THE PRESIDENT 2 Read online

  Bam!!!

  It sounded like a rocket hit and the SUV just in front of Gina’s flew into the air, flipped over and over and dropped in a crash on the side of the road, and then began to roll like a mighty toy. The secret service agent riding in the front seat of Gina’s SUV jumped to the back and threw her violently to the floor. The driver swerved to avoid the hit SUV, and just as he did the SUV behind them was hit too. It, too, flew into the air and flipped over and over. All Gina could hear, as she huddled on the floor, as LaLa and Christian huddled with her, was the sound of acceleration as her SUV seemed to go from fifty miles per hour to a hundred in a matter of nervous, heartrending seconds.

  ELEVEN

  Minutes before Gina’s ordeal, Dutch and Max left the Situation Room and made their way to the White House residence. The hostages had been located and a strategy had been agreed upon. They would go in tomorrow night our time, under cover of darkness, with the best Seals team the military had to offer, and get them out. His SecDef and SecState gave him full assurances. Dutch felt rejuvenated. But he felt extremely antsy too.

  “You look full of yourself,” his mother said as he entered the second floor residence. She and Caroline were seated on the sofa.

  Dutch laughed as he headed for the bar. “Thank-you, Mother, for your kind words. Would either of you care for anything to drink?”

  “We’ve been offered drinks,” Caroline said, “but declined.”

  “What about you, Max?”

  “No, I’m good,” Max said as he sat in the chair flanking the sofa. “How do you like the digs, Caroline?” he asked. “I understand they took you on a tour.”

  “They did. And I love it. Quite gorgeous actually. And not nearly as formal as I would have thought.”

  Dutch poured himself a glass of wine and then took a seat in the chair across from the sofa.

  “What was the big meeting about?” Caroline wanted to know.

  Dutch crossed his legs. “Work and more work,” he said.

  “Did you ever pursue your photography while you lived in France, Caro?” Max asked.

  Caroline smiled. They are so secretive around here, she thought. “A little, early on, and then no. I was too busy being a wife.”

  Knocks were heard on the sitting room door. Max answered it. And then stepped outside of the room, closing it behind him.

  “Did you ever have children?” Victoria asked her. She and Dutch exchanged glances.

  “No, I did not. We, my husband actually, couldn’t have any.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Did you want any?” Dutch asked and stared at her to see if she had changed. There was a time when she had jokingly promised to give him ten babies. “But at least two,” he remembered she loved to say.

  “Yes,” she said. “Lots. But at least two.”

  Dutch sipped from his wine.

  “There’s still time,” Victoria said, patting her hand. “You’re still a young woman.”

  Max reentered the sitting room, looking flustered to everyone, as he made his way up to the president’s chair. “May I see you for a moment, sir?” he asked.

  Dutch at first seemed annoyed by Max’s interruption. Until he saw that flustered look on his face.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, excused himself, and he and Max went into the small, private office within the residence, an office specifically designed for the president’s personal use.

  “What is it?” he asked his chief of staff as soon as the door closed.

  “A call just came in, sir,” Max said and seemed to wait for Dutch to ask a question. Dutch, however, remained silent. It couldn’t be the rescue mission they had just worked out since such a mission wouldn’t commence until five thirty pm tomorrow night our time, 3am Afghanistan’s.

  “It’s your wife, sir,” Max continued, and although Dutch remained calm outwardly, Max knew him long enough to see that sudden stormy look that came into his eyes.

  “What about my wife?” Dutch asked, barely able to contain himself.

  “She was being escorted from the Polunsky prison when her convoy of SUVs came under attack--”

  Dutch stepped back a step, his heart ramming against his chest.

  “There was an attack,” Max went on. “Two of the SUVs were hit. It was awful, according to the initial reports we’re just getting in. All of the passengers in the two vehicles that were hit were killed.”

  “What about Gina? Is Gina all right?”

  “Yes, she’s all right. She wasn’t hit. They had wanted her to go to Walter Reed as a precaution, but she refused. Mainly because physically she’s fine. She’s flying back to Andrews now.”

  “With Fighter Jet escort?”

  “You’d better believe it, sir. Ed just assured me.”

  Dutch rubbed his forehead, his eyes beginning to flutter. This was unbelievable. Gina had been at risk? Gina? His wife?

  “Christian and LaLa were with her,” Max said, causing Dutch to look up at him. Only that calm, reassuring look he was known for was gone. He looked more perplexed than self-assured.

  “They okay?” Dutch asked.

  “They’re okay too,” Max said.

