Authors: John M. Green
THE air was thick with anticipation. Once Isabel had settled the House as best she could, she nodded to the Sergeant at Arms. He in turn signalled the Deputy Sergeant at Arms
who announced that the Senators had arrived outside the Hall. As near to a single organism as 435 anxious people can be, the Representatives present rose, as was traditional to receive the members
from the other legislative chamber. The public gallery followed suit, with George standing only when Isabel raised her eyebrow at him.
Spencer Prentice was down toward the front and three rows back. A student of protocol, he knew that the first senator to enter would be Eric Mallord, the Senate President pro tempore. For the
joint sitting of both Houses, Eric would be taking the high-backed chair to Isabel’s right.
With the flag draped behind her, Isabel waited to strike her gavel until Eric sat beside her and the bustle of senatorial silk and wool and the smattering of huffs and grunts had ceased.
“To escort the President of the United States into the Chamber, the Chair,” she pronounced formally, “appoints as members of the committee on the part of the House: the
gentleman from Missouri… the gentlewoman from Ohio…” and after appointing another eleven representatives, “the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr Prentice.” She winked
at Spencer, but without a smile.
The glint when their eyes met spoke enough for him and, pumped up, the six-foot-six son of a Boston hospital nurse and pre-school teacher—hardly the black Boston Brahmin many people
assumed from his bearing and diction—winked back at his old friend, also without a smile. Impassive, tough, she watched him as he stood and swivelled around to go to the doors.
As Spencer and the others headed up the centre aisle, Senator Mallord took his cue and appointed a similar number of senators as additional escorts.
Next, the Deputy Sergeant at Arms welcomed the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court.
Isabel caught the Chief Justice’s smile, and searched for other friendly faces among the otherwise impressive gathering.
There were many faces, though few actual friends.
FOSTER’S Cabinet entered next, all except the Secretary for Health who, under the Continuity of Government plans that demanded one person in the succession be located
elsewhere, had drawn the doomsday short straw.
The Cabinet members shuffled in with their heads appropriately grave and low. Their colleague and, for several of them, their good friend Vice-President Mitch Taylor had died; and only two of
them were in the tiny loop of knowledge about what was really happening with the President.
Every Cabinet member, even Robinson and Bentley, was hoping or praying that President Foster would appear tonight safe and well. The repercussions would be enormous if he didn’t: the
unspeakable possibility of a double assassination; and with Isabel Diaz seated up ahead of them, the unthinkable toppling of a hard-fought, near-miss Democratic White House.
Paying evident respects to the tragic circumstances, they took their reserved seats at the front.
I
SABEL CAUSED THE first real stir of the session when she asked Congress to grant the privileges of the floor of the House to Ed and Davey so they
could take the two remaining seats up front. Normally the Speaker’s relatives sat in the gallery, where George was. Even the President’s family sat up there, though oddly neither the
First Lady nor her children were there tonight.
“What the…?” was the most common reaction that flittered around the Chamber. Everyone present knew that they were in uncharted territory tonight and a hesitant acclamation
granted her request. The doors opened and, preceded by the Deputy Sergeant at Arms, Ed and Davey brushed their way past the President’s welcoming committee. Spencer Prentice, standing beside
the doors, grit his teeth as the former General passed. If Ed had noticed the Congressman, he would have done likewise.
THE President’s motorcade snaked towards the Capitol Building. The vehicles hadn’t come from the White House—no one knew where they were from—so their
mere approach was newsworthy.
“The motorcade is about three minutes away, Kevin,” the newscaster told her ABC sidekick on air. “And as yet, no one has actually sighted of President Foster.”
“Yes, Patsy, and with the First Lady not even in the Chamber, which is most unusual, there are many who could be forgiven for being in severe doubt that he’s even behind those
dark-smoked windows.”
“There’s been so much speculation about tonight’s session that bloggers are calling it ‘The
Fate
of the Union’…”
“A week ago, the events of the last few days would have been inconceivable… plunging the country into a turmoil that, hopefully, will be quelled tonight. Who could ever have
contemplated that nothing—not a peep—could have been heard, or seen, of the President since his…?”
