THE PRESIDENT 2 Read online

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  Dutch was so disgusted by the news that he first needed to compose himself. “They’ve killed a hostage,” he finally said.

  Gina deflated. “Oh, no, Dutch. One of the students?”

  “Of course a student. They’re terrorists; it’s their job to terrorize. And they can expect far more outrage from the American public if they kill a bright eyed nineteen year old rather than some rich, middle-aged businessman. So they go for the shock value.”

  Gina’s eyes studied his. “Are you all right?”

  Dutch thought about this. “When this job is over, and I can take my wife as far away from this environment as I can possibly get her, yes, I will be,” he said, and laid her head back down on his chest.

  FIVE

  The president stood behind a makeshift podium in the White House Rose Garden with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Shamir, flanking him. Given that it was the morning after the murder of a hostage, it was to be a simple photo-op, with the president thanking Mr. Shamir for his visit to the United States and the prime minister thanking the president for his friendship with Israel and his undying commitment to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. No questions, they decided and had already alerted the press, would be taken. The assembled press, however, had other ideas.

  Their questions came before the men could even finish their greetings. And not one of those questions concerned the peace process or how the prime minister was enjoying his stay in the United States. But every one of their questions concerned the hostage crisis and what they viewed as the president’s lackadaisical response. It became so contentious that the leaders had to end their prepared remarks early, shake hands and give the obligatory camera wave, and then get ushered back into the White House as if they were being forced along.

  One reporter, however, still was able to get in what would become the sound bite for the entire appearance: “Mr. President, they’re killing Americans!” he was able to yell above the rest. “What are you and your lame administration going to do about it?”

  Once back inside the Oval Office, even the prime minister, a man who had been in and around politics for nearly forty years, could hardly believe the level of disrespect. “Did that reporter just call your administration lame?” he asked Dutch in astonishment. Dutch, however, smiled, placed his hand on the prime minister’s back, and thanked him once again for his visit.

  ***

  That level of disrespect, as noted by the Israeli Prime Minister and fueled by the fact that that reporter’s question was being played over and over all morning and now late into the afternoon on the various cable news channels, wasn’t lost on Gina, either, as she sat behind her desk in her small office inside the East Wing of the White House. She had a long line of meetings already scheduled by the president’s staff to enhance what they called her “softer” side. This particular meeting was with members of the Society for the Prevention of Pit Bull Cruelty and she listened as they pleaded with her to get behind their cause. How supporting better treatment of pit bulls would make her appear “softer,” was a mystery to her.

  But even as she listened to their spiel, all she could think about was Dutch. He was adept at handling every crisis they threw his way, and could take those punches of blame, but she knew in many ways it was beginning to tear him apart. He used to joke, during the last campaign, that he didn’t even want a second term. She assumed it was just the jitters and the fact that he was in a tough reelection fight. But now she wasn’t so sure if it was a joke at all. She now believed, in many respects, that he sometimes hated his job.

  Just like she sometimes hated hers as she sat behind her desk and listened to wealthy middle-aged ladies drone on and on about pit bulls. “When many shelters need more space,” one of the women pointed out, “they will decide to euthanize pit bulls above any other breed of animal simply because of the pit bulls’ reputation for violence. Forget the fact that pit bulls are no more violent than any other breed,” the good lady insisted, “but they continue this practice to this day.”

  He made love to her for nearly two hours last night, sliding in and out of her so slowly and for so long that it intoxicated both of them: it felt like a slow-acting drug. It was so different than their usual, more aggressive sex, but it made them realize something beautiful and startling: that they had no more points to prove. They were an unshakeable couple, and they both knew it.

  And then that phone call about that poor student hostage had them reeling again.

  “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Harber?” one of the women, Marilyn Feingold, asked.

  Gina’s dark brown eyes finally turned her way. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “About the death penalty for humans. It’s the same thing for pit bulls. I heard you on television say that those mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are discriminatory and I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Yes,” Gina said, now kicking herself for not paying closer attention. These ladies weren’t as air-headed as she had assumed. “They are discriminatory.”

  “Take your brother, for instance,” Feingold said. Gina wanted to quickly correct her by saying that Marcus Rance was her half-brother, a half-brother she had never even met before, but she didn’t go there. He was her deceased father’s son, and she wasn’t sullying her own father’s memory by bashing his son, no matter what Dutch’s staffers insisted she do.

