The Fourth K

Then all the people in the room seemed to come close, the doctor plunged the needle into his arm, and Jefferson and Christian were lowering his body onto the bed.

They waited for Francis Ke

Just before daybreak, Ke

Ke

It was over, she was dead. And now after the initial wave of grief he wondered at his calmness. Was it because she had insisted on living her own life after her mother died? Refused to share his life in the White House because she was far to the left of both parties and therefore was his political opponent? Was it a lack of love for his daughter?

He absolved himself. He loved Theresa and she was dead. But the impact had been lessened because he had been preparing himself for that death in the last days. His unconscious and cu

There was the coordination of the killing of the Pope and the hijacking of the plane that held the daughter of the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. There was the delay in the demands until the assassin had been in place and captured in the United States. Then the deliberate arrogance of the demand for the release of the assassin of the Pope.

By a supreme effort of will Francis Ke

Religious leaders can be canonized, young girls mourned with sweet regret.

But there was something else. People the world over would have a contempt for the United States and its leaders. Other attacks would be launched in ways not foreseen. Authority spat upon ca

The door of the bedroom opened and light flooded in from the hall. But the bedroom now aglow with the rising sun blotted it out.

Jefferson, in fresh shirt and jacket, wheeled the breakfast table through and prepared it for Ke

Ke

He thought now of how his staff had tried to comfort him. Christian had shown his personal affection shared over long years, Christian had embraced him, helped him to his bed. Oddblood Gray, usually so cool and impersonal, had gripped him by the shoulders and just whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm goddamn sorry." Arthur Wix and Eugene Dazzy had been more reserved. They had touched him briefly and murmured something he could not hear. And Ke

Council he had urgent work, and perhaps he was afraid of hearing some wild order of retaliation from a man overwrought by a father's grief.

In the short time before Jefferson came back with the breakfast, Francis Ke

He remembered strategy sessions in which such events were discussed. He remembered Iran, remembered Iraq.

His mind went back almost forty years. He was a seven year-old boy playing on the sandy shores of Hya

He had never forgotten the look on Uncle Jack's face, such a happy look as if he had received some unforgettable gift. They had never noticed the little boy hidden behind one of the tables in the hallway. At that time of i

And there were other scenes out of his childhood, vivid tableaux of power.

His two uncles being treated like royalty by men and women much older than themselves. The music starting when Uncle Jack stepped out on the lawn, all faces turning toward him, the cessation of speech until he spoke. His two uncles sharing their power and their grace in wearing it. How confidently they waited for the helicopters to drop out of the sky, how safe they seemed surrounded by strong men who shielded them from hurt, how they were whisked up to the heavens, how grandly they descended from the heights…

Their smiles gave light, their godhead flashed knowledge and command from their eyes, the magnetism radiated from their bodies. And with all this they took the time to play with the little boys and girls who were their sons and daughters, their nieces and nephews, playing with the utmost seriousness, gods who visited tiny mortals in their keeping. And then. And then…

He had watched on television, with his weeping mother, the funeral of Uncle Jack, the gun carriage, the riderless horse, the millions of grief-stricken people, and had seen his little playmate as one of the actors on the world stage. And his uncle Bobby and his aunt Jackie. His mother at some point took him into her arms and said, "Don't look, don't look," and he was blinded by her long hair and sticky tears.

Now, the shaft of yellow light from the open door cut through his memories and he saw that Jefferson had wheeled in a fresh table. Ke

The sun was strong enough to light the bedroom yet not strong enough to give it heat. But the throb of Washington entered the room. The television trucks were filling the streets outside the gates and countless car motors hummed like a giant swarm of insects. Planes flew constantly overhead, all military-airspace had been closed to civilian traffic.