One Knight Only, Page 4

  She starts to reach for the phone to speak to her personal aide, and there, live, on the screen, she sees the bomb go off.

  She is not expecting it. No one is expecting it. There will be a lengthy investigation later, and the only thing that anyone will be able to come up with is that it had been planted in the street, weeks previously, by terrorists disguised as street workers who blatantly, in full daylight over a period of two days, used a jackhammer to chew up a small section of the street, plant the bombs, tar them over, and leave them there to be detonated later by remote control. The stone-cold planning and ingenuity is chilling; the audacity of the scheme is stunning; the fact that policemen routinely passed the “workers” without bothering to check whether they had any right or permit to be there or any sort of valid identification will cause several high-placed heads to roll.

  Gwen does not know any of that. All she knows is that one moment her husband and the President are walking around, news cameras recording every moment, and the next there is nothing but chaos. There is smoke and rubble everywhere. Vehicles have been blown sky high, Secret Service men are running all around like blind madmen. A water main has broken, sending water fountaining high into the air, and the newsmen can be heard shouting about bombs. No one can see anything. The air is impenetrable with smoking haze, and Gwen is screaming “Arthur! Arthur!” at the TV screen as if he could somehow hear her and respond. Flames are springing up, more black fumes curling thickly through the air, and there is the frantic face of the newscaster on the screen, trying to explain the inexplicable. Gwen’s aide dashes into the room hearing her scream, and together they watch the TV screen, transfixed, spell-bound by the horror of what they’re seeing. Although naturally they have no way of knowing for sure, Gwen is positive that people throughout New York are watching while calling their neighbors and saying, “Are you watching this? Do you have the TV on? They’ve killed the President! They’ve killed the Mayor!”

  “Arthur, oh my God, Arthur,” Gwen is moaning, and she doesn’t know whether she’s mourning more the loss of her husband or the world’s loss of a man who could have done so much for it.

  That’s when she sees it at the same time that everyone else watching does. A form staggering through the smoke, carrying a burden, hazy at first as the TV camera covering the debacle has trouble focusing. But then it zooms in, the picture coming in clear, and there is an image that will be on the front page of every newspaper in the country the following morning.

  Arthur Penn, emerging from the smoke with no less showmanship than would accompany the Second Coming, his clothes burned from where the flames had been licking at him, his face singed, and he is visibly gasping. And cradled in his arms is the President of the United States.

  Months earlier, during his run for mayor, he had wound up saving children from a burning apartment building, a rescue thoroughly recorded by the TV news and which aided greatly in increasing his citywide profile. The drama of that rescue, however, is nothing compared to this. Another explosion, this time from flames hitting a gas main, it is believed, propels Arthur, but he does not drop the chief executive even as he is hurled forward, hitting the ground and absorbing the impact with his own body. Then an instant later the Secret Service has charged in, hauling both Arthur and the President into waiting ambulances and speeding away from the site to an undisclosed location where both will be pronounced suffering from shock and smoke inhalation, but otherwise in sound health. Opinion is also uniform: with the Secret Service men scattered by the blast, if Arthur had not hauled him out from the midst of the disaster area, the President would have been a dead man.

  “Profile in Courage,” the headlines will blare, and nevermore will Arthur Penn be simply considered a New York institution. Instead, in many ways, he will belong to the world, having earned the gratitude of the President and plaudits from a grateful nation.

  The President will continue his war on terrorism, a war that will focus on a man named Sandoval, and Arthur will receive commendations and the congressional medal of honor, which he will graciously turn over to the firefighters and rescue workers of New York, stating that he is simply accepting it as a token on all of their behalf.

  From then on, it is only a matter of time until Arthur’s own run at the presidency, and his own victory, and his own battles with the elusive terrorist . . .

  All of which is in the future. For now, Gwen gasps in relief, laughing and crying at the same time, and she hugs her aide and thanks God for giving her husband back to her when all seemed lost.

  “Of course he survived,” says a confident young voice.

  She turns. Merlin is standing there. Even after all this time, she still cannot get over him. Gwen dismisses her aide, telling her to spread the good news to the rest of the staff, as Merlin saunters into the bedroom. She cannot get over the fact that this boy . . . this skinny boy, with his hands too large for his arms, his feet too large for his legs, his silken brown hair longish in the back, and his ears virtually stuck out at right angles to his head. . . . is a centuries-old sorcerer who happens to be aging in the wrong direction. “He’d survive anything, I’m starting to believe,” Merlin continues. “Cockroaches have nothing on him.”

  “It’s easy to say after the fact,” she retorts. “He gave you some bad moments there.”

  “He always does.” Then his face suddenly grows serious. “I will not always be there for him, Gwen.”

  “What?” She is surprised by the shift in conversation. She wants to celebrate the fact that Arthur is still alive, not dwell on curious and ominous comments about the future from the mage. “What are you talking about, Merlin?”

