We drove over to the Naval Observatory, and then I sent the car with Josh and Ari back to the White House. Technically speaking, the Vice Presidential Residence is not part of the Naval Observatory, which is still functioning, but on the grounds of the Observatory, at Number One Observatory Circle. It’s a fairly large Queen Anne style place, and while it has dining rooms and parlors large enough to entertain a large group, it almost never makes the news. Marilyn and I were still living semi-apart, with my going home every other night or so, to Hereford. Still, we had managed to have a few dinner parties earlier in the year, but as word of my impending doom became obvious, a lot of people managed to have something else to do when we had a party. Wouldn’t they be surprised now!
Marilyn was in a sitting room on the first floor, wrapped in an Afghan in front of the television. The boob tube was on, but Marilyn wasn’t; she was laying on the couch but asleep, while the images of the towers collapsing played over and over, and the talking heads tried to come up with new shit to tell people. Her face was a mess, with the marks of tears and a runny nose. She stirred as she heard me walk across the floor. “Come on, honey, let’s get you upstairs,” I told her.
“What time is it?”
“About ten,” I said, glancing at my watch. “Come on, you should go to bed. How are the girls?”
“Okay. Scared,” she admitted. “Me, too, I guess.”
“We’ll be fine.” I held out my hand and she took it, leaving the Afghan on the couch. I led the way upstairs to our bedroom, but did a double-take when I went into our bedroom. Ever since we got Stormy, who was now at a monstrously large 130-plus pounds, we had taken to sleeping in a king size bed. Stormy liked sleeping with us, and she was now bigger than my wife! Now, I stared. My twin girls were both in my bed, along with my dog, all asleep as the television flickered.
“Uh, oh,” commented Marilyn.
“Now what? Do we sleep in their room?” I shook my head in amusement. I pushed her towards the bed. “Here, you lie down and get some sleep. I want to sit up and think for awhile.”
Marilyn was a little groggy and crawled under the covers, still dressed, next to Molly, who was separated from her sister by the mutt. I just shook my head in disbelief and headed into my den, and cranked back the La-Z-Boy. I was tempted to get a bottle of whiskey out, but I figured if I started drinking, I wouldn’t stop. All that was on television was a rehash of what had happened that morning, and the latest news, which was the same as they had reported half an hour earlier. I flipped through some channels, and then fell asleep in my lounger.
Chapter 139: Picking Up The Pieces
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
I woke Wednesday morning when Stormy whined to go outside. It was cool, but I wandered out in my bare feet with her, with a Secret Service agent hovering nearby. After she did her thing, I took her back inside and unhooked her leash, and she thundered back up the stairs. I followed. The girls were back in their room and Marilyn was stirring awake. I went on into the bathroom and stripped yesterday’s clothes off, and took a quick shower.
“Good morning,” I heard from the bathroom. It was Marilyn sitting on the toilet. Just as I reached to turn off the water there was a loud WHOOSH followed by, “Sorry!”
I climbed out and attempted to look superior to her. It didn’t last, since she looked worried. “Good morning. Get a decent night’s rest?”
“I’m sorry about last night. Where did you sleep?”
I did a head nod towards the bedroom and beyond. “In the den. I’m fine. I need to get to the office.”
“You’re the President now, aren’t you?”
I nodded again, as I toweled dry. “Pretty much. The title is Acting President, but I’ll probably be sworn in by the end of the week. Are you okay with this?”
That got me a wry look. “Well, it’s not like we never knew it couldn’t happen. Still, it’s different than if you actually ran for it, you know?” She pulled on a bathrobe and asked, “How is this going to change things? Do we move into the White House?”
I shrugged. “Not until after Laura and the girls move out. I think that would be more than a little tacky, don’t you?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Oh my God! I never even thought of that! Laura… Oh, God! I need to call her…”
“Please, do that today. Don’t say anything about them moving out or us moving in. Just call and offer some support.” Marilyn got along well with Laura Bush, much better than George and I had been getting along. Marilyn had teaching degrees, even if she hadn’t been a teacher, and Laura was a librarian. They had done several joint projects together, usually something related to education and reading, mostly in the general D.C. area.
“Of course.”
I finished dressing and headed out, with Marilyn behind me in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers. The girls were still upstairs, so I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to them. Breakfast was a quick bagel and cream cheese and juice, and then I was off to the White House. I got there by 8:00, by which time the place was already a beehive of activity. It never really goes to sleep, of course. A lot of the office staff starts coming in before 6:00, just to prepare for the President to arrive.
As usual, the first person in my office was a National Intelligence Officer with the President’s Daily Brief, a daily summary of the latest intelligence. It was compiled by the CIA overnight and the first person to get it is the President. Other people to get it typically included the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the National Security Adviser. I knew for a fact that there had been arguments made by Cheney and Wolfowitz to cut me out of the loop, but Bush hadn’t gotten to that point yet. I read it over quickly, and wasn’t surprised by any of it. Most of the world’s militaries had increased their levels of readiness, the smart ones because they were worried about Islamic nut jobs, the dumb ones because their neighbors had increased their readiness. The rest of the brief was mostly information about various terrorist groups. Nothing like locking the barn door after the horse had bolted.
I raised an eyebrow at one piece, which was tying Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. “What is the basis for stating that Osama bin Laden is sharing information with Saddam Hussein?” I asked.
“I’m not at liberty to say, sir,” he replied.
I set the Brief down on my desk. “You want to think about that for a second and come up with another answer, buster?”
“Sir? That information is classified and cannot be divulged.”
This fellow was in his late twenties, a junior version of the regular NIOs who met with the President. “Sonny, I’m the Acting President of the United States. When I tell you I want some information, you can trust that I really want it.”
He looked very confused at this. “Sir, my understanding is that this is just something temporary.”
“Uh, huh. Who told you that?” I asked pleasantly.
“Mister Wolfowitz, sir, and Mister Libby.”
“Scooter said I’m just temporary, too?”
“Yes, sir. You’re going to be Vice President again as soon as the President is rescued, so we shouldn’t break security,” he told me.
“And besides, I’m not going to be here much longer anyway, right?” He didn’t know what to say to that, but it was obvious he had heard this. “Okay, thank you,” I told him.
He looked relieved. He collected the report and left. Yet one more damn thing to sort out.