“Which one?”
Flannery had bent forward and pointed to a paragraph on the top page. “Right there.” He read it aloud. “ ‘If we are only poorly prepared for a double vacancy, we are not prepared at all for a multiple vacancy; and it is this kind of vacancy, so I am told by colleagues who deal in the laws of probability, that we are most likely to be faced with during the next hundred years and beyond.’ ”
Talley frowned. “I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in the facts, Tim, nothing else. We’re faced with a double vacancy, not a multiple one. Let’s check the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, just get it straight, before we dictate the release to Edna.” He had begun turning the pages, and at last he found it. “Here it is. Okay, clear and simple. If the Presidency and Vice-Presidency are vacant, ‘the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.’ ” His gaze moved down the page. “Yes, clear enough-President, Vice-President, Speaker of the House-and after that the order of succession is President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, and so forth through the Cabinet.” He raised his head. “Any Speaker even come half this close to the Presidency before?”
“Not while Speaker, no,” said Tim Flannery. “One former Speaker, Polk, was later elected President. But none ever-”
“Okay, there’s always got to be a first time,” said Talley. He handed the papers back to the press secretary. “So it’s the Speaker of the House-grumpy old Earl MacPherson himself-who’d have believed it possible? Okay, that’s the law, and no matter how we feel, we might as well start dictating some kind of press announcement.”
Flannery snapped his fingers. “I forgot to get a capsule of MacPherson’s background. Some of that should be in, too.”
“Definitely,” said Talley.
Flannery twisted in his chair toward Edna. “Can you be a good girl and fetch Representative Harvey Wickland in here? He can give us what we need for now on MacPherson.”
Edna came out of her swivel chair, hastened to the door leading to the President’s Oval Office, opened it, and then halted, surprised. Everyone in the crowded room was on his feet, all converging upon Arthur Eaton, who stood in the center of the room, in the middle of the eagle of the United States seal woven into the thick green Presidential rug.
Edna turned to Flannery and Talley. “Something’s happening!” she exclaimed. “Everyone’s gathering around Secretary Eaton.”
Immediately, Talley and Flannery jumped to their feet, pushing past her into the room toward Eaton. Reluctantly Edna followed them to the center of the Oval Office.
Eaton, his voice dry and low, was speaking aloud. “I have just been called outside to take a telephone call from Frankfurt. I have terrible news to report to all of you, terrible news, and it grieves me. Speaker of the House Earl MacPherson died in surgery, on the table, under the knife, ten minutes ago. This has been confirmed. Now the Speaker is also dead.”
A great gasp swelled through the room, and off somewhere there was someone hysterically sobbing, and after that there was a sickening silence.
Edna heard Tim Flannery, beside her, whisper, almost to himself, “Multiple vacancy.”
The first to be heard speaking aloud was Governor Wayne Talley. “I don’t believe it.”
The second to be heard aloud was Arthur Eaton. “It is true.”
Then it was that General Pitt Fortney called out, “Who in the hell is T. C.’s successor?”
Arthur Eaton held up his head. “According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the next in line is the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.”
For strange and suspenseful seconds, the Secretary of State’s pronouncement hung in the air, and those who heard it were immobilized, allowing it to sink into their minds, as the curved walls with their niches and shelves of dead mementos seemed to close in on them.
“The President pro tempore of the Senate,” the Attorney General intoned, as someone might intone Amen.
And then at once, all at once, collectively, each in the room seemed to realize who this was, who their next President of the United States was, and all at once all of them, collectively, turned their gaze upon the one man who stood somewhat apart from them, near the Buchanan desk.
Everyone, it seemed, was staring at Senator Douglass Dilman. And for Edna it was frightening to see that in each person’s eyes, without exception, there was registered a look of horror.
Within thirty minutes the group, grown larger from the arrival of other members of the government, had assembled in the Cabinet Room. They stood now in a semicircle, with an opening in the center for two still photographers and two television cameramen representing the press pool, clustered around the long, dark mahogany table.
Once, while waiting, Eaton had asked Douglass Dilman if he had any close relatives or friends in the city whom he might wish to have witness the ceremony. He had replied, in an undertone, “No, sir, no one.”
Once, minutes ago, Eaton had beckoned to Edna and Tim Flannery and demanded a Bible. There was much scurrying about, but no copy of the Bible was to be found, until Edna remembered the one in the lower drawer of her desk. She had gone to get it, and found the cheap, battered Bible, a Gideon Bible she had borrowed from a hotel room in Memphis once, on a trip with T. C., and had forgotten to return, and which she now retained for reference purposes. Guiltily, she had brought in the Gideon Bible and given it to Eaton.
She found herself still standing next to Eaton, who leaned against the high-backed leather chair bearing the tiny brass nameplate “Secretary of State.”
She heard Eaton inquire of Senator Dilman, “Do you wish this open on any particular passage?”
She heard Dilman reply, “Psalms 127:1.” Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, “Is this it? ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ ” He glanced inquiringly at Dilman, and Dilman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and said, “Yes, sir, that is it.”
It was during this moment that Noah F. Johnstone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, came through the corridor door and across the room, gravely nodding at the familiar faces turned toward him. Even without his robes, Edna thought, even in his bow tie and dark suit, the Chief Justice appeared impressive. He was a giant of a man, with a slight stoop and an uneven gait. His sunken face, wrinkled and wise, betrayed no emotion.
He came around the Cabinet table into the glare of klieg lights, nodding to Talley, and then to Dilman and Eaton, and he took his position beside T. C.’s old chair. “Are we ready?” he inquired of no one in particular, and then he accepted the open Gideon Bible from Eaton, squinted down at it, and said to Dilman, “Take the Holy Book in your left hand and raise your right hand. I will recite the oath of office as it is written in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. When I have finished, please repeat the oath.”
He proffered the Bible to Dilman, who accepted it and held it with difficulty in his left hand, and raised his trembling right hand. Chief Justice Johnstone lifted his own right hand, and measuring each word, he rendered the oath of office.
When he was done, he waited.
After a painful interlude, Douglass Dilman’s thick lips moved, and the words that he repeated came out low and slurred.
“I, Douglass Dilman, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”