The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Don’t you worry about the NRA or other organizations like that, Wesley. Just worry about telling the world an assassination has taken place and that it emphasizes the need for our proposals. That we must therefore do something drastic now!”

  “Something drastic?”

  “Speak with Lance Burton and Donald Beglaubter and meet me in a half hour in the Oval Office.”

  * * *

  —

  In the course of three hours the entire country was turned upside down. The news of Supreme Court Chief Justice Theodore Manning’s violent death and the attorney general’s injury sent all decent people into a state of shock.

  At the same time, bomb threats were phoned into several liberal newspapers, Congress, two independent movie studios, countless pacifist organizations, and a major San Francisco art gallery that had just opened an exhibition entitled Artists against Violence.

  Despite an intense manhunt, Moonie Quale succeeded in going underground and giving telephone interviews to several national radio stations with a deafeningly clear message: The White-Headed Eagles, Indiana’s Partisans, the Rushmore Defenders, and all other related militia groups in the country were going into battle against the government’s plans. They weren’t behind the attack on the attorney general and the Supreme Court chief justice, and they had nothing to do with the bomb threats, but they’d soon take action in their own way. They didn’t intend to let themselves be disarmed.

  It was at this point that Jansen held a meeting with security chief Billy Johnson and the head of FEMA, the country’s emergency management agency. The volatile situation sent shock waves throughout the West Wing. This led to a marked increase in White House activity that was matched by the increased presence of star-studded, medal-festooned uniforms.

  Spokespeople for the NRA poured forth in the media, screaming to high heaven about violations of the Constitution and the Second Amendment’s incontestable assurance of United States citizens’ right to defend themselves with their own weapons. How were they supposed to do so without ammunition? This was a breach of the Constitution, and the president must resign.

  Naturally, they were supported by the ammunition manufacturers’ lawyers. And in the meantime, there were more shootings on the street than ever. People argued about nothing and everything and about the right to hit back, when justified. They stormed all the supermarkets and shops that sold ammunition. Weapon manufacturers’ stocks shot up, and especially down, until the stock market had to close trading.

  Everything seemed to be completely out of control. People in the streets and in housing projects were in a rage, and the representatives of law and order powerless. It was reminiscent of the race riots after the beating of Rodney King.

  This was just what Michael K. Lerner needed. The just-resigned vice president was gladly giving interviews to anyone who asked. He was ready to try to depose the president by applying section 4 of the Constitution’s Twenty-Fifth Amendment. And, even though everyone knew this would be more than difficult since thus far the president had shown no signs of lacking the ability to act, the vice president’s allusions to the president’s mental derangement were discussed far and wide.

  All in all, there were plenty of problems to deal with.

  Prayers were said for the attorney general in the churches and on prime-time TV shows, and even though the television was blaring constantly in Wesley’s office, he no longer heard what was happening. He retreated into his mental inner sanctum, a quiet little world where he imagined everything was under control, where he felt alone but not impotent.

  He often sat here dreaming about the feel of a woman’s skin, particularly Doggie Rogers’s. When all this was over with, he knew what he’d spend his time doing.

  He opened his eyes and looked down at the papers before him. Back to reality.

  He’d just written a reasonably good speech for Jansen about the profound state of mourning throughout the land after the loss of its highest court’s chief justice, Theodore Manning, “the most ruthlessly just human being this nation has ever seen.”

  Next, he’d sent a strong warning to Moonie Quale and the other militia leaders regarding their plans and threats. No one should be in any doubt that anyone threatening the country’s security would be dealt with harshly. Under no condition would the risk of a new Oklahoma City bombing arise.

  Later in the day, after a record-breaking number of shooting fatalities, a temporary total ban on the sale of weapons and ammunition was decreed throughout the land.

  The president himself went on television to tell the nation. There was no alternative, he stated, in spite of strong protests all the way down to the smallest sheriff’s department. All law enforcement agencies had to brace themselves for an extra-heavy workload for a long time to come. From this day on, no one who broke the law was to feel safe. This was Day Zero, as he put it.

  By nightfall it was apparent that the police had too much to handle, so FEMA was mobilized in accordance with Executive Order 13010. Two hours later the military proclaimed its full support for the president and its readiness to go into action. The national security level was set up a notch, and suddenly the country, in effect, was in a state of emergency.

  * * *

  —

  The following day Wesley’s office was overwhelmed by phone calls from the press. At four in the afternoon, when his secretary had broken down in tears and been sent home, he’d tried to find Doggie to replace her, but she was busy elsewhere. All the offices in the West Wing were strained to the breaking point. There were reports of more bomb threats, this time against waterworks, dams, and Disneyland, and the national security alert went up to orange.

  At 2:00 A.M. Wesley finally called it quits and left his office. Accompanied by a team of bodyguards, he went out into the Washington night. Hundreds of people were staring up at the White House as though it housed the devil himself. A wall of journalists screamed out their accusations and frustrations, forcing him to retreat into an official vehicle. A familiar face squeezed its way towards the car and was stopped by the bodyguards. It was John Bugatti in a wrinkled shirt that appeared not to have been changed for months.

