TOM KNOWLES HAD never seen a man killed before, not for real, not by any method. What he knew of killing came from what he had seen in films.
He couldn’t get the images out of his head. Especially the legs, the twitching legs. They were still twitching at the end. Somehow that was almost worse than the bloody, pulped skull. The convulsive twitch of those legs, like the kicking of some animal.
Normally, the senior staff in the West Wing were a kind of surrogate family for the president. Ed Abrahams, Roberta Devlin and Gary Rose understood that on nights when the chief didn’t have any engagements the job often involved staying on and watching football with him in his study or a film in the White House cinema. It was semi-work as well. They talked about stuff and that often helped him come to decisions. Taking issues out of their usual context could help you see them in a different way.
But he didn’t feel like company tonight. He went up to the residence floor and ate dinner alone in his study. He looked over some papers he had taken up with him. He couldn’t concentrate. He turned on the TV but couldn’t find anything to watch. He left it on, surfing channels, watching the images moving on the screen. They couldn’t take away the images in his head.
He felt stunningly lonely. He truly felt there was no one who could share this burden. As commander in chief, he had sent that poor man to his terrible death. Jungle Peace was his and his alone. And he had wanted that raid, he had wanted it done quick. He thought of his own son, Steve, his only child. Steve and his wife and twin daughters were occasional visitors to the White House. He was hoping to see them in another couple of weeks for Thanksgiving. Last year the twins had stood alongside him as he pardoned the traditional Thanksgiving turkey in the Rose Garden until the bird turned its head and gobbled at them and the two little girls took off and ran like hell.
He smiled for a moment, thinking about it, then the smile faded off his lips.
He got up and went into the hall. He had given the room traditionally used as the president’s bedroom to Sarah, and used the west bedroom as his own. He knocked on her door and opened it. She wasn’t there. He looked in her study. Empty.
‘Tom,’ said Sarah.
He turned. She was in the hall behind him. He could see from her face that she had heard.
‘I’ve just got back,’ she said. ‘I had … It doesn’t matter. I had to give a speech.’
He nodded.
‘You okay?’
‘Sure.’
‘You want to talk?’
He smiled. He didn’t hear that from her very often.
‘Do you?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s okay.’
She took his hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. She took him into her study.
He followed, letting her lead him.
‘You want a drink?’
He nodded.
‘Bourbon?’
He nodded again.
She went out and got him one.
‘You’re not having anything?’ he said.
‘No.’ She shook her head and sat down on the sofa beside him. She was in a blue pant suit with a mauve shirt. Her hair was honey blonde. When he first met her it had been that color naturally. Now it needed a little help. She looked good. Sometimes he forgot what a good-looking woman she was.
She watched him.
He took a sip of the bourbon and closed his eyes.
‘You didn’t see that video, I hope,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Don’t watch it. It’s a horrible thing.’ He looked at her. ‘They’re evil, Sarah. I know it’s an old-fashioned word, but I don’t know another one for it. You don’t have to believe in God to know they’re going straight to hell.’ He sighed. ‘I’m only trying to do what’s right out there. I’ve got no other motive.’
‘It’s a good thing you’re doing there, Tom.’
‘I don’t know if that’s going to make much difference to that poor man’s family. I don’t know what I’m going to say when I speak to them.’
‘You’ll find the words.’
‘There aren’t any.’
‘You’ll find them, Tom.’
He took another sip of his bourbon. ‘Harley Gauss was his name. Twenty-six years old. Captain Harley Gauss.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘You know, there are some things that … Something like this changes everything.’
Sarah watched him.
He leaned back and shook his head. ‘You know, this presidency …’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Suddenly I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Tom, an atrocity like this … it looms a lot bigger than it is. Right now it seems like the worst thing that’s ever happened.’
‘I know that. I realize that.’ He paused, frowning. ‘I was thinking before. It’s hardly more than a month since we launched Jungle Peace. You can’t believe it. You think back and …’ He stopped again, smiling disbelievingly. ‘It’s like a different age. We were launching a simple mission to root out a bunch of evil guys. The country backed me seventy per cent. The economy looked strong, the markets were sound. I was looking at a sixty-seat majority in the Senate and an unchallenged renomination. And now…’ He laughed bitterly. ‘God, Sarah, it’s like it’s all in ruins. In a month. One lousy month. I don’t know how the hell it happened.’
She watched him.
‘I’ve got no idea. And it’s not over. They’ve still got two of our guys. We could have two more videos. Or it could turn into some kind of drawn-out hostage situation.’
‘Won’t it? Neither you nor I nor anyone knows that. I don’t think our people have the first idea about how to find them. And we’ve got men on the ground now. In the jungle. We could lose more. What happens then? Those damn military guys told me it was going to be done clean, from the air, and the first time I ask them to do something we’ve got two Apaches down and two dead and more missing. I can just see it getting dirtier and dirtier on the ground now. It was never meant to be like that.’
‘Tom, you’re imagining the worst scenario. It’ll come back under control. What’s to say the military don’t get them back and finish the job like they said they’d do?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ He worked at his temples with his fingertips. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. ‘Then there’s the markets and the banks and who knows what the Chinese are doing?’
Sarah looked at him uncomprehendingly. She didn’t know the truth about the rumored approach to Zhang that he had made the morning Fidelian failed.
‘Who knows what the hell to do? I’ve got Strickland and Opitz running around doing all kinds of things but I can’t say I really understand if it’s going to work and I don’t think they do either. Looks to me like they think up one thing after the next to deal with whatever happens to come up that particular day. You know, there hasn’t been a day until this last week when I wondered what I was doing here. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but when I won the election, I thought I was going to feel like an impostor. Like a fraud. When I first started, I mean. I thought I’d arrive at the White House after the inauguration and the next morning I’d sit down to work in the Oval Office and I’d be thinking, I shouldn’t be here. It should be Dwight Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan, not me.’
Sarah smiled.
‘But I didn’t, Sarah. What I’m saying is I didn’t feel like that. By the time I got here, after the transition, I felt fine. I felt like this was my place. And I’ve felt like it every single day until this last week. And now I’m not sure. I don’t know if I belong here. It sure doesn’t feel like it. Feels like the country deserves something better.’
‘Tom,’ said Sarah. She took his hand.
‘And now I’ve got the Veterans’ Day speech on Sunday. What a time for it, huh?’ He shook his head. ‘You know, George W Bush said some of the nights in this office are long and lonely. That was about the only thing I ever heard him say that I thought would be worth remembering. And after two years, I thought I knew what he meant. But actually I don’t think I did. Not until this week. I’ve had a few of those nights in the last week. I think tonight’s going to be another one. I think tonight’s going to be the worst one yet.’
He gazed at her. Sarah smiled. Whatever they had been through, whatever had become of their marriage, there was still an understanding, a certain deep familiarity that they shared that neither of them shared with anyone else. Sarah herself didn’t know why she was still with him. She shouldn’t have been, but she was. It wasn’t as simple as it looked to some people who presumed to comment from the outside.
She drew him to her. She held him for a moment, and then leaned back and looked him in the eyes.
‘You’re a good president, Tom Knowles.’
He shook his head. ‘The jury’s out on that.’
‘No, it’s not. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t have doubts. You’re a good president. You’ll do the right things. You’ll get us through this. I believe it. The country believes it. Listen to me. You’re a good president.’
‘But not a good husband, huh?’
Sarah looked at him sadly. ‘Oh, Tom,’ she said.