Neal Stephenson - Interface

"It's fake," Zorn said, standing very close to him and muttering into his ear. "Fort's not really having a heart attack. Cy Ogle set this whole thing up."

"You're a lunatic," McLane said. But Zorn's words had made him nervous anyway.

"Lord, hear our prayer," Sweigel said. "This man has been stricken. We pray that, in the name of JEEE-zuss, he may be healed, and walk among us once again."

Then he prayed silently, while the two men continued with CPR and mouth-to-mouth, until the ambulance showed up and the EMTs took over the job.

McLane was a little surprised. He had expected that the EMTs would bundle Fort up and whisk him straight back to the ambulance as fast as possible. But instead they set up some equipment and worked on him for a few minutes, right there on the table, doing CPR with a sort of large plungerlike object and squeezing air into his lungs with a resuscitator.

The attention of the guests, of the media, and especially of Billy Joe Sweigel could hardly have been more focused on Karl Fort. Standing at the periphery of the crowd, Tip McLane realized that, for once, absolutely no one was paying attention to him.

From a media standpoint he was just like Gyges, ancestor of Croesus, who was able to become invisible. This was a story mentioned in Plato's Republic. Gyges, being invisible, could get away with anything. If he used his power to do evil, but no one saw him, and he was thought to be a just man, then did he ever suffer for his crimes? Tip McLane decided to ponder this issue as he went for a bit of a stroll around the Markham estate.

They were in the backyard, hemmed in between a sheer cliff wall on one side and the almost equally massive Markham mansion on the other. Perfectly manicured gardens wrapped around the mansion on both sides - neat paths winding between trellises of roses. Mrs. Markham adored her roses. Tip McLane walked into the fragrant and colorful jungle, quietly at first, then with long strides as he became confident that his departure had gone unnoticed.

Within a few seconds he had worked his way around the side of the house to the front. He stood for a moment, framed in an arched trellis groaning with peach-colored roses, and took in a broad view of the horseshoe drive, which was paved with little interlocking geometric tiles.

A few minutes ago this drive had been clogged with limousines and media vans. When the ambulance had been called, all of the drivers had pulled out of the horseshoe, down the long driveway, through the twelve-foot-high gate, and parked on the road. Now the whole front of the house was empty except for the ambulance, square in the middle of the horseshoe, doors open, engine running.

Representative Nimrod T. ("Tip") McLane sauntered out of the rose garden and into the horseshoe, trying to look like a man who was just out for a stroll, trying to clear his head and get away from the chaos out back. He looked carefully in all directions: into the garden, into the windows of the mansion, into the front seat of the ambulance itself. He saw no one. Everyone was out back.

He had one or two incredible habits that he had picked up when he was just a boy, working in the broccoli fields, and that had remained unbroken through years of parochial education, Ph.D. study, conservative theorizing at various think tanks, White House dinners, and service in the House of Representatives. One habit was that he always carried a pocketknife. It was amazing how often a pocketknife came in handy.

He squatted down against the left front tire of the ambulance, unfolded the small blade of his pocketknife, which he always kept sharp as a scalpel, and paused for a moment to ponder his next move.

As Socrates had pointed out, the highest reach of injustice was, like Gyges, to be deemed just when you were not. Karl Fort was Gyges. He went to White House dinners, gave money to charities, spent half his life at various testimonial dinners where the most important people in the country stood in line to gush about what a wonderful man he was. No one ever said a word about the ax handles.

But did that justify slashing the tires of his ambulance? McLane continued to thumb his way mentally through Plato's Republic, looking for guidance.

Plato advocated dividing the republic into three categories: rulers, warriors, and tradesmen. Tradesmen were allowed to become rich. Rulers and warriors were to live simply and to receive the best possible education, in the hopes of producing philosopher kings.

Tip McLane was a philosopher king. Karl Fort was a tradesman. And according to Plato, the worst form of injustice occurred when people tried to force their way into a class where they did not belong - e.g., when warriors tried to seize political power (the Soviet coup), or politicians meddled in military campaigns (Vietnam War), or in the affairs of private enterprise (burdensome government regulation).

Or when tradesmen tried to use their wealth to gain political power, which could lead to the degenerate form of government known as oligarchy.

Representative Nimrod T. ("Tip") McLane inserted the blade of his pocketknife deep into one of the treads. The rubber was tough, but so was Tip McLane, and eventually it gave way and he felt the blade penetrate into the tire. Then all he had to do was twist, and air began to hiss out, feeling cold and wet as it flowed over his hand.

The ambulance settled, almost as if it were going to roll over on top of him. He was startled by a popping noise that came from the flaccid tire as its bead popped loose from the rim. That was extra good; it would make the tire much more difficult to reinflate.

He withdrew the knife, folded it back into his pocket, and then strolled back through the roses to the backyard.

The EMTs transferred Karl Fort on to a gurney and wheeled him across the yard, through the Markhams' house, and out to the ambulance, chased the whole way by journalists who left a trail of baked-bean footprints across the polished-granite floors and the oriental rugs. The ambulance traveled about ten feet down the drive, veering uncontrollably to the left, and then stopped.

Someone ran inside and called another ambulance. Two of the EMTs jumped out and began to change the tire. Shooting through the rear windows of the van, the media were able to get beautiful shots of another EMT, on his knees next to Fort, holding up the electric paddles, preparing to administer the sacrament of defibrillation.

Karl Fort lingered in the hospital for five days. According to tracking polls commissioned by the McLane campaign, the Rev. Sweigel's support climbed all the way up to the 20 percent mark when Fort's condition was upgraded from critical to serious. But when Fort's kidneys went, on the Saturday before the big vote, the voters began to show disillusionment, and when he finally died on Sunday evening, just in time for the eleven p.m. news, the Reverend's standing collapsed like a popped balloon.

Tip McLane and his crew had already gotten the news, through private channels. He and Zorn and Drasher went down to their hotel bar for a drink and watched the coverage of Fort's death, and then of the day's campaign events. They were joined by a couple of writers for major East Coast newspapers, men who had been assigned to the McLane campaign for the last few months and whom they had gotten to know well. They bought each other drinks and talked off the record late into the night. Though no one came out and said it, they all knew that the primary campaign was over.

Eleanor Richmond rented a town house in the Rosemont neighborhood of Alexandria. It had actually been part of D.C. at one point and had been ceded back to the state of Virginia in 1846, so she could weakly maintain that she was back living in her hometown once more.

This historical argument was completely lost on all of her relatives in the District, who had been delighted when she announced she was coming home, and then hurt and angry when she chose to live in Virginia. But Eleanor had already seen her son get shot in the back, and as far as she was concerned, D.C. didn't have anything to offer her kids except for a few museums and a whole lot of ways to get shot.