The general has his arms out as he walks towards her, telling her to be quiet in the same way Larry used to tell their neighbours’ dog to give him the newspaper back. ‘Look, Lopez, we didn’t make the rules, did we? He is the twelfth in line to the presidency and we have reached that number. The remaining American people will want to know that we are holding true to the constitution.’ He looks at Larry then back to her. ‘So that means this guy is now the boss.’
She looks at Larry and then screams again, as he wonders if this is an appropriate moment when his secret service guys should be stepping in, before this hysterical woman yells the place down, alerting whatever is above to their presence.
The General moves closer to her, as does the Admiral and some other guy in a suit. They huddle together, trying to calm her down while whispering in code. He can’t hear everything they are saying but he can see that almost everyone else is watching him, apart from the ten or so people who are managing the information feeds and constant updates. He feels just a little bit alone now, standing near the map, away from everyone else. As the huddled group begin to talk louder, crazy Lopez gives him the odd sinister stare, and he thinks about asking his new protectors to come over and talk to him, just so he doesn’t feel so lonely.
Larry has never really had a secret service detail of his own before. Once he did need to go to a run-down part of Chicago – some back-of-beyond suburb that even the mayor wouldn’t visit – so that he could listen to the residents’ complaints that their neighbourhood was being destroyed to make way for a new shopping mall, residential village and luxury hotel. On the day he landed at the airport he got picked up in an SUV by two men in suits – mean-looking sort of guys – but then someone from the White House Press Office made him stop downtown so he could change into a taxi, because they thought it would make him look more down-to-earth and less like a government tool.
That did upset him but at least he still had his two agents to protect him from the mob. They looked quite manly and tough in the front of their land cruiser but squashed into the back of a taxi with him, their ample girths poking through their off-white shirts, he asked the question if either of them had ever served with the current president, or perhaps a previous one. When he found out they were private security and hadn’t been to Washington in years, let alone met the top guy, he resigned himself to the reality that he was a nobody, someone who was lucky to get any sort of escort at all. David had volunteered to go with him that day – and, in truth, he would have protected him just as well, and been far better company.
He snaps back to life, remembering that he still needs to call David. He looks around the mass of people, wondering who he could possibly ask for a telephone. He settles on the only person he thinks he can trust, the only one remotely likely to help him. ‘Agent Flinch,’ he says, walking towards him, never one to demand someone should come to him. ‘Would it be possible for you to kindly find me a telephone?’ he says, but doesn’t give a reason why this time, figuring someone of his importance would never justify a simple instruction.
Agent Flinch smiles and nods, before making his way towards one of the many people nearby, who Larry assumes to be communications operatives.
He smiles back, feeling almost like he has accomplished something. He looks at the many different people, wanting to tell them to get back to work, his one victory giving him the smallest bit of confidence. Inconspicuously, he gazes over at the huddled mass of important people and that woman who is still waving her hands in the air, hitting some invisible target. She says something that he can’t quite understand, something about the next few hours being critical and the toughest decision not always being the right one.
He sees General Phillips hush her, his energy seeming to keep the group together. He glances over at Larry for just a moment, before looking back at her. ‘We all know that an officially appointed president gives plausible authority to any decision his office makes, and that is what matters right now.’
He doesn’t make any comment and in fact pretends that he hasn’t heard anything, although he wonders about this official appointment business, considering that Evans is still technically leading the country, even if he is doing it from his grave. All the work and none of the credit – that’s what this sounds like to Larry, and that’s exactly what his mum said when he told her he was going into government. He started local and worked his way up but it was never about the politics, always about serving someone else and making the system work for the little guy. When Larry was sworn into the latest government he realised that he had probably become just a little politically minded, but by this time his mother had passed away, and he and David were clear on why he was doing it.
He knows that on the day he joined the newly formed government it was still about protecting the little guy, but he never once considered that he would ever become president. He thinks that this is a dark day – 11 other people have died in the attempt and now he’s the only one left. There were so many things in place to stop this from ever happening: those next in line not travelling with the president wherever possible, immense security whenever the most important people were together. When they ticked off five from the list in one attack it was probably the beginning of the end. Maybe it was planned and they had waited for the exact moment when they could cause the most damage.
Agent Flinch appears with a phone in his hand and Larry smiles: he is about to complete his first small task, one that means so much. He quickly dials the number from memory. He has always been good at remembering numbers, both cellphones and landlines. He wonders how many people bother to memorise their partner’s cell numbers when they can just be programmed and forgotten. He’s never been one to think of an emergency, something where he will have no choice but to dial the number; it’s just that he grew up without these gadgets and their long, identifying digits. He remembers his parents getting their first phone, his first trip to a payphone, and the day he unboxed his first cell. He still has his filodex on the desk in his office, despite his personal assistant having shown him how to use the online phone list a hundred times. He finds something reassuring in doing things the old way; he finds a kind of healthiness and balance in clinging to bits and pieces of the past.
As the phone starts ringing he feels his victories starting to form into a small pattern, hopefully building into many successes that will lead him out of this place and back to David, which is exactly what he plans to tell him.
Someone picks up and Larry is about to scream with excitement but then the line goes dead. He looks down at the phone and then holds it up to his ear, before holding it at a slight angle so he can properly see through his glasses as he tries to find the redial button.
He doesn’t get a chance; instead, he realises Lopez is next to him. She grabs the phone from his hand and throws it across the room; it smashes into one of the large screens. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she shouts.
He doesn’t look at her or offer an answer as he looks at the flickering screen, seeing that most of Australia is now just a series of cracked lines. He thinks that if she keeps throwing electrical objects across the room at her current rate, then they will be back to pen, paper and maps within hours.
She smacks him across the chest and then lets out a long scream, clearly frustrated at his lack of fight. It’s enough to bring Flinch back towards him, as the agent holds out his arms, politely fending her off. She pushes him away and it’s enough to make him back off, as he still tries to indicate a truce. Larry wonders if he is genuinely afraid of this woman. He has watched enough encounters between secret service agents and senior government officials to know that they are good at defusing tensions without actually shooting anyone, which might turn out to be a real shame in this particular situation.