Divide and Conquer o-7 Read online

  But Hood had never believed that work itself was really the problem. It was something older and deeper than that.

  Even when he had resigned his position as director of Op-Center and went to New York for Harleigh’s performance at a United Nations reception, Sharon still wasn’t happy. She was jealous of the attention that other mothers on the junket gave him. Sharon realized that the women were drawn to Hood because he had been a highly visible mayor of Los Angeles. After that, he had held a powerful job in Washington, where power was the coin of the realm. It didn’t matter to Sharon that Hood put no stock in fame and power. It didn’t matter to her that his replies to the women were always polite but short. All Sharon knew was that she had to share her husband again.

  Then came the nightmare. Harleigh and the other young musicians were taken hostage in the Security Council chambers by renegade United Nations peacekeepers. Hood had left Sharon at the State Department’s understaffed crisis center so that he could oversee Op-Center’s successful covert effort to rescue the teenagers and the captive foreign delegates. In Sharon’s eyes, he had not been there for her again. When they returned to Washington, she immediately took the children to her parents’ house in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. Sharon had said she wanted to get Harleigh away from the media zoo that had pursued the children from New York.

  Hood couldn’t argue with that. Harleigh had seen one of her friends seriously wounded and several other people executed. She was almost killed herself. She had suffered the clinical consequences of classic stressor triggers for post-traumatic stress disorder: threats to the physical integrity of herself and others; fear and helplessness; and a guilt response to survival. After all that, to have been surrounded by TV lights and shouting members of the press corps would have been the worst thing for Harleigh.

  But Hood knew that wasn’t the only reason his wife had gone back to Old Saybrook. Sharon herself needed to get away. She needed the comfort and safety of her childhood home in order to think about her future.

  About their future.

  Hood shut off the TV. He put the remote on the night table, lay back on the bunched pillows, and looked up at the white ceiling. Only he didn’t see a ceiling. Hood saw Sharon’s pale face and dark eyes. He saw how they had looked on Friday when she came home and told him she wanted a divorce.

  That wasn’t a surprise. It was actually a relief in some ways. After Hood had returned from New York, he met briefly with the president about repairing the rift between the United States and the UN. Being back at the White House, being plugged into the world, had made him want to withdraw his resignation from Op-Center. He liked the work he was doing: the challenge, the implications, the risk. On Friday evening, after Sharon had told him of her decision, he was able to withdraw his resignation with a clear conscience.

  By the time Hood and Sharon talked again on Saturday, the emotional distancing had already begun. They agreed that Sharon could use their family attorney. Paul would have Op-Center’s legal officer, Lowell Coffey III, recommend someone for him. It was all very polite, mature, formal.

  The big questions they still had to decide were whether to tell the kids and whether Hood should leave the house immediately. He had called Op-Center’s staff psychologist Liz Gordon, who was counseling Harleigh before turning her over to a psychiatrist who specialized in treating PTSD. Liz told Hood that he should be extremely gentle whenever he was around Harleigh. He was the only family member who had been with her during the siege. Harleigh would associate his strength and calmness with security. That would help to speed her recovery. Liz added that whatever instability was introduced by his departure was less dangerous than the ongoing strife between him and his wife. That tension would not show Hood in the light Harleigh needed to see him. Liz also told him that intensive therapy for Harleigh should begin as soon as possible. They had to deal with the problem, or she ran the risk of being psychologically impaired for the rest of her life.

  After having discussed the situation with Liz Gordon, Hood and Sharon decided to tell the kids calmly and openly what was happening. For the last time as a family, they sat in the den — the same room where they had set up their Christmas tree every year and taught the kids Monopoly and chess and had birthday parties. Alexander seemed to take it well after being assured that his life wouldn’t change very much. Harleigh was initially upset, feeling that what had happened to her was the cause. Hood and his wife assured Harleigh that was not the case at all, and they would both be there for her.

  When they were finished, Sharon had dinner with Harleigh at home, and Hood took Alexander out to their favorite greasy pit, the Corner Bistro — the “Coroner Bistro” as the health-conscious Sharon called it. Hood put on his best face, and they had a fun time. Then he came back to the house, quickly and quietly packed a few things, and left for his new home.

  Hood looked around the hotel room. There was a glass-covered desk with a blotter, a lamp, and a folder full of postcards. A queen-sized bed. An industrial-strength carpet that matched the opaque drapes. A framed print of a painting of a harlequin whose outfit matched the carpet. A dresser with a built-in cabinet for a minirefrigerator and another cabinet for the TV. And, of course, a drawer with a Bible. There was also a night table with a lamp like the one on the desk, four waste-baskets, a clock, and a box of tissues he had moved from the bathroom.

  My new home, he thought again.

  Except for the laptop on the desk and the pictures of the kids beside it — last year’s school photos, still in their warping cardboard frames — there was nothing of home here. The stains on the carpet weren’t apple juice Alexander had spilled as a boy. Harleigh hadn’t painted the picture of the harlequin. The refrigerator wasn’t stocked with rows of plastic containers filled with that wretched kiwi-strawberry-yogurt juice that Sharon liked. The television had never shown home videotapes of birthday parties, pool parties, and anniversaries, of relatives and coworkers who were gone. Hood had never watched the sun rise or set from this window. He had never had the flu or felt his unborn child kick in this bed. If he called out to the kids, they wouldn’t come.

  Tears pressed against the backs of his eyes. He turned to look at the clock