  “I did not like you, Gwen. I never have,” he says candidly, which was the only way he ever spoke. “But I have come to the realization that, sooner or later, I will likely be gone, and only you and Percival will be there for him. He will need you. Arthur, for all his adherence to principles, does far better believing in people than those same principles. He needs you to believe in, or he will not be able to function. Be there for him, and for Mab’s sake, be careful.”

  “Yes, all right, but . . . why are you saying these things?”

  “Because,” he tells her, blunt as ever, “they are the things you can understand,” and with that he exits the room.

  It will be years later when Merlin is taken from him, and his loss is devastating to Arthur. It is all Gwen can do to pull him through emotionally.

  She never liked Merlin any better than he liked her. But she misses him because Arthur misses him . . .

  OWEN BOARDED THE plane to Washington, D.C., in preparation to be with her husband for the State of the Union address. She imagined, as the plane arced into the air, that she could see Belvedere Castle below her in Central Park, a silent sentinel and reminder of days that she hadn’t realized back then were simpler times. It was the day before the beginning of the end of Arthur Penn’s presidency. Gwen’s thoughts turned to picking out the right shoes to wear.

  CHAPTRE THE SECOND

  ARTHUR LOOKED UP from the desk in the Oval Office, feeling a swell of appreciation for the interruption. Spread out before him was the fifteenth draft of the treaty with Trans-Sabal. “You know, Ron,” he sighed heavily, “for the life of me, I can’t determine how this draft is substantially different from the fourteenth or the thirteenth.”

  Once upon a time, Ron Cordoba had been addressed as “Ronnie,” but since becoming the White House chief of staff, he had announced that he preferred the more formal “Ron” since it was somehow more in keeping with the dignity of the office. Cordoba had kept himself in splendid physical shape since that time, still zealously playing racquetball, maintaining a whipcord slim body, and claiming that such exercise enabled him to preserve the ability to think on his feet. His impressive head of blond hair, however, had proceeded to abandon him a year or so later.

  Cordoba had been with Arthur since his days of the mayoral race. At the time, Cordoba had no idea of the truth behind Arthur’s bac
kground. Eventually he had been brought into the loop. It had seemed rather necessary; he was one of the only staffers to have any sort of continuous interaction with Merlin, and considering that the “young boy” was not only not aging, but in fact starting to look even younger than before, that would certainly have garnered comment and confusion from Cordoba.

  All things considered, he had taken the revelation rather well. Nevertheless, there were still some uncomfortable moments preceding Arthur’s run at the presidency. Cordoba had sat down with Merlin and Arthur, one dark and stormy night. “You do realize that in order to be president, you have to have been born in this country,” he had told them.

  “The fact that I wasn’t is hardly my fault,” Arthur had said mildly. “After all, when I was born, the United States of America didn’t exist yet. Certainly I shouldn’t be penalized for that. Shouldn’t there be a . . . ?”

  “A grandfather clause?” suggested Merlin, his face carefully neutral.

  “Yes, exactly. Thank you, Merlin. A grandfather clause.”

  “Perhaps,” Cordoba had admitted, “there should be . . . so that those candidates who are capable of celebrating a personal tricentennial shouldn’t be excluded from the pool. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Merlin had said, not sounding particularly concerned about the situation. “However, papers do exist that more than provide Arthur with absolutely bullet-proof evidence that he was, in fact, born in this country. Home-schooled as a child, an admittedly not especially memorable undergraduate.”

  “Nice picture in the yearbook, though,” Arthur remarked.

  Cordoba had studied Arthur and Merlin, trying to see if they had the slightest idea of the severity of what they were discussing. “Gentlemen . . . it’s fraud. I need you to understand that, to realize what we’re about to embark upon. You prize highly, Arthur, your determination always to tell the truth. Should you win the presidency, you will be swearing a sacred oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States . . . a document that you’re already knowingly violating, because the Constitution specifically states in Article Two, Section One, and I quote—”

  Arthur interrupted. “ ‘No person,’ ” he had said calmly, “ ‘except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.’ ”

  “Yes. Exactly,” Cordoba had said. “So . . . don’t you see? You would be building your presidency upon a foundation of hypocrisy.”

  The thunder rumbled outside the suite of offices, as if lending divine emphasis to Cordoba’s cautions. Arthur said nothing, his face impassive and controlled. Cordoba was reasonably sure that all of this had occurred to Arthur already, and that he wasn’t telling the Man Who Would Be President anything he didn’t already know and hadn’t already wrestled with.

  “Would it help you if I told you,” Merlin had said slowly, “that papers were filed for citizenship for Arthur back in the year 1777 . . . rendering him an official, naturalized citizen of this country before the Constitution was put in place? So that, although he was not born here, he would in fact be eligible to run since he was a citizen at the time that the Constitution was adopted?”

  Cordoba had been stunned. Such a notion had literally never occurred to him. But it was certainly possible, he supposed. Merlin had, after all, been around for centuries, or so he’d been told. Then the phrasing of the question caught his attention, and his eyes narrowed. “Are you saying,” he had asked, “that you actually did that? Or are you just asking me whether I would have peace of mind if you told me that you had?”

