Chapter 40

Down the street from the ruined White House, a twelve year old girl, wobbling on weak legs and carrying a tattered teddy-bear she named Mr. Bear, leaned down and placed it beside the flowers laid by others, in memory of Charles, Diane, Shirley, and little Casey Thornton. Her face was tight from the physical effort of walking from where her mother and grandfather parked to the makeshift memorial along Pennsylvania Avenue. This was as close to sixteen hundred as the Secret Service, D.C. Police Department, and Secret Service would allow.

Little Jennifer ached from her illness, but bravely made the journey to mark a place in memory of the twelve-year-old granddaughter of President Thornton. For reasons she didn't know, and couldn't understand, it was terribly important that she personally memorialize little Casey Thornton.

Jennifer was slight of build and quite short for her age. Her face was still twisted from the ravages of her illness, and she walked with a pronounced limp, but she walked, which no one would have ever even hoped for. For all her physical weaknesses, her eyes shown like beacons of light in that late afternoon sun, and she held tightly to her mother's hand, and clutched her bear with the other.

"Mommy," she asked, hopefully? "Do you think someone that Casey loved was there to meet her when she got to Heaven after what happened?"

Her mother, Sherrie, smiling at her only child, saved from a terrible illness by the kindness of a complete stranger, felt the sudden pressure as tears slipped from the corner of both eyes at once.

Jennifer should have died four years ago, but out of thin air, a lawyer showed up and made arrangements for Jennifer to see a very special doctor. He saved her life by inventing a drug series, just for Jennifer's blood system, that really was helping. When Sherrie inquired as to her benefactor's identity, the lawyer clammed up and refused to even hint about it.

Now as Jennifer slowly- agonizingly slow – recovered and began to walk short distances, her heart seemed to reach out to other people's children who were sick, mistreated, abused, or neglected. The knowledge of Jennifer's concern about Casey Thornton's welcome in Heaven warmed her to tears.

"Yes, Baby. I think God sent someone who loved Casey very much to greet her when she arrived. They are running through Heaven right now. And I love it so much that you care about others, honey." They hugged briefly. Then her grandfather, beaming with love, moved the wheelchair up so Jennifer could ride back to their car.

Just before sitting in her wheelchair, little Jennifer smiled sadly and said, "Goodbye, Mr. Bear ... Take good care of Casey in Heaven."

As the sun set, several passers-by stopped to watch the child, her mother, and grandfather slowly walking back along Pennsylvania Avenue, holding hands and quietly crying.

Dinner came and went with me holed up in Charles' – now my – private office. There had to be a string that tied all of this together, but I couldn't wrap my arms around it. Steve was pure as the wind driven snow, and he was the only member of the Secret Service that I felt totally comfortable saying that about.

Charles Thornton, the most popular politician in the current generation, was nearly assassinated, but the maniacs turn the car against Shirley and Casey, instead. I was far too suspicious to believe that the plan wasn't to take him out of the race. Could there have been another agenda, unknown to the driver and Cutler?

Val Buena - chosen for his Hispanic surname - more than his competence, is neatly forced to resign, makes no attempt to defend himself, but just how legitimate was his accuser? Could he have been manipulated right out of office to set the President up to be killed? Once Val Buena was damaged to the point of being replaceable, who was the logical choice to succeed him?

Charles shakes up things by asking me to replace Val Buena. No one saw that coming until they did. Who stood to lose the most? What recourse was left for the one expecting to be chosen?

Who was harmed and who stood to gain if someone else was the bi-partisan choice to succeed Val Buena?

There had been three real attempts on my life, and that wasn't counting Jason. Someone or some ones really wanted me dead. Who had access to all the details, all the time, and who could arrange to move pieces into place to take me and Charles out? If this person, or people, were willing to kill on such a scale as blowing up the White House to get themselves set up to become President, what else were they willing to do? Who were they willing to kill? How deep does a potential conspiracy run, and close are they to me now?

If someone was orchestrating things to get Val Buena out of the way, kill Charles and capture the Presidency, who were they, what did they really want. How were they able to manipulate so many things at one time?

Who gains if Val Buena, Cutler, and I are all out of the way, along with Charles?

The way things were going, Ken would be taking the oath to replace me soon...

Cutler ... Jason ... Ken...

Ken AND Jason?

That tendril of a thought, that kept slipping away whenever I tried to grasp it, came back in a flash. In my mind's eye, I could see Ken and Jason sitting off in a corner of the Cabinet Room, heads close together, talking a mile a minute, while we tried to hammer out a plan for the first weeks of my term as Vice president.

Jason was my chief of staff at the time, and if he already hated me for being in first place for Shirley's attention, and Ken hated me for being tapped to become Vice President...