  Wesley rolled down the window.

  “You can’t do this, Wesley! You have to give me an interview.”

  “What about all the other journalists?”

  “Wesley, there are rumors that the president’s going to appoint Sunderland vice president. Do you have any comment on this?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Let’s go to your office for fifteen minutes, and I’ll tell you.”

  Wesley looked around. The crush of reporters and their cameramen was about to break through the barrier of security personnel.

  “Tomorrow, John. You’ll get your interview tomorrow!”

  * * *

  —

  The next morning they were assembled in the Oval Office, and Jansen’s appointment of Sunderland as interim vice president was confirmed. None of the staff commented on this, including Sunderland, but naturally he wasn’t unhappy about the development. He’d always had a good relationship with politicians from both parties, in both chambers of Congress. There wasn’t much chance of any objections from that quarter.

  “You’re on in twenty minutes, Wesley,” said Jansen. “Tell the journalists like it is, and tell them that Congress’s hearing regarding Sunderland’s appointment will have to wait. The situation at hand makes this necessary; we need peace in the White House so we can work.”

  Wesley avoided Sunderland’s self-satisfied gaze. He found he had to force his legs to convey him to the pressroom.

  * * *

  —

  The press conference was over in less than five minutes, even though the journalists had enough questions for five days. They drowned one another out with words like unconstitutional, fascism, and insanity, as well as terms such as
state of panic, vague decree, and new election. It was too much at once, but patience and endurance came with Barefoot’s job.

  Afterwards, Wesley waved his friend John Bugatti out of the crowd and led him down to the Green Room. A couple of French Empire chairs had been placed in front of the fireplace, and President Jansen was standing at the window, looking out over a forest of signboards bobbing above a mass of demonstrators behind the White House.

  He asked Bugatti to take a seat.

  Bugatti wanted to know if he could use his cell phone camera as they talked, and Jansen consented by righting his hair.

  They spoke quietly for a few minutes, and Jansen’s expression darkened slightly when Bugatti warned his president that the situation was slipping out of control.

  “We’ll have martial law in this country before we know it. Is that what the president wants?” asked Bugatti.

  “The only thing I want is for all Americans to live peacefully with each other. The means that will be used to achieve this will be decided by all of us. You have to be positive about this, John. You represent one of our most powerful media. You’re an important player in this game.”

  Bugatti sat still for a moment, allowing the yelling of the crowd outside to become clearly audible. “Mr. President, I’m just trying to say that this is all moving too fast. Let Congress work with the problems so we have a proper legal basis.”

  “Gladly! But will it ever happen? Think of all the times it’s been tried.”

  Wesley looked at Jansen. Did he really say that to a journalist who was seen by millions of people every day?

  “I know, but the parliamentary process is the only way. One simply has to follow the beaten track. I think you know this better than anyone!”

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Communications Chief Lance Burton slipped into the room. He stopped when he saw Bugatti, but Jansen asked him to say what was on his mind, adding that he had nothing to hide from his old traveling companion.

  Lance Burton’s face usually bore a somber expression that could be difficult to read. Still, his demeanor seemed far graver than normal. “Sir,” he said, and had to swallow. “A bomb has gone off in the Democratic headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. Many were killed. We think everyone who was there because the building was leveled.”

  Wesley’s head fell to his chest. It was a catastrophe.

  President Jansen looked at Lance Burton for a long while before he again turned to face Bugatti.

  “Be careful about what you write and say on television the next couple of days, John. You’ll be doing us all a favor.”

  Wesley could clearly sense the threat behind the words. He felt like he was going to be sick.

  CHAPTER 12

  Sheriff T. Perkins’s deputy had woken him up at three in the morning. A bunch of youths had just driven down the main street, emptying the magazines of their semiautomatic rifles up into the air along the way.

  The officers on the scene had reason to suspect who’d done it, and now they wanted a search warrant. As if that were possible at this time of night.

  He hadn’t gone back to bed after that. Instead he’d driven to his office, where he’d plopped down into a chair with his hat pulled down over his eyes. But his thoughts wouldn’t leave him in peace.

  * * *

  —

  For as long as T. Perkins had been sheriff, nothing abominable had occurred in his jurisdiction. Nothing really abominable, that is. Of course there’d been murders. Things like that happened when people had sex with someone else’s partner or set each other’s barn on fire, but the acts had never been incomprehensible. No, for the most part they were occasional incidents involving a few wild kids or girls who complained about men making rude passes at them or minor brawls after a few drinks Friday night. The last serious robbery-murder was ten years ago now, the last consummated rape three years ago. He remembered all his cases clearly.

