Shall We Tell the President?

Shall We Tell the
President?

by

Jeffrey Archer

12:26 pm

‘I,
Florentyna
Kane, do solemnly swear...

‘I,
Florentyna
Kane, do solemnly swear...’

‘...that I will faithfully execute the
office of the President of the United States...’

‘... that I will faithfully execute the
office of the President of the
United
States
...’

‘...and will to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States
. So help me God.’

‘... and will to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States
. So help me God:

Her hand still resting on the Douay Bible,
the forty- third President smiled at the First Gentleman. It was the end of one
struggle and the beginning of another.
Florentyna
Kane knew about struggles. Her first struggle had been to be elected to
Congress, then the Senate and finally four years later when she had become the
first woman Vice President of the
United States
. After a fierce
primary campaign, she had only narrowly managed to defeat Senator Ralph Brooks
on the fifth ballot at the Democratic National Convention in June. In November
she survived an even fiercer battle with the Republican candidate, a former
congressman from
New York
.
Florentyna
Kane was elected President by 105,000
votes, a mere one per cent, the smallest margin in American history, smaller
even than the 118,000 that John F. Kennedy had gained over Richard Nixon back
in 1960.

While the applause died down, the President
waited for the twenty-one-gun salute to come to an end.
Florentyna
Kane cleared her throat and faced fifty thousand attentive citizens on the
Capitol
Plaza
and two hundred million more
somewhere out there beyond the television transmitters. There was no need today
for the blankets and heavy coats which normally accompanied these occasions.
The weather was unusually mild for late January, and the crowded grassy area
facing the east front of the Capitol, although soggy, was no longer white from
the Christmas snow.

‘Vice President Bradley, Mr Chief Justice,
President Carter, President Reagan, Reverend clergy, fellow citizens.’

The First Gentleman looked on, smiling
occasionally to himself as he recognised some of the words and phrases he had
contributed to his wife’s speech.

Their day had begun at about 6:30 am.
Neither had slept very well after the splendid pre-Inaugural concert
given
in their honour the previous evening.
Florentyna
Kane
had gone over her presidential address for the final time, underlining the
salient words in red, making only minor changes.

When she rose that morning,
Florentyna
wasted no time in selecting a blue dress from
her wardrobe. She pinned on the tiny brooch her first husband, Richard, had
given her just before he had died.

Every time
Florentyna
wore that brooch she remembered him; how he had been unable to catch he plane
that day because of a strike by maintenance workers but still hired a car to be
sure he could be by
Florentyna’s
side when she
addressed the Harvard commencement.

Richard never did hear that speech, the one
Newsweek
described as a launching pad for the Presidency - because by the
time she had reached the hospital he was dead.

She snapped back into the real world of
which she was the most powerful leader on earth. But still without enough power
to bring Richard back.
Florentyna
checked herself in
the mirror. She felt confident. After all, she had already been President for
nearly two years since the unexpected death of President Parkin. Historians
would be surprised to discover that she had learned of the President’s death
while trying to sink a four-foot putt against her oldest friend and future
husband, Edward Winchester.

They had both stopped their match when the
helicopters had circled overhead. When one of them had landed a Marines Captain
had jumped out and run towards her, saluted and said, ‘Madam President, the
President is dead.’ Now the American people had confirmed that they were
willing to continue living with a woman in the White House. For the first time
in its history, the
United
States
had elected a woman to the most
coveted position in its political life in her own right. She glanced out of the
bedroom window at the broad placid expanse of the
Potomac
River
, glinting in the early-morning sunlight.

She left the bedroom and went straight to
the private dining-room where her husband Edward was chatting to her children William
and Annabel.
Florentyna
kissed all three of them
before they sat down to breakfast.

They laughed about the past and talked
about the future but when the clock struck eight the President left them to go
to the Oval Office. Her Chief of Staff, Janet Brown, was sitting outside in the
corridor waiting for her.

‘Good morning, Madam President.’

‘Good morning, Janet. Everything under
control?’ She smiled at her.

‘I think so, Madam.’

‘Good. Why don’t you run my day as usual?
Don’t worry about me, I’ll just follow your instructions. What do you want me
to do first?’

‘There are 842 telegrams and 2,412 letters
but they will have to wait, except for the Heads of State. I’ll have replies
ready for them by twelve o’clock.’

‘Date them today, they’ll like that, and I’ll
sign every one of them as soon as they are ready.’

‘Yes, Madam. I also have your schedule. You
start the official day with coffee at eleven with the former Presidents Reagan
and Carter, then you will be driven to the Inauguration. After the Inauguration,
you’ll attend a luncheon at the Senate before reviewing the Inaugural Parade in
front of the White House.’

Janet Brown passed her a sheaf of
three-by-five index cards, stapled together, as she had done for fifteen years
since she joined her staff when
Florentyna
had first
been elected to Congress. They summarised the President’s hour-by-hour
schedule; there was rather less on them than usual.
Florentyna
glanced over the cards, and thanked her Chief of Staff. Edward Winchester
appeared at the door. He smiled as he always did, with a mixture of love and
admiration, when she turned towards him. She had never once regretted her
almost impulsive decision to marry him after the eighteenth hole on that
extraordinary day she was told of President Parkin’s death, and she felt for
certain that Richard would have approved.

‘I’ll be working on my papers until
eleven,’ she told him. He nodded and left to prepare himself for the day ahead.

