By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  He bent over, leaning close to her face. “Hold on, Maddy. Hold on. I’ve got to get some things. Got to stop your bleeding. Hold on. Be right back.”

  Turning on only the few lights needed to find his way, he hurried through the house, searching. He found bandages and gauze, and some sort of disinfectant, in a bathroom. He found sheets. He’d need strips from them to bind her leg tight. He found blankets. He’d need them to warm her in her shock. There was no time to change her clothes. There were no clothes. He found tape. He found many useless things. He found a bottle of whiskey. Swearing, he repeated his climb up the stairs to where he’d located the blankets. He needed pillows. She’d need pillows to sit on, or she’d ride screaming in pain.

  Ride where? Ride how? He’d have to get back their car. There was no other. They must flee this erstwhile perfect refuge, this place of talk of love and babies. There’d be risk in running back to town, if he could still run—risk in darting across the broad, open, empty street. There might be some bomb attached to the floorboard by now, some waiting gunman. But the risk from doing nothing else was infinitely greater.

  He turned out all the lights in the house they’d invaded but the one beside her. He poured disinfectant onto her wound, gripping her arm as she cried out, then piled on the gauze, ripping the sheeting into strips and winding it about her leg, firm and tight, over and over again. Then he made one last binding with adhesive tape. He pulled up her still wet underwear and trousers, securing them as best he could. Whimpering, she lay face down on the hard wooden floor, not moving.

  “Be right back, my darling. Be back. Have to get the car. Just wait. Be right back. Got to get the car. Got to get out of here. Just wait. Just stay alive my darling darling.”

  Nothing moved in the slick wet street but him. His leg dragging, he followed an endless course, over more sand, stumbling past garbage cans, reaching the long black leeward lake, finally reaching its end, emerging into streetlights, heaving and wheezing until he finally came to the wide main street again. A car was moving on it, many blocks distant, moving away, inland. The yellow Mercedes sat all by itself at its curbside, the streetlight a bright glare on its windows.

  Death or no, he had no choice, nothing else to do. Pulling out the keys, dropping and retrieving them, he hobbled to it, opened the door, and, without hesitation, turned on the ignition. There was no explosion. No one yanked open the opposite door. No one rose from the backseat behind him. He slammed shut the door and, with a snarling squeal of tires that gave voice to his torment, sped the car skidding back to the house.

  He made a bundle of the injured woman, wrapping her thickly in blankets, arranging the pillows under and around her as best he could to ease the pain, limit the discomfort, positioning her so that she would face him, so that he could glance and take a measure of the ebb of life. He ran back into the stranger’s house and took a blanket for himself, for he was now shaking violently. He pulled it full around his shoulders, restarted the engine, and roared off down the street. He knew no other way to go but the way they had come, the way that led back to the monumental bridge and the nation’s capital. That was likely wrong, but his mind produced no other useful idea.

  Finally, Rehoboth far behind them, he reached and shook her. She made a weak sound, but did not stir. He tried again, with the same result. His teeth were rattling, his shivers now tremors. He had brought the whiskey, throwing it, his gun, and the house’s first-aid kit onto the Mercedes’ floor. He reached and took a long swallow. It helped. He turned up the car’s heater to high and clicked on the radio, wincing at the loudness. This was truly like the long-ago late night ride down the Bayshore from San Francisco, but Death was now closer than he ever could have imagined, rode with them right in the car, watching them, waiting. It was hours to Washington, but what else to do?

  Dresden shook her again, hard. “Maddy. Listen to me. Please, Maddy, wake up!”

  She murmured again. He heard the word wake.

  “Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

  “Can hear you. Yes, hear you, Charley. Love you, Charley.”

  “Maddy. I’m heading back for the bridge. Heading back to the city. Don’t know where else to go. Maddy, where should I go? Where do I go? Do you have any friends?”

  “No friends now. No friends to trust.” He could glimpse her eyes upon him. There was life in them—pain and love. A purpose. He reached and touched her cheek. It was so cold.

