The hotel manager backed out of the room after whispering something in McNeely’s ear. The agents turned to stare at the warming TV screen, and McNeely said to Fairlie, “He says the place is crawling with reporters and the rumor’s around that you’re going to make a statement.”
“Not just yet.”
“I hope they don’t think of bringing a battering ram.” McNeely didn’t smile; he only flopped into his chair and brooded toward the screen.
The telephone.
McNeely bounced up and Fairlie watched him with care. He had left instructions with the switchboard to connect no incoming calls except from President Brewster, who had called an hour ago and asked him to stay on tap.
McNeely covered the mouthpiece with his palm and gave Fairlie an unreadable look. “It’s the girl on the switchboard. She’s holding a call for you from Harrisburg.”
“Jeanette?”
“Yes. Evidently she’s been trying to get through to you for more than an hour. I gather she’s blistering the corns off the poor girl on the board.”
That wasn’t hard to credit. Fairlie approached the phone, moving awkwardly sideways to keep the TV screen in view. It was French television of course and the sound was down very low; he could hear the BBC radio announcer introducing Perry Hearn and on the screen he could see the satellite picture of the White House Lawn, gray on a misty cold afternoon with a thick crowd waiting, breath pouring like steam from their nostrils.
“Jeanette?”
“One moment please.” An American operator’s voice.
“Cliff darling?”
“Hi sweet.”
“My God what trouble I’ve had reaching you. I finally had to pull rank—the President’s wife is calling, I told them. It sounded God-awful to me.”
“How is it there?”
“It’s madness, Cliff. You can’t imagine it. I think the whole city’s glued to their television screens as if they were bleeding to death and the tube was their transfusion bottle.”
“There hasn’t been any trouble, has there?”
“Outside of the Hill, you mean. No. I don’t think anybody’s thought of making trouble. We’re all too numb.” It was a good clear connection but she was pitching her voice high and loud as if to span the intercontinental vastness.
The TV had gone to a tight closeup of Perry Hearn’s amiable bland face and the radio carried Hearn’s voice but they were somewhat out of sync, the radio voice anticipating the movements of Hearn’s lips on the screen by a half second. As of now thirteen Senators and twenty-eight Congressmen are still missing.…
“Are you all right, sweet?” He had turned his shoulder to the others in the room and spoke low, confidentially into the telephone.
“Oh I’m all right, Cliff. Just overwrought. The little one’s kicking inside me—I guess he can sense my excitement.”
“But you’re all right.”
“I’m fine. Really, darling.”
“That’s all right then.”
… list as of now includes ten United States Senators and thirty-seven members of the House of Representatives, whose bodies have been identified.…
“I suppose I’ve been trying to call you because I don’t know what else to do. I needed your voice, Cliff.”
“Have you got people there with you?”
“Oh yes of course, everyone’s descended on me. Mary came over the instant she heard the news and the children are both with me. I’m very well looked after.”
… Speaker of the House Milton Luke escaped injury and is with the President at this moment. Senate Majority Leader Winston Dierks suffered a leg injury but is listed as being in satisfactory condition at D. C. General Hospital. Senate Minority Leader Fitzroy Grant will probably be released from Walter Reed Army Hospital within a few minutes.…
“… wish I weren’t preggers, Cliff, I wish I were there with you.”
She had lost a baby two years ago and this time they had decided she would stay at home and not travel with him. Fairlie said, “Do you want me home?” and hated himself for it, knowing his decisions couldn’t be based on her wishes.
“Of course I do,” she replied; the softness of her voice was freed of sentimentality by its flavor of affectionate ridicule: she knew as well as he did that he wouldn’t drop everything and fly straight home on her whim.
… ter Ethridge will remain in Walter Reed Army Hospital overnight for observation and tests, but he appears to have nothing worse than a few contusions, and his physician says he’s in the very best of health. The Reverend Doctor John Mosley, Chaplain of the House of Representatives, is on the critical list at.…
“… but I couldn’t very well ask it of her.”
“What?”
“Oh darling you’re not listening, are you. It doesn’t matter. I was only saying Mary’s offered to pack an overnight bag and move over here for a few days to help look after the children.”
“Might not be a bad idea, you know.”
“I think I’d rather bear my grief in private, Cliff. We’ve lost an awful lot of friends today.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
… brunt of the casualties has been borne by Washington’s press corps, for which the President is deeply grieved. At present it is known that seventy-one reporters lost their lives in the disaster…
He said, “Do you have the television on?”
“Yes, I’m watching it with one eye.”
“Doesn’t Perry Hearn look terrible?”
“I know. Midge Luke called me a little while ago, just to say Milt wasn’t hurt and she was so glad you weren’t there, and Milt told her the President looks like the last survivor of an Infantry patrol in some muddy trench. My God, Cliff, how can it have happened?”
… Capitol Building. Emergency crews under the direction of Capitol Architect James Delaney are already shoring up the chambers, but until a thorough survey has been made we’re assuming the entire building is unsafe, and all individuals and offices are being evacuated into temporary.…
Jeanette’s voice continued on the wire and he wasn’t really listening to her words but he heard her voice, her tone, the soft warm nesty feeling she created so easily; it occurred to him that her real reason for calling him was not so much to reassure herself as it was to remind him of their unbroken romantic communion—to give him that to lean on; so that suddenly he felt a quick welling in his throat of gratitude and adoration.
… President will speak to the nation this evening at seven o’clock eastern standard time.…
“I’d better ring off, sweet. I’m expecting word from President Brewster.”
… ordered flags to fly at half-mast until further.…
“Do you think he’ll ask you to come home?”
“I don’t know. We talked about it and he said he’d get back to me.”
“What do you think you should do, Cliff?”
“If they’d hurt Dex Ethridge at all of course I’d have had to come right home, but he appears to be all right, and since they’ve caught the perpetrators I doubt there’ll be any need for me to——what?”
“I couldn’t hear you for a minute. The connection seems to be fading. I guess I’d better get off the line now. But call me when you’ve got it decided. Love me?”
“Love you,” he said very soft into the phone cupped against his shoulder. He heard the click and the static of the transatlantic cable.
… list of the dead includes Senators Adamson, Geiss, Hunter, March, Nugent.…
His hand rested on the cradled phone as if to retain the thread of contact with Jeanette. He looked up. Ordway, Oxford, Robinson, Scobie, Tuchman.… Perry Hearn’s mouth, moving not in synchronization with his radio voice, was an evil ugly thing and Fairlie wrenched his eyes away from the screen and carried his glass to the Dubonnet bottle.