They reached the green room, which was small but comfortable. Seth briefly looked up at the official portrait of himself, hanging on the walclass="underline" smiling, confident, healthy. The makeup lady glanced at the photo, too, as if assessing the magnitude of her task. She then set about getting him ready to go on camera.
When his makeup was completed, he thanked the woman. Dr. Snow touched Seth’s wrist to check his pulse, felt his forehead, and then reluctantly nodded. She and Jasmine helped him to his feet, and Susan Dawson handed him an ornate cane. He nodded his thanks and immediately shifted much of his weight to it.
Jasmine put a hand lightly on each of his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I won’t say break a leg, sweetheart, because that’s the last thing we need. But good luck.” She kissed him gently and then exited through the other door, heading out into the press room. Seth took a few moments to compose himself, then started walking. Each step was painful, but he refused to grimace. “Hail to the Chief” began to play over the speakers, and as he stepped out into the press room, everyone rose and spontaneously applauded. When he made it to the podium, he gripped its sides for support—his media coach be damned.
The roof was angled, and the walls were paneled halfway up with dark wood; the rest of their height was painted beige. An audience had been brought in for the speech; Seth was still a university professor at heart, and he spoke better when there were warm bodies in front of him. The twenty-four people—more like a graduate colloquium, he thought, than a freshman lecture—were seated in six rows of chairs split by a central aisle that contained the camera and its operator. Vice President Flaherty was in the front row, and Jasmine was sitting next to him. The rest of the audience members were uniformed Navy and Marine officers, drawn from the camp’s staff. Seth nodded to let them know they could sit down. The teleprompter screen was mounted in front of the camera lens, and he read from it.
“My fellow Americans,” he began, as all presidents always did. “We are faced with an unrelenting enemy, but we cannot allow the terrorists to win. We either cower in fear, or we march forward with our heads high—and the American people, I know, opt for the latter. This country, the greatest the world has ever seen, will not be held hostage by the demands of the disgruntled few. I say here resoundingly and definitively, on behalf of us all, to those in every corner of the world: we will not tolerate terrorism, and we will treat with equal severity terrorists, those who harbor terrorists, and those who ignore terrorists in their midsts. There is no friend we will not protect, no ally we will not help make secure—and no foe we will not oppose with all the resources at our disposal. This is not a battle between civilizations; rather, it is a battle to save the very notion of civilization, and—”
And he felt himself faltering. The teleprompter continued to roll for a few lines before the woman operating it realized he’d stopped speaking. Seth tightened his grip on the sides of the podium. The members of the audience—those here and the countless millions watching worldwide—were doubtless waiting anxiously for him to go on.
And Seth wanted to go on, but to talk was suddenly beyond him—and yet it would make headlines all over the planet if he didn’t: “Jerrison Hesitates During First Post-Shooting Speech.” “Is US President Unfit to Lead?”
But the words on the teleprompter were too much for him. Not that he hadn’t rehearsed them, not that he didn’t know what they meant, not that any were tricky to pronounce, but every term suddenly triggered a dozen vivid memories. He was supposed to say, “We will rise to this challenge as we have risen to every challenge since the days of the Founding Fathers.” But the word fathers brought to mind countless recollections of his own dad, who’d been an expansive storyteller and womanizer, and of a handsome black man he recognized as Kadeem’s most-recent stepfather.
He wanted to shake his head, to fling the images from his mind, but he knew he’d lose his balance altogether if he did that. These memories were every bit as vivid and immediate as those he’d experienced while sharing Kadeem’s post-traumatic flashback.
He summoned his will and tried to resume his speech, but he suddenly became conscious not of the teleprompter but rather of the TV camera behind it, and—
And images of other cameras came to him: old-style TV cameras, motion-picture cameras on cranes, tiny digital cameras, Polaroid cameras, SLR cameras, all of them superimposed. And each camera had a story to tell; indeed, he suddenly recalled his visit to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where Abraham Zapruder’s Bell & Howell 8mm, or one just like it, had been on display.
“Mr. President?” said Dr. Snow, sotto voce. She had stepped into the press room but had stopped short of entering the camera’s field of view. “Are you okay?”
Seth couldn’t find the words to reply to her. More memories came at him, and the deluge made him think of Professor Singh, whose equipment had started all this, and that brought to mind Kadeem meeting Singh for the first time, with the young private listening oh-so-skeptically to what the Canadian had to say.
His heart pounded painfully. Some audience members were whispering among themselves, clearly wondering what was going on. Seth wanted to slide his hand across his throat in a cut gesture, but he still lacked motor control.
His faltering finally proved too much for the vice president. Paddy Flaherty got up and moved to the podium, doing what he was supposed to do: acting for the president when the president himself could not. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, standing next to Seth and leaning into the microphone, “President Jerrison has, of course, undergone a great deal lately. I’m sure we are all grateful for…”
Seth felt his legs going out from under him. Dr. Snow surged in, catching him and putting an arm around his waist, helping to hold him up. Seconds later, Jasmine was at his side, too.
More images—and sounds—and smells—came to him, some from his own past and some from Kadeem’s, piled on top of each other. He closed his eyes, hoping to shut all the images out, but that reminded him of horror films and trying to get to sleep and a dust storm in Iraq and countless other things. Now that he was being supported, Seth did try to fling everything from his head with a violent shake—but that just brought to mind memories of whiplash and comic double takes and watching tennis games.
The First Lady carefully walked Seth toward the green room. He was surprised that Agent Dawson hadn’t brought his wheelchair close, but as they entered the room, the reason became clear: Susan, who perhaps had been leaning against the wall when Seth had started his speech, had slipped down onto her rump, her back still against the wall and her head tipped toward her chest.
Dr. Snow quickly got the wheelchair and she and Jasmine helped Seth into it. Seth tried to make out what Flaherty was saying in the other room, but the present was overwhelmed by the cacophony of the past.
Susan looked up, and it seemed to take a moment for her eyes to focus. “Sir,” she said, and then a second later she added, “…’kay?,” presumably as much of, “Are you okay?” as she could get out.
He nodded, or at least thought he did.
Suddenly, Susan’s eyes went wide and she managed to say, “Ranjip’s in trouble.”
Nikki Van Hausen had finished showing her last house for the day. It had probably been a lost cause—indeed, the whole day had likely been a waste. She’d often told those wanting to sell homes that they should bake cookies and put flowers in vases—but she herself was still bruised and bandaged from yesterday’s accident, not to mention exhausted—hardly the sort of sight that made people feel good about buying a house. Hopefully she wouldn’t look quite so mangled by next weekend.