  “We’ve got to find friends, Maddy. Someone, anyone who can get us a doctor.”

  “Friends. Yes. One friend. I trust him. A good friend. George’s. Mine. A British friend. He’ll help us. No part of this.”

  She began breathing heavily, without words, then quieted, and resumed what she was saying.

  “British friend, Charley. No stake in this. Journalist. British TV. Spy too. He’ll help. We’ve helped him. Good man.”

  “Who is he, Maddy?” Dresden was tearing down the open, rain-slick road near eighty miles an hour. He drank whiskey, keeping going. He had to do it. He had to do all the things he had to do. “Who is he? Where do we go?”

  “Back to the city. Up Massachusetts Avenue. Just past the bridge. The bombed bridge. Mrs. Atherton bombed there. That bridge. First left. Take first left. Up Whitehaven Street. Big white house up long drive. Big house on right. Picket fence. Graham Thompson. He’s a good man. Good friend …”

  She trailed off. Her eyes closed. Death was riding with them, riding, watching. Waiting.

  The Bay Bridge toll collector looked at Dresden strangely, but did not halt him or summon police. Little other traffic moved on the highway. He rumbled along at high speed, tires thumping, drinking, alternately sweating and freezing, not understanding any of the words spoken on the radio, concentrating everything on aligning the car with the road, on willing Maddy alive.

  He swerved badly on the streets of Washington, taking turns clumsily, becoming hopelessly lost several times. But it was Christmas Eve, and there were cars being driven that way all over the city. Once a policeman pulled up close behind him, following, but abruptly pulled away, turning with a sudden display of flashing lights and siren in pursuit of a problem more serious.

  Dresden found his way to the bridge—the GLOVER BRIDGE, a small green sign proclaimed. The rain had long since ceased and the pavement was drying. A large, glass-walled, modern building, held erect on its hillside by an architect’s huge freeform pedestal, loomed ahead. Just before it was a tree-lined street leading diagonally off to the left. A sign said WHITEHAVEN.

  Christmas Eve. There’d be many, many parties. But the British journalist was a family man, a Christmas-keeping man. A tall, thin, Dickensian character with bony face, long gray hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and a rosy flush to his skin, he opened his door with curiosity, but no alarm. A fire burned brightly behind him.

  “Charles Dresden,” Charley said, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Friend of Madeleine Calendiari. She’s in the car. She’s shot. She may be dead. We’re in trouble, terrible trouble, and we need your help. It involves the president, the Gettysburg shooting. Got to help. Got to help Maddy. Need a doctor.”

  With that, he fell forward. He remembered the warmth of the room and his head striking the sharpness of the doorframe.

  He awoke to daylight and an utterly strange room, yet one that gave him the vague impression that he had awakened in it before. He recognized no single object in it, but it seemed somehow familiar, high-ceilinged and expensively furnished, a large fireplace at one end with a marble mantelpiece. The bed was large and high off the floor, with ample covers and soft pillows all about his head. He had experienced few things so comfortable in his life, but when he moved it caused great discomfort, a sting and ache in his hand, sharp pain in his knee, and an awful sensation between his legs. He lifted his head, then fell back, blinking. His vision was not quite clear. He could see that the room’s door was open. He sensed some human presence just beyond it, hushed voices or movement.

  “He
llo,” he said. Immediately, the door opened and a woman all in white stepped in, a nurse. She was blond, somewhere between young and middle-aged, with a pinched and narrow but quite friendly face.

  “There’s what we’ve been waiting for,” she said, her accent working-class British. “A word from you.”

  “Hello,” he said again. “Where am I?”

  “The important question, love, is how are you?” she said. She put a thermometer in his mouth, then reached to take his pulse. She waited a moment, then smiled. “Well, your heartbeat’s right enough.” A brief wait later she retrieved the thermometer, and studied it with satisfaction. “Can you sit up?”

