FIFTY-THREE
Arne Haugen recovered faster than expected. In a week he walked around in his room, with the doctor's permission and an orderly's support. Two evenings later he walked, unsupported, with Lois to the TV lounge at the end of the hall, to watch Dustin Hoffman as Oberst Markus Dietermann, in The Sweet Breeze of Spring.
Lois was with him a lot. The hospital had given her a room diere, and they talked a good deal. Stephen Flynn had made it three-cornered a few times.
Two days later, Acting President Rudolfo Valenzuela came to see the president, at the president's request. They borrowed an empty room, one that could hardly have been bugged—there'd been no chance to. Two Secret Service men requisitioned a pair of upholstered chairs for them from the staff lounge, and hustled them down the hall, arriving just ahead of the president and his stand-in.
"So you like the job," said Haugen when the bodyguards had left the room.
Valenzuela's chuckle was a resonant bass rumble. "Under the circumstances I do. I can imagine it becoming quite different when things are more strongly political again. But that could be very enjoyable too, very stimulating."
The president nodded, then seemed to change direction. "I wonder if anyone ever saw a winter as wild as this one before," he said thoughtfully. "A fall and winter. Politically, economically, meteorologically ... seismologically. There's hardly anything in America that hasn't been turned on its ear."
For several minutes, Arne Haugen kept the conversation casual, and Valenzuela wondered why. Maybe he was letting his subconscious prepare. The president had wanted him here today, this afternoon, had wanted a secure room to talk in, but what he was talking about could have been said in front of anyone. Whatever the point was, and Valenzuela suspected what it might be, the president was in no hurry to get to it.
After a few minutes, Haugen changed directions again. "How do you like living in the White House?" he asked.
"Quite well. Although we don't feel we're really living there. We're camping, in the Lincoln Suite. It's a bit like living in a museum; it took a day or two before we felt comfortable about sitting on the furniture." Valenzuela grinned. "Milstead suggested either the Queen's or the Lincoln Suite. Manuella was attracted by the Queen's"—again the chuckle—"but I, for some reason, preferred the Lincoln."
"How have you gotten along with Grosberg and Kreiner, and Lynch and Powell? Or haven't you had much to do with them yet?"
"They briefed me on current Congressional affairs, early on. I hadn't realized how legislatively active they are on the hill these days. Your legislative bombshells have gotten all the attention. Since then I've met with them twice, briefly, and so far we've gotten along very well."
"What's the latest from Zurich?" Haugen asked.
"Progress is reasonable. Encouraging. We've had no real barriers thrown in front of us. Hal Katsaros is in charge; he's acting secretary again."
The president nodded. "And the new court system; how's it going?"
"The bugs and snarls are less now. Mr. Cavanaugh assures me there are no problems which actually threaten the judicial processes. In fact, he said it's probably running as smoothly now as a year ago, and with better results.
"I've also talked with Chief Justice Liederman, and it is his opinion that it will engender similar reforms in almost all the individual states within the next two years. You are probably aware that last Friday, North Carolina became the seventh to do so, and very similar reforms are already pending in eleven more, including two of the three largest, California and Texas."
Haugen nodded. Minnesota, long a stronghold of populist philosophy, had been the second state to pass one.
Valenzuela's expression became quizzical now, and he changed the subject. "General Cromwell has shown me his report on the Holist Council, and the very interesting booklet written by the senior Massey. Along with the tie-ins that Director Dirksma found between Massey junior and Coulter and Blackburn/Merriman and others. Including the Calvert Cliffs bombers. He told me he is still waiting for you to make these public, and he's wondering why you haven't."
The president gazed mildly at Valenzuela. "If you were me, what reasons might you have, if any, for sitting on it?"
"Hm-m. Just now, none of it seems terribly relevant... It would be—a public distraction, I suppose. Despite the Archons having had a very large impact not only on this country but on the world and on human life in general. Basically they're out of it now. Massey is dead. And Keller and Harburt and Johnson, for their years of insider trading violations, have been removed from Wall Street to the Arizona cotton fields.
"All that's left are their after-effects."
Haugen nodded. "That's the way I look at it. And you made the right distinction—they seem irrelevant. Actually they're relevant enough, but their relevancy isn't immediate. " The president shifted in his chair, as if restless. "And I do intend to make them public. I've even chosen the time and place—unless someone releases them ahead of me."
He stopped then and looked Valenzuela over. "You've been sitting there waiting patiently for what I asked you here about. So. Are you ready to be president for real now? With the title as well as the duties?"
Valenzuela grinned at the president. "I am."
Haugen grinned back. "Good." He leaned forward, a bit carefully, and extended his good hand. They shook on it. "I'll have Okada call a press conference for me next Monday. That'll give you and Milstead seven days to get ready; and me seven days to get stronger. It would have the wrong effect to resign as an invalid; I'll do it on my feet, from the Oval Office."
He paused. "You've known this was coming. If not now, then almost certainly sometime this year. D'you have a vice president in mind?"
"Marianne," Valenzuela said. "She has an instinct for discerning the correct action in a situation. And politically, the combination of her and myself would truly mark this as a new era." He paused, eyeing Haugen. "A new era that you have taken us into. You and the circumstances, of course."
"And Jumper," the president added. "Jumper was the key. You know when he sprung this on me on a stormy night last October, it startled hell out of me; I was totally unprepared. So I put him off till morning; wouldn't answer yes or no. But after he left the hotel and I went to bed, I lay there feeling all sorts of stuff going on subliminally, and I knew then I was going to do it. And I wasn't scared; I was excited. Then I went to sleep and dreamed furiously all night long. Getting ready.
"It seemed to me that I was the right man, or a right man, for the time and place. And I figured that if Jumper was willing to ride with his knowingness, and choose me on short acquaintance when there were all those hungry politicians available, experienced in government, lots of them bright and skilled... He had to have a hell of a lot of self-confidence and balls." The president smiled and shook his head. "There's more to Jumper than people notice. That's why I kept him as vice president so long when he didn't want the job. Until I found someone else I liked for it as well."
"You might want to tell him that," said Valenzuela.
"It'd be better if you told him. He never believed me. And he'd know I'd told other people what I thought of him; that I hadn't just been stringing him along," Haugen shook his head. "I don't know why he was so afraid of becoming president. It occurred to me once that his name might have something to do with it—Cromwell. But he's named after Thomas, not Oliver."
The president's voice had become tired; now he shifted in his chair again. "I guess we've said what we need to here." Gingerly he got up, leaning forward to get his weight as much as possible over his knees, then pressed down with his right hand on the arm of the chair and stood.
"The country may not know it," he added, "but it's time to graduate from having the general's president in charge."
Actually, he could probably function for a year or more, he told himself. But his condition would be conspicuous before then. He'd been noticing it for a couple of months, himself, and had ascribed it to the job.
Then, on Friday, he'd had that physical exam that Singleton had urged. He needed to tell Lois about it. Today would be good. But it was no time to tell the nation.