• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The two of them had a six-thirty A.M. breakfast in the Senate dining room. Markum simply told Roman that if the Constitution was changed, his son-in-law could be elected president. Roman didn’t act surprised. In fact, he agreed. “He’s a genius, that boy. And the people love him.”

“So don’t you think it’s about time to amend the damn thing?” Markum asked him.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. When the founding fathers wrote the thing, China was on another planet and every other country was a threat. Wasn’t the whole point of the United States to get away from the world?”

“Yeah. It sure was.”

“Fine. So that’s over. We’re partners now. You watch. Los Angeles is the first one but other cities are going to follow. Hell, if I were Michigan, I would beg the Chinese to fix Detroit. And if this is going to happen, what the hell’s wrong with letting a brilliant Chinese guy run things for a while? We still have Congress. We still can veto. We still have the Supreme Court. The whole country’s not going to turn into Chinese, it just finally might make sense to let a brilliant guy take charge.”

Henry Roman did not disagree. Finally, after a moment, he jokingly said, “Would you feel this way if he wasn’t your son-in-law?”

“Damn right I would. But he is my son-in-law, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have the ear of the president of the United States.”

“It’s an interesting idea, Stanley. And maybe the time is right. Maybe it’s exactly what we need.”

Stanley Markum got up from the table. “Let’s do this, Henry. If it can’t happen now, it will never happen. The people love this guy; his country is saving our ass. Let’s do this.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

The investigation of Charles Cass, Nate’s brother, continued. A grand jury determined there was enough evidence for a trial. When Susanna Colbert heard the news she expected a contact, but Nate Cass was a man of his word and he did not talk to her again. Hopefully the trial would not go badly and Nate would have other things to do in his life that were more important than getting back at Matthew Bernstein.

What Susanna had not thought through was how much Nate Cass loved revenge. When someone has that much money, there are few things left that give real pleasure, and they usually involve either giving or taking. When giving gets boring, some of the very rich only get their rocks off by depriving others. One would think that after someone has made enough money to last several lifetimes this would dissipate, but the individuals who love revenge love it even more when they can afford it.

Susanna was tempted to contact Nate one last time to see if she could still smooth things over, but her days were too busy, so she let it go. She not only had the responsibility at Treasury, but the President wanted her to travel with him whenever possible.

At the moment they were on their way to Denver for a fund-raising event. Normally this would be a function that John Van Dyke would attend, not her. But Van Dyke said he needed to stay in Washington, that there were some pressing issues, and the President didn’t really care. As long as Susanna was with him, he was happy.

When Bernstein left town, Van Dyke knew it was the right moment to finally have a private conversation with the First Lady, something he felt was long overdue. Betsy invited him to the residence and they sat in her upstairs office. She was very friendly, feeling almost sorry that he had been put in a position of marriage counselor. She pretended she didn’t know why he wanted the meeting. “What’s the problem, John? Something wrong?”

“Betsy, I haven’t said anything to you earlier because I didn’t know if it was my place, but I know how serious this is and I know that I would hate myself if I didn’t give it the college try.”

“How serious what is?” Now Betsy was playing with him. She couldn’t help it, it was just too easy.

“You and the President.”

She smiled. She gave a little nod as if to say, “Oh, that.”

“Do you mind