Midnight by Anna Dove (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

Europe, had found out and had pledged to protect us against foreign invasion. That was welcome news, but did not assuage our fears for our families, our friends, our infrastructure, hell, we hadn’t even thought much about foreign invasion, we’d been so distracted by the idea that our entire nation just collapsed internally.

                “Then, various individuals convinced the president that it would be wisest to do nothing for a week, because—well, it’s so awful, but because people would start to kill each other off, or die, and that needed to happen before we could actually address the infrastructure issues, since the issues would take months to fix. This hit me hard. I knew my wife and children would probably end up going somewhere safe—they’re smart people. Resourceful people. I was still worried sick but I trusted them. But the idea that food and water were now not a guarantee, and the mental images of what that would do to people—that was just cruel, sick—so awful to think about. This revealed to me who was involved. It was truly a team that Reed seemed to be commanding--they would all in unison advise the president so that he had no choice but to listen to them.”

               The Senator paused and sighed, and leaned his weight forward.

              “We spent the next two months or so down there. We came up three weeks ago. We were all instituted again in our positions and we have been trying to manage since then. It felt unfair, too,” the Senator suddenly added. “Unfair that I was protected like a precious trophy, while my wife and my children, hell while so many other vulnerable people, had to make a go of it on their own. I understand if course but that just ate me alive, it felt so wrong.”

               He looked at Haley absently and shook his head, and then raised his eyebrows.

               “How did you manage?” The Senator asked. “I want to know how you survived.”

              Haley recounted the occurrences of the weeks following the attack, and the others listened with rapt attention, occasionally nodding in approval. She described the journey to Annapolis, the sailing, the farmhouse, in vivid terms, and it was as if the places and people appeared before the group as she told the story. As she finished, the Senator nodded.

              “You are a brave woman,” he said.

“I did what I had to do to survive. I’m just heartbroken because so many did not make it.”

“They were unprepared,” said Landon, “and deluded into the belief that the United States was invulnerable to attack.”

“Yet they didn’t deserve to die because of foolish behavior.”

“No, of course not,” said Landon. “It just could have been prevented.”

“They didn’t deserve to die,” replied the Senator. “They unfortunately existed in a state of deluded confidence. I am sure that the Romans believed very much in the Roman Empire, and now, look what remains. Tourists go and take pictures of the Roman Forum, the epicenter of where all of these mighty Roman leaders ruled a vast expanse of land, and now what is left? Three pillars here, three pillars there, some engraved stones. In their time, I am sure that they thought themselves very important, and rather invincible. But then the Visigoths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Burgundians, Saxons, Angles, Jutes--and Rome fell. Not to mention internal economic problems, an overextended military, government corruption and political instability...I knew that the United States was at a point of extreme vulnerability, due to our internal unrest, our disengaged and distracted citizenry, our bloated sense of self-worth and our belief that we would never fall. It is always at the point when one is least expecting it, that the unexpected occurs. Or perhaps, considering history, the point at which one is most expecting it.”

The room was quiet for a moment, and the light slanted through the window, falling on the patterned rug.

“You believe that she did it, too?” said the Senator suddenly, and looked at Haley with intensity. She knew to whom he was referring.

“I know that she did.”

“How?”

“The gala that you sent me to, for the Council of Economic Advisors--remember? Well, when Elizabeth overheard that conversation there, my friend Carlos heard the other end of the conversation. Reed was talking to the First Lady.  We didn’t know who it was, and we thought it was the president himself, until Carlos told us.”

“How would he have heard that?”

“He was--sleeping with her--she had gone into another room to talk but he overheard.”

The Senator seemed to be thinking; his hand massaged his brow. His hand reached to the top of his head and strayed through his graying hair.

“So it’s true,” he said musingly, almost as if to himself. “I knew.”

“Sir,” broke in Landon, “the question seems to me not the question of if, but the question now of how. How are we to expose this, when we don’t know who we can trust?”

“Trust no one beyond our circle!” barked the Senator, suddenly coming quite alive. “I’ll be damned if I trust a single soul besides you. You must not, you must not, breathe a single word to anyone. This is our lives at stake here. If she is willing to stage an attack of this scale on innocent civilians, you must not labor under the delusion that she would think twice about killing anyone who she perceives as a threat. No. The only way for us to go forward--I must run against her, publicly. That way, she cannot kill me, else she lose the trust of the people. She knows the game. There is no other way.”

23.  The Challenger

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for staying ashore.”

                  ― Vincent Van Gogh

One week after the meeting in the Senator’s house, the Senator announced his candidacy for president. Hosting