  “Prepare Marine One,” Dutch ordered. “I’m going to meet her plane.”

  “Until they can determine the source of the attack, sir, the Secret Service asks that you remain in the White House.”

  “Prepare Marine One,” Dutch said again. “I’m going to meet her plane.”

  Max knew it was a futile fight anyway. “Yes, sir,” he said, and left.

  Dutch stood there, unable to get a grip on anything, especially his fast-surfacing anxiety and guilt. And when he moved to walk, he stumbled into a shelf of books.

  He stayed where he stumbled, leaned against those books, his hands now covering his face in anguish. And all he could think about was Gina, and the awfulness of her ordeal, and the fact that, but for her being married to him, she would have never been in any such danger.

  “Dear Lord,” he said aloud. “What have I done?”

  ***

  Although he spoke to her by phone during his entire helicopter ride over to Andrews Air Force Base, and she had reassured him that she was completely untouched, he still felt an anguish that ripped at his soul. When he walked toward the plane, with Max and Dempsey just behind him, and saw her appear and begin to dismount, he ran.

  He ran across the field, ran up the steps of the plane taking two at a time, ran like the athlete he used to be. Gina ran too, and at mid-step, when they met, they embraced.

  His heart pounded as he held her, as his eyes closed tightly in thankful prayer to God for returning her safely to him. Then he looked at her. Looked anxiously at her.

  “Are you truly all right?” he asked her with all earnestness, his green eyes unable to stop scanning every inch of her.

  “I’m truly all right,” she said. And she was, except for the terror that sparkled like an unshed tear in her bright brown eyes.

  ***

  When Marine One landed on the helipad within the South Lawn of the White House, Victoria and Caroline, who had to find out about this incredible ordeal from cable news accounts, who didn’t even know that Dutch had left the White House to go and meet his wife’s plane, stood at the entrance on the South Portico.

  “I told you she was a camera hog,” Victoria was telling an upset Caroline. “Your return back into the president’s life, which would have been the big news, and what does she do? Manage to get herself attacked, that’s what. It’s all so very distasteful.”

  “That’s her, isn’t it?” Caroline asked as Dutch and Gina stepped out of the helicopter, flanked by military officials, and began walking across the South Lawn. Dutch had his arm tightly wrapped around his wife’s waist, and Gina had her head on her husband’s shoulder. Physically she was unscathed. But emotionally she was beaten.

  “That’s her,” Victoria said after looking and seeing the twosome herself. “That’s who you are competing against, if you c
an believe it.”

  And Victoria, for once, Caroline thought, was right. This was her competition? Some tall, dark-skinned chick with far too many curves? What in the world could Dutch have seen in her? Caroline had studied her pictures, every one she could find on the internet, and had researched every interview she had given on television. But she still couldn’t see the allure. But maybe, she had also thought, the woman would be better looking in person.

  But looking at her now, as they made their way toward the porch of the South Portico, Caroline knew she had thought wrong. This woman had just been through a lot, no doubt about that, but that couldn’t change the fact that she wasn’t especially beautiful. That she was, from Caroline’s vantage point, downright plain.

  She smooth down her long, black hair, straightened her skintight dress, and waited for the introduction. She’d treat the lady with respect. She’d smile and put on a good show. But all the while she was going to be sizing up the competition, finding the weak spots, and then pouncing.

  But that grand introduction she had been expecting never happened. Dutch, with his wife tightly against his side, entered the opened doors where Caroline and his mother stood, and didn’t so much as acknowledge their presence with a nod of the head. He still had Gina wrapped in his arms, her head still remained on his shoulder with her eyes tightly shut, and they walked right past them.

  Victoria immediately took umbrage as she could not believe the level of disrespect. Neither could Caroline, especially when you consider the woman in his arms.

  “Can you believe that?” Caroline said, her attempt at civility gone. “He walked right by us as if we weren’t even here! And that wife of his smelled of sweat. Sweat! And he pampers her?”

  Victoria, however, ushered Caroline away from the doors and the listening ears of the guards. She was so embarrassed by that hideous son of hers that she could hardly bear it.

  But Caroline was more than embarrassed. She was fuming. Who in the hell did he think he was playing with? That wife of his wasn’t hurt in that attack, she was no longer in any danger. So why couldn’t he stop for two seconds and say something? Even an I’ll talk to you later, or even a nod of the head, would have been preferable to nothing.

