by Laura Hayden
Years later, when Emily’s internal censors had shut down for the night thanks to a very large quantity of tequila shooters, she’d bemoaned the fact that she hadn’t worn a pastel pink outfit instead.
“It would have shown the blood better,” Emily had declared in a slightly slurred whisper. The next morning, she either didn’t remember having said it or chose to forget that she had. Emily never mentioned it again and neither did Kate.
Standing at a podium, the president had made his remarks concerning the bill he was about to sign, which mandated a cut in farm subsidies. He cited the inordinate number of large corporations that had replaced the family farms—the original intended recipients of subsidies. Plus, he alluded to the vast amount of crops the U.S. exported overseas. Yet there were food shortages within America’s borders. His points were valid but so had been the points of those opposing the bill. The vocal opposition protesting the loss in their subsidies had been forced to stand behind barricades a safe distance away. The separation had kept their complaints at this photo op down to a minor roar and their faces out of the frame.
The right time to protest, Kate knew, had been long before the bill was being signed.
But some people never learned. . . .
Kate figured that a public signing, although rare, was this administration’s way of thumbing its nose in public at its detractors. This was a Benton accomplishment too, not just the president’s alone. It had been Big Henry’s lobbying efforts that had pushed the bill through both sides of Congress, and his influence and power had brought the bill to the steps of the Capitol for the president to sign. Big Henry had sat down months ago and, in confidence, explained to Emily and Kate exactly what steps he would take to assure the bill would pass. Typical of Big Henry, it had been the sort of eye-opening lesson in practical politics that was rarely taught in classrooms. Kate knew just how many lessons like that Emily had witnessed, simply as a result of being her father’s child.
Emily’s political education had begun in the cradle, in Kate’s opinion. And Kate couldn’t think of a tougher school.
On that day, as the president moved from the podium to the signing table, there was a commotion in the crowd. Someone shouted several expletives. Heads turned, attracting the attention of the Secret Service. One man pushed the president down. Most of the agents moved in the direction of the disturbance. That was when a second man emerged from the other side of the crowd, his gun raised. The sound of his threats was lost in the larger noise of the first disturbance.
Only Emily’s father seemed to have seen the man in time to react. Big Henry lunged forward, intercepting the would-be assassin by wrapping big beefy arms around the man and letting his weight and momentum pull the man down to the hard granite steps. Big Henry’s actions evidently spoiled the shooter’s aim.
The first bullet struck the podium.
When other people, including Secret Service agents, were moving away from the struggle, Emily moved toward her father, but her cousin Matthew, who stood just behind her, grabbed her arm and kept her from entering the fray.
Big Henry and the assassin struggled for the gun.
There was a second muffled pop.
That bullet struck Big Henry point-blank in the chest.
By then, Secret Service agents were running straight for the shooter, but they were too late.
Although fatally injured, Big Henry still kept his arms around the assassin, refusing to release him until the Secret Service agents disarmed and cuffed him.
Once relieved of his duty, Big Henry collapsed.
He was dead before the shooter hit the ground beside him.
Kate could never forget the image, frozen in her mind forever, immortalized in wire report photos, in the evening news, and in every newspaper across America and the world.
Big Henry.
Lying on his back, staring blankly into the noonday sun.
The most famous footage of the tragedy showed his still body, the only movement being that of his blood, which had pooled beneath him and was cascading like a scarlet river down the white granite steps. It was a visual that Kate and most Americans would never forget.
Emily tore herself free of her cousin’s grasp and ran to begin CPR on her father.
Two of the congressmen in attendance were medical doctors and they immediately rushed to Big Henry’s side to help.
It was already too late.
Later, the autopsy would show that the bullet had hit Henry dead center in the heart, obliterating the organ. And yet, he’d held on to the assassin, not because death had frozen his arms in place, but because even though his heart had stopped, his brain had insisted on continuing its mission: don’t let the man kill the president.
Emily remained beside her father, crying but not hysterical to the point of uselessness. Instead of being a distraught and overwrought daughter who had to be prevented from interfering with lifesaving measures, Emily spelled the doctors as they all continued to attempt resuscitation. When she was pushed down by the Secret Service, who were worried that other assassins might still lurk in the crowd, she relented but stayed close to her father, whispering soft encouragements in his ear as if her outpouring of love would help him hang on to life.
America had watched as one doctor reached over and grasped the arm of the other, then shook his head. It’s no use. It had been eerily easy to read his lips. He’s gone.
One astute news photographer won a Pulitzer for his shot of Emily at that moment, next to her dead father, her young and beautiful face twisted by devastation, fear, and anguish.
And her hands, still coated with his blood, reaching for her father.
From that moment on, America knew the name and face of Emily Benton. They’d witnessed and shared her pain. They considered her a heroine and branded her father an American hero. His full and fascinating life as a political power broker was eclipsed in the public eye by his last selfless act, a split-second move that saved the president’s life.
