Chapter 46 (1st draft -- Presidential Gas)

Charlotte Remora's attitude morphed through several faces as she sat with the others. Professional blank initially, to conceal her rage at losing exclusivity for her station within minutes of airing quite likely the century's hottest story. Startled next to realize her mouth was hanging open and she'd forgotten to breathe as the full import of President Morowitz's disaster established itself in the room. Finally her camera-ready complexion betrayed from beneath by the clammy pallor of helpless fear, which reflected a growing despair shared by the small group.

They were slumped on the studio's folding chairs. All but Dr. Knoe, who sat tending the president on his cot in the alcove, and Brad Morowitz, dutifully manning the camera for the record and whatever outlets remained tapped into the feed. The sound was off, so the feed carried little more than a still frame of an unconscious president. Even Dr. Knoe for the most part remained outside the view. It seemed to Remora that although Ruth Rose looked as worried as everyone else she'd become by default the center of gravity in the room. Something in her comportment, an implicit poise manifested so far as Remora could see only by a tilt of the head, as if the former president was leading with her chin and daring anyone to take a shot. Ruth's presence mitigated for Remora a creeping sense of claustrophobia. Nonetheless, she suspected that were it not for her appreciation of the irony of being the only news reporter trapped in the eye of the cataclysm she would spontaneously atomize to a mist of shrieking terror. As it was, she joined warily with the others in the frozen surrender of supplicants. Other than slight movements when Ruth and Joan Stonebraker occasionally reached outside the bunker via their cellphones the small group resembled mannequins in a department store window.

Coffee Betrayal (Chapter 33 - 1st draft)

“Alright, Harry,” said Miriam, “What is it?”

Trueblood looked up from his coffee and peered at his wife, unaware that his eyebrows had lifted. It was a reaction less of curiosity at her question than from surprise by her tone. The cheerfulness she served at breakfast was as customary as the accompanying black coffee, scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice.

Miriam's smile was the same as always but her voice came out too soft. It was as if she was confiding something to him in a hotel lounge during happy hour. They were alone in their kitchen, and she'd made no effort to lean toward him as one would do in the hotel-lounge scenario. So...

Trueblood set his cup down as his brow relaxed, and considered her words. Off the top of his head what is it? meant nothing to him. A quick scan of likely contexts found no hits. Her question apparently had come completely out of the blue. He focused closely on her eyes.

“What is what, Miriam?” he asked gently.

“Something's wrong, Harry. It's not like you to keep things from me.”

“Nothing's wrong, Miriam. I'd tell you if there was. You know that.”

“Harry.”

They sat awhile looking earnestly at each other. Trueblood slurped coffee and his wife munched on a piece of buttered toast. Trueblood broke the silence.

“Look, Miriam, where is this coming from? What makes you think something's wrong?”

“Harry, you put creamer in your coffee.”

“Huh? I what?”

“Creamer, Harry. In your coffee. You put creamer in your coffee. You never put anything in your coffee...”

Trueblood stared at his cup as confusion disturbed the natural composure of his face. “What the...” He cut himself off and looked up at Miriam. “I did,” he said, barely audible, shaking his head as if to deny what he was seeing. He added, “I must have been distracted. I don't remember doing it. I don't know why I did it.

“It is odd, I agree, Miriam, but I don't think it means anything.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. Her smile grew wider. “It wouldn't mean anything if I did something like that,” she said. “You know I get distracted easily. But not you, Harry. You're always so focused.”

He rocked back in his chair, breathing deeply and letting it out in a noisy sigh followed by a half-hearted chuckle. “You're right, Mimi. My focus is my strong suit. I guess...well, I have had a lot of things to focus on lately. You know that. Maybe I've gotten a little jammed up. Too much on the plate, huh?”

“Harry, who are you trying to fool? It's me, Miriam, your loving wife. You always have a lot to focus on. It's what you're good at. Something else is bothering you. Don't try to deny it. It worries me that you're keeping it to yourself. I've never known you to keep something serious from me. Ever. And frankly I'm not sure what to think. I'm a little hurt, Harry.”

Sacrifice brings home the "Good"

My second novel, Sacrifice, has been awarded a "Good Writing Seal" by The indiePENdents, a nonprofit organization that promotes independently published books. Sacrifice is available as an ebook or paperback. Click on the title for Amazon.com's Kindle listing at 99¢.

Bad Landing at Camp David (Chapt. 31 - 1st draft)

Marine One wobbled down through the thickening afternoon clouds and broke clear less than a thousand feet above Catoctin Mountain Park. The heavy copter skimmed over bristling forested terrain, slowing when the distinct contours of Camp David appeared. It eased into a hover before descending onto the concrete helipad where it made contact with an unpleasant thump.

“Don't tell me Maj. Erskine disrespects you, too?” Ruth said as the rotors wound down.

The president's sheepish grin and wagging head was answer enough, but he added, “I don't think so, Ruth, but I really don't know. Coincidentally they transferred the major awhile back, right about the time the paper started giving away those little magnifying glasses so people could see me in the cartoons. I think they use cadets to fly me now.”

