FINDING THE PRESIDENT’S HEADQUARTERS was the easy part. Getting inside was another story. Just outside the entrance to the front tent stood four guards armed with automatic weapons. Still more soldiers walked the perimeter, making sure no one got within fifty feet. It became instantly clear that three mud-splattered teens wearing threadbare clothes would never be allowed a private conversation with the president.
How naive could we have been, thinking we could just waltz into town and speak to the ruler of the Republic?
We kept on walking until we reached the woods. There, we sat on stumps and picked the mud from our clothes. None of us bothered to hide our disappointment.
“Now what?” Hope asked.
Her question hung in the air like the layer of wood smoke that hovered above the city. We’d come all this way, but we weren’t allowed to share what we knew with the one person who could do something about it.
“Maybe we don’t need to see the president,” I suggested. “Maybe there’s someone else we could talk to.”
“The problem’s the same,” Cat said. “Look at us.”
He tugged at his T-shirt, which was more holes than fabric. His jeans were encrusted with mud, blackened from campfires. We looked like something you’d scrape off the bottom of a boot.
“So maybe instead of trying to cover up what we look like, we take advantage of it,” I said.
“What’re you thinking?”
I didn’t have a definite answer to that, but I did have one idea.
We staked out the president’s headquarters, sitting in the shadow of a shoe repair tent, pretending to wait for our boots to be fixed. A number of people came and went to see the president—but not, thank goodness, Chancellor Maddox. We had yet to lay eyes on her. It was possible she hadn’t yet arrived.
Our attention went to a middle-aged black gentleman with white hair and matching white goatee. He entered and exited the headquarters several times a day, and the fact that he was always accompanied by two Brown Shirts convinced us he was someone important.
One morning, three days after we’d been in New Washington, Cat ventured out into the street, leaning on a walking stick. As the man approached the headquarters, the stick slipped and Cat fell headfirst into the slop. His artificial arm went flying.
“I got him, mister,” I said, running forward. The older man stopped in the middle of the road, not knowing what to make of a mud-soaked, one-armed Cat lying in the muck.
“Are you all right, son?” he asked.
“Fine,” Cat said with a grimace, taking all the time in the world to raise himself to a standing position. “Just can’t seem to get the hang of this thing.” He swiped angrily at the prosthetic.
“I can imagine it would take time. Well, if you’re all right—”
“Course, some of my fellow soldiers have it worse.”
The man studied Cat as though he hadn’t really seen him before. “You were in the service?”
“Yes, sir. Western Federation.”
“You’re young.”
“Twenty,” he lied. “But never too young to fight the Crazies. They’re the ones who did this.” He slapped the stump of his arm.
“Yes, well,” the man said, “thank you for your service.”
He turned and started to go. I had no choice but to blurt out, “We sure would like to talk to the president. Thank him for everything he’s done.”
The man’s smile was kind but tight-lipped. “I wish that were possible. He’s a very busy man, what with the Conclave and all. Why don’t you write him a letter and I’ll see that he gets it?”
He started to pivot away, but before he did, I thrust out my hand. A grimy envelope dangled between my fingers. “I already have; it’s right here.”
The man studied me, studied the envelope, then reluctantly plucked it from my hand. “I’ll see that he gets it,” he said.
“We’re staying down at the stables if he’d like to talk to us.”
He grunted and was gone, slipping past the guards and behind the flaps of the presidential headquarters, his bodyguards right behind him.
Cat and I returned to the stables, where we joined back up with Hope.
“You really think it’ll work?” she asked.
“It better,” I said.
“What’s Plan B?”
“That’s just it. We don’t have one.”
Inside the envelope was a letter detailing all the murderous acts we’d seen Chancellor Maddox commit the last year. For good measure, we threw in the pictures of Faith and Hope when they’d first been admitted to Camp Freedom, shaved and tattooed. If that didn’t get the president’s attention, we didn’t know what would.