“Kevin, this attendance by the Speaker’s husband and stepson on the floor of the House… it’s most irregular, too. We’re crossing now to Leighton Smith, a
longstanding expert on House formalities… Leighton, what do you make of this?”
“As you know, Patsy, family members are always seated in the galleries. I’ve been covering Washington for fourteen years and I can’t recall seeing anything like this before.
For Madam Speaker’s family to be admitted to the floor suggests something more than a State of the Union…”
“Like what…?” pressed Patsy.
“I know this will only fuel the rumour mill,” Smith continued, “…an inauguration.”
“But Leighton, the ceremonies swearing in a new president are held on the West Front of the Capitol.”
“In modern times they are, but until 1850 they were usually held
inside
the Capitol, in fact mostly on the floor of the House…”
“Leighton, you’re not suggesting…?”
ED strode down the aisle to the front with Davey nervously trying to keep up behind him. Davey was doing his utmost not to shake out of his skin or rather, his alien coat and tie. He stretched
his shoulders back and held his posture as high as possible, trying hard to imitate his father’s natural ramrod straightness, but his hands were useless and, without the comfort of holding
Pip his fluffy penguin, they were dangling self-consciously by his side, and he knew he wasn’t allowed to put his hands in his pockets. George had said so.
When Davey and Ed had settled into their seats in the front row, beside the Cabinet, Davey looked up at Isabel in awe, but caught her watching him with a sadness in her eyes, though he thought
it was from her injuries.
Quickly, she collected herself and smiled, tipping her head to the side, so he would look over to the right of the Hall—his right, her left—where the signing interpreter she’d
told him about earlier was poised so he could follow the proceedings.
Tonight, he would need to.
A
T 9:01 PM, THE Sergeant at Arms re-entered through the main doors and closed them firmly behind him. He walked down the aisle and up to the
rostrum. Spencer watched him lean over between Isabel and Senator Mallord, cover his mouth and speak. The three engaged in a fleeting conversation and when the Speaker and Senate President nodded,
the Sergeant stepped down to the floor and back up the aisle. At the doors, he cleared his throat, and after a collective intake of air, a hush enveloped the Chamber.
Throughout the Hall, eyes closed in relief and hands clasped together as though in prayer. Then everyone twisted around to see Spencer and the other members of the welcoming committee tipping
forward at the doors, set for them to swing open, or at least hoping they would.
Isabel struck her gavel twice, and the Sergeant at Arms announced, “Madam Speaker… the President of the United States.”
A commotion erupted at the back of the Hall and ten plainclothes Capitol police ran up the centre aisle and around the sides. Several clusters of congressmen and women from the rear leapt from
their seats and themselves charged to the doors, blocking the view from the front. Everyone rose, this time including George.
Three officers stepped up onto the rostrum to protect Isabel and Senator Mallord, though from what no one seemed to know. Four other officers hugged the front row just to the side, near where Ed
and Davey were now standing, with Davey trying to peek toward the back between all the tall bodies.
Those who couldn’t see were straining their bodies toward the cause of the hubbub, only adding to it by asking their neighbours either side if they could see anything.
The Chamber was descending into a rabble. Because of her injuries and the difficulties she’d have using her gavel while she was standing, Isabel had asked Senator Mallord to take temporary
control of it and, with her cane, she carefully pressed herself to her feet.
Mallord slammed the gavel with no remit but the only soul who seemed to be paying attention was Isabel who judiciously kept her hands safely away from the bench. Mallord was forced to shout,
“Order! Order!” Again and again, he smashed the gavel onto the bench and, stretching out his neck, even he couldn’t detect what was going on in the ruckus down the back.
“Please!” shouted Mallord, “Members, Senators… Do you hear me? Order!”
The Sergeant at Arms was on the case. His single finger held aloft signalled to Mallord that he’d need a further moment as he pushed back through the swarm.
The authorised camera crew suffered similar obstructions though, briefly, a gap opened up among the crowd milling around the doors and, before it closed up again, they managed to zoom their
camera through it.
