the Apocalypse. President Haugen, he said, was endangering the day of judgment, and the millenium during which Christ, after wars and terrible plagues, earthquakes, and meteor falls, was to rule on Earth for a thousand years.

The founder and head of the Church, Reverend Delbert Coombs, would appear on television that night to lead his five million followers in mass prayer for the president's recovery. To the network news team that interviewed him in his Cincinnati office, the reverend stated his belief that President Haugen would be one of those saved by the Lamb of God on Judgment Day. When asked what he thought the Lamb would do about the gunman, he said simply that he hoped people would pray for Branard too.

Branard, though he may have been insane, had done a very respectable job of planning and execution, even to having bought a Finnish pronouncing phrasebook and a Finnish-English pocket dictionary, and practicing a greeting to stop the president for a moment between hotel and limousine.

By midafternoon, the president, awake but sedated, was allowed a short visit by his wife. Afterward, when she left the hospital with General Cromwell, the television cameras showed her serene and confident, despite her unaccustomed thinness.

FIFTY-TWO

Over the next two days, the sedated president drifted in and out of consciousness. But even when conscious, he was mostly only vaguely aware of the comings and goings of hospital personnel, the ever-present nurse, and the Secret Service man who sat by the window, jacket open, shoulder-holster bared. Haugen knew that Lois had been there off and on, and Liisa unless he'd dreamed it.

On the third day, sedation was reduced, and he was considerably more alert. Lois visited him briefly, and somewhat later, Liisa. Her mother, Liisa told him, was visiting other patients.

"You've got mail, daddy," she said, and showed him an envelope. "It's from 'Stenhus, Littlefork Minnesota, 56653.' "

It had already been opened by his letter office staff, which handled the thousands of items received for him daily. This one they'd recognized as one he should see. Removing the clip they'd closed it with, Liisa drew out a much folded sheet of ruled tablet paper. "Can you hold it?" she asked.

"You'll have to read it," he said. "I don't know where my glasses are."

She held it up and began.

***

Dear Haugen,

Well, you done it that time, forgot to duck. Like in that fight you had with Martin Kjemprud and he broke your nose. I thought you were going to kill him that time. It is the only time I ever seen you get really mad. There is some people around here that are worried you are going to die. They don't remember you as good as I do. I told them sure he's going to die. Someday. But he is too goddamn tough and mean to give that Brainerd sonofabitch the satisfaction of killing him.

They said the country can't get along without you. I told them if it can't get along without Haugen, then to hell with it. What the hell more does he owe it any way.

Up at the falls they are making those little size generators you invented, like the size for places like here at Littlefork. So we got one here. The electricity is just the same as it always was (ha ha) but the bills aren't so big anymore. A lot of people had quit getting electricity but now they got it back again. I heard they even got one ordered down at Effie. I don't know what the hell they are going to pay for it with in Effie. When they get one at Craig, I guess they will be every where then.

This is just about the coldest winter any one ever seen around here. Up on Kabetogama (spelling?) the ice is way to thick for a 5-foot augur, they got to break out about another 8 or 10 inches out of the bottom with a spud and you better have a long spud. People are ice fishing anyhow, because times are still hard but they are better than they were. It is only about 4 foot thick on the river because the current keeps wearing it away you know.

The snow ain't very deep though, not much above my knees. About up to the ass on a squatty little guy like you. It come early. Then it got to cold to snow.

People around here been doing better than in the cities I guess. They been outlawing deer and moose to eat when they got gas to get out of town, and I ain't heard about nobody getting arrested for it either. I think the cold going to kill off a lot of the deer any way before spring. Charley Stuvland said they ate a wolf at his place to see what it taste like and it was tough and dry.

That is all I got to write about. You get healed up fast and come up here, but not before spring. It's going to be the middle of May before the ice is off the lakes if then. Then we'll see how good the muskies come through the winter.

Your old friend
Vern

***

"That's a pretty nice letter, daddy," Liisa said. Somehow it had touched her deeply; she wasn't sure why.

Arne Haugen chuckled faintly. "Yes, it is."

"I'd better go now, though. The nurse told me not to stay more than a few minutes. You need lots of rest. I'll be back later."

When she'd gone, the president closed his eyes. But he didn't go to sleep immediately. He was thinking about something Stenhus had written: Some people said the country couldn't get along without him. And Vern said if it couldn't, then to hell with it.

Vern was right, but he couldn't know how good it had been—how much he'd enjoyed it. He'd never really looked at that himself till now.

***

Lois Haugen looked into the small room on the maternity hall. The girl inside was black, round-faced, and perhaps, Lois thought, fifteen years old. She stepped in.

"Hello," Lois said. "You don't seem to have any visitors; is it all right for me to come in?"

The girl didn't respond for a long moment, her eyes suspicious of this stranger; finally she nodded. Lois went to a chair by the bed and sat down. From there she could see plastic tubes coming from beneath the sheet.

"Did you have a baby?" she asked.

Again the delayed nod, curt this time.

Somehow Lois didn't ask about the child. Instead she said, "How do you feel now?"

The gaze remained suspicious, the lips silent.

"Maybe you'd rather be alone. Shall I go?"

"You can stay." After a moment the girl put a hand lightly on her abdomen. "I had a caesarean."

"Ah. I had one of mine that way."

"Mine died."

This time it was Lois who lagged. "I'm sorry," she answered simply.

"It's probably better this way." The girl shifted beneath the sheets. "My father lost his job last summer, and all he's got now is the PWA. He was really mad when I got pregnant, but we're Catholic, so..."

She sized her visitor up, the years, the ring finger, the expensive business suit that fitted too loosely, as if she'd lost weight. But the woman carried no religious tracts and didn't seem critical, and the girl had tired of morning television; she went on. "The baby started comin' last evening, all of a sudden, and the paramedics brought me here. The nurse says I nearly died."

Again she looked Lois Haugen over. "What are you in the hospital about?"

"My husband's here. But he's sleeping just now, so I thought I'd walk around and see who might want someone to talk to."

"What's he in here for?"

"A man shot him. Twice."

The interest strengthened, the eyes sharp now. After a moment the girl spoke again. "You're the president's wife, aren't you? Mrs. Haugen."

"Why yes, I am."

The girl's sudden laugh was cut short by pain. After it had passed, she said, "My brother Trevor's not goin' to believe this! He got in a fight last week—sort of a fight—with my boy friend about President Haugen. Trevor was in one those internment camps, after the street fighting, and after that he worked in a CC camp, down in Alabama. He said your husband kept the country from burnin' up and everybody starving. Then Caddy said the president's just another Whitey, and with times so hard, the country might as well burn up. So Trevor hit him." The girl grinned at the memory. "Knocked Caddy flat on his ass. Caddy didn't say anything, just got up and walked out. He's scared of Trevor."

She pointed at the television that looked down on her from high on the wall. "I watched the news this mornin'. It showed Vice President Valenzuela. Do you know him?"

"Oh yes. We had supper together last night."

"Why did President Haugen make a black man vice president?"

"Mr. Valenzuela has a lot of wisdom, and knows a lot about government. And the world. And Arne—my husband—says he's a highly ethical man. He'll be the next president."

Again the eyes studied the first lady. "Trevor said President Haugen was born and grew up in a log cabin. Was someone lyin' to him?"

"It was made of logs all right; I've been there. But I'm not sure whether you could call it a cabin. It had four small rooms, a kitchen, and an attic. The children slept in the attic. They heated the house with a stove made from a steel barrel, and they burned wood in it. The toilet was outside, behind the house, and they pumped water from an outdoor well. When he was little, they still hauled their water from the river with a horse."