America also knew the name Edward David Sharbles, the man who tried to kill President Haynes. Instead, Sharbles murdered prominent Virginian citizen and Washington power broker Henry W. Benton.
A high school dropout, Eddie Sharbles was the son of an East Texas farmer who was barely making a living raising feed crops. By Eddie’s narrow interpretation of the bill, the reduction of farm subsidies would put his father out of business, and they would lose the land that had been in their family for four generations. Eddie’s overly simplistic solution was to use a gun to prevent the president from signing the bill. His plan had been to force him to tear it up instead.
In his off-kilter logic, the destruction of the actual paperwork of the bill would have ended his family’s problems.
When interrogated, he’d reportedly been shocked that anyone had thought he had gone there with the idea of killing the president. He’d simply needed the gun as leverage. Only, he didn’t understand the word leverage. His defense attorney had supplied that word and then had to explain its meaning to his client. Unable to understand the concept, Sharbles clarified his motives by saying he knew he needed to bully President Haynes and he had simply chosen the same weapon to bully the president as had been used against him by other bullies. His family, aware of his intellectual shortcomings—reportedly due to medical difficulties during his birth—had never anticipated Eddie would go to such illogical and unexpected extremes to try to help them with their problems. Neighbors were quoted as saying, “He was always such a good boy,” the hallmark of Heisman Trophy winners and serial killers alike.
But none of the posttrauma revelations and deconstructions of motive and opportunity would bring Big Henry Benton back from the dead.
In Kate’s studied opinion, Emily changed that day. Sure, before her father’s death she’d always voiced dreams of holding political office someday. But after the shooting, her aspirations solidified, and her ambition went into overdrive. Her hazy dreams, as well as her political acumen, grew sharper and more focus
ed.
Kate decided Emily’s renewed dedication was an understandable reaction to her father’s death. To Emily’s credit, she didn’t allow ambition to completely replace her sorrow but instead used the power of her grief to fuel her refocused ambition. As a result, she became a real shark in law school, not necessarily ruthless but unwilling to put up with unnecessary obstacles or people who tried to stand in her way. Luckily, Kate could keep up with her, and she managed to remain in Emily’s good graces through school and well beyond, becoming Emily’s silent partner in law school, then in politics, and always in the bonds of friendship.
Until tonight, they’d celebrated every victory together as a team. State senator. Lieutenant governor. Governor. Kate felt a little lost, having to remotely join in the excitement of Emily’s first presidential primary win on what had been and still remained a very long road to the White House.
As Kate watched the bedside clock in her New Hampshire hotel room change from 11:59 to 12:00, she told herself there would be more victories ahead to share. If everything went as planned, exactly one year and sixteen days from now, Emily would be sworn into office as president of the United States.
Kate rolled over in bed, hugged her pillow, and smiled herself to sleep.
By noon the next day, the two last-place finishers in Iowa’s primary had announced their withdrawal from the presidential race. Neither had been serious contenders for president, so it was no surprise to Kate, who had written them off days ago after seeing how little time and money they’d spent wooing the good people of Iowa and Nevada, Michigan and New Hampshire, Florida and South Carolina. The early primaries were important, and each one had to receive Emily’s full attention, which is exactly what she and her staff had given them, even if two of the states had favored sons.
Now only six candidates remained for the party’s nomination, including Emily.
And Tsunami Tuesday, February 5, was looming large.
What bothered Kate most was Burl Bochner’s campaign. As Emily had mentioned, the major difference between Burl and Emily wasn’t agenda, per se, but gender. But in addition to his political platform and all-American clean-cut looks, Bochner also had a photogenic wife and three adorable moppets. Or maybe they were Muppets. They certainly weren’t human, not with their cherubic expressions, freshly pressed clothes, and ability to deliver sound bites that would make the most hardened member of the press corps grin.
Kate had actually witnessed the children, little more than toddlers, sit still for hours in the hot sun at political rallies without throwing a single tantrum. In fact, they hadn’t even fidgeted or broken a sweat.
She’d concluded at the time that they must have been Robo-Kids.
Kate had only just learned that the oldest Bochner offspring had been left home with his grandparents for this leg of the campaign, ostensibly because, as a high schooler, he couldn’t be as easily schooled on the campaign trail as his younger, elementary-age siblings. Kate, suspecting that there was more behind that reason, had done some digging. She’d discovered that the eldest Bochner boy had been in some minor trouble with the law; he’d been cited for street racing on two occasions and had been questioned three times concerning the appearance of graffiti on a nearby municipal water tower.
At least his alleged graffiti artwork had been in support of his father’s political ambitions. It was nice to see he had done his bit for the good of the campaign.
With no evidence of drug use or underage drinking, such minor transgressions weren’t the sort of information the press could or would use against his father. As far as Kate was concerned, every candidate’s minor children were sacrosanct. If she needed dirt on the candidate, she’d go after the grown-ups.
