The soldier behind her yelled something. The guardsman stepped away and waved her through. “There’ll be another pass point, on Constitution.”
She’d been in the South Tower, interviewing with Cohn, Kennedy, when the first jet hit the North Tower. Had fled desperately down the crowded, smoky, jet-fuel-smelling stairwell. Pursued by claps of thunder, nearer and nearer, as the World Trade Center collapsed above her, one story imploding into the next, like a vengeful giant’s approaching footsteps. Sometimes the joints between the concrete paving slabs in a highway would sound like it, car-umph, car-umph, and she had to pull off the road and talk herself down, or bolt a Xanax.
She’d spent seven hours in surgery, with broken ribs, a broken thigh, fractured pelvis, breaks in the arm, and internal injuries. The left eye saved, but the left ear burnt off. They’d “reconstructed” it, but it was still ugly, a reddened, twisted nub.
But as Dan would say, she was still in the game.
She came back to the present headed down Constitution, with traffic sparse, speed better than on a normal day. Taillights blurred and ran pink on the rainy windshield, and she turned the wipers back up. Less than a quarter tank now… Ahead in the dim dawn rose the white cupcaked dome of the Capitol. Her destination was beyond it, the Russell Senate Office Building. She’d worked there for years, first as a junior staffer, then as defense adviser to Bankey Talmadge. She’d risen with Talmadge as he climbed the seniority ladder to chairman, and been staff director for four years before going to Defense as the Undersecretary.
Bankey had called last night, asking her to come in. The familiar, gruff, vaguely drunken voice. Half in the bag, as usual in the evenings. But Talmadge in the bag was still four times as smart as the average senator stone sober. “Mindy’s good, but she’s not you. I sorely need somebody who knows what’s what. Any chance of temptin’ you back from that egghead company?”
“You know that’s not in the cards, Bankey. I’ve got to win this election.”
“Oh, right, I forgot. Maryland, right? Is cash a problem? I got a little bit’a spare change I can swing from the party. If you need it.”
A “little bit” for Talmadge meant several million. She’d salivated at the thought, then felt ashamed. Being from one of the oldest families in Maryland, she hadn’t expected trouble raising funding. And at first it had gone well, thanks to her dad’s contacts; Checkie had spent his life in banking. But she hadn’t been able to give his friends the assurances they wanted, and then with the war, and the market crash, even the pledges she’d managed to garner had evaporated.
“Uh, sure, we can talk about that,” she’d said. Grasping that, like a manumitted slave, she’d been bought back, at least for the duration.
The final cordon was at the foot of Capitol Hill, across from the seventies concrete waffle of the Labor Department. About the only building in Washington named after a woman. After another search and ID check, she headed for Senate parking. Which was full, but cars were parked on the grass. She left the Audi there.
“Hey, there’s my favorite girl.” Talmadge’s cheeks were rosy, and even this early she could smell bourbon from across the room. “Grab a seat, Missy.”
The senator’s office was high-ceilinged, ornate, a stark contrast to the labyrinthine warren of cubicles and converted closets the staffers sweated in. “Missy” was his nickname for her. Blair smiled at Mindy, hoping she didn’t take offense. Her old employer was one of the few remnants of the age of the dinosaurs, coeval with Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, the other Talmadge a distant cousin.… With the passage of decades his offices had grown larger, his perks greater, his clout colossal. Especially with defense contractors, whose purse strings the Armed Services Committee controlled.
The staffer was petite, brisk, with long glossy dark hair and a sharp little nose. Her squeaky voice was instantly irritating. “Hi there, Blair, how nice to meet you at last. Bankey always talks about you. You’re like, you know, the ex-mistress.”
Talmadge reddened, rumbled in pleasure. How he loved the little double entendres. And his dalliances had indeed been legendary. Fortunately, Blair reflected, his follow-through had cooled before she’d come on the scene. “Heh heh… What say we get down to business. Missy — I mean, Mindy? Want to bring Missy up to speed? And then we’ll maybe have a little refresher.” He glanced at a chifforobe; Blair knew what that meant.
Mindy opened a folder. “The press is voicing doubts about Defense and the president’s direction of the crisis. WSJ quotes you from day before yesterday. The polls are sobering. Between 75 and 80 percent of the public thinks we should stay neutral in the Pacific. Things haven’t quite shaken down to party positions yet, but Fox is asking if we should consider war at all. After all, isn’t Taiwan part of China?”
“The old isolationist wing,” Talmadge grumbled.
“Yes, Senator. Some are asking, why not just hand it over? ‘Taiwan’s a lot closer to China than Hawaii is to California’—that kind of thing.”
“That’s gonna be interesting. The China Lobby versus the America Firsters.”
“Senator?” It was Mary, Talmadge’s blue-haired, stooped secretary. The office buzz was that long ago, perhaps in the Ordovician age, there’d been a flame, but Blair had never heard them converse in other than the frostiest formality. Which indeed might confirm the rumor. “It’s Mr. Herzog. Hello, Blair. Good to see you again.”
“’S’cuse me, gotta take this.” He swung his chair toward the tall window that, thanks to four decades in the Senate, looked out on the Capitol grounds almost on a level with that building itself. In the cold light the trees stood motionless. “Hey there, Augie. What’s shakin’?”
Mary asked her, “Is your husband still in the Navy, Blair?”
“Yes, he is. Commanding a cruiser. Out in the Pacific.”
“Oh my. Really? I certainly hope… certainly hope things will settle down out there.” She glanced at Talmadge, shook her head, and tiptoed out.
Talmadge hung up, muttering, “He’s sellin’ America short. Lookin’ for a crisis, and hoping I’ll help trigger it. Then we gotta print twenty or thirty billion more in fake money to pay him.…” The old man looked bewildered. “And the fella calls himself a patriot. This ain’t how it used to be.”
Mary, at the door again. “Mr. Callahan. Line two.”
“London Callahan, or Seattle Callahan?”
“Seattle, sir.”
Talmadge swiveled away again, and once more only detached words bounced off the expanse of plate glass. “Billy? Hey, what’s shakin’? Yeah… yeah. Real Buck Rogers, hey? But, you know, we wouldn’t have them thangs until five, six years from now.… You could speed it up? How much? Yeah. Oh yeah?… Sure, build us some, if you can. I’ll make sure you get paid.”
When he hung up this time Blair caught his eye. “Exactly what did you need, Bankey? You wanted me here first thing.”
“Well, you’ve kept your hand in. I could use your advice.”
She glanced at Mindy. “You have a defense aide. Hu? Ku?”
“Hu. Caught short in LA, couldn’t get back with all the airlines shut down. Like I say, you were at the Pentagon. How do we look, for this thing in the Pacific?”
She took a breath, organizing her thoughts, then launched into a recap. “The Pakistan-Indian nuclear exchange broke the escalation ceiling. I’m sure Premier Zhang knows eighty percent of our ground forces are bogged down in the Mideast. He’s obviously judged this a good time to rebalance the power structure in Asia. Also, I suspect Ed Szerenci’s partially to blame.”