"Bu—"
Rottemeyer, interrupting, smiled from where her head rested on a pillow. "All right then. Goals? I believe in power, Caroline. Since I was a helpless little girl and boys were mean to me I have believed in power . . . and sworn to get it. That's my goal.
"And now I have it. And I will never let it go."
"But you have to. In eight years anyway."
Rottemeyer smiled indulgently. "Oh, Caroline, you're so innocent. After these eight years the party will run the country . . . and I will run the party. I will never give it up.
"I'll never give you up, either, Caroline," Rottemeyer added softly.
The other woman smiled back, warmly but with a troubled expression. "Don't tell me you don't have ideals, Willi."
"Ideals," mused the other. "Beliefs. I believe that you can make people better than they are. I believe that people are basically good until the system makes them bad. I believe that there is too much untrammeled economic power in the United States and the world. I believe that if someone has to have power, I can also use it more wisely, more benevolently, than anyone else I know."
"Then why the police state, Willi? And why split it up the way you are planning?"
"I'll split it up because I do not trust power that isn't in my hands. As long as there are fifty law enforcement agencies competing with and suspicious of each other then my power is safe. The police state? A lot of people are not going to like what I think I have to do. And I do not want them able to fight me on it.
"Now come here. . . ."
Chapter Two
From the transcript at triaclass="underline" Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. And how did you feel about the President at that time, Mr. Scheer?
A. The President? Sure talked like she meant well. I mean, she was out there in front of the cameras all the time. Checking schools, visiting old folks. Seemed like she really cared, really felt our pain.
I never made much money in life. Used to have to hunt to help feed the family. Couldn't pay the tax on my rifles though, let alone buy the ammunition to hunt with the thing; not at three dollars and fifty cents per round . . . for the tax alone.
When they came and took away my neighbor after his kids let slip to a teacher that their daddy still had a gun at home? Give him five years for tax evasion? Put his family on welfare? I couldn't face that. So I had to give up one of my two guns. The other? Well, you know by now I buried—
Q. MR. STENNINGS: Stop right there, Alvin. The Court doesn't need to hear about any of that.
A. Okay if you say so. Anyway, I never could get the hang of bow hunting.
Q. So you gave up hunting, Mr. Scheer?
A. Well, sure. Though it made it a lot harder to feed my family, like I said. Anyway, sure and some of them new programs did help. When my factory closed, moved down Mexico way . . . trying to run away from the taxes, I reckon . . . and my missus got sick? She could go to the doctor right off, and I didn't have to pay for it. Mind, she had to wait in line for a while, half a day maybe . . . maybe a little more, and the doctor didn't have much time to see her. But he gave her some medicine. And she was okay for a while.
I did get work again, eventually. Didn't make so much as I had been. But they raised the "minimum wage," which seemed to help, a little.
Though, why prices kept going up every time they raised the income tax on the big companies and the rich folks, I don't rightly know.
Weren't for charity, that and welfare food parcels, don't reckon we'd a made it.
* * *
Dei Gloria Mission, Waco, Texas
"Sergeant Montoya, post!"
Stripped to the waist, sweating in the sun, despite having a fifty pound sack of government surplus rice over one shoulder, the priest stiffened to attention. The pattern of scar tissue on the priest's abdomen lost color as the skin there stretched.
"Dammit!" he muttered, shoulders slumping again. "How does he keep doing that to me after all these years?"
He turned around and glared into the smiling face of his oldest and best friend. "Why do you do that?" An extended finger began to move up to scratch his nose.
"Because I can and because it's funny." Schmidt kept his eyes away from his friend's battle scars.
The priest's middle finger stopped moving. He gave a rueful smile, rubbed it and the index finger of his free hand under his nose and admitted, "I suppose it is at that."
Sack still on his shoulder, Montoya looked around for one in particular of the boys helping him unload the monthly supply run from the 49th Armored Division, Texas National Guard truck—food and truck both courtesy of his friend, Jack Schmidt.
Spotting the boy, the priest shouted, "Miguel, take over here. I am going to have a few words with the general. Elpi, would you bring us a couple of beers from the cellar?"
"Si, Padre," answered the dark skinned, brown-eyed teenager, running to take the sack from Montoya's shoulder. "Come on, Julio. You too, Raul . . . put your backs into it. These men"—he meant the National Guard truck drivers—"don't have all day."
* * *
In the cool, dimly lit rectory Montoya and Schmidt sat down on opposite sides of the roughly crafted but sturdy wooden table. The priest took two beers from Elpidia, thanking her. Then he opened both and passed one over to Schmidt. . . .
* * *
"Here, drink this, Jack," ordered the sergeant, handing over his own canteen. "Only the best for you."
The lieutenant refused at first, but at his sergeant's insistence took a sip of the tepid, muddy, iodine-tinged water. As he did Montoya glanced down at the red seepage at Schmidt's waist, gift of a mortar fragment ripping across the officer's stomach. Only the bandages Montoya had applied kept the lieutenant's innards from spilling to the ground. It did not look good.
"Not looking too good is it, Jorge?"
"That's 'Sergeant Montoya' to you." The sergeant smiled, hesitated, then continued, "We're down to fourteen men, plus you and me. Ammo's holding out . . . but only because so many of the ones who ran didn't want to carry theirs. What is it, four assaults we've beaten off? No . . . five, I think. They've got to be getting tired of it."
Still on his back, Schmidt nodded weakly before allowing his head to flop to a muddy rest. His practiced eye gauged the setting sun. "It's time, Jorge."
"Time? What time?"
"Time for you to leave me, take what you can save and try to get the hell out of here."
Montoya just snorted for an answer. Then, to change the subject—admittedly somewhat ineptly, he turned his rifle over and read aloud the serial number, "120857. Good. Still have my own."
"That's an order, Jorge. Get out and save what you can."
"No."
"Damn you, you wetback! I said get out of here."
"No, Jack," answered the sergeant, calmly, as ever. With determination, as ever.
* * *
"Jack? Are you all right?"
Schmidt collected his wits as quickly as he was able, covering his lapse with a sip and the observation, "Good beer."
"Only the best for you."
"Who was that girl?"