After much soul-searching, Kate had come to terms with the use of research into Emily’s political opponents in the course of the election. In light of what had happened to Henderson and his wife, Kate had decided that she needed to look just as thoroughly at the spouses as she did the candidates. Had she done so, then maybe all of them would have realized that Henderson’s wife had been far more fragile than they’d ever imagined.
Thanks to the Internet, background facts and details could be more easily checked, and lies and sins of omission caught faster.
Following her ironclad policy, Kate vowed to acquire the information honestly and to use it ethically and truthfully. After that, all bets were off.
And may God have mercy on her soul.
So, as the campaign heated up, Bochner’s wife, Dr. Melissa Bonner-Bochner, was fair game. However, she appeared to be everything she was cracked up to be—a devoted wife as well as a college professor of engineering on sabbatical in order to support her husband’s presidential bid. Her family loved her; her fellow academicians loved her; her students loved her; the charities for which she tirelessly worked loved her. . . .
She’d make a great First Lady, Robo-Kids aside.
Unfortunately, Emily had no potential First Gentleman in tow, great or otherwise. But to her surprise, Bochner had been frankly and publicly supportive of Emily’s single status. Kate had a sneaking suspicion that the highly independent Dr. Bonner-Bochner might have influenced her husband’s opinion.
Kate closed her laptop. Evidently the battle with Bochner would be played aboveground in the bright New Hampshire sun.
If they ever saw the sun. . . .
It’d been snowing off and on all morning as bands of bad weather passed through the New England area. Emily was due to land in an hour if the next threatening storm held off.
Her upcoming speaking schedule was an ambitious one, but that would be true for every schedule for the next ten months. Emily was slated to spend two days in New Hampshire covering fourteen different events and speaking engagements. Then she’d fly overnight to Nevada, where she’d spend two cram-packed days in Reno, Carson City, Laughlin, and Las Vegas, ending in a candidates’ debate. Once she returned to New Hampshire, she’d do another whirlwind tour of the state, hitting every possible hamlet, and then cap off the campaign by participating in yet another candidates’ debate the night before the primary.
Senator Bochner, like Emily, had worked two days into his schedule to stump in Nevada. The other four candidates evidently belonged to the school of tradition and were concentrating solely on the New Hampshire primary, which, in Kate’s opinion, was a strategic mistake. Even if Senator Hyde of Nevada was a shoo-in to win his own state, the candidate who took second place would be extremely important in terms of maintaining momentum.
Sure enough, when Emily emerged from the Nevada caucus in second place with a one point lead over Burl Bochner, the network news pundits ignored Hometown Hyde’s expected win and concentrated on what they called the more important second-place race.
Emily left Nevada an hour after the totals were announced and arrived in New Hampshire six hours later, just in time to start the day. Kate gave her a short debrief, then bundled her off to start the grind all over again.
Despite the lack of a full night’s sleep, Emily arrived at her morning meetings looking fresh, alert, and every inch a presidential potential. It wasn’t until she reached the third afternoon meeting that she hit the wall.
“I don’t think I can take another step.” Emily took another chug from her bottle of water, stifled a yawn, and slumped in her seat toward the limo door. “If I could just get a twenty-minute nap . . .”
Kate noted the tremor in her friend’s hand and the circles under her eyes and made a command decision. With one phone call, Kate arranged for Emily to cut short her next engagement—a coffee shop appearance—and to delay her arrival at the next location, thus creating a thirty-minute gap in an otherwise impenetrable schedule. She even made sure Emily was served decaf at the coffee shop.
During that break, Emily stretched out across the backseat of the limo and took a fast nap, from which she emerged looking remarkably revived. A quick refresh of her makeup and she was off to meet a group of high school teachers to discuss her “Value
Education, Value Educators” program.
Kate, on the other hand, didn’t have time for a rest. By eight o’clock that night, she was feeling a sense of malaise that she feared was evidence of something a simple nap wouldn’t fix.
In the wee hours of the next morning, Kate’s worst fears came true. Even as she curled up on the bathroom floor, fighting yet another wave of nausea, she ran through a mental checklist, planning a work-around for her absence from the morning events. Neither the flu nor food poisoning could completely stop her, not as important as her duties were.
Once she was able to drag herself back to the bed and the hotel room stopped spinning, she spent the next fifteen minutes figuring out a contingency plan that spread her day’s duties across the entire staff. Then she sent text messages to various campaign personnel, giving them the temporary assignments. Her last message was to Emily, informing her of the problem and the alternative plans that were now in place.
Finally Kate fell asleep.
When she awoke at noon, she marveled that the room was no longer revolving in swooping circles and her stomach wasn’t lurching.
She got up, found her footing, and went into the bathroom to splash water on her face before tackling the fifteen messages waiting for her on her cell phone. Most were from the people she’d texted, acknowledging that they would cover for her and offering wishes of a speedy recovery.
The voice messages from Emily went from understanding to progressively panicked.
Message two: “Hey, this is Emily. I got your message. Don’t worry. David is supposed to be here shortly, and until he lands, Alex will cover for you.”