  But nothing was exactly what they received. Because, in truth, Dutch wasn’t thinking about either one of them. Gina was all he was concerned about right here and right now. Even that hostage rescue couldn’t get his attention right now. Because Gina was back. And his singular focus was to get her to their bedroom so that he could attempt to make her as comfortable, and as safe, as he possibly could.

  She was with him now. That was all that mattered to him.

  TWELVE

  Not a word was spoken when they entered the master bathroom. Dutch had already ordered that a bath be drawn and ready for the First Lady, and it was. And as they stood in the middle of that bathroom and he undressed her, Gina seemed unable to take her hands off of him. If she had to move a hand so that he could unzip this, or untie that, she would put her other hand somewhere on his person. It was as if she felt almost helpless, and she hated it. But the memories were still there. The sight of that massive SUV lifting into the air before her very eyes, like a toy car in a movie, kept replaying itself in her head. She even thought she saw one of the agents fly through the windshield when the SUV slammed back down and began to roll, but no, they said, it was a trick of the eye. They all had on seatbelts. No one flew out.

  But no-one survived, either.

  She dismissed the thought as her husband lifted her into the warm water and her body relaxed to the feel. As she began to bathe herself, he seemed to be well aware of her nervousness. That was why he didn’t leave her, but sat on the vanity chair inside of the bathroom and made his phone calls right where he sat.

  His most contentious tongue-lashing came during a conference call with the DNI, his Director of National Intelligence, and his Secretary of Homeland Security. Dutch wanted to know how in the world could rocket-propelled grenades get anywhere near the First Lady’s convoy. Somebody had dropped the ball, Dutch made clear, and he wanted names. Both department heads, sufficiently humbled, swore to get to the bottom of it, promising that heads would roll. Dutch hung up. Once the dust cleared heads would roll all right, and it would begin with theirs.

  As he sat there, his own head in his hands, his body so drained he could barely sit in that chair, he heard a muffled sound. When he looked up and realized Gina was just sitting there, in the tub, covered in suds and crying, his heart dropped.

  “Oh, darling,” he said and hurried to her, ready to step into that tub fully clothe if he had to, but realized he didn’t and removed them.

  He sat in behind her, wrapping her into his arms, and she leaned back against his hard frame and let it all out. She sobbed. She couldn’t stop crying. People died today, men and women who were just doing their jobs, and there was no easy way to get over that. She leaned against her husband and held nothing back.

  Dutch took her weight and allowed her the catharsis she needed. But it would be some time later, after he had finished bathing her himself, dried her off, put her in their bed, and after he had dried off too and got in bed with her, snuggling her closely to his chest, did his own emotions begin to release.

  And when the tears came, they came as inwardly wrenching and outwardly silent as Dutch had always allowed his emotions to display. But as Gina lay against him, unaware of his catharsis, now so peaceful herself, he couldn’t hold back. So many contradictory feelings warred against each other in his mind, including that ever-lurking possibility of resigning. That thought never left. Take his wife and get the hell out of this fishbowl forever.

  But what terrified him was the truth of their dilemma. Because resigning wouldn’t change a damn thing. Because even after he would no longer be president, even after they were as far away from Washington politics as they could get, he would still forever be the former President of the United States, and she would forever be its former First Lady. There would still be a target on her back. Time may blur its clarity and value, but it would still be there. Like a bell that had already rung. Like a symphony that had already played that song. They could never undo the fact that she had once been the First Lady of the United States of America. Never. And it was all because of his decision to marry her right away, while he was still president, while he was in a tough reelection fight that he refused to quit.

  Now the love of his life had an eternal target on her back. And it was all because of him, he thought bitterly, as he stared at her beautiful ebony face. As he kissed her on the nose, snuggled her naked body closer against his naked frame, and laid his head on top of hers.

  The next morning, to Dutch’s surprise, his penis had found its way deep inside of Gina. It was, in fact, that feeling of sensual tightness that had awakened both of them from what had been an incredibly relaxing sleep. And as Gina began to rub her naked ass against his stomach, as she moved to the feel of his penis inside of her, Dutch began to gyrate too. They did nothing else but lay there and moved in a slow, relaxing, simple rhythm. They didn’t talk; they didn’t try to make it anything but what it was. A joining. A two-as-one coming together. The rocking of the bed they could hear. The sound of saturation they could hear. And it those sounds more than the lovemaking itself that did it, the sounds of his wetness mating with hers as they continually released, as they continually gyrated, as they continually moved physically and metaphysically closer and closer until both their bodies strained into a spiral of orgasm. Gina closed her eyes and cried. Dutch closed his eyes and cried too. Because it felt, not like a climax, but an affirmation.