The Last President (25 page)

She thought,
You are a dangerous nut job, and you are in charge of the army that is supposed to save civilization. And you are very likely to be the next President of the United States. And I'm not used to not being in love with you, at least not yet.
“Jeff, I'm not saying I'll stay, but I know you're not dangerous after you have one of these . . . things. Not for a while. Usually. So tonight I'll stay beside you, because I know you won't sleep if I don't, and the whole world is counting on you, and I care what happens to you. I might not ever sleep beside you again, though, are we clear on that?”

He was crying, but nodding. “Whatever you say.”

“After the battle, or as soon as there's a spare minute, find a psychiatrist, tell them everything, do whatever they tell you to.”

“I promise. I want.” He stopped. “I don't want.” Stopped again. “I don't know.”

“Jeff, all of civilization is depending on you. I might be divorcing you next week, but you've got to win tomorrow. So get up in the morning and just do your duty. Do your best at it. I'll stick around at least till the end of the battle, and I won't go without saying goodbye. Now undress, and lie down here beside me.”

She lay fully clothed on top of the covers, holding his hand while he slept. After a while, she slept too.

THE NEXT DAY. TIPPECANOE BATTLE GROUND, NEW STATE OF WABASH. 3:30 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.

“That's why we never heard back from the TexICs,” Goncalves breathed. He passed his field glasses to Larry Mensche.

In the bright light of the few-days-past-full moon, Larry made out the breastwork, now much higher, actually a full wall—“Oh, crap.” The upper part of the barricade was a heap of dead horses.

Goncalves grunted. “I figure what happened, the tribals were here way ahead of schedule, dug in and waiting. Three hundred against four thousand.”

“But the TexICs were on horseback,” Larry said. “How come none of them got away?”

The bright, almost-overhead moonlight distorted Goncalves's face into a bitter mask. “If Robert was smart, and we know he is, what he did was put fifteen hundred or so inside the camp, lying along the breastworks, out of sight and waiting. He put another fifteen hundred right where we are now, in all this brush, ready to close the road back, probably with bows and slings to cover the exposed slope, and told them not to make a sound or move a muscle till the TexICs were at the main breastwork. Same orders to another thousand across the creek in the woods northwest of the camp; a horseman might try to get out that way and then double back, but he wouldn't get far if there were men in the woods.

“So the TexICs arrived, and from right about here—look how torn up the ground is just downslope—they probably saw a couple sentries or a few men working, and went to charge up that steep hill—figuring they'd carry the top of it and then sweep through the camp. Maybe they even split up and sent some around over the creek, by that old visitor center—it would be more effective if they were just on a burn-and-smash raid, they'd damage more stuff faster. Probably they had a minute or so, riding up to the barricade, of thinking this was an easy win.

“But Robert or someone working for him knows what they're doing; they put that wall up right along the top of that railroad embankment, so the last few feet are steep gravel after all the effort of getting up that steep hill. You can bet
that
broke the shock of the charge, created a big jam right there at the wall.

“So as soon as they were all bogged down, in ground that was terrible for horses, Robert's troops inside stood up, the troops back here closed in from behind, and the TexICs were in the bag, exposed on bad ground, and if they broke out on either flank they ran right into that reserve force in the woods across the creek. Horses on a steep hillside, or in a brushy creek, wouldn't have much of a chance. No room to charge or build up momentum. Their horses were pulled down or killed under them, the range was so close that those shitty bows, or just thrown rocks or long poles, would be all it took. Cavalry on foot's pretty helpless and they were outnumbered a dozen to one.”

“Shit,” Larry said.
And Roger Jackson was with them—Was.
He was already thinking of Roger in the past tense.
Hope it was quick.

Goncalves said, “Tell Grayson we need him sooner, not later.”

“You're still going in?”

“That's what General Grayson's orders were, and it's what I said I'd do. We can take them, I think, or at least take a big toll. There's only four thousand and we've got seven hundred Rangers. We'll get inside their camp and hold at least part of it, make them pay to take it back, tie them up and delay them. But if the next big bunch of tribals gets here before Grayson does, you can count us dead. So tell him to get his ass in gear, and if he gets here in time, I will definitely consider voting for him.”

From their vantage point, Mensche ran back along the deer trail through the marshy meadow, zagged onto an old park trail, and angled down toward the river till he struck a road.

