Joe Haldeman - The Coming

She shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. The president, whoever that may be, appoints a new one. If he can find anybody at home—I suspect half of Washington will be out beyond the Beltways before quitting time.”

“France might do something?”

“More likely the Jihad. But we have lots of enemies who can see that it would be a good time for a couple of strategically placed bombs. Convenient to be out of New York, too.”

“Sleepy college towns have their advantages.”

“This one, I don’t know. The way the Jihad rails about the Coming, they might be able to spare a bomb for here or the Cape. As long as they’re bombing.”

“You’re not kidding?”

“Just professionally paranoid. Look at that. They kept turning rocks over until they found him.”

Carl Lamb was standing on the Capitol steps next to Cool Moon Davis, who looked like a ninety-year-old Native American who had just been dragged out of a deep sleep. He was only seventy-two, actually, but had had an eventful life.

“Speaker Davis, do you have any words for America at this tragic time?”

He looked up into the camera, eyes dull, and straightened up slightly when his earphone started feeding him lines. “I’ve always admired Carly Simon—Carly LaSalle, that is, for her spirit and her dedication to American ideals of America. Like all Americans I feel a deep lens of sauce, I mean sense of sauce, and a truly deep outrage at this crime against the Republic. The crime of assassination.”

“He came up with that himself,” Marya muttered.

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We… uh… we have a link to Walter Reed, and the vice-president, I mean President Mossberg, wants to address the nation.”

He looked bad, his chest a tight wrapping of bloodstained bandage, arms inert at his sides, breathing tube taped to his nose.

His normally clear voice was gravelly and nasal. “The doctors say I have a good chance of surviving, but I have spent most of my life in the company of professional liars, and I can see through them.” He coughed violently, and a nurse cut off the view for a moment.

“I am ordering that an election be held as soon as possible after my death, and I’m sure Mr. Cool agrees.” He spoke slowly, teeth clenched. “The nation faces—the world and this nation face an unprecedented historical challenge one month from now. We need a leader in place who is… is not Cool Moon Davis.” He grimaced and his head lolled to one side. “Am I still alive?”

“Your brain is alive,” a male voice said. “Not much else is.”

“Thank you. In fact, I believe that you could pull a random citizen off the street and find him or her better able to deal with this crisis than Representative Davis. Or the late president, for that matter. Forgive me for speaking plainly, but—” The cube went dark, and faded back in with Carl Lamb and Davis, both looking a little pale.

“We seem to have lost—”

“The vice-president,” Davis cut in, “has not been sworn into office…” He paused, listening. “And cannot yet speak as president. The laws of succession are plain, and there is no need for a special election.”

“Chief Justice West is hurrying to Walter Reed as we speak,” Lamb said. “He was en route to New York when this disaster struck.”

The bartender realized he’d been cleaning the same glass for several minutes, ever since the emergency signal came from the cube. Someone broke a rack with a loud crash.

“Hey!” He spun around. “You show some respect?”

It was Leroy, a tall white guy, dealer. “I’m payin’ for this table by the hour. You show me some respect.” He lined up an easy shot and hit hard with a lot of draw, whack -thump , and the cue ball glided back to its starting place. “She was the worst president we ever had. So somebody finally punched her fuckin’ ticket. What took so long, is what I wonder.”

“You a hard fuckin’ case, Leroy. She was a nice lady.”

“Nice lookin’,” said a short fat man at the bar. “I wouldn’t go no farther than that. People in Washington didn’t think much of her.”

“You think much of them?”

A woman in a sparkly silver shift, blue eyes and black skin like the bartender’s, smoothed a hundred-dollar bill on the bar. “I’d like a whiskey, Miguel.” She put another bill on top. “And anybody else who wants one.”

“When did you start drinkin’, Connie?”

“Just now. A little ice?”

Leroy came up, emptied his glass, and put it on the bar. “I’ll have one for her vaporized ass.”

“Somebody gonna vaporize your ass someday, Leroy,” Connie said. “You ought to get in some other business. The people you run with.”

He pointed up at the cube, which was back to Cool Moon Davis. “Not as dangerous as those guys.” Miguel poured four glasses, one for himself, and slid them over. “Or the frogs, if it’s them that did it.”

“That would be crazy,” Miguel said. “The French don’t want us in the war.”

“So the damn Germans.”

“Doesn’t have to be a foreigner,” Connie said. “People in this room who’d do it if the price was right.”

“Ooh-woo.” Leroy sipped the neat liquor. “My ears are burning.”

“It’s a hell of a thing,” the short man said. “No matter who gets it. It’s not American.”

“Is now,” Connie said. She looked back at the cube as it switched back to the Walter Reed hospital room.

The cube room at the prison was crowded and silent, both rare. The warden had given permission to open the cells so that everyone could get to the news. Bobón and three other guards covered the doors, armed with tanglers, but nobody was going anywhere.

Bobón was still sorting out the murder he’d witnessed this morning. Not the first one, but Ybor was just a nice kid who hadn’t hurt anyone. Why’d the warden have to drag him in there to watch? And now this damned thing.

Maybe it was all just a long nightmare. Maybe he would wake up and it would just be another morning. But he’d felt that way before, and it never worked. Just in stories.

Why did so many people feel so bad about the president? Well, she’s pretty and smart and powerful, and maybe people who like one don’t like the other.

At least she never could of felt anything. That boy this morning went through all kinds of hell before he died. He couldn’t get it out of his head.

The inmates knew. The way they looked at him, it’s like they thought he did it. Not this time. Towelheads, watch out, though.

Davis had shut up and they switched to a local reporter.

“—here at the International Plaza, we’d like to get the reaction from some of the students here, pardon me?”

The young man turned around and revealed a diamond-shaped scar on his cheek, a member of the Spoog gang. “I ain’t no student fugoff,” he mumbled in passing.

Great assignment. “Young man, could you give me your reaction to the tragedy in Washington?”

He was small and frail and red-eyed. “I really don’t know anything. Was he crazy? He must have been crazy?”

“Some people have said he never got over his experience in the Gulf,” Daniel prompted.

“I had an uncle there, and an aunt, and there’s nothing wrong with them,” he said, looking intently at the ground, and wandered away.