One of the Capitol police officers stationed near the rostrum was pressing on his earpiece. He was refusing to trust what he thought he’d heard, but when it came through a second time he
stepped between Mallord and Isabel to inform them.
“Truly?” Mallord exclaimed for everyone to hear, even over the hullabaloo, and pressed his fist to his mouth to suppress a nervous cough.
Never before had so many legislators with their mouths open been as silent.
U
NUSUALLY FOR A President’s entrance, if that’s what was about to happen, no one was applauding. Instead everyone was listening and
watching. Waiting.
Spencer Prentice stood near the doors in edgy silence, almost on his toes. He swivelled back to the front and saw Isabel was also standing, leaning on her cane, her blank eyes fixed on the back
of the Hall not far from him. She wasn’t unsteady, though there was something hard about her, pitiless. She was like a rock.
Spencer had never seen her like this. Sure, he’d seen her tough and resolute, but always tempered, with a softness to her edge. But he knew she’d been through a lot the last
forty-eight hours, let alone the last eighteen months of her futile campaign. She was entitled to feel empty when the man she would easily have defeated, if she had been allowed to continue in the
race, was about to deliver a speech that should have been hers. Just then, President Robert J. Foster swept through the doors into the Chamber.
To Spencer and everyone else Foster’s face, too, was set like week-old concrete. His usual glinting Kennedy smile was gone. His eyes, thought Spencer—turning his head to and fro a
few times to check—were aimed right at Isabel as though he were trying to fix her to the spot, and her own glare in return coldly matched his.
The aisle swarming before Foster cleaved open as though he were a prophet parting the sea. His eyes kept locked ahead, never deflecting from Isabel’s, not acknowledging a single face to
either side. Normally, a President would be smiling, chatting, shaking hands, hugging as he came down the aisle, but Foster did none of that, emitting a frigid shield that no one dared break into.
The House didn’t know how to respond. Ordinarily, they’d be giving his entrance a standing ovation, but all they could do was stand, and gape. The few weak attempts at applause quickly
petered out.
Foster had a slight lean, preferring one side as he walked, but he had not a hint of a smile; not even a smirk. Just cold poison. As he strode to the rostrum, there was now only silence and this
time not even George would interrupt it.
Everyone was wondering the same thing. Isabel Diaz? Had she…? Politics and disbelief were suspended. Guts were knotted and lungs constricted by the dread of what they were about to hear.
If hands weren’t glued to people’s sides as if taped there, they were covering their mouths.
President Foster stepped up to the podium, a little less slowly than Isabel had, and went for the lectern at the Clerk’s desk, just in front of the Speaker and the Senate President. He
didn’t shake their hands or catch their eyes, and he didn’t follow the custom of handing them two manila envelopes containing his address.
To the majority of those present, familiar with House protocol, this made them even edgier. Faces around the Hall wrinkled, eyes blinked and eyebrows furrowed. Stomachs were clenched. Those
watching in their homes were tipping on the edges of their sofas as the TV commentators explained the unexpected breaks with tradition. Bars were silenced as their customers stared at the TV
screens hanging from the ceilings or on the walls.
Foster’s jaw was grim, Spencer could see that, and there seemed to be nothing physically ailing him, despite the slight lean Spencer had noticed as he’d walked through.
Suddenly, it dawned on Spencer, and on many of those watching. Foster hadn’t been recuperating… he had been in hiding.
But from Isabel? Surely not.
“Members of the Congress,” said Isabel, interrupting these thoughts, “I have the high privilege and the distinct honour of presenting to you… the President of the United
States.”
Foster’s head bowed as in prayer and the House clapped lightly. When he raised his head back up, all he could see were heavy, worried eyes, not unlike his own. He arced left and right as
if blessing the grand hall. His right hand patted the air to signal those before him to sit.
“Members of Congress,” he said, pausing until the tide of heads had subsided. “Distinguished guests and fellow citizens. Your eyes have not deceived you but your President
has… and when you hear why, I pray you will forgive me.”