  “What about him?” she decided to say, instead.

  “He’s on death row too, just like our pit bulls are. What would you tell the parole board about your brother’s sentence?”

  “Since I don’t believe in the death penalty for anyone, including any human being like Marcus Rance or any random pit bull, I would recommend life in prison without the possibility of parole. I would be in favor of all sentences being commuted to life.”

  “That’s how we feel about our pit bulls. They have a death sentence over their heads and nobody’s advocating for their commutation to life.”

  “Except you guys,” Gina pointed out and Marilyn Feingold couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yes,” she said. “Except us.”

  Then the conversation shifted, as she compared the fate of pit bulls to unwed mothers, crack babies, and drug addicts. “To keep it real,” Feingold said to Gina, as if Gina, this black woman, would have firsthand experience with all of the above.

  When they finally left her office, she called Christian Bale and told him to tell Max Brennan that if his staff scheduled another meeting like that for her again, there will be blood.

  Christian laughed, but then quickly called Max Brennan.

  ***

  The murder of that college student created a firestorm of criticism around Dutch. Protestors, mostly partisan activists, gathered in front of the White House in the thousands, insisting that their president do something and do something now to get those poor students back home.

  Dutch called an emergency meeting of his national security team. They met in the basement of the West Wing, in the vaulted Situation Room, and by the time Dutch arrived his entire national security team, from cabinet secretaries to the national security advisor and his NSC staff, were already assembled. Max, his chief of staff, was standing around with arms folded; looking nervous it seemed to Dutch, as he took his seat along the side center of the table’s oval.

  And it became one of the most contentious meetings they had ever had. Mainly because of the mood of the country and their desire to see results, but also because Dutch was getting sick and tired himself of their lame answers. Dutch, in fact, left the meeting early, ordering his entire team to stay where they sat until they could formulate a more definitive strategy for success and have it on his desk by eight a.m. tomorrow morning. He was slated to address the American people tomorrow night on the hostage crisis, and he wanted concrete information, not maybes and wherefores.

  And then he showered and changed, hopped into an SUV, and met up with Gina and Dempsey at LaLa’s home in George
town.

  It wasn’t on the manifest so the protestors didn’t even realize the president had left the White House. Which they all laughed about when they turned on the TV and saw the protestors all over FOX News demanding that the president drop that same “Rose Garden Strategy” that Jimmy Carter employed, and come out and address them. “The president needs to be a man,” one protestor yelled into the rolling FOX camera, “and come out of that house and answer to us.”

  “Turn it off,” Dutch said with a chuckle as he leaned back in his chair at the head of the kitchen table and took another swig of his Guinness. Gina was seated next to him, with LaLa across from Gina and Demps at the small table’s other head. Demps took the remote and turned off the television.

  “What’s the game plan, Mr. President?” Demps asked.

  “It’s currently being formulated. I don’t know, Demps, sometimes I wonder if the American people are being well served by this team I selected for my administration.”

  “They certainly leave a lot to be desired,” LaLa said and Demps gave her a watch it kind of harsh look.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, “I’m not taking it back. They seem like a bunch of incompetents to me. And I’m on the inside looking out.”

  “I agree,” Gina said. “But it’s too late to change course now.”

  Dutch glanced at his wife. She had a remarkable way of being so concise that it stopped negative energy in its tracks and moved the conversation to higher, perhaps even safer ground. She wore a sheer purple top that crisscrossed at the chest, causing him to fixate on her breasts, remembering how they taste in his mouth, and his penis began to throb in anticipation of what he knew he was going to do to her later tonight.

  After dinner, an old fashioned steak and potatoes dinner that LaLa cooked and Dutch adored, they all assembled in the living room area. But they hadn’t sat down ten minutes when the doorbell rang and then the door was immediately opened.

  The secret service clandestinely had the outside of the home well-fortified, so it wasn’t unusual for the door to be opened without permission. But when Max Brennan, rather than an agent, rounded the corner and was visible to all of them, everybody knew something was up.

  “What is it now?” Dutch asked as soon as he saw his old friend’s drained face.

  Max placed his hands in his pant pockets as he approached. “Not good news,” he said as if that needed saying.

  “What is it?” Dutch asked again when he arrived at the president’s side.