  “I think so.” He did slowly, feeling at once stiff and woozy, but after a minute his brain cleared. He could see everything quite sharply.

  She plumped pillows up behind him, then came around again and looked carefully into his face. “You do look much better, love. A nice bit of sleep you’ve had.”

  “Yes. Very nice.”

  “Do you want to try standing? Moving about? You’ll need crutches. I’ve a pair in the corner for you.”

  “Yes, I think so. After a minute.”

  “In that case we’d best dispense with these inconveniences.” Moving quickly and cheerily, she removed an IV taped to his left hand, dangling from a bottle suspended above him, and then, tossing back the covers, a catheter and a curved metal pan. The discomfort there increased sharply, then was gone.

  “Here’s the rest of your pajamas, love. I expect you’ll be grateful for them.”

  He quickly, if painfully, got them on, then slid to the edge of the bed, gingerly putting his feet to the floor as she handed him the crutches.

  “Have a go for the chair by the window,” she said. “If you’ve a need for it and are up to it, the loo’s through there. If you’ve a problem, just call. Mr. Thompson’s been waiting downstairs. I’ll let him know you’ve come round.”

  Dresden tried a few steps around the room. His knee, heavily bandaged, hurt dreadfully. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done to it.

  He paused at the window. The house or building he was in was immense, a huge brick structure of Georgian architecture. He was on a high upper floor, but his view, but for a formal garden, was obscured by trees. There was a great deal of snow on the ground. He judged he’d been there, sedated or unconscious, for several days.

  Turning about, he lowered himself onto the soft armchair, resting his leg on a footstool and laying the crutches on the floor. The paintings on the wall, landscapes and still lifes of flowers, were originals, very old, and expensively framed. He had not been in so richly furnished a room, that he could remember, certainly not since his Westchester years.

  Quick footsteps ringing on marble or parquet flooring approached. They stopped, and the lanky face of Graham Thompson peered round the door, his long gray hair hanging over his brow and right eye. He smiled a quick, British smile and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. There was a companion armchair across from Dresden’s and he took it, crossing his long legs and putting hand to bony chin.

  “Damn good to see you coming round, Dresden. It was a close-run thing for both of you.”

  “Maddy’s alive? She’s all right?”

  “Oh, quite alive, thank God. But I’m afraid not so ambulatory as you. She lost a tremendous amount of blood, and was in terrible shock when you got here. So were you, for that matter. Someone gave you whiskey. Who on earth did that?”

  “I gave me whiskey. It’s what kept me going.”

  “Extraordinary. I can’t believe you drove all the way here from the shore. You had a bullet in the back of your leg, did you know? Can’t believe you drove that distance in that condition. You’re quite a remarkable fellow.”

  “A bullet? I was in an automobile accident a few weeks ago. I thought my leg had just gone out.”

  “No. One of those bastards shot you. Three of them, I believe you said. Damn near did for good. But the bullet was quite small—a .22 caliber, I think. I’m told that’s what professional assassins are using in your country these days, the mafioso types, but these chaps seemed to be aiming for your legs. Could have been an awfully lot worse. Especially for Madeleine. She lost alot of blood. Our doctor did a bang-up job. Not much of an operating theater on the premises. It’s good to see you both so much on the mend.”

  “Speaking of premises, where am I?”

  “Why, the British embassy, of course. The ambassador’s residence, actually. You’re quite safe. Under the protection of His Majesty’s Government.”

  “How did we get here from your house?”

  “A simple stroll. My garden gate virtually opens onto the embassy grounds. It’s been a convenient arrangement for American guests of mine over the years who feel a need for a discreet conversation with someone from HMG, and vice versa. Your good Dr. Kissinger was a frequent guest for that reason. And the prime minister popped over for a private chat with Secretary Crosby on her last visit. The proximity was certainly a blessing in your case. I’m not sure Madelaine would have made it all the way to hospital at that point.”

  “You say she’s all right?”

