Michael Palmer - Oath of Office

“What about the box of photos in your closet?”

Evans could only shrug and shake his head.

“Sure sounds like a setup to me,” Kim said after a moment’s pause.

“Even if they drop the charges, I’ve lost.” Evans’s voice broke, and for the first time he seemed close to tears.

“Martin was very reluctant to accept your resignation, Russ. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know what you’ve told me, Darlene. And I thank you for that.”

“I don’t get it,” Kim said. “You were the secretary of agriculture. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t see why anyone would go after you.”

Evans nodded as though he’d heard that opinion of his former position before. “As Darlene can tell you, there’s a lot more to our part of the government than just making sure food is safe for eating. The work we do touches the lives of virtually every American. It’s our responsibility to provide a sufficient, safe, nutritious food supply, produced in a sustainable and environmentally supportive way.”

“Doesn’t seem like anybody would want you out of office for that,” Kim said.

“I suppose the frame-up could have had nothing to do with my being the secretary, but there are lot of variables that go into what we do. We’ve got local food producers pushing an agenda counter to what the major growers demand. Environmentalists lobby hard for more sustainability, and we’ve got technological advancements in fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides to keep track of.”

Darlene felt a chill go through her and went rigid in her seat.

Kim noticed and placed a concerned hand on her knee. “You okay?”

To her great dismay, Evans’s explanation of the issues surrounding farming reminded her of her father, only in the darkest days, before financial reversals and unremitting melancholy caused him to press a shotgun up beneath his chin and pull the trigger.

Darlene nodded and took a sip from a glass of water. “I’m fine,” she said, knowing that her friend could tell she wasn’t. “Russ, do you have any idea who might have set you up?”

“Take your pick,” Evans said. “Every decision makes someone a winner and someone a loser.”

“I wish there were something I could do to help,” Darlene said.

“Actually, there is.”

“Name it.”

The former agriculture secretary’s face tightened. “After Martin told me he intended to appoint me head of the USDA, I began developing a legislative agenda for our first term in office. My aides have a series of bills drawn up that I was going to present to the president when … when I resigned. They involve everything from school lunch requirements to the handling of foods containing genetically modified organisms. I don’t have much I’ll be leaving behind, but I would love to see those bills get submitted by the president and passed. I was hoping that because of your and my history and your commitment to kids’ nutrition, you might help that happen.”

“Does the president know about these bills?”

“No. I tried getting them to him, but it was too late. He doesn’t want to hear from me. I’m pretty sure the woman Martin has lined up to replace me has no intention of following through on any of my programs. I’ve got nothing left, Darlene. My friends are bailing on me as if I were septic. My integrity’s been plowed to the roots. These are good, important pieces of legislation. If they go under, my last shred of dignity and purpose goes with them.”

Darlene bit at her lip and tried to keep Evans’s profound sadness from becoming too much her own. “No promises, but have them sent to me,” she said.

The three turned as the door behind them was opened by Victor Ochoa.

“Mrs. Mallory, Ms. Hajjar, I’m sorry for bursting in like this, but there’s been a multiple shooting with deaths in Kings Ridge, Virginia. We feel you should return to the White House until we have more information.”

“Deaths? Do you know how many?” Kim asked.

“It looks like seven. We should know more by the time we get you home.”

Seven people shot to death.

Darlene felt ill. Countless terrible, vivid images began flashing through her mind. She hadn’t ever told anyone except her husband, but as a teen, she had been the one to discover her father’s body.

“You just have to make every day precious,” Kim said as they gathered their things. “’Cause you never know.”

The final battle for Dr. John Meacham’s life was over almost before it began. On a vent, with IV blood pressure support and other meds, he was essentially being resuscitated before his heart stopped beating. Dr. Schwartz, the salaried intensive care specialist, who had deferred to Lou for the insertion of the chest tube, administered some cardiac stimulants without any success, and then, after no more than ten minutes, turned to Lou.

“Do you see any reason to continue, Doctor?” he asked.

Lou flashed on the day when he and Meacham had first met at the Physician Wellness Office. Meacham was as tight as a drum skin, and positive that he would never be allowed to practice medicine again. Lou, as a survivor of disaster in his personal and professional lives, knew otherwise. Most of that first session had consisted of him exposing his new client to the life strategies of AA-strategies that he had ridiculed at first as being naive and simplistic-until he actually began to use them in his life.

Meacham had caught on quickly. With the help of an AA sponsor and people at the rehab, his need to drink ceased almost immediately. Following that, his hair-trigger temper gradually came under control.

Now this.

“I can’t think of anything else we should be doing, Dr. Schwartz,” Lou heard his voice saying as if from down a long tube.

Schwartz looked up at the clock and nodded toward Sara Turnbull. “Seven forty P.M.,” he proclaimed.

And just like that, John Meacham’s life was done.

“Has his wife, Carolyn, been around?” Lou asked, realizing that in the craziness of the hours just past, he had lost track of some of his own civility.

“She was in the family room a little while ago,” Sara said. “Should I check?”

“No,” Lou said. “I know her. I’ll go.”

“Out the sliding doors and down the hallway to the left.”

Head down, consumed by heavy sadness at the senseless deaths of so many, Lou stepped through the unit doors.

The husky detective was still at his post. “So, Doc, how’s it going in there?”

“It’s not,” Lou said.

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

The cop nodded. “Whether it’s cops’ bullets at the scene or a shiv in the back in the slammer from one of the other inmates, these things almost always seem to end this way. Well, there go the answers.”

“I suppose,” Lou replied, wondering how easy it would be for him to let matters drop.

The cop was right. There was still a boatload of unanswered questions, starting with the meaning of the words no witnesses .

Lou opened the lounge door. The modest room, furnished in vinyl, with dog-eared magazines scattered about, was deserted. His eyes went first to a television set mounted catty-corner, high up on the far wall. The volume was turned off, though Lou could easily read the CNN news flash graphic from across the room.

BREAKING NEWS: SUSPECTED MASS MURDERER IN CRITICAL CONDITION.

“Not anymore,” Lou murmured, wondering if the grim outcome would have been any different had the local neurosurgeon not gone probing blindly for a bullet in or near the area of the brain dealing with cardiac rhythmicity.

He averted his gaze from the broadcast just as the door to the family room opened and Carolyn Meacham entered. She was slight woman with carefully trimmed gray hair and more makeup than Lou felt she needed. It was surprising that there were no family or friends with her, but perhaps some were on the way. Her makeup did nothing to disguise her pain. Without a word, she raced across to Lou and threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest.