Chapter 43

The universe stepped in to save Jennifer – again. My body – well, my bodies – provided the healing potion sufficient to allow Jennifer to heal, recover and resume her life. The faith required to believe that the universe would / could have properties in my blood, from twelve lifetimes ago, carefully preserved and used to create a magic drug capable of saving the life of my wife in the here-and-now, and have all that happen with no one becoming the least bit suspicious, was truly impressive. I guess the real problem is a human trying to fit the universe inside of a carefully prepared box that fit a predetermined set of expectations and beliefs.

In the end, the universe does whatever the universe chooses to do.

My other problem continued unabated. Another unsuccessful attempt was made on Sam’s life. He was exiting a famous Los Angeles hotel after a fundraising speech when shots rang out from two different directions. The Secret Service and L.A. County Police were all over the area and quickly shut down the building, but a search failed to turn up a single person that didn’t belong.

That meant that the shooter was almost assuredly from inside the Secret Service.

Sam huddled with the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, after the sitting Secretary quickly resigned in embarrassment, following the discovery that the investigation was turning to people working in his department. Their discussions resulted in a mini-purge and major forensic investigation of all Secret Service employees, at all levels of employment.

Over the next few months forty-seven agents suddenly retired, fourteen administrative employees were terminated without severance, or retirement benefits beyond their personal contributions and nine agents in key positions were indicted for a variety of offenses, none of them related to the attempt on Sam’s life.

Our black ops team did discover the bodies of two agents that had to have knowledge of the assassination attempt, or were involved in some way, but neither was anywhere near L.A. on the night of the shooting. Their deaths gave the ops section a good place to start and as they dismantled the lives of anyone those two had contact with, all kinds of interesting things started to happen.

Several people we had an interest in suddenly disappeared. Four Agents that gave the specialists cause for concern retired without warning and before our guys could catch up with them, all four simply vanished. Their retirement checks went to offshore accounts and were bounced from bank to bank too fast to follow. We knew they were, but not why, or how deeply they were involved.

Seeing the curve over the course of years, the Treasury had stepped up recruitment and training so that they had plenty of Agents in the pipeline to replace those who moved, or found themselves moved along.

Sam appointed a new Treasury Secretary and he was quickly confirmed.

Several highly placed assistants and deputy secretaries chose that time to resign. Their placement and the timing got our attention. Once the forensic people got involved their carefully erected protective walls began to crumble. After picking several of these suddenly unemployed assistant and deputy Secretaries up for an extended visit to a lovely resort in Cuba, the facts began to come clear.

Four of these flunkies were working for the enemy. Their treasonous tasks were cleverly covered by their access and ability to create false identities for information sharing. Once their reluctance to tell our contractors the unvarnished truth was breeched, they shared so much information that our wet work group was busy for several months.

In the end, the core of the operation was permanently out of the game. Our haul, in terms of assets, exceeded four billion, two-hundred million dollars. The generosity of Soros gang of thugs, thieves and scoundrels funded our operations for decades to come. The speed and ruthlessness of our counter attack seemed to scare Soros and his cronies into semi-retirement, as far as making any attempt to hurt Sam. We covered them with a blanket of intelligence gathering technology that kept us up with their every word, deed and movement. To drive the point home, we had a specialty pizza delivered to their most secret hiding place, while they were arguing over what to have on their pizza. Their reaction to the note placed inside the pizza box was legendary. We laughed about it for hours after making sure that the message was absorbed as intended.

Jennifer recovered and returned to her place beside me. The same press that savaged Jennifer when it was leaked that she was dying, carefully ignored the fact that she was active, happy and looking beautiful again. Polly became her favorite confidant and we often got together with her and Hawk at the Residence and on their yacht. Polly bluntly asked about our having children and was chastened to discover that it was impossible for Jennifer to conceive.

With the pall of Jennifer’s illness no longer hanging over us, we returned to our duties. Jennifer visited a variety of children’s hospitals, bringing a message of hope and healing, while I dove deeper into the troubles that plagued the country.

Our conflicts with the UN evaporated and their officials were beside themselves to avoid being cut off from the U.S.A. ever again. The Muslim block that pointedly attacked the United States and our interests found limited sympathy once allies in their cause discovered how badly it hurt to lose our funding and support for their problems at home.

Sam prepared for retirement in two years and I prepared for a presidential campaign. The party was thrilled to think of me as the face for the coming election cycle and various candidates requested my endorsement ahead of the primary season. We hesitated to offer too much support to other candidacies in case my own was a slow starter, and I failed to garner sufficient support to make a run at the White House.

Sam’s heart became a campaign issue in the winter, when he suffered severe chest pain and was medevac’d to a nearby cardiac unit. His cardiac, pulmonary and general practitioners were traveling with him as a precaution, ever since he was diagnosed. Care was immediate and knowledgeable. He was properly and quickly treated by his own physicians, who knew exactly what they were dealing with and averted what might have been a major heart attack.

In the course of treatment it was decided to implant a pacemaker. That meant I took command and control for a period of about thirty-six hours, in which absolutely nothing happened. You might say my presidency had a spotless record. Sam seemed far better after the pacemaker than he was before. That gave us all hope for a full and active life for him after our terms ended.

“Mr. Vice President, The President is on the line. May I put him through to you?” I wasn’t expecting a call from The Cottage, so it must be important.

“Mr. President. How may I help you, Sir?” It never hurt to offer the utmost courtesy to your boss, especially when he was the Chief Executive of your country.

“Thomas, I need you to hop into your chopper and get over here as quickly as you can. We have a problem to work on and it needs immediate attention.” He seemed extremely harried and not at all like himself. Whatever was happening must be big deal. The chopper flight took mere minutes and I was quickly escorted through the White House to the Crisis Center.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was present, as was the President’s Chief Counsel, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. That was some serious firepower for a quickly assembled meeting. I went through every problem we were currently dealing with and none of them was of sufficient danger to warrant this type of gathering.

Sam dispensed with the preliminaries and just hit us right between the eyes.

“Gentlemen,” He sounded like a man that just received a death sentence. “There is no way to sugar coat this. I will be resigning my office at eight P.M. tonight...”