He was bubbling, but I couldn’t keep silent any longer.
“Luck? You call it a magnificent stroke of luck? People died. A town was torn apart.”
He ignored me completely, and he was still grinning at his good fortune.
“I know there was pain, Captain. That’s to be expected. Progress requires a certain amount of suffering. You did well, you worked hard, and eventually you managed to bring it all under control. I certainly chose the right man for the job.” He stood up from the sofa.
I stood as well. “Is that all, Mr. President?” I said.
“The reporters are waiting, Ben. I need you to help me explain what happened.”
“Is that an order, sir?” I asked.
He looked surprised. “Well, no,” he said. “Don’t you want to come?”
“No, sir,” I said. “If I may, I respectfully decline.”
Chapter 140
AS I LEFT THE WHITE HOUSE that day I noticed that my legs felt more limber, my body lighter. There was an actual spring in my step. To my astonishment I felt strangely, incredibly happy.
The White House was bathed in an intensely golden light, and as I walked northwest on the wide avenue, past the tattered rooming houses and saloons, I saw the Washington Monument sparkling in the distance like a gigantic diamond hatpin.
Certainly I was angry that Theodore Roosevelt had used me as a pawn in one of his electoral chess games. And I dreaded even more the moment when I returned home to find my house empty.
But still, there was something hopeful in the light sparkling on the monument, and the delightful smell of woodsmoke on the breeze.
I found myself remembering Abraham Cross a few nights ago, just before he drifted off to sleep.
“You did fine, Ben. You did just fine.”
To have a man like Abraham say that… well, that’s all anyone could ever ask for.
“You did fine, Ben. You did just fine.”
I turned off South Carolina Avenue onto our street. Everything looked so familiar that I might have left home only a day or two ago. No one had taken a paintbrush to our peeling little house. The second-floor shutters still hung tilted and broken, and the brick walkway was still perilously uneven.
As I mounted the front steps, three months’ worth of anxiety was twisting my insides into a hard knot.
I unlocked the door and stepped into the vestibule. All was still.
I walked to the bottom of the stairs and stood there a few moments. And then–
I heard Alice’s little voice.
“I think I heard the front door,” she said.
I knelt down to remove two identical boxes wrapped in brown paper from my valise. I shucked off the paper and opened them.
“Do you think it could be Papa?” Amelia asked.
Then I heard Meg’s voice.
“I certainly hope so,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
I ran up those stairs clutching the gifts for my girls – identical brown, fuzzy teddy bears, the most popular dolls of the day, inspired by President Roosevelt himself.
“Daddy!” screamed my girls, all three of them.
I took the little ones into my arms. “Now, which of you is Alice, and which is Amelia?” I asked as they giggled and snuggled into my chest.
Then I reached out my free arm. “And you – you must be Meg. I’ve missed you so much.” Then Meg came into my arms too. “I’ll never leave you again,” I whispered.
True to my word, I never did.
About the Authors
JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best selling writers of all time, with more than 170 million books sold worldwide. He is the author of the top-selling detective series of the past twenty years – the Alex Cross novels, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, both of which were made into hit movies. Mr. Patterson also writes the best selling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the new series of New York Times #1 bestsellers featuring Detective Michael Bennett of the NYPD. He won an Edgar Award, the mystery world’s highest honor, for his first novel. He lives in Florida.
James Patterson’s lifelong passion for books and reading led him to launch a new website,
ReadKiddoRead.com
[http://www.ReadKiddoRead.com],
which helps parents, grandparents, teachers, and librarians find the very best children’s books for their kids.
RICHARD DILALLO is a former advertising creative director. He has had numerous articles published in major magazines. He lives in Manhattan with his wife.
Примечания
1
Theodore “T.R.” Roosevelt, Jr. (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States (1901–1909). He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his “cowboy” persona and robust masculinity. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the first incarnation of the short-lived Progressive (“Bull Moose”) Party of 1912. Before becoming President, he held offices at the city, state, and federal levels. Roosevelt’s achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician. Roosevelt was 42 years old when sworn in as President of the United States in 1901, making him the youngest president ever. Roosevelt was also the first of only three sitting presidents to have won the Nobel Peace Prize. The Teddy bear is named for him, despite his contempt for being called “Teddy”.
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2
John Tyler Morgan (June 20, 1824 – June 11, 1907) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and a six-term U.S. senator from the state of Alabama after the war. He was a strong supporter of states rights and racial segregation through the Reconstruction era. He was an expansionist, arguing for the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii and for U.S. construction of an interoceanic canal in Central America.
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3
William Edward Burghardt “W. E. B.” Du Bois (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
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4
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites. She was active in the women’s rights and the women’s suffrage movement, establishing several notable women’s organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.
The lives of W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells often ran along parallel tracks. Both used their journalistic writing to condemn lynching.
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5
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called “the Great American Novel.”
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6
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (July 8, 1835 – February 14, 1884) was the wife of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., mother of US President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. A true southern belle, she was affectionately known as Mittie, and is thought to have been one of the inspirations for Scarlett O’Hara.
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7
Alice Hathaway Lee Ro
osevelt (July 29, 1861 – February 14, 1884) was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt (married on October 27, 1880). She died young of an undiagnosed case of kidney failure (in those days called Bright's disease) two days after their daughter Alice Lee Roosevelt was born. Her pregnancy had masked the illness. Theodore’s mother Mittie died of typhoid fever on the same day, at 3:00 am, some eleven hours earlier, in the same house.
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Alex Cross’s Trial ак-15 Page 24
