“Can I offer you anything?” Pacino asked. “The coffee here is Navy coffee. Beans grown in Colombia on a Navy-owned plantation outside Bogota. Best cup of coffee you will ever have, with the notable exception of the coffee in a nuclear submarine. I also have some good tea. And, of course, scotch and bourbon. I note the sun isn’t over the yardarm yet, but it must be somewhere.” Pacino smiled, realizing he was babbling. These two women made him nervous, all the more so since they waved off any beverage.
Virginia’s American Party Senator Michaela Everett was a populist and in her first term, and though she was only a freshman senator, she was a media superstar, a firebrand, and a loud party partisan. Which made it all the more odd that she’d come today with Virginia Governor Leann Meadow, a staunch National Party icon, revered and feared both inside and outside her party, and who would be running against Everett in the next election. Both women were in their early fifties, very slender — one could even say slinky — and had long, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, red lips and clear alabaster complexions. Despite their vast political differences, they looked like they could be sisters.
Senator Everett spoke first. “Mr. Vice President—“
“Call me Patch, please,” Pacino said.
Everett smiled. “Patch, then. I’ll get right to business. Paul Carlucci’s term is up soon, and no one knows if he will run again. Or if his health will hold out after the assassination attempt.”
“I heard he was recovering nicely,” Pacino said, frowning.
“What I mean,” Everett said, “is that in the case where Mr. Carlucci decides not to run, we’d like to draft you as the American Party candidate for president. And if he does run, we’d like you to stay on as vice president and focus on running four years later.”
The governor smiled, her eyes crinkling. “And if the American Party doesn’t want you, the National Party certainly does.”
Pacino sat back heavily in his seat. This was unexpected, he thought. In his mind, he was the worst fill-in president in the past 150 years. He was impatient with domestic issues, irritated at partisan politics, erupting at aides and congressman that their issues were ridiculous and not meaningful to the continued survival of the United States. On more than one occasion, he’d scolded powerful members of the opposition, and his own party, for lacking patriotism, and feeding like hogs at the troughs of corrupt Washington. He’d made an impassioned impromptu speech at one of the meetings that they were
He’d dismissed the hero worship. People loved the idea of an outsider, someone who wasn’t a career politician, taking office. But as time had proved over and over again, those outsiders eventually became insiders, and forgot about the American people, seemingly only caring about their power and continuation of government. They were the politicians he’d hated the most, remembering how his mission to rescue the
It occurred to him that Everett and Meadow were looking at him expectantly, waiting for his answer. As he opened his mouth to speak — not knowing what he’d say — he was saved by the main entrance door suddenly opening and Chief of Staff O’Keefe dashing in, coming up to Pacino and whispering in his ear.
“There are developments in Operation
Pacino stood. “Madam Governor, Madam Senator, I’m afraid I have to leave you. But I will consider what you said. Very seriously. Please excuse me.”
Pacino followed O’Keefe out of the Oval Office, the chief of staff nearly jogging, Pacino struggling to keep up while acting calm.
As he and his Secret Service detail entered the already crowded Situation Room, Pacino said a silent prayer that Anthony was okay. How many times had he said that same prayer during Operation
When the wind stopped, everyone who wasn’t sick rose to their feet, grabbed their parkas and walked out into the polar dawn. The thick clouds had cleared, blown south. To the southeast, the sun rose over an ice ridge.
