The Collection

by Bentley Little

  He was not going to go back on his promises, though. As hard as it was, as painful as it might be, he was going to stick to the specifics of his campaign platform. There would be none of the waffling and indecision and half measures that had so afflicted his predecessors.

  Hell, that's what he had criticized and run against in his bid for the presidency.

  It was why he had been elected.

  He'd been intending to announce the layoffs here and now, to do the firings en masse and get them over with, but he could not. Instead, he smiled out at his domestic staff and gave a generic "We're-All-In-This-Together, Let's-Put-Our-Petty-Differences-Aside-For-The-Good-Of-The-Country" speech. It had worked well in Dallas and Tampa, had knocked 'em dead in a longer variation at the nominating convention and after the general election, and it sufficed here in a more specific, more intimate incarnation.

  He smiled and waved at the applauding workers, walked away, and turned toward Tom Simons, his chief of staff, as he headed down the hall to the Oval Office. "I want a list of all employees, their job positions, and their years of service. Also get me that cost-cutting analysis we put together."

  "You got it."

  "I'll speak to the groups individually, by job classifica­tion, explain the situation."

  Simons nodded. "You want to do it in the Oval Office?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'll get right on it."

  They parted halfway down the corridor and Adam con­tinued on to the Oval Office alone. He was struck each time he entered the room by how small it was. All the rooms in the White House were smaller than he'd imagined them to be. The building had been designed and constructed a long time ago, of course, but he'd expected the rooms to be big­ger than those in his Palm Springs house, and the fact that they weren't left him feeling disappointed and a little un­easy.

  He walked over to his desk, sat down, swiveled his chair I, around to look out the window. He was filled with a strange I lethargy, a desire to just sit here and do nothing. For the first I time in his life, he had no real boss, no one standing over I him, and if he chose to unplug his phone and spend the afternoon staring out at the lawn, he could do so.

  Power.

  There would be demands on his time, of course. Obliga­tions and commitments. A lot of pressure, a lot of responsi­bility. But the federal government ran itself for the most part. He didn't need to micromanage everything. And if he wanted to, he could simply let it all slide.

  No. He had to stop thinking that way. He had gone after this job for a reason. He had ideas. He had an agenda. And I he planned to go down in history as an effective activist, as a competent administrator and visionary leader, not as the first slacker president.

  Simons led in the first group of employees—butlers and maids—sometime later, and Adam stood, smiling blandly, wanting to appear friendly and personable but not wanting to instill a false sense of security. "I'm sure Mr. Simons told you why I've asked you here to the Oval Office." He nod­ded toward the chief of staff. "As I'm sure you're well aware, we have a fairly serious budget crisis facing us this year, and as I'm sure you're also aware, I promised the American people that I would cut government spending by a third and that I would not exempt myself from this edict. I will receive no special privileges but will sacrifice along with everyone else. This means, I'm afraid, that we will be eliminating some White House staff positions. We've looked at this from every angle, and while we've considered cutting the total number of employees by doing away with certain departments, we have decided that it is fairer to sim­ply cut each department by a third."

  A balding elderly man in a butler's uniform stepped for­ward. "Excuse me, sir?"

  Adam held up his hand. "Don't worry. The layoffs will be by seniority—"

  "There aren't going to be any layoffs, sir. You can't make any cuts in staff."

  Adam smiled sympathetically. "Mr.—?"

  "Crowther, sir."

  "Mr. Crowther, I understand your concern, and believe me I sympathize."

  "I don't think you do understand, sir. I'm sorry, but you can't fire any of us."

  "Can't fire you?"

  "We report directly to Buckingham Palace."

  Adam looked over at Simons, who shrugged, equally confused.

  "We're not under you. We work for you, but we're not employed by you. Sir."

  Adam shook his head. "Hold on here."

  "We report to Buckingham Palace."

  He was growing annoyed. "What does Buckingham Palace have to do with anything?"

  "Ahh." The butler nodded. "I understand now. Nobody told you. No one explained to you."

  "Explained what?"

  "You are not the head of the United States government."

  "Of course I am! I'm ... I'm the president!"

  "Well, you are the president, but the presidency is a fic­tion, a powerless position created by the Palace. The presi­dent is a figurehead. Someone to make speeches and television appearances, to keep the masses happy."

  "The president is the leader of the Free World."

  "I'm afraid, sir, that that distinction belongs to the Queen of England."

  Crowther was still as calm and unruffled as ever, and there was something unnerving about that. It was under­standable that the butler would try to save his job or the jobs of his friends, it was even conceivable that he would lie in order to accomplish that goal, but this was so bizarre, so far out of left field, that it made no sense. If this was a lie, it was a damn creative one.

  If this was a lie?

  Adam looked into the butler's eyes.

  Yes. If.

  He licked his lips, cleared his throat, tried to project a confidence he did not really feel. "We fought and won a war of independence over two hundred years ago," he said. "The Declaration of Independence is our seminal national docu­ment."

