Amanda was apprehensive—should he have told her earlier?—as the grim face of the Natnet anchorman filled the screen.
…terrorist bombing of the U.S. Capitol… a suicide attack… charges strapped to their bodies… more than a hundred dead… Fourth of July Brigade…
“Jeez, a suicide attack,” Scott muttered. “They must have been crazy.”
Soon Peter switched off the news: there really wasn’t much to report, beyond those initial, scanty “facts.”
“It’s a terrible thing for our country,” he said.
“You knew,” Amanda said reproachfully.
He nodded. “Andrei told me part of it last night.”
“You could have told us then,” she protested. “Instead of leaving it to television.”
“God, Am, what’s the point?” he demanded.
She was angry, and tried to fight back her tears. “Look at our children, Peter. They don’t even understand what they’ve lost.”
“Hey, Mom, I understand,” Scott protested. “But I guess I don’t see the big deal. I mean, it’s too bad a bunch of creeps blew it up and all, and I’m sorry somebody was killed, but we’re not a part of that anymore, are we?”
“It was part of our heritage, son,” Peter said. “It’ll always be a part of us.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know why Mom’s always getting on my case lately,” Scott said heavily.
Amanda stood. “I—Peter, it’s too much for me. I want to go home. Be in my own house. I want to walk down a street and know where to watch out because the elm roots are pushing up the sidewalk. I need to do that for a while. Maybe I can never be what you want—I could be your wife, but I’m not sure I can be your first lady. I’m sorry.” She was quiet for a moment, staring at the husband she loved very much. “Can you have someone drive me?” she asked. “I think I’ll take Justin back to his folks. Alan says the more he’s around people who love him…” She was suddenly aware that everyone had been watching her talk nonstop. She caught herself and shrugged. “Anybody can come. Scotty, Jac, Peter?”
Peter leaned against the doorway, shaking his head in wonder. Andrei was unreachable, Marion had her stormtroopers in the streets, his new “nation” was on the brink of anarchy, and now his wife was leaving him. He shrugged his shoulders a little.
“Maybe it’s a good idea,” he said. “For a while. This Capitol business is going to create some trouble; maybe Milford’s the safest place right now.”
She moved to where he stood. “You’ll come?”
“You know I can’t, Am. But I’ll come and get you as soon as this has settled down a little.”
“That won’t be too late?”
He smiled sadly. “It’s never too late. You know that. That’s what we’ve always said.”
Jackie stood. “I’ll go with you, Mom.”
Amanda was a little surprised. “Your dancing?”
“It can wait awhile.” Jackie smiled.
“I think I’ll hang around here,” Scott said, avoiding his mother’s look, staring down at his size-12 basketball shoes.
“Sure, honey. Whatever you want.”
Peter walked over to Scott. “He’ll be fine. We’ll batch it.”
Amanda threw her hands open in a small gesture of uncertainty. Now that she had done it, she wasn’t sure she should have. And yet, someone had to decide where their home was, and did it matter?
“Well,” she sighed. “We’d better get packed.”
“The house is pretty empty, isn’t it?”
“Not entirely,” she said. “We stored a lot of things in the basement. We’ll camp out, so to speak.”
She smiled at her husband and walked out of the room quickly, before she could change her mind.
Jackie looked at her brother, not quite sure of how to deal with her emotions toward him. Peter watched them a moment, then threw his arms open. Jackie ran into them.
“Daddy, you’ll be all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You could come, you know. Mom really wants you to.”
Peter closed his eyes, taking in the scent of his daughter.
“I know, baby. I know.”
General Sittman and three truckloads of well-armed troops from the Heartland Defense Force pulled up to Peter’s home. As they sped away with her husband, Amanda idly wondered if they would ever give him back. Oddly, her speculation was more out of curiosity than concern.
The convoy sped toward Natnet’s Omaha studio. As they approached, Peter tried unsuccessfully to suppress a hope that this mission might somehow help him get back his wife. When they arrived, the soldiers moved out smartly, strategically surrounding the building.
Inside, Peter confronted the station manager, Reg Holly, a plump, balding man, who was soon sweating profusely. Jeffrey joined them in the office, clutching the film he and his crew had shot at the psychiatric unit of People’s Acceptance Hospital.
“I don’t see how we can possibly run that report,” the station manager protested.
“Why not, Mr. Holly?”
“In the first place, it’s sickening. Those patients are like… zombies.”
“It’s strong,” Peter agreed. “Tough, dynamic TV— great for your ratings.”
“To hell with my ratings,” Holly said. “In the second place, the PPP would never approve it.”
“Mr. Holly, you don’t seem to understand the situation,” Peter said. “I’m the governor-general of this region. I don’t give a damn about the PPP censors; I’m ordering you to run that film, or I’ll take over this studio and run it without you. Do I make myself clear?”
The station manager wiped his sweaty brow. Peter could appreciate his distress. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Except for Peter, the top political officials had always been loyal PPP members, so there had been no reason for conflict.
“When do you want to go on the air?” Holly asked.
The footage was powerful, brutal. The camera missed nothing: the drugged, deathly figures with tubes in their arms, Amanda’s anguish, Justin’s pitiful condition, even the hospital administrator’s protestations of innocence. Jeffrey’s commentary was cool and understated: as he well knew, the pictures said it all.
When the twenty-minute report was finished, Jeffrey appeared on the screen live. “That is our report, from the psychiatric unit of the People’s Acceptance Hospital,” he intoned. “Now we have here in the studio, for his comments, the governor-general of Heartland, Mr. Peter Bradford.”
Peter sat at a desk, with some law books and the new Heartland flag behind him. He wore a dark blue suit, a light blue shirt, and a red-and-blue regimental-striped tie—the politician’s basic TV outfit. As county administrator in Milford, Peter had made a point of dressing like everyone else—jeans, plaid shirts, windbreakers, an old tweed coat on the most formal occasions—but he’d changed that now that he was governor-general.
Peter felt supremely confident as he began to speak. He’d been thinking about this ever since he heard of the Capitol bombings and the trouble that Marion’s thugs were causing. He knew that he would have a large and responsive audience. In the wake of the massacre at the Capitol, people were anxiously watching TV, wanting more news. And he would give them more: he’d give them one hell of a show.
“My fellow Heartlanders,” he began. “Some terrible things have been happening. We just saw a dramatic report on the cruelty and inhumanity that can result when people stop caring about their fellow human beings. I say to you that this sort of inhumanity has no place in Heartland, and I will put an end to it, once and for all!
“We saw another instance of inhumanity at the U.S. Capitol, when invaders bombed it and slaughtered scores of our elected representatives. It isn’t clear yet who was guilty of that attack, but this much is certain: they represent an alien philosophy, whether it’s homegrown or foreign.