Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

But who did he have? He felt alone and isolated, no longer trusting General Brandt, but having been given no valid excuse to dismiss him or to send him home. Denny was half a world away, immersed in his clandestine research. For every selfish reason he could name he bitterly regretted sending Jack away.

He stood up, sipping his scotch while he gazed at the Kremlin with a jaundiced eye. He was also beginning to regret staking the first ninety days of his presidency on this Russian accord. It had been General Brandt who had talked him into it, Brandt who had pointed out that what the American people wanted and needed most was a sense of heightened security, an outcome that shutting down the Iranian nuclear program would accomplish. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be done without Yukin’s help.

Brandt might be right about all that, he thought now, but the fact was he didn’t trust Yukin, and now he didn’t trust the General either, which was why he’d resolved to bring the surveillance photos into play now, rather than keep them in reserve.

Not that he himself was innocent—he had no illusions on that score. This was why he loved Shakespeare—because his kings were so self-aware. Not for them the delusions of lesser mortals; they were clear-eyed even in their madness. They knew their hands were covered in blood, that they had committed murder, that they had given difficult orders on which lives rose and fell, hung in the balance, and were ultimately plowed under the bloody fields of battle. Neither had they conveniently forgotten the plots and betrayals that had paved their way to the crown.

Into his wandering mind now came one of his favorite lines from Henry V : “What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect that private men enjoy!”

He lifted the glass to his lips, but he’d already finished the scotch. The remainder of the Talisker was in the bottle on the other side of the room, but instead of going for it, he put down the empty glass and headed for the connecting door.

A youngish, gangly individual who looked uncomfortable in his boxy suit looked up at the president’s appearance, startled and pale beneath his African-American brown. He was already reaching for the portable defibrillator as he said, “Sir, are you feeling—?”

“Relax, I’m fine.” Carson sat down in the chair opposite the person known colloquially as Defib Man, the doctor who trailed after him in case he had a heart attack. “Sit, sit.”

The president looked over at the ultraportable computer Defib Man had set back on his lap. “Catching up on the news in the real world?”

“No, Mr. President, I’m e-mailing my daughter, Shona.”

“What school is she in?”

“Well, it’s a special school. She’s crazy about horses.”

“Does she ride English or Western? My daughter rides—”

“Neither, Mr. President. She’s got Asperger’s syndrome. She concentrates very well, especially on the things she likes, and in that sense she’s something of a genius, but she has no emotions.”

The president’s brow furrowed. “I don’t follow you. Surely she loves you and your wife.”

“She doesn’t, Mr. President, not in the normal sense, anyway. She doesn’t feel anything—joy, sorrow, fear, love.”

“And yet you said that she’s crazy about horses.”

“Yes, she’s discovered a way to breed them that’s some kind of breakthrough, though to be honest I don’t get it. They fascinate her, but on a level neither my wife nor I can fathom. Maybe they operate on her level, who knows? Basically, she’s in a world of her own making. It’s as if there’s a glass bell jar around her that nothing can get through. What makes it all the worse is that she’s perfectly self-aware. She’s a prisoner of her own mind, and she knows it.”

With a pang the president thought of his own daughter who, in hindsight, had been lost to him a long time ago, there was no use pretending otherwise. He couldn’t understand her the way Jack seemed to; worse, he was losing patience with her. Whatever she had gone through was over and done with, why couldn’t she put it behind her like a normal human being? There was only so much time he could devote to her and her issues. He was used to solving problems, not having them continue to unwind like an endless ball of twine. How the devil had he and Lyn given life to a creature who seemed to feel nothing toward them except contempt? Of course that begged the question of what he felt about her. Of course he loved her, he had to love her, she was his daughter. As such he would protect her with his life, but that didn’t mean he had to like her, or that he should accept who she was. What did she know of the real world, anyway? She exhibited only disdain at the compromises he had been forced to make in order to gain and retain his political power. These days his emotions tended to swing from praying she’d pull out of her depression or whatever the hell she was wallowing in to being fed up with her unacceptable and childishly narcissistic behavior. Lyn had always been in the habit of acceding to her whims and threats, never more so than now, but he was coming to the end of his tether.

Defib Man stirred uneasily causing Carson to think, Heartache here, too. We’re both unlucky fathers, there is no real difference between the two of us . He said, “I’m truly sorry . . .”

He was groping around in his memory when Defib Man said, “Reginald White, sir. Reggie.”

“Yes, of course. Reggie. Very good.” He trusted his kilowatt smile to burn away his lapse. “I’m hungry, Reggie. Are you hungry? What say we get something to eat?” He reached for a phone, but one of his protectors got there first.

“What can I get you, sir?” the Secret Service agent said.

“How about a burger—no, a cheeseburger deluxe. How would you like that, Reggie?”

White seemed slightly terrified, as if his world had been turned upside down. “Surely, Mr. President, you have more important things to do than have a burger with me.”

“As it happens, Reggie, I don’t. And even if I did, this is what I want to do now.” He turned to the agent. “A pair of cheeseburgers deluxe. And French fries. Do you like French fries, Reggie? Good, who doesn’t. We’ll share a large order then. And a couple of Cokes.”

Then he turned back to Reginald White. “Now I want to hear all about Shona and her breakthrough. You have good reason to be proud of your daughter.”

“IT GETS worse?” Paull said.

Thomson nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

As if on cue Benson returned to the chesterfields, but now he sat beside Paull, rather than opposite him. “Now comes the chapter and verse on General Brandt.”

“Not until I see my daughter and grandson,” Paull said.

“We don’t have time—”

“You’re the one who brought my family into the mix, Benson.” Paull stood. “I have enough to go to the president, which will save him, but not, unfortunately, the two of you.”

Thomson, alarmed, rose as well. “If you let us explain fully—”

“Be my guest,” Paull said, “ after I see my family and after I tell them that I’m not dying.”

“Consider,” Benson said. “They might not then wish to see you.”

Paull shook his head. “You really are a piece of work.” He cocked his head. “Now I think about it I’m not going to make this easier for you. You’re going to tell them I’m not terminal. It’s your lie, you wriggle out of it.”

Benson looked bleakly over at Thomson, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Then he got up heavily, straightened his jacket, brushed down his trousers, and sliding open the pocket doors, led the way across the hall to a somber study, devoid of sunlight.

Paull was at once terror-stricken. He hadn’t seen his daughter in seven years, hadn’t ever laid eyes on his grandson—Aaron, he had a name to which Paull was about to put a face. He realized that he could take Claire’s rejection, she had become for him a shadow, an image in a photo, slightly faded from time and the slippage of memory. She had become, in a way, like Louise, shut away in her own private Petworth Manor, as if she, too, suffered from Alzheimer’s, her forgetting him not of her own volition. It was easier, or at least less painful, to think of her as debilitated, ill, not in control of her mind or her emotions. In this way he had frozen her like a butterfly in amber, a small child he could still remember sitting on his knee while together they recited the words to Goodnight Moon .