  "Independence?" The butler laughed. "America's not in­dependent. That was a PR stunt to placate the natives."

  The rest of the hired help was nodding in agreement.

  Adam felt cold. There was nothing to indicate that this was a joke, and the casual, almost nonchalant way in which the butlers and maids were reacting to the whole situation gave everything a boost of verisimilitude. He looked over at Simons for help, but his chief of staff was staring blankly back at him, obviously shaken.

  Did Simons believe it?

  Yes, he thought. And he did, too. He did not know why, but he knew that Crowther was telling the truth, and as he stared out at the faces of the domestic staff, he felt like the stupidest kid in class, the one who did not catch on to con­cepts until well after everyone else.

  His entire worldview and take on history had been in­stantly changed by a meeting with a group of servants he'd intended to fire.

  He took a deep breath. "You're saying we're ... still a colony?"

  "Quite right, sir."

  "But independence is the bedrock of our national charac­ter. We pride ourselves on not only our national independ­ence but our personal freedom. Our individuality is what makes us American."

  "And we encourage that. It is why America is our most productive colony."

  Colony.

  It was as if all of the air had been vacuumed out of his lungs. He licked his lips, trying to drum up some saliva. He had never been so frightened in his life. Not during his first term as a senator when he'd been broke and read in the newspaper that the staff member with whom he had been having an affair was about to file a multimillion dollar sex­ual harassment suit against him, not when he'd been on the Armed Services committee and a right-wing wacko who had |; threatened his life showed up after hours at his home. He did not know why he was so scared, but he was, and the Oval Office felt suddenly hot, stifling. Five minutes ago, he had intended to keep one of his minor campaign promises to the nation and lay off some members of the White House staff. Now he was cowering before a group of servants, intimi­dated by their unnatural calm, by their proper British ac­cents. He felt powerless, impotent, emascula
ted, but he forced himself to maintain the facade, to keep up the benev­olent leader demeanor. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't believe you."

  "That's perfectly all right, sir. Nixon and Carter had a dif­ficult time believing it as well." Crowther smiled. "Ford and Reagan accepted it instantly."

  He couldn't resist. "Clinton? The Bushes?"

  "They all got used to it, sir. As will you."

  "So you're saying the United States is ruled by ... ?"

  "The queen."

  "But the queen's a figurehead as well. Britain has a par­liamentary democracy—"

  The butler chuckled. "Parliamentary democracy? No such thing. Again, it keeps the peasants happy, makes them think they're somehow involved. The truth is, the prime minister's like you. A front. It's the queen who runs every­thing. Always has, always will."

  "You're lying."

  "I'm not."

  "I don't accept this. I was elected by a majority of the citizens of the United States to be their leader, and I will not take orders from anyone else."

  "Oh yes you will, sir. You will take your orders from the queen."

  Adam faced the butler. "And I damn sure won't take any orders from a two-bit monarch with a tabloid—"

  "Stop right there, sir." There was something threatening in the butler's stance now, an intimation of menace in his voice. "You will bow before the queen and you will most as­suredly submit to her authority."

  "And if I don't?"

  "We had Kennedy shot; we can arrange something for you as well."

  There was silence in the Oval Office.

  He faced Crowther, trying not to let his nervousness show."The queen ordered—?"

  "The queen had nothing to do with it, sir. It was a deci­sion by the operatives in this country, based on her own best interests. She was never told." He paused. "There are a lot of things we have not told the queen."

  "Then you are disloyal."

  "I beg to differ, sir. Sometimes the queen does not realize where her own interests lie. It is our responsibility to deter­mine what is best for her and best for the motherland and carry out those actions to the best of our abilities."

  The butler looked from Adam to Simons. "I'm sure you two would like to be alone for a while so you can ... absorb all this, so we will leave you in peace." He motioned with his head and the maid nearest the door opened it. The ser­vants began filing out. "When would you like to meet again, sir?"

  "Never."

  Crowther chuckled. "Very well. You will let me know."

  He let himself out of the room, closing the door behind him with a flourish that could only be considered mocking.

  Adam turned toward his chief of staff. "So what do you make of that?"

  Simons was shaking his head, still not able to speak.

  "You think it's true?"

  Simons nodded. "Looks that way."

  "So what do we do?"

  "What can we do?"

  "Before we can do anything, I need to know the chain of command. Are we going to be simply following orders, or are we going to be given a certain level of autonomy?"

  Simons smiled wryly. "You mean, is the queen a micro-manager?"

  Adam snorted. "The queen. Can you believe this shit? Did you ever, in your wildest fucking dreams, ever think that something like this could happen?"

  "What amazes me is the extent of it. They've corrupted our history from its simplest to its most complex level, from grammar school civics to graduate public policy. Every sin­gle person not directly involved in this ... travesty believes the same lie. In all my years in politics, in all my years of public life, I've never even had any suspicions that some­thing like this could be the case."

