The General's President (55 page)

The young eyes were shrewd, and curiosity had grown to interest. "How did he get rich then?"

"Well—He's a very intelligent man to start with, and after he got out of the army, he went to college. And—he's got the gift of being able to invent new things that people want."

"What did he invent?"

"The most important thing is a new kind of generator to make electricity. In the towns that have them, electricity is cheaper than it used to be. And he..."

A nurse came in while Lois was talking, closing the door behind her. "Excuse me, Mrs. Haugen," she said. "Feleen, I have to get you ready for the doctor to examine. He wants to see if you're ready to move to a ward, where there are other young women."

Lois Haugen got up. "I'll go now, Feleen," she said. "Thank you for talking with me."

"That's all right." The girl grinned. "People aren't goin' to believe me when I tell them the president's wife came in to see me."

Then the nurse pulled down the sheet, and Lois left.

The employment figures had been climbing, but things were still awfully hard for millions of families. Yet it seemed from the surveys that morale was good, and that Arne had been important to that, even crucial. Now this young girl, with the story about her brother, had made it real to her.

If Arne wants to stay on in the White House
, she told herself,
I won't say a peep against it.

***

As a White House resident, Father Stephen Joseph Flynn was entitled to eat there, and mostly he took his meals with the domestic staff, who also ate there. But today he felt like eating alone, so a cook made him a roast beef sandwich and Father Flynn took it to his room. There he poured hot water from his electric pot onto a tea bag, turned on his small TV, and settled down to watch the twelve o'clock news.

He ate slowly, absently, while watching. The American Federation of Teachers had officially expressed its expected mixed reaction to the Haugen Education Reform Act. They were unhappy about the limited tenure provision, their spokeswoman said, but pleased at provisions that would remove chronic trouble-makers from classrooms, and with decreased administrative dictation to teachers.

The Reverend Ferris Bradwick of the Christian Reform Convention was generally pleased, but disappointed that it had not provided tax deductions for tuitions paid to church-operated schools, or addressed the issue of legalizing prayer in the public schools.

A class-action suit had been filed for a woman in Providence, Rhode Island, to strike down what her lawyer termed "the unconstitutional provision for segregation of students who exercised their freedom of speech in the classroom; and their forceable inclusion in 'penal classes.' " He'd requested an injunction to stop it until the courts had an opportunity to strike down the law.

Attorney General Cavanaugh said the provision referred to called for the removal of disruptive students from regular classrooms, and authorized their assignment to corrective groups if they continued to be disruptive. He doubted that an injunction could be obtained, and if one was, he anticipated that it would be struck down by a higher court.

The anchorwoman then pointed out that, with the present makeup of the Supreme Court, it seemed doubtful indeed that the suit would succeed, or that any such injunction would be allowed to stand. She also commented that, as a mother of two junior high school students, she was pleased with the law.

The priest finished his roast beef sandwich and his tea, washed his plate and cup and put them away, then got ready to go to the hospital. He decided to walk this time. It was less than a mile, the weather was nice, and the exercise would be good for him. He hadn't used the pool lately—didn't feel quite right about using it in the president's absence.

Flynn didn't suppose Arne was watching newscasts yet. Perhaps he'd give him a rundown, if it seemed he might like one. After all, most of the news was good.

FIFTY-THREE

Arne Haugen recovered faster than expected. In a week he walked around in his room, with the doctor's permission and an orderly's support. Two evenings later he walked, unsupported, with Lois to the TV lounge at the end of the hall, to watch Dustin Hoffman as Oberst Markus Dietermann, in
The Sweet Breeze of Spring
.

Lois was with him a lot. The hospital had given her a room diere, and they talked a good deal. Stephen Flynn had made it three-cornered a few times.

Two days later, Acting President Rudolfo Valenzuela came to see the president, at the president's request. They borrowed an empty room, one that could hardly have been bugged—there'd been no chance to. Two Secret Service men requisitioned a pair of upholstered chairs for them from the staff lounge, and hustled them down the hall, arriving just ahead of the president and his stand-in.

