Chapter 55

Joshua cleared his throat and gave me it to me straight. “Mr. President. The people who murdered your wife were trying for you. Their pedigree points toward Russia and Africa. We will uncover their funding, but I can tell you right now, the people behind these attacks will have killed everyone that knows their identity by now, so we might have to follow the trail of dead bodies to find the real culprits.

“The prisoners captured here in town are all foreign nationals with no usable identification. Their prints are not in anyone’s system. Their money is washed as clean as fresh snow and they can’t even tell us where they stayed because they were kept in blackout rooms and moved inside of box trucks. The only thing they can give us is that they trained for months, in southern Russia and in northern Africa.”

He stopped to let that sink in.

“Director Walsh, are you saying that Russia WANTS us to know they had a hand in these attacks?”

His silence was one of an answer. His words were another. “Mr. President, if those bozos in Russia were sent by the Kremlin, then the leadership has gone off the deep end.

“No. This has to be private, but orchestrated to look like the Kremlin is involved. We need to turn our attention to the internal enemies of Russia. We’ll find our answers there. To that end, I have ordered everyone in every one of our facilities to delve into the lives and financial behavior of all enemies of the Kremlin.

“It may take some time, but that’s where this is headed, Mr. President.”

He certainly had my attention.

Attorney General Robert Mayhew was a hasty choice on my part. Every administration has to deal with changes and when I needed a new AG, I promoted the assistant to avoid any problems with politics.

It turned out pretty good.

Mayhew was less a politician and more of a prosecutor. His style was go for the gold and shoot for the conviction, instead of placating the minority and making sure that the right people always had their rectums covered by the DOJ.

Tonight he was going to have to give me very special advice.

“Mr. Mayhew. We seem to have an extra-constitutional issue facing us, and I want your assurance that you will not allow any federal prosecutors near these attackers. They are enemy combatants and you will respect my wishes on this, correct?”

“Of course, Mr. President. There is no way we would consider them as anything buy war criminals. I will make sure every one of our attorneys know our position on this and will follow up with a written order to that effect.”

He was going to be OK about all this. I could feel it.

We flew to Wyoming and from inside the very special underground facility I planned Jennifer’s funeral. It was there that I helped plan the double funeral for Hawk and Polly. Along with those sad tasks, there were the twenty-seven people killed defending us on the yacht. And the issue of the casualties suffered in D.C. Sam took the lead for me and did an exceptional job. For once the press didn’t attack me for spending some time alone to deal with the loss of my wife.

Congress and the Senate confirmed Sam in a unanimous vote and also confirmed my choice to replace him at Agriculture. Our choice to take over for Hawk at State was going the old fashioned route. He would get to experience hearings.

The state funerals were terrible for me. Hawk was my closest friend. Polly had mothered me when I was Angela. Their loss hung over me like a pall and everyone stayed out of my way, afraid that I would take it out on them.

Jennifer was buried on the mountain. I needed her near me and didn’t have the heart to bury her next to her mother and grandfather down in Florida. To protect her grave I cut a small plot out of the land and set it aside in perpetuity. The service was very private and the combined forces of our military and Secret Service kept everyone far away. After those losses I needed some time alone and stayed up in the cave house with Stacy, ignoring everything but the most important business. Sam knew how to lead and did so with grace and courage while I healed. Stacy never left my side. She ignored all protocols and with no staff anywhere near us, it was unnoticed.

The Friday after I buried Jennifer, I got another surprise.

“Mr. President?” It was Marsha, one of Stacy’s cabal of assistants.

“Yes,” I wasn’t in the mood for another phone call, but the world doesn’t care about my moods.