  “They just killed Ralph Caswell,” Max said and Gina, remembering Jennifer Caswell’s threat, let out an audible sigh of anguish.

  “Well now,” Dutch said.

  “There’s more,” Max said. “Mrs. Caswell, through her spokesman, has called a press conference for tomorrow morning. And the press is already speculating that she has plans to rake you over the coals unlike you’ve ever been raked before. It’s as if her people have already given the press beforehand notice that she has the goods on you.”

  LaLa and Demps looked at Dutch. “Does she, Mr. President?” Demps asked.

  Dutch and Gina exchanged glances. “Not as far as I know,” Dutch said.

  SIX

  Dutch and Gina sat side by side in the Roosevelt Room, where the White House staff usually gathered, as the televised press conference commenced. Christian, Allison Shearer, and Max were also in the room. Gina didn’t realize Dutch was holding her hand until she moved up as if she was about to get up, and he squeezed it.

  The flat screen TV sat like a movie screen as they all stared unblinkingly at Jennifer. To their surprise, there was little news at the beginning of the presser, as Jennifer Caswell sounded like any other grieving widow. Until she mentioned the president’s name.

  “My husband saved me,” she said as she stood in what appeared to be a ball room inside a hotel, the press so numerous that it was actually standing room only. “I became suicidal just after we were married. That is public knowledge. Many of my friends are aware of the fact that I was in a bad place just after I married Ralph Caswell. But what was never public knowledge was why I was in that bad place.”

  Max glanced at Dutch. Dutch was staring at Jennifer.

  “What the public doesn’t know is that I was in a long term sexual relationship with President Walter “Dutch” Harber for many years. The relationship was mutual and it was consensual. However, after I married my husband, Dutch wanted to continue the relationship and I wanted him to leave me alone so that I could be a good wife to my new husband. But he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  Gina could feel Dutch squeeze her hand tighter. She, too, was bracing herself.

  “One night, at the White House, the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, raped me.”

  It felt as if a bomb had just exploded and the press didn’t know what hit it. The cameras started flashing as if they were being handled by wild tabloid paparazzi, and questions started being hurled as if it was now a free-for-all. The mood became so frenzied that Jennifer’s attorney, who stood alongside her, had to step in and refuse to answer any questions until the press settled back down.

  The silence in the Roosevelt Room proved a startling contrast to the mayhem on the television screen. Dutch and Gina sat as if they were frozen in time, neither able to move, to speak, seemingly to breathe. Max, Allison, and Christian also stood mute. Until one of their cell phones began to rang, and then another cell phone rang, and then all three were fielding phone calls from congressmen, senators, and worried supporters about this amazing turn of events. Even LaLa and Dempsey hurried into the room, asking if they were watching Jennifer Caswell and her remarkable allegation.

  Finally, the press conference was allowed to continue and one reporter, Nora Tatem, asked the obvious question. “Are you, Mrs. Caswell, accusing our sitting President of rape?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m accusing him of,” Jennifer said, “because it’s the truth. He raped me. He raped me because I would not leave my husband.”

  “Did you report this rape?”

  “Of course not! He was the president. Nobody was going to believe me over the president!”

  “Why are you coming forward now?”

  “Because I believe he purposely let my husband die.”

  Another bombshell. Another flurry of camera flashes and numerous questions being hurled all at once. The attorney had to step in again, and then the press conference continued:

  “Are you saying, Mrs. Caswell, that President Harber purposely allowed your husband to be killed by those terrorists?”

  “I believe he’s still so angry with me for leaving him that he did nothing to help my husband!”

  “That’s not the same thing, ma’am.”

  “It is the same thing. My husband is dead and Dutch Harber is probably sitting up in that White House gloating because of it.”

  “All because he still can’t get over the fact that you left him for another man?”

  “That’s the truth. He begged me to stay with him. He still begs me.”

  “Are you saying the president still wants you?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “But what about the First Lady? Why would he want you, when he has her?”

  Jennifer almost laughed. “The answer to that question is self-evident. Look at her, look at me, there’s your answer. Next question,” she said and many more questions came. But at the end of the day all of them had the same answer: Dutch Harber has committed not only a serious crime, but an impeachable offense.

  And nobody in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, least of which Dutch Harber, could find the words to counter an accusation like that.