Moments after the engines went silent the forward compartment door snapped open and a stocky young man in a shiny olive drab flight suit stepped into the passenger compartment. Without speaking he gave an impatient flap of his hand beckoning them to disembark. Ordinarily the other passengers would defer to the president to go first, but Morowitz nodded to Ruth, sitting nearest the door, to precede him.

She stood, turned and found herself staring into the young Marine's plump face. His jaw was moving slowly, rhythmically as if he were chewing gum, an act of insolence that by its mere suggestion sprayed a quart of psychic fuel onto her rage, ignited moments earlier by the clumsy landing. His facial muscles, working the gum, assumed the contours of a smirk that further aggravated the disrespect he conveyed. Ruth scanned the nonchalantly pulsing face until she came to a pair of cobalt eyes that peered through her without a glimmer of recognition she was there.

“Bring the pilot out here,” she snapped, glaring at the unseeing eyes. It wasn't until the Marine showed no reaction that Ruth noticed the twin white strings forking from a pocket in his jumpsuit and ending in each ear. The slap came without warning and with such fury it rocked the Marine on his heels and flung one of his earbuds with its tether onto his shoulder where it dangled, emitting the predictable cadence of a defiantly chattering hip hop cricket. Ruth reached up and jerked the other bud from its fleshy nest.

She said in a tight, hard voice, staring first at the nametag sewn into his flight suit then back into his now wide, startled eyes, “Henderson, huh? Well, Capt. Henderson, if you haven't heard the old infantry expression 'don't step on your dick', it's too late now. You've just jumped up and down on yours. Do you have any idea who your passenger is?”

“Whah, yes ah do, Miz Pres...”

“I'm not the president, you goddamned fool! The president is standing behind me...

“Ah'm aware...”

“If you were aware, Henderson, what were you doing chewing gum and listening to that shit you call music? Is this the kind of discipline they're teaching now in the Marine Corps?”

“No, my-em, ah shore do...”

“It's way beyond too late if you were thinking of apologizing, captain. You might as well kiss your career goodbye. If I had my way you'd be cooling your ass in the brig until I came up with a way to boot it out of the Corps for good.

“Speaking of asses, tell that incompetent pilot to get his out here right now!”

“Uh...yes'm...uh.” He lurched backward, bumping past the bulkhead, and stumbled toward the pilot's cabin. Ruth cursed when she saw him close the cabin door behind him. A heavy hand on her shoulder kept her from following him into the forward compartment.

So... (Ch. 29 *1st draft* - Pres. Morowitz tackles the terrorists)

Ruth Rose clamped her tongue in her teeth, biting until she felt pain and until the pain squelched the hysteria giggling up from her gut at the spectacle of President Geoffrey Abercrombie Morowitz seated across from her on Marine One, the H-42 Chinook helicopter bound for Camp David.

Legs more dominant than they had any business being, knees bulging through faded jeans so near she heard the denim stretching, shins and thighs so long they formed something geometric-looking that made her think of an overturned oil derrick, at the peak of which perched this narrow, forlorn face, distant and tiny in perspective and framed between an unkempt thatch of mouse-gray hair and a crumpled, foreshortened robin's-egg-blue polo shirt. Only when they moved, when the president spoke, did Ruth notice the thin, bone-white arms waving like the antennae of an albino grasshopper. No wonder the cartoonists had such fun with this physically unfortunate politician, portraying him the more grotesque in caricature as his popularity plummeted with the populace. It was almost a blessing, she mused, that in his case the shrinking in size of his editorial depictions diminished somewhat the graphic affront of their visual pilloryings.

“We're off!” Morowitz announced over the revving whine of Marine One's twin General Electric engines and its rotors' accelerating whupwhupwhup as they lifted the twelve-ton machine from the American Enterprises helipad. The president, his face wearing an expression that mitigated its perpetual near-grimace with a half-smile, rotated his head slightly to acknowledge the three other passengers, across the aisle. Rose watched the others as they met his gaze. It occurred to her that despite his uncomfortably odd physical appearance Morowitz enjoyed a certain magnetism, which the camera lens never seemed to catch but which came through in person. A natural grace to his movements, she guessed, all the more noticeable for its incongruence with his body's architecture. The voice helped too, she knew. Resonating urbane masculine confidence, it served him well in every forum.

He said something now that completely undid that vocal persona, although coming after what had transpired the past two days the reversal was no surprise to his guests.

“I feel strange now, you know?” He was looking at Ruth when he said this, but he let his eyes drift past her toward the narrow cockpit door when he continued, in a tone less distinct, as if thinking aloud. “I mean, I can't go back now, can I. Not really.”

Ruth waited for anything else he might say. Instead, he sighed deeply and turned to the window next to his seat, brushing back the blue curtain and peering into the cotton clouds. Al Geddes did a half-shrug when Ruth caught his eye. He'd played devil's advocate all along, from the moment she told him what Morowitz wanted.