  “The question is the question,” Merlin had replied, taking on that infernal know-it-all enigmatic wizard attitude he occasionally liked to display.

  Cordoba sighed, realizing that the conversation had gone about as far as it was going to. Leaning back in the chair, tacitly admitting defeat, he had said, “Yes, that would give me peace of mind.”

  “All right then,” Merlin had said with finality. “Consider it said.”

  And that was that.

  So here they were, all these years later, and Merlin was gone, and Arthur and Cordoba were still here. Cordoba had never thought for a moment that he would miss the little wizard, for Merlin had been a royal pain in the ass many a time, but if nothing else he missed him because he had been such a rock for Arthur to lean upon. Cordoba, in his position of trust as chief of staff, had endeavored to model himself upon the example Merlin set, because he was reasonably sure that was what Arthur needed. And if Arthur needed it, then that was what the country needed.

  “There are some subtle differences in the language, Mr. President,” Cordoba said in regard to the treaty, entering the office and closing the door behind him. “They don’t have any real impact on the substance of the treaty. They’re more to pacify the religious fundamentalists in the Trans-Sabal government.”

  “And of course, we wouldn’t want to upset any religious fundamentalists,” Arthur commented wryly.

  “It’s a remarkable achievement, Mr. President,” Cordoba reminded him. “Two years ago, the government of Trans-Sabal was the single greatest supporter of Sandoval in the world. Now there’s a new government in place, they’re allies of ours, and they’re not protecting him.”

  “So they say. Yes, there’s a new government,” said Arthur, standing up and smoothing his tie as he did so. It was remarkable to Cordoba how little Arthur had changed over the years. Although Arthur had sworn that—now that he was out of his cave of healing and residing in the real world—he was aging normally, Ron simply couldn’t see it. It suggested to him that Merlin might have worked a little magic that he hadn’t even told Arthur about, or else there was a painting of Arthur somewhere that was starting to deteriorate.

  Despite what the treaty represented, Arthur seemed bothered. Even someone who had known him for a fraction of the time that Ron had would have been able to see it. “A new government that we helped put into place, and that is dependent upon us. Here’s the odd thing about that, Ron: Those governments that depend upon us for their existence sooner or later seem to start resenting the hell out of us. Have you noticed that? Even Sandoval . . . he was once a CIA ally, remember? Enlisted to help oppose an oppressive government. His tactics were acceptable when they served our interests.” Arthur sighed. “You know what happens when you embrace monsters, Ron? They just transform into different monsters.”

  “Not always, Mr. President.”

  “Not always, no, but certainly enough times to give us cause for concern.”

  “Sir, with all respect,” Cordoba pointed out, “if and when the government of Trans-Sabal turns against us . . . you won’t be in office by that point, most likely. It’ll be the next guy’s problem. All you can do is all you can do.”

  “A trite and meaningless phrase,” Arthur said with the barest touch of a smile, “and yet, oddly, I draw some small comfort from it.” He leaned against his desk. “What did you need to see me about? Is it the cabinet meeting already?”

  “No, no . . .”

  Arthur looked suddenly irritated. “Not the dairy farmers again. I make one passing comment about milk making me belch, and you’d think I’d told a class of kindergartners that there’s no Santa.”

  “It’s Bob.”

  “What’s Bob?” he asked, frowning, and then his face cleared. “Our Bob?”

  “Right. Bob Kellerman. Your head speechwriter.”

  “What about him?” asked Arthur with concern. “Is he all right?”

  “Not at the moment, no.” Cordoba folded his arms and tried to sound just slightly stern, while maintaining enough of a respectful tone considering whom he was addressing and where he was standing. “Did you tell him that you were going to toss the text of the State of the Union address and just
‘wing it’?”

  “I might have done,” Arthur said, trying to recall.

  “That would be the speech he’s been working on twenty-four /seven for the past month,” he said, as if trying to ascertain just which State of the Union they were discussing.

  “That’s as may be,” said Arthur, “but why? I was just joking. He must have known that.”

  At that, Cordoba moaned, not believing that he needed to spell it out. “Sir, you know Bob. He takes everything literally. He’s been lying on the couch in his office for the last hour with an ice pack, moaning that his life is pointless.”

  “Oh, dear,” Arthur said. “That won’t do. Ron, be a good lad and tell him that I was kidding, would you? On second thought . . .” He walked back behind his desk, picked up the phone, and tapped in the intercom connection. He paused a moment, waiting for it to be made, and then said, “Bob? This is your commander in chief. Bob, I was simply making a sporting jest about the speech. The latest draft was a thing of beauty, and therefore—by extension—a joy forever. You have done credit to yourself and your family going back five generations. Now get off the bloody couch, go home to your wife, and celebrate the praise from your president in a manly fashion.” He hung up and spread his hands in a “How was that?” manner.