Breakout (Final Dawn) (27 page)

     “Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it any easier. They’re not the ones whose ass is hanging in the wind. And the
Tribune
writing such… stuff. That’s pretty much like getting booed by your own home field fans.”

     “You decided what to do yet?”

     The Governor’s only response was a glare and a brief silence. Then, “You too?”

     “Sorry, but if we’re going to give them their referendum we have to schedule it within thirty days of their petition. That’s Saturday. And I didn’t write the damn constitution, but that’s what it says.”

     The Governor put his boots back onto the floor and walked over to the window. With his back to Bennett, and while watching two pigeons pacing back and forth on his window sill trying to avoid the rain, Rick Perry made the most fateful decision of his political career.

     “Issue a press release, Charlie. Say we’re going to schedule the secession referendum for April first. That’ll bring all the loonies out for sure.”

     “Yes sir.” Bennett picked up the phone, then put it back down when the Governor started to speak again.

     “Maybe,” Perry said, “I’ll get to be President after all.”

     He turned to look at Bennett with a slight grin on his face.

     “Don’t put that in the press release.”

     Bennett chuckled and called the governor’s press secretary to schedule a meeting at ten a.m.

     Then he walked out of the office softly whistling “Hail to the Chief.”

     Rick Perry sipped his coffee, still looking out his window at the rain. It had been a rough year for him. The whole primary season, the debates, the media trying their best to make him look like a fool.

     He wasn’t normally a man who carried grudges, but there were a lot of people he learned to despise over the previous few months. And he couldn’t help it, the feelings just wouldn’t go away.

     And the phone call from Gingrich the previous afternoon certainly didn’t help much.

     “Hey, I hear y’all are just gonna saw off that big ole state of yours and float it out into the
Gulf of Mexico,” Gingrich told him. “Let me know if you can get me a good price on a beachfront near Dallas, would you?”

     “Yeah, yeah, you pompous ass. Go back to building your moon colony and don’t worry about what we’re doing here in
Texas.”

     Well, he didn’t actually tell Gingrich that. He wanted to, but thought it better to take the high road and just laugh off the joke even though it wasn’t funny.

     He didn’t like Gingrich much before the primaries, and learned to despise him even more during the debates. Gingrich did everything he could to make Perry look like a buffoon in front of the television audience. It was a slight he’d not soon forget.

     Perry left the window and returned to his desk, then finished what was left of his coffee. He buzzed his secretary and asked her to get Fred Marks on the phone.

     Fred was the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He deserved to know before the public did. Perry owed him that much.

     While he waited he took a pen and jotted down a list of others he needed to call before the press release hit the streets. A couple of the other governors who were close friends of his. Several of his big financial backers. His Attorney General.

     He caught himself reading the writing on his pen. “Rick Perry,” in gold letters. “Governor of Texas” in bright, bold GOP red in slightly smaller letters below the name. He wondered how much longer…

     The phone rang and jarred him back to the task at hand. It was Fred Marks.

     “Fred, you’re the first to know, but keep it under your hat as much as you can. I’m going to give them their damn vote.”