If she believed in a God she would ask for that one little boon. Since she didn't believe . . .
* * *
The Secret Service, the real Secret Service, not the bastardized political army Rottemeyer had created and now lost, still took its duties seriously. They didn't like her, they could hardly wait for her disappearance from office, but they had—by God—a duty to defend her and they would meet that duty come hell or high water.
Among the precautions that the Secret Service had taken were the posting of countersnipers on the roofs of both parts of the Cavalier—Hilltop and Oceanfront, plus on the roof of the Ocean Tower, a different hotel south of the Oceanfront and southwest of the Hilltop. These were not on duty twenty-four hours a day, but they would be on duty at anytime the President was in or around her hotel.
Smythe noticed this, of course, and wrote them off. The Secret Service was essentially irrelevant to his plans.
* * *
Alvin was having a difficult time of it. He drove the length of road fronting the beach over and over. He simply could not see any way to do what he intended to do. Dressed as he was, with a rifle that he could not very well hide, with little money and no expectation of actually getting inside of one of the hotels without being noticed . . . well, the task seemed hopeless.
Finally, the tall steeple of a red brick church caught his attention as he drove past the Cavalier for the fourth time. He read the sign: Galilee Episcopal Church.
Would the good Lord above forgive me for using a church for what I intend to do?
Then he considered his late wife, killed by the system. He thought of his state, now free but recently attacked.
Would the Lord forgive me for not using a church, if that's all I have?
* * *
Willi gave the church a short glance as her limousine pulled away from the main entrance to the Cavalier on its way to the convention center. She gave a much longer glance to the southwest lawn of the hotel where Carroll, so she presumed, was busy overseeing those themselves overseeing the setup for her post speech press conference. Trusting Carroll and his abilities implicitly, she turned her mind and thoughts back to the speech she was on her way to give.
* * *
Alvin's hands were trembling slightly as he left his truck to walk around the church. He noticed the setup of speakers, podium and chairs on the lawn between the big old hotel and the church. Was the President going to give a press conference? He couldn't know for sure, but it seemed to him that was the way to bet it.
He walked back to his truck and drove up right next to a more or less hidden side entrance. Again leaving the truck, he tested the door, only to find it locked from the inside.
Alvin then walked around, once again, to the front. This door was unlocked. He entered the church openly. Once inside, it was no great feat to find the door by which he had parked his truck. Opening it from the inside, he went to the truck and retrieved the rifle he had rolled up in a tarp in the bed.
* * *
Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Willi had never before in her life faced so hostile an audience. They didn't boo, hiss, or throw things of course; it was a well-behaved hostile audience. But the sheer psychic venom emanating from the visages of well over half the convention attendees would have been enough to overwhelm a lesser woman.
She was not a lesser woman, however. Surrounded by her Secret Service agents, she boldly strode the aisle-way and on up to the podium. She spared a few smiles for the delegations she was certain were friendly: Massachusetts, California, New York and a few others. For the rest she projected nothing warmer than an icy glare.
Standing behind the podium, that icy glare turned, if anything, more frigid still.
"So you think you can change things," Rottemeyer sneered. "You have come here to make up a new set of rules, have you?
"You're pathetic. You're also hopelessly beneath the challenge. I can see that by the silly amendments you are already proposing. Let's look at some of them, shall we?
"You want to repeal the income tax and the social security tax? Let me assure you; it is too late. This country's economy would collapse almost overnight from the disruption or cancellation of all those federal procurement contracts and the loss of spending power on the part of those working in the federal bureaucracy. What's more, I see very few young faces out in the crowd, mostly older people. What are you going to do when you get older and find you haven't saved enough for your retirement? And find further that your kids, like yourselves, don't want to be bothered taking care of their parents? I'll tell you what you'll do; you'll vote yourselves federal relief that might not be called social security, but will be the same thing, perhaps not half so well organized and run, under a different name.
"And who takes care of the people already retired? Their social security savings? Nonsense. They don't exist, not in the sense that the money exists in such a way that it can be paid back in full."
Rottemeyer shook her head as if scolding naughty schoolchildren. "At least one of the lunatics here has, apparently, some legal training. This idiot wants to re-create the old nondelegation doctrine the Supreme Court repudiated in the 1930s. Not a chance. There's simply too much. Too many of you want—or will want—the federal government to do for you that which Congress cannot hope to do."
"And speaking of the Supreme Court, are you all really so enthusiastic about castrating it? Creating some governor's council that can overturn its decisions? Hmmm. So, when Alabama decides to reenact some Jim Crow laws and the rest of the South follows right along, you really don't want anybody who can say 'no'? I don't believe it for a minute."
Rottemeyer paused briefly, scanning her audience with boundless contempt. "And you want term limits? Well, you've always had them. All you had to do was not vote for someone for another term.
"No federal interference with religion? Oh sure . . . and when Utah decides on polygamy again?
"Now let me tell you why none of this will work. You—all of you—want the federal government to do things for you. The things you want done may vary, but you all want something. And so you, and people just like you, will demand that the government give you those things you want. And so, no matter what you do now, you'll be racing each other beginning about two weeks after this convention closes to give the government back whatever power it needs to give you what you want."
She summed up in a voice dripping scorn and contempt, "And that is why this . . . movement . . . is doomed. Have a nice day, suckers."
With that comment Wilhelmina Rottemeyer simply turned and, accompanied by her guard detail and a thunder of boos, left.
* * *
Juanita didn't boo. Neither did Schmidt. The former merely looked thoughtful while the latter's face was shrouded in something akin to anger . . . or perhaps worry.
"The bitch is right, Juani. Nothing is going to work, to turn back the clock. Rebuilding the federal machine is going to begin the second we stop tearing it down."
Juanita shook her head in negation. "No, Jack, she wasn't right, or not entirely anyway. That comment about term limits and people not voting in career politicians for multiple terms? Typical. She skipped over the fact that with one state competing against another for benefits from Washington it made sense for a state to keep electing the same man or woman over and over. But when we reduce the amount of benefit to be gained by cropping the federales, and put all states on an even footing so no one of them can gain an advantage by keeping career politicians in office, the term-limits provisions will make sense . . . and they'll work, too."
"Hmm. Maybe," Schmidt grumbled.