Chapter 50

On the last day I woke up happy. My schedule was as clear as a President ever experiences, and my family was healthy, happy, safe, and all around me at Camp David. The weather was warm and the sky was blue. As I got dressed, I couldn't help but think how comfortable I had grown living John Gray's life.

The one downside to that day was that I was coming down with a nasty head cold, sinus infection, bronchitis – sort of thing, and knew it was not going to be fun. Other than the throat, nose, and head thing that Rebecca prescibed something that sounded like a "Z" pack, I felt on top of the world.

That should have tipped me off, but it didn't.

My morning briefings were perfunctory, with little to worry about. The middle-east would never be calm, but it was ... manageable ... for a change. Unemployment was expected to tick down to five percent, maybe even drop to four point nine. That was welcome relief for thousands of families struggling to make it day to day, all across America.

CIA had nothing pending, and NSA had nothing, literally.

In the first four years as President, it was like I never really got into a rhythm. Things kept happening, and I kept dealing with them, without any down time to reflect, examine, investigate, or review. The world conspired to keep me moving every day, all the time.

After the ill-fated ISIS conflict in Texas, I took some time to seriously consider how events were managing me, instead of me managing events. That led to a discovery that my management style was hands on, right now, and nothing was too much to deal with as long as I kept steady pressure against the problem until it was resolved.

Rick, Yosef, and Steve joined me in a come-as-you-are retreat, where we worked on defining and describing the way the Gray Administration went about the business of managing the federal government.

What we decided was that there is never enough.

There is never enough time to deliberately manage any crisis. Everything had 'right now' stamped on it and required a fast decision.

There was never enough information. We constantly had to fill in the blanks, to come to some determination of what was happening, and what we were going to do about it.

There was never enough of me to satisfy everyone. No matter what I was doing, no matter how critical the situation, someone thought their problem was more important.

Given those things it should had come as no surprise to us when we discovered that the only thing left in our control was to do as much as possible, as quickly as possible, based on as much information as possible, and hope for the best possible result.

It sounded rather highbrow at the time.

Now I realized it was a long way around the block to come back to exactly where we were, right now, all the time.

Having put that problem to bed, Benjamin and I took a long walk through the woods, enjoying the cool morning air, and sweet smell of pines. As we walked I got to thinking about another term, and had just about decided to call it quits, when my detail leader shouted that I was wanted on the phone. That interruption saddened me for some reason. I guess the quiet, calm, morning was too perfect, so the job just had to interfere.

I took the proffered phone and said, "Yes."

A disembodied voice responded, "I bet you thought we just went away, didn't you, Mr. President?" It was the guy who alerted me to the contract on my life taken out by the EPA Director's girlfriend, when I was first appointed to replace Val Buena as Vice President.

"What do you want and how did you get this number?" I WAS annoyed.

"Now don't go getting your underpants in a twist young feller. I told you I wouldn't contact you again unless things changed, and BOY have they changed. Your old buddy, Cutler had him some friends, and they been just dying to take their revenge on the guy that usurped him from the throne.

"Normal wise, I wouldn't care either way, but you and me got us a history, and so I knew you'd want to hear all these details, 'specially since they coming after you this time..."

"I'm not hearing anything that makes me think you are telling me even a smidgen of the truth,,, "

He cut me off. "You do not want to piss me off, boy. If we decided to take their money and do the job, you would never see it coming, and we wouldn't care whether your pretty wife and step child got done at the same time, so hold your vinegar and let me continue.

"See, here is my dee-lemma ... those boys got a pig barn full money to spend and want to give a butt load of it to my ... friend, y'know, who does the killing for folks. We want that poke of cash but not necessarily in exchange for putting you in the big graveyard over in Arlington, beside old Charley-boy.

"One ways or the other, we gonna be puttin' that cash in one of them wonderful, far off, foreign banks. If you be dead, then we earned it all just swell. If you don't be dead, then they got themselves skinned right cleverly.

"This is what we decided to do about our dee-lemma. We gonna play this out till we see the color of their money, then either turn them over to your boys, or put them down real quiet like, so no one knows what happened to them. They be forgot like old Jimmy Hoffa when we're done, and either way you don't get yourself dead.

"So, that's how it be, Mr. President. You go on living the high life, and we scam those bastards for a fully funded, tax free, retirement load of greenbacks."

"Why are you telling me all this, then?"

"Well, here's another part of our dee-lemma. That old boy with the long shooting rifle, he might not choose to lie down after taking those wet-brained idiots' money. If he decides he has to have more integrity than that, then he gonna' put one in your carefully quaffed hair line and part your brains right permanently.