  "I was a senator for twelve years," Adam said. "How do you think I feel, knowing that all of my effort and hard work was merely irrelevant grease for the public relations ma­chine?" He kicked the swivel chair behind his desk. "Fuck!"

  "What are we going to do?" Simons asked.

  "I don't know."

  "What do you want to do?"

  Adam thought for a moment, looked at him. "I want," he said quietly, "to secure our country's independence."

  ***

  They met that night, his election team, in a Denny's cof­fee shop. Derek, his dirty trickster, was along to scan for bugs or other listening devices, and when he'd checked the table and the surrounding plastic plants and had set up a small black square to detect long-range microphone waves, they started talking.

  "The first thing we need to do," Simons said, "is get the First Lady out of here. We need to send her on a goodwill trip to Japan or something. Get her as far away from British influence as possible. Who knows how low they'd stoop?"

  Adam nodded. "Agreed."

  Paul Frederickson cleared his throat. The secretary of state had been with him ever since his first senatorial cam­paign and, next to Simons, Adam trusted his opinion more than anyone else's.

  "Go ahead, Paul."

  "I think what we need to do first is discover the extent of the infiltration. This Crowther told you that all of the previ­ous presidents had come around. Does that mean that they'd been converted, that they truly believed this was the best form of government for the United States, or does that mean that they accepted the way things were but didn't like it?"

  "I would suspect the latter." Ted Fitzsimmons.

  "We need to talk to them, find out how much they know. They can probably tell the players well enough to put to­gether a scorecard we can use."

  "Good idea," Adam said.

  "We need to know about the various branches as well. Ju­diciary? Do the members of the Supreme Court know? Leg­islative? Any senators? We know that not all of them know, but maybe some of them do. FBI? CIA? Branches of the military? We need to be able to assess our strengths and weaknesses before we can formulate a plan of action."

  They talked through the night, into the wee hours of the morning, and Adam could barely keep his eyes open by the time they left the restaurant and split up. He felt good, though. Assignments had been delegated and at least a rough idea of where they were headed had been hashed out. He no longer felt as hopeless and despairing of the situation as he had when he'd called the meeting.

  He said goodbye to Simons on the sidewalk, then got into the presidential limousine. "The White House," he told the driver.

  "Yes sir." The man started the car, looked at him in the rearview mirror, smiled. "God save the queen."

  Adam forced himself to smile back. "God save the queen."

  The military was all his.

  It was the best news he'd had all week. The only hold the British had over the armed forces was the basic lie, the knowledge that each and every person in uniform believed that the United States was a sovereign nation and that they were supposed to uphold the U.S. Constitution, democracy's blueprint.

  But he was still commander in chief.

  It was a loophole, although not a particularly practical one. What could he do? Stage a coup and invade Britain? It would look like war. People would think him a dangerous lunatic, irrationally attacking a longtime ally, and he'd be in­stantly impeached. He needed to wage a backstage battle, a behind-the-scenes war. He needed to free America from Britain without letting the public know. He needed to make the myth a reality.

  But how?

  War at least was feasible. He was commander in chief, and the military was one thing he did legitimately control. It was messy, but as a last resort it might have to do.

  There was a knock on the door of the Oval Office and Si­mons entered, carrying a manila folder stuffed with papers.

  "What have you found out?"

  The chief of staff sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the desk and leaned forward, whispering, "The Secret Service is all theirs. Technically, the FBI's under their juris­diction as well, but we seem to have most of them. The di­rector has assured me that as many operatives as we need are at our disposal."

  "Do you believe him?"

 
"Do we have a choice?"

  "What about—"

  "The other presidents? They won't talk. I don't know if they've been bought or threatened, but we can't get word one out of them."

  "I can't believe that."

  "Maybe they got to them before we could." He paused. "The Bushes seemed scared."

  "CIA?"

  "Theirs."

  Adam thought for a moment. "The director can get us op­eratives?"

  Simons nodded.

  "Crowther. The butler," he said. "I want him gotten rid of."

  "Do you think that's a good idea?"

  "Consider it the first shot. We'll gauge from their reac­tion how they'll respond to ... other incidents."

  For the first time since all this had started, Tom Simons smiled.

  In the morning, his breakfast was not made, his clothes were not ready. When he returned to his bedroom, the sheets had not been changed.

  "You'll pay for this," one of the maids hissed at him in the hallway.

  He smiled at her, leaned forward. "You're next," he whis­pered, and he was gratified to see a look of fear cross her face. "Now make my fucking bed."

  He continued down the hallway, feeling good. Simons had called first thing with the news: Crowther had been taken care of. Somehow, just knowing that cheered him up, made him feel better. The entire atmosphere of the White House seemed to have changed with this one bold stroke. He had been skulking around for the past two weeks, certain that the staff saw him as yet another weak puppet who had been cowed into submission, but now he walked boldly through the corridors, noting with pleasure that the domes­tic workers were all in fear of him.

  Maybe they would be able to pull this off.