  His first case as deputy sheriff of Highland County was probably still the one he remembered best. Leo Mulligan murdered his wife with a baseball bat and was hospitalized indefinitely for safekeeping at the mental hospital that came to be called the Marion Correctional Treatment Center. It was a case that had become current again, in a way, since Leo had recently been declared well and released a few months short of thirty-two years in the mental ward. Once again he was living in his old shack east of town, and there was no cause for alarm as long as he stayed inconspicuous.

  The marriage had produced one son, Leo Mulligan Jr., and it was he who was the main focus of attention in the newspapers. Tragically, the boy had witnessed his father beating his mother to death and shortly after questioning had vanished into thin air. Leo Jr. was still underage, and an intense manhunt was launched but without result. It was only some months later he was found by chance a few counties to the east, and not in a disheveled, pathetic state, as one might expect, but as a well-groomed, well-dressed, attractive young man who was at least as good-looking as the most successful boys from the great mansions around Middleburg. For a while no one seemed able to solve the mystery of what the boy had been up to in the meantime. It took an eau de cologne–scented letter to a local newspaper from a very frustrated woman to finally reveal how Leo Jr. had been transformed from ugly duckling to handsome swan. Since fleeing home, Leo Jr. had prospered by blackmailing married women he’d slept with, and the newspaper printed a big photograph of the boy along with a detailed reference to the letter they’d purchased from one of the women. It developed into a huge scandal, since plenty of wives had fallen for his youthful charms, and many domestic conflicts began erupting in the area around Highway 50, from Upperville to Gilbert’s Corner. The boy himself was dragged through an embarrassing custody case and finally adopted. The net result was at least fifteen divorces and a few cuckolds who’d hanged themselves in the course of the dark winter months, their honor defamed. It was the kind of case no one forgot.

  * * *

  —

  But since T. Perkins had been made sheriff, there hadn’t been much to get worked up over, which folks mistakenly attributed to his performance in office rather than the record-low unemployment that a series of new businesses had brought to the region. And now this, too, was history.

  T. Perkins had been furious every single day since Washington had lost its head. T had a difficult time understanding how his old traveling buddy from the trip to China could shake up this quiet little Appalachian Mountain community to such a degree. How their quiet existences could be given such radically new ground rules.

  What the hell had happened to the cozy, neighborly evenings with the locals? Where were the invitations to the corn-on-the-cob barbecues and coffee parties leading up to the annual festivities? Now, of course, he didn’t have time for anything, anyway, and people didn’t want to see him, either. He was the tool of the enemy, when it came down to it.

  The bombing of Democratic headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, had sent the good old days down the toilet.

  * * *

  —

  After four days the White-Headed Eagles took responsibility for the Madison bombing. They described the attack down to the smallest detail. How they’d placed the bomb on the second floor in the statistical analysis center of the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance, how the devilish instrument had been constructed and where they’d gotten the explosives. There wasn’t much to investigate. The bomb had caused the building to collapse, and all that Moonie Quale and his insane disciples hated had been crushed beneath tons of concrete and twisted steel: the Democratic headquarters, the AIDS center, the statistical analysis center. The debris had ravaged the pedestrian street that lay in front of the building like a tropical storm, injuring hundreds of people. Chunks of concrete landed in Landon Street, yard-long beams wound up in Lake Mandota, and all the windows had been sucked out of their frames, from Henry Street to the state capitol. Sheets of colored pape
r from Art Mart in the building next door blew around the city for days. More than two hundred people died. It was a sickness of epidemic proportion, evident wherever you looked, to which President Jansen and his people had reacted amazingly harshly and uncompromisingly.

  There had been a state of emergency for five days, and militia groups around the country had assembled. T dared not try to imagine what would happen if they struck again as devastatingly as they had in Wisconsin.

  But the fact was that it could happen anytime, anywhere. FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency—and the National Security Council, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, suddenly had plenty of work to do.

  Differences of opinion flared up over trivialities, and people were furious about the new restrictions. Shooting incidents were on the rise in T. Perkins’s own district, with two killed and several hospitalized. People hoarding ammunition cleaned out the country’s stocks within hours. Selling it was now illegal, but there was none left to sell, anyway. People had stockpiled so much, they were equipped for this war and the next one, too.

  A few days previously the nation’s sheriff’s offices had been ordered to check all credit card transactions during the past four days and confiscate all this ammunition. The Second Amendment allowed people to own guns but not necessarily bullets. The emergency laws that were created by executive decree took advantage of this fact, despite an overwhelming rage of opposition.

  Confiscating the ammunition was easier said than done. For example, how the hell were they supposed to find two boxes of nine-millimeter shells on a farm half the size of downtown Washington, DC? Or how did the government imagine they were supposed to take Joe Fiske’s shotgun shells from him when no one knew where he was? He knew the surrounding mountains better than any of them. And even if they found him, how could they make themselves do it, knowing Joe lived off the game he shot in his own forest? This wasn’t Moonie Quale, for Christ’s sake.