In the light of the nearly overhead moon, shadows were sharp and very dark, distances confusing, ambush more than possible, but now that the brush hid him from the fortified camp, he put his whole mind into staying alert and keeping his feet moving.

He kept up his pace, figuring that if he fell down exhausted at the other end they could throw him into an artillery wagon or something, and if he got there too late, he'd have a lot of time to sleep while he was dead. Pace after pace, hill after hill, he pushed the parkland and overgrown fields behind him. At last, when the last mile or so had been warehouses along the river, the sinking moon, now halfway down the western sky, backlit the I-65 bridge, where Larry was planning to re-cross the Wabash. Forcing himself to be as alert as he could be on two days of too much running, too few meals, and about four hours of sleep, he moved forward in the shadows to look over the situation from a low rise in the road.

He looked once, froze, and glided into the shadow of a wall, gulping air silently, pressing it in and out as fast as he could without gasping or making noise. When he had pushed enough oxygen in to stop the spasming of his lungs and silence the burning in his thighs, so that he could again move silently, he began sliding his feet forward, one after the other, in a crescent step, keeping them mostly in each other's tracks, feeling gently in front of him.

Behind the thick weeds that grew from the decayed asphalt at the building corner, he squatted and peered around.

A milling mob of tribals at the far end of the bridge, too indistinct to count. Hundreds of spearpoints stuck up above the dark mass. Below the bridgehead, a vast crowd of rafts and boats had been dragged up onto the bank. Farther upstream, the Wabash danced and twinkled with the phosphorescence of countless oars, paddles, and poles.
Well over ten thousand of them, maybe nearer twenty, not counting at least a thousand at the bridge. We thought the two big forces coming down the Tippecanoe were the main force, but they were a diversion. These must have come down the Wabash.

No way to reach Grayson with a report.

Then he thought of Mark Twain's favorite pun.

The State Street Bridge should be close enough; he'd need to be up above ground level, so the sound would carry across the river, but he ought to be able to at least get the attention of the scouts on the far side, and maybe the sound would carry as far as the northeast sentries in Grayson's camp.

Quickly, silently, Larry Mensche moved forward, tiredness forgotten for the moment. Because he could only try this once, and it had to be soon, he needed a perfect place right away.

Fifteen minutes later, he had found it—a former supermarket warehouse. The door gave way to prying with his hatchet with only one soft squeal of metal. A more-than-head-high pile of empty cardboard boxes, pallets, and crates covered most of the open space on the first floor; obviously this place had been looted in the early, systematic time right after Daybreak day. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, where he'd seen windows facing the direction he needed. In the office up there, he discovered a family of mummies lying in one corner; smashed skulls on the two largest suggested they had been killed as they were waking up.
More murder victims than I saw in twenty years' FBI service, and nothing to do about them.

The river-facing window revealed a little gray light creeping onto the eastern horizon. The State Street Bridge, just upstream, didn't rise far above the river; Larry was looking at it almost on the level. The concrete pilings cut the smeary gray pre-dawn into dim rectangles; the facings still shone in the setting moon's light.

He picked up a metal folding chair with a rotted plastic seat and swung it experimentally.
Get this right.
He checked his Newberry Standard by feel, set it on the desk within easy reach, picked up the folding chair again, and smashed the chair into the window, legs first, clearing all the glass with five hard blows in a couple of breaths.

He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and looked through the sights, scanning the bridge from the near to the far side.

A little group of Daybreakers were running across the bridge, drawn by the sound. He aimed for the leader of the group and squeezed the trigger. He didn't seem to have hit anyone but they vanished, diving for the bridge deck.

Another group was gathering at the far bridgehead. He aimed low and sent a shot shrieking off the crumbling pavement in front of them; they also dove to the ground.

The shots might have already alerted Grayson, but to make sure, Mensche re-sighted on the center of the big crowd on the road, perhaps a quarter mile beyond the bridge. Actual sniping would be impossible even for an expert, because a Newberry just wasn't a precision weapon, but he ought to be able to put three bullets at head-to-chest height in a crowd hundreds of yards across. Carefully, but quickly, he fired his last three shots.

Screams, wails, and a sudden milling like a kicked-over anthill told him he'd scored at least once.

The groups moving toward him would not be here for three minutes at least. He used one minute to reload.