"So you like the job," said Haugen when the bodyguards had left the room.

Valenzuela's chuckle was a resonant bass rumble. "Under the circumstances I do. I can imagine it becoming quite different when things are more strongly political again. But that could be very enjoyable too, very stimulating."

The president nodded, then seemed to change direction. "I wonder if anyone ever saw a winter as wild as this one before," he said thoughtfully. "A fall and winter. Politically, economically, meteorologically ... seismologically. There's hardly anything in America that hasn't been turned on its ear."

For several minutes, Arne Haugen kept the conversation casual, and Valenzuela wondered why. Maybe he was letting his subconscious prepare. The president had wanted him here today, this afternoon, had wanted a secure room to talk in, but what he was talking about could have been said in front of anyone. Whatever the point was, and Valenzuela suspected what it might be, the president was in no hurry to get to it.

After a few minutes, Haugen changed directions again. "How do you like living in the White House?" he asked.

"Quite well. Although we don't feel we're really living there. We're
camping
, in the Lincoln Suite. It's a bit like living in a museum; it took a day or two before we felt comfortable about sitting on the furniture." Valenzuela grinned. "Milstead suggested either the Queen's or the Lincoln Suite. Manuella was attracted by the Queen's"—again the chuckle—"but I, for some reason, preferred the Lincoln."

"How have you gotten along with Grosberg and Kreiner, and Lynch and Powell? Or haven't you had much to do with them yet?"

"They briefed me on current Congressional affairs, early on. I hadn't realized how legislatively active they are on the hill these days. Your legislative bombshells have gotten all the attention. Since then I've met with them twice, briefly, and so far we've gotten along very well."

"What's the latest from Zurich?" Haugen asked.

"Progress is reasonable. Encouraging. We've had no real barriers thrown in front of us. Hal Katsaros is in charge; he's acting secretary again."

The president nodded. "And the new court system; how's it going?"

"The bugs and snarls are less now. Mr. Cavanaugh assures me there are no problems which actually threaten the judicial processes. In fact, he said it's probably running as smoothly now as a year ago, and with better results.

"I've also talked with Chief Justice Liederman, and it is his opinion that it will engender similar reforms in almost all the individual states within the next two years. You are probably aware that last Friday, North Carolina became the seventh to do so, and very similar reforms are already pending in eleven more, including two of the three largest, California and Texas."

Haugen nodded. Minnesota, long a stronghold of populist philosophy, had been the second state to pass one.

Valenzuela's expression became quizzical now, and he changed the subject. "General Cromwell has shown me his report on the Holist Council, and the very interesting booklet written by the senior Massey. Along with the tie-ins that Director Dirksma found between Massey junior and Coulter and Blackburn/Merriman and others. Including the Calvert Cliffs bombers. He told me he is still waiting for you to make these public, and he's wondering why you haven't."

The president gazed mildly at Valenzuela. "If you were me, what reasons might you have, if any, for sitting on it?"

"Hm-m. Just now, none of it seems terribly relevant... It would be—a public distraction, I suppose. Despite the Archons having had a very large impact not only on this country but on the world and on human life in general. Basically they're out of it now. Massey is dead. And Keller and Harburt and Johnson, for their years of insider trading violations, have been removed from Wall Street to the Arizona cotton fields.

"All that's left are their after-effects."

Haugen nodded. "That's the way I look at it. And you made the right distinction—they
seem
irrelevant. Actually they're relevant enough, but their relevancy isn't immediate. " The president shifted in his chair, as if restless. "And I do intend to make them public. I've even chosen the time and place—unless someone releases them ahead of me."

He stopped then and looked Valenzuela over. "You've been sitting there waiting patiently for what I asked you here about. So. Are you ready to be president for real now? With the title as well as the duties?"

Valenzuela grinned at the president. "I am."

