John Barnes - Directive 51

“I really appreciate the ride, and the chance to talk with you privately,” Graham Weisbrod said, pushing his glasses up his nose and peering intently at Shaunsen.

“Well, there’s so much to get done,” Shaunsen said. “We’ve got a crisis here, and if we play it right, it’ll be the New Deal all over again, with a Democratic majority for the next—”

“Mr. President, I’m as loyal a Democrat as you are, sir, and we are not going to win this election—”

Shaunsen shook his head. “Crises come and crises go, Secretary Weisbrod, but Americans always want hope, and we are the party of hope. That’s one of the problems with your whole Department of the Future; it’s unnecessary and trivial. Everything that really matters goes on forever. When things get smashed up, the country rebuilds, and the Democrats lead it. Sure, it’s bad right now. It was bad when the Depression hit, and after Pearl Harbor, and after the Federal Reserve bombings. But times like this are when we show the voters we can make the money move and get things done.”

All right, I’m going to hate myself if I don’t try, so here goes. “Mr. President, do you realize that we can’t reliably deliver mail from here to Richmond, there are now fifteen states from which we have only had satellite photos in the last twenty-four hours, all communication is down with Ottawa and Mexico City, let alone Europe or Asia… and we have people going hungry ten blocks from the White House because there isn’t any food —”

“If Congress acts fast, we’ll have the money—”

“You can create the money, but they can’t eat it.” Good God alive, I feel like his reality therapist. If the National Unity Guards there weren’t giving me the fish-eye I’d slap the son of a bitch, I swear to god I would. “No one in the Northeast urban strip from Boston to Richmond can reach adequate shelter or food in time. Within a week, the first bad storm is going to kill tens of millions of Americans at a minimum. Right now, the best hope we’ve got is that there are little towns all over the country managing to organize things within a few miles of themselves, and we’re only hearing about them from ham radio operators who are just barely managing to keep their stations on the air—”

“Every one of those little towns will see a nice big grant, I guarantee it, for all the good work they’re doing.” Shaunsen reached out and touched his knee. “Graham, you are such a sad worrier , and the public always wants a happy warrior . We’ll make it all work, and the economy is going to take off like a rocket once we get these programs running. You’ll see. I’ve always said, you think about the future so much, you don’t see the long run.”

The limo zigged and zagged past the wrecks on the street; no one came out to look at it, perhaps intimidated by the Secret Service, perhaps just not caring about it anymore.

Forty minutes since Weisbrod arrived at the White House, and he’d spent all of it sitting in the Secret Service break room while the people dithered about allowing him in to see Roger Pendano. The Secret Service people were pleasant, polite, and much less formal than he’d ever seen them, but his thoughts were mostly on his old student. What if he’s so far gone in madness, he can’t recognize anyone? What if—

One of the Secret Service returned to the room and said, “Secretary Weisbrod, I’m supposed to take you to see President Pendano now. The doctor wants you to know he’s not in the best shape. He said you should go as soon as the president starts to look tired or sick, because his health is precarious. Okay?”

“You’ve got it. He was my friend a long time before he was president, I won’t do anything to endanger or hurt him.”

“Just passing it along because the doctor told me to, sir. Right this way.” Two years ago Pendano had said he did not want to live in rooms where the First Lady had spent her last few months dying, and that any living space more than a comfortable minimum made him feel like he was “rattling around with no place to be.” He had moved up from the traditional Second Floor to the Third, into a bedroom with space for clothes and bed, with an adjoining sitting room for reading and watching television. They had put in a small kitchen so he could have food without bothering people, and a connecting door to a tiny guest bedroom for rare visits from his grown daughter. The mostly unoccupied floor below him gave him the quiet he craved.

The Secret Service agent escorting him upstairs had told Weisbrod that Shaunsen was already living in the traditional Presidential Quarters on the second floor, taking measurements and sketching. Weisbrod didn’t think he’d ever before heard a sarcastic tone from a Secret Service agent.

Weisbrod had been here a few times before Daybreak. Every so often, during the last couple of years, the president had invited Weisbrod; Peggy Albarado, the Secretary of Peace; Laura Pressman, the Secretary of Education; and Vice President Samuelson up to his sitting room to talk about “ideas and the long run and where everything really ought to go” while they killed a couple of bottles of good bourbon. He had called them his “Liquor Cabinet.”

The Secret Service man led Weisbrod to the door, nodded politely, and said, “Help him if you can, sir. We all want him to get better.”

“Thanks.” Weisbrod knocked. He interpreted the vague grunt from inside as “come in.”

The man who sat on the couch looked more like the mummified remains of Roger Pendano than anything else. God, on Monday he was fine, and it’s only Thursday!

“Roger?” Weisbrod sat next to him, and turned on the lamp.

The president’s skin was a sick tone of gray, the lines of his face seemed to have deepened by a good ten years, and his eyes were half-closed; he hadn’t really even looked up to see that it was Weisbrod. Tentatively, Graham reached out and rubbed a shoulder; slowly, Pendano turned, and then jumped.

“You think I just appeared.”

“Yeah, yeah, I… Graham?”

“It’s me, Mr. President.”

“Am I…” Pendano looked deeply frustrated. “I’m supposed to make sure about my pills. I think that’s after you go. And I took the ones for when you’re here.” His eyes looked desperate.

Weisbrod stood, taking the president’s hand. He led him over to the pill bottles and pointed. The president nodded, and pointed to the bottle of little red pills. “Just had those a little bit ago.” He pointed to the big white ones. “All the time, and supposed to take one right after you go.” He was panting, and sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort of walking to the table.

Weisbrod pulled out his personal notepad and pen, and wrote:

They are giving you very large doses of barbiturates.

They just gave you speed to wake you up.

Dangerous for you?????

→

The president nodded his head vigorously. Next to Graham’s arrow he scribbled, Last EKG worse thn we told press, kidney failure 2…

He stopped to catch his breath; sweat was actually dripping from his forehead. Weisbrod put a hand on his back and helped him stand straighter; bringing the pad along, he walked the president to the couch. Weisbrod cleaned Pendano’s face with a wet cloth from the bathroom, and loosened his belt and tie.

“I feel better,” Pendano said, softly, writing, They started drugs rt after Shaunsen came.