"It's not like America," Pepe said. "I guess it is now,but it's the sort of thing that happens in little dictatorships. Despot of the month."
"I wonder whether that old man will be able to hold things together." Davis was standing in a press room now, his hand to his ear, relaying his staff's answers to questions.
"He won't have to do much. I don't suppose he's made an unassisted decision in the past decade. If we make it through the next few hours, things will get sorted out."
"You think the Islamic Jihad might ... "
"If I were him, I'd be more worried about the Democrats than the Muslims. They probably have a competency challenge all worked out. If I were them, I'd wait a decent interval, and give him a chance to do some really unforgivable things. Then start the impeachment process, more in sorrow than in anger."
She tilted her head at him. "You really know a lot about American politics."
"More than I do about Cuban. I had to study it for the blue card, and got kind of fascinated." He made a mental note to watch his step, not reveal too much sophistication. Lisa Marie was no danger, but there would be a lot of press and government around soon.
"Your aliens." She pointed at the cube.
Davis peered intently. "Would you repeat the question?" A reporter asked whether he intended to follow LaSalle's aggressive strategy toward the Coming.
He looked at her with robotic blankness for a long moment, an expression that was already familiar. "I don't want to say anything specific about that. Anything at all."
Aurora
"Anything at all. My people are looking into it." It was curious to hear Davis's voice coining out of her office. She thought she'd locked it. Rory had dropped by with Marya to see whether Norm might be there, not wanting to bike home through the rain. Inside, there were two strangers watching the new president on the wall cube.
"Hello? Can I do something for you?"
The short one clicked a remote and the president disappeared. They were in identical government-gray suits. The short one was bland, normal looking, but the other was over seven feet tall, his white hair trimmed to within a millimeter of his skull. She had seen him around, the past month.
They both produced identification. "I'm Special Agent Jerry Harp of the CIA," the giant said. The other identified himself as Howard Irving, FBI.
"You didn't just fly down," Marya said. "You've been here awhile. You were both at the—"
"We have no business with you, Ms. Washington," the FBI man said. "We would like to speak with Dr. Bell alone."
"I don't think so," Rory said. "This is my office, and I say who stays or goes. Unless I'm under arrest."
"We're only concerned about national security," the tall man said in low, measured tones. "Some of what we have to ask you about cannot be made public. Not yet, at least."
"I'll be down in the lounge," Marya said to Rory. "You've got my number."
"This won't take long," the FBI man said.
Marya said, "Sure," and he closed the door behind her.
"You talked with the president and Grayson Pauling this morning," the tall man said.
"Along with the governor, the chancellor, and the dean of science. I'm the small fish in the pond. Why aren't you talking to them?"
"In due course," the FBI man said. "This is like interviewing witnesses to an accident, or a crime scene. Best to get their separate impressions, before they talk to each other."
"Why don't you just play back the crystal? Surely they keep records."
The FBI man shook his head. "It was profoundly encrypted, scrambled. If you made a copy, you'll find it's just white noise."
"Unless you made an audio recording, independent of the VR projector/receiver," the CIA man said. "You didn't do that, did you?"
"In fact, it didn't occur to me. I'm really more of an astronomer than a spy." She sat down behind her desk and looked up at him. "How could they do that, though?"
"You question the president's right to—" the FBI man started.
"No, no—I mean physically.The signal had to be decrypted on this end. Why couldn't we make a crystal of it then?"
The tall one stared at her for a moment before answering. "That was from my shop. Before you spoke to the president the first time, we modified the equipment in your room. I don't understand the electronics, but if the signal from the White House is scrambled, you only see a transient virtual image. The signal that gets to the copy head is still scrambled.
"Of course the sound waves do exist. So an audio recorder that wasn't plugged into the system would have picked it up. A videocam would've gotten the sound, too, though the only image would be of you three actually in the room." He grimaced. "If we were as sneaky as people think we are, we could have bugged the room when we installed the rescrambler."
"But you didn't think we were that important."
"We didn't know the president's science adviser was a lunatic," the FBI man said. "We might have kept closer tabs on him."
"I'm not sure who the lunatic was," Rory said. "I'll leave that up to the history books."
"You don't mean you condone this mass assassination."
"Howard," the CIA man said, "let's not—"
"I don't condoneit, but I can appreciate why the president's behavior drove Pauling to desperate measures."
"So you would have done it, too?" The FBI man was reddening. "If you could have killed the president, you would have done it, too?"
"That's a ridiculous question."
"Howard ... "
"No, it's not! If you could have killed the president, would you?"
Rory considered refusing to answer. "It honestly wouldn't have crossed my mind. I would have liked to sit with her and talk, woman to woman. She was dangerously wrong."
"Dangerous enough to die?"
"Pauling thought so." She looked up at the CIA man. "So what do you want from me? It's been a long day already, and I want to go home."
"Just a description of what passed between the president and Grayson Pauling. There weren't any other administration people there, were there?"
"Not in view. Unless you count the governor of Florida. He was a better team player than Pauling. She used that term when she got exasperated at him: 'You used to be a team player' or something."
"They argued in front of you?" the CIA man said. "Please start at the beginning."
Rory went back to the original bombshell, LaSalle essentially saying that the secretary of defense had come up with this great idea. The conversation, or argument, had only lasted a few minutes, and she was pretty sure she remembered it accurately.
"So if you were to sum up Pauling's attitude, his mood?"
"He was quiet and patient. Quietly exasperated, like a teacher or a parent. Which drove LaSalle to the outburst of temper that ended the conversation."
"Quietly insane," the FBI man said.
"Why don't you go talk to the governor?" Rory snapped. "He'll agree with you, and then we can all go home." She turned back to the tall man. "I've heard that people often become remarkably calm once they've made up their mind to commit suicide. He must have known about the noon meeting; I suppose he may have already decided he had to die."
"And destroy the government." The CIA man shook his head. "You may be right. In another hundred years, maybe less, people will see this as an act of supreme sacrifice."