Haugen grinned back. "Good." He leaned forward, a bit carefully, and extended his good hand. They shook on it. "I'll have Okada call a press conference for me next Monday. That'll give you and Milstead seven days to get ready; and me seven days to get stronger. It would have the wrong effect to resign as an invalid; I'll do it on my feet, from the Oval Office."

He paused. "You've known this was coming. If not now, then almost certainly sometime this year. D'you have a vice president in mind?"

"Marianne," Valenzuela said. "She has an instinct for discerning the correct action in a situation. And politically, the combination of her and myself would truly mark this as a new era." He paused, eyeing Haugen. "A new era that you have taken us into. You and the circumstances, of course."

"And Jumper," the president added. "Jumper was the key. You know when he sprung this on me on a stormy night last October, it startled hell out of me; I was totally unprepared. So I put him off till morning; wouldn't answer yes or no. But after he left the hotel and I went to bed, I lay there feeling all sorts of stuff going on subliminally, and I knew then I was going to do it. And I wasn't scared; I was excited. Then I went to sleep and dreamed furiously all night long. Getting ready.

"It seemed to me that I was the right man, or a right man, for the time and place. And I figured that if Jumper was willing to ride with his knowingness, and choose me on short acquaintance when there were all those hungry politicians available, experienced in government, lots of them bright and skilled... He had to have a hell of a lot of self-confidence and balls." The president smiled and shook his head. "There's more to Jumper than people notice. That's why I kept him as vice president so long when he didn't want the job. Until I found someone else I liked for it as well."

"You might want to tell him that," said Valenzuela.

"It'd be better if you told him. He never believed me. And he'd know I'd told other people what I thought of him; that I hadn't just been stringing him along," Haugen shook his head. "I don't know why he was so afraid of becoming president. It occurred to me once that his name might have something to do with it—Cromwell. But he's named after Thomas, not Oliver."

The president's voice had become tired; now he shifted in his chair again. "I guess we've said what we need to here." Gingerly he got up, leaning forward to get his weight as much as possible over his knees, then pressed down with his right hand on the arm of the chair and stood.

"The country may not know it," he added, "but it's time to graduate from having the general's president in charge."

Actually, he could probably function for a year or more, he told himself. But his condition would be conspicuous before then. He'd been noticing it for a couple of months, himself, and had ascribed it to the job.

Then, on Friday, he'd had that physical exam that Singleton had urged. He needed to tell Lois about it. Today would be good. But it was no time to tell the nation.

FIFTY-FOUR

Resigning wasn't just a matter of writing a statement, signing some forms, and saying "I quit" before cameras in the Oval Office, but Haugen didn't make a production of it, either. He simply told the nation that "the old man" had been waiting to "sleep late, lie in the sun, and fish a lot." And since the recovery had really picked up steam, and people were making things go right, and he had a vice president who could not only do the job—Cromwell could have too—but who was happy to do it, it was time for him to leave.

It didn't involve a turnover of government, with extensive briefing of the new president. Valenzuela had been part of the government, and had been acting as president for more than two weeks. And like Haugen, he inherited a functioning, in-place executive office staff that was dedicated and efficient. Only John Zale and Stephen Flynn left when Arne Haugen did, and neither had been part of the regular executive staff.

It was a breezy morning in mid-March when Arne and Lois Haugen, private citizens, disembarked from the shuttle copter at Andrews Air Force Base and walked thirty yards to the Rockwell T-39. Arne suspected it was the same executive jet that had brought him to the capital less than six months before. That had been at night in a rain storm; now white clouds sailed briskly across day-blue sky, the air seeming to chill whenever one of them cut off the sun.

The government was flying the Haugens home to Duluth, with the six Secret Service agents assigned to them. (Stephen Flynn had left for Albany the day before to visit his parents.) The Haugens' departure had not been announced, and the press was not there. They'd said their goodbyes to the White House domestic staff, and to Milstead, and to Martinelli who, wet-eyed, had hugged her ex-boss—gently, for he still wore a cast and had pins in his left shoulder blade.