  “Yes. Much on the mend. But they have her rather heavily sedated. And on some medication for her heart. None of this was exactly a tonic for her, you know, with her heart condition.”

  “What heart condition?”

  “You didn’t know? I’ve forgotten the clinical term for it, but it has to do with an extra, erratic heartbeat. She developed it some years ago. I should have thought you’d known. It’s not usually fatal, but it can be dangerous, certainly for someone who’s been through what she just has. Never told you?”

  “No. Never mentioned it.”

  “And went through all this nasty business with you? A most courageous woman.”

  “I’m fortunate.”

  “Yes.” Thompson looked away, somewhat somberly, and a silence fell between them. Dresden sought to divine from it what the Britisher had on his mind, and at once it became obvious.

  “George Calendiari,” Charley said. “Does he know?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Mr. Thompson …”

  “Call me Graham, please. We’ve already had several conversations, though you probably don’t remember. You were in a rather bad state.”

  “Well, I don’t remember, and I don’t know what Maddy might have told you, but if you’re presuming there’s something going on between us …”

  “You needn’t …”

  “It’s more than just an affair. Our relationship goes back many years. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but she said you were an old friend and I want to clear the air. Anyway, George should know. That we’re here. That Maddy’s all right.”

  “Yes, of course. Unfortunately, Charles, if I may call you Charles, he can’t. I’m afraid George Calendiari is dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, poor devil. Blew his brains out. At his home across the river in McLean. It happened the night you showed up on my doorstep. For a bit we thought the events were all mixed up together.”

  “I don’t believe it. George Calendiari wouldn’t commit suicide.”

  “I knew him quite well myself, old man, and I’d be inclined to agree with you. But he wrote this mournful letter, about Madeleine leaving him for you. It was quite mordant …”

  “That I’d believe. Last time, years ago, he wrote a number of such letters. To himself, to Madeleine, to me. The one to Maddy worked, that time. But shoot himself? The man was devoutly Catholic, and he hated guns. Couldn’t stand them in the house. It was one of the things he disliked about me.”

  Thompson moved forward in his chair, as though to rise. “Yes, quite. Well, we’ve not said anything to her about it. I’m afraid I’m going to leave that task to you, when she’s better up to it, which I think may take several more days.”

  “What day is it?”

  Thompson smiled. “Wednesday, old man. You’ve missed Christmas.”
Now he did get to his feet. “We’ve retrieved everything from the beach house. If you do feel up to getting dressed, you’ll find all your things in the closet. If these crutches become a nuisance, we can fetch you a cane. Dr. FitzGerald will look in from time to time. I believe he has you on some antibiotics.”

  He turned, glancing at his watch. He had a very proprietary air for someone who was merely a neighbor of the embassy. A very Oxonian air as well. This was no mere Fleet Street newsy, Charley concluded.

  “There’s a sitting room down the hall to your right,” he said, “and a smallish study just beyond with a television. We’d appreciate it if you’d confine yourself to this floor. The residence is much in use this time of year, and we’d rather keep your presence our little secret.”

  “Certainly.”

  “The ambassador looked in on both of you after we brought you in. I daresay you were quite talkative, but not at all lucid. He’ll be wanting to chat with you now that you’ve recovered some. And to make a better showing of British hospitality. But he’s on rather a busy schedule the next few days, socially and otherwise. He begs your forgiveness.”

  “Of course. I’m very grateful to him. To all of you. We’d no idea where to turn.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to be the guests of His Majesty for the indefinite future. There’s no guaranteeing your safety otherwise. To employ our traditional British understatement, you don’t seem to have a great many friends out there.”

  “Have there been any developments? Anything new about the president.”

  “Nothing beyond this continuing epidemic of sudden fatalities. We’re told they’re bringing in an entire army division to protect the Capitol for the opening of Congress next week.”

  “Nothing from Camp David?”

  “Utter silence, except for the daily medical reports. And routine written statements.”