Well, that was
five
reports, as Mark Twain would have written, and even if the shots couldn't be heard in Grayson's camp, it's for sure that all that screaming was.
Rifle held ready across his chest, Mensche trotted down the stairs to the huge pile of dry wood, paper, and cardboard.

He tore out and crumpled a few pieces of cardboard and paper, then dropped them into a heap at his feet. He struck a match, lit the little pile, let it blaze up, tossed half a dozen cardboard boxes onto it, and sprinted out the door.

At the first alley, he dodged left, then right at the next street, and so forth in a saw-blade pattern to take him north and west.

He glanced back when he heard distant crashes and shouts; a black stream of smoke, lit by orange and red flashes from below, stained the pink dawn sky.
Guess that was pretty ready to go. Well, now they're alert for sure over at camp.

He kept trotting, beyond exhaustion, hoping to stay alert enough to make them work to catch him.

ABOUT THE SAME TIME. RUINS OF LAFAYETTE. 5:25 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.

Jenny Whilmire Grayson rose early, dressed hurriedly, and rushed to get to the bathroom, hoping no one would see her awkward walk or the bruise on her cheek.
I am the very model of a modern major general's abused wife, fuck you all very much.

Fortunately, most of the camp were still sleeping like corpses. The night sentries and patrols recognized her in the dim light of the just-rising sun and didn't stop to question her. She almost ran the last fifty yards to the small concrete-block restroom.

Inside, there was the usual thoughtfully-provided array of buckets of river water for flushing.
One more way for Jeff to show off wealth and power. Some poor loser private had to carry buckets of water half a mile to provide convenient indoor urination for the Great Man's piece of shit whore.

Still, she was too grateful to feel cynical about the pile of soft rags. She lit the candle in the stall, lowered her jeans, and sat down.

It distinctly stung and ached when she peed. The puddle of urine at the bottom of the dry bowl was pink. A wipe with a light-colored rag confirmed that she was bleeding.

Too soon to be an infection, probably that rough thing he does . . .
guiltily, she remembered that it had sometimes gotten her off.
Yeah, okay, so
sometimes
I
have
liked it. When
I
wanted to. When
he
was in control of himself. When my husband wasn't satisfying his need to rape a piece of shit whore.

She dipped a clean cloth in a bucket of water, and washed her face with gentle thoroughness. When she finished, she sighed, mentally braced herself, and looked into the mirror. She lifted her sweatshirt and lowered her pants, turning to shine the candlelight on the marks on her sides and back.

Jeff had really outdone himself this last time.
I guess once your piece of shit whore flunks her putting-up-with-abuse test and doesn't love you anymore, you might as well use her up before you throw her away.

She covered up again, and used the cool cloth to soothe her bruised cheek, and catch her tears.
All right. That was the last time I will think that phrase on purpose. The words have done what I needed them to, pissed me off enough to break me away from that son of a bitch. But now I will not think them about myself.

Also I will not cry when I tell Daddy.
And
I will not throw anything about this in his face. We were
both
ambitious and we thought Jeff Grayson was the ticket to our ambitions. We both trusted him enough to commit murders with him. Maybe I should have known better, maybe I should have guessed more of what was wrong, but, well, Daddy, I
will
still think that useful phrase, “fuck it.”

She thought back to her many arguments with Dr. Otherein in Women's Studies, back at Sarah Lawrence, who had always seemed to enjoy their arguments, even when they became shouting matches. At the time Jenny had thought it was maybe some weird dyke thing about liking to see the hot straight girl so angry she was in tears.
Now all of a sudden, I'm glad you insisted on me understanding that “blaming the victim” concept. You even
said
it didn't matter if I believed it then, just so I understood it.

All right, no blaming the victim. And in this mess, Daddy would be—

Very far away and faintly, she heard the distant boom of a Newberry Standard—you couldn't mistake that sound for anything else. Another shot.

Three more like a fast drumbeat.

Screaming and shouting in the distance.

Whatever it is, it's starting.

She tucked a soft cloth into her underwear, refastened her pants, patted her face once more with a cloth, poured her wash bucket into the toilet to flush it, and snuffed the candle.

Patrols and sentries were running back and forth in the street, shouting to each other that they didn't know what was going on. Hoping her blonde mane would serve as a pass, she sprinted for HQ, not sure—