A crowd of well-wishers was already
gathering outside the White House.

‘I wish it would rain,’ confided H. Stuart
Knight, the head of the Secret Service, to his aide; it was also one of the
most important days of his life. ‘I know the vast majority of people are
harmless, but these occasions give me the jitters.’

The crowd numbered about one hundred and
fifty; fifty of them belonged to Mr Knight. The advance car that always goes
five minutes ahead of a President was already meticulously checking the route
to the White House; Secret Service men were watching small gatherings of people
along the way, some waving flags; they were there to witness the Inauguration,
and would one day tell their grandchildren how they had seen
Florentyna
Kane being inaugurated as President of the
United States.

At 10:59 the butler opened the front door
and the crowds began to cheer.

The President and her husband waved to the
smiling eyes and only sensed by experience and professional instinct that fifty
people were not looking towards them.

Two black limousines came to a noiseless
stop at the North Entrance of the White House at 11:00 am. The Marine Honour
Guard stood at attention and saluted the two ex-Presidents and their wives as
they were greeted by President Kane on the Portico, a privilege normally
accorded only to visiting Heads of State. The President herself guided them
through to the library for coffee with Edward, William and Annabel.

The older of the ex-Presidents was
grumbling that if he were frail it was because he had had to rely on his wife’s
cooking for the past eight years. ‘She hasn’t dirtied a frying pan in ages, but
she’s improving every day. To make sure, I’ve given her a copy of
The New
York Times Cook Book;
it’s about the only one of their publications that
didn’t criticise me.’
Florentyna
laughed nervously.
She wanted to get on with the official proceedings, but she was conscious that
the ex-Presidents were enjoying being back in the White House so she pretended
to listen attentively, donning a mask that was second nature to her after
nearly twenty years in politics.

‘Madam President.. .’
Florentyna
had to think quickly to prevent anyone noticing her instinctive response to the
words. It’s one minute past midday.’

She looked up at her press secretary, rose
from her chair, and led the ex-Presidents and their wives to the steps of the
White House. The Marine band struck up ‘Hail to the Chief for the last time. At
one o’clock they would play it again for the first time.

The two former Presidents were escorted to
the first car of the motorcade, a black, bubble-topped, bullet-proof limousine.
The Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, and the Senate Majority Leader, Robert
Byrd, representing the Congress, were already seated in the second car.
Directly behind the limousine there were two cars filled with Secret Service
men.
Florentyna
and Edward occupied the fifth car in
line. Vice President Bradley of
New
Jersey
and his wife rode in the next car.

H. Stuart Knight was going through one more
routine check. His fifty men had now grown to a hundred. By noon, counting the
local police and the FBI contingent, there would be five hundred. Not
forgetting the boys from the CIA, Knight thought ruefully. They certainly
didn’t tell him whether they were going to be there or not, and even he could
not always spot them in a crowd. He listened to the cheering of the onlookers
reaching a crescendo as the presidential limousine pulled out, on its way to
the Capitol.

Edward chatted amiably but
Florentyna’s
thoughts were elsewhere. She waved
mechanically at the crowds lining
Pennsylvania
Avenue
, but her mind was once again going over her
speech. The renovated Willard Hotel, seven office buildings under construction,
the tiered housing units that resembled an Indian cliff-dwelling, the new shops
and restaurants and the wide landscaped sidewalks passed by. The J. Edgar Hoover
Building, which housed the FBI, was still named after its first Director,
despite several efforts by certain senators to have the name changed. How this
street had been transformed in fifteen years.

They approached the Capitol and Edward
interrupted the President’s reverie. ‘May God be with you, darling.’ She smiled
and gripped his hand. The six cars came to a stop.

President Kane entered the Capitol on the
ground floor. Edward waited behind for a moment as he thanked the chauffeur.
Those who stepped out of the other cars were quickly surrounded by Secret
Service agents and, waving to the crowd, they made their way separately to
their seats on the platform. Meanwhile the chief usher was taking President
Kane quietly through the tunnel into the reception area, Marines diluting at
every ten paces. There she was greeted by Vice President Bradley. The two of
them stood talking of nothing, neither, of them taking in the other’s reply.

The two ex-Presidents came through the
tunnel smiling. For the first time the older President was looking his age, his
hair seemed to have turned grey overnight. Once again, he and
Florentyna
went through the formality of shaking hands with
one another; they were to do it seven times that day. The chief usher guided
them through a small reception room on to the platform. For this, as for all
Presidential inaugurations, a temporary platform had been erected on the east
steps of the Capitol. The crowds rose and cheered for over a minute as the
President and the ex-Presidents waved; finally they sat in silence and waited
for the ceremony to begin.

‘My fellow Americans, as I take office the
problems facing the
United
States
across the world are vast and
threatening. In
South Africa
,
pitiless civil war rages between black and white; in the
Middle
East
the ravages of last year’s battles are being repaired, but
both sides are rebuilding their armaments rather than their schools, their
hospitals or their farms. On the borders between
China
and
India
, and between
Russia
and
Pakistan
, there is the potential
for war among four of the most populous nations on earth.
South
America
veers between extreme right and extreme left, but neither
extreme seems to be able to improve the living conditions of their peoples. Two
of the original signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,
France
and
Italy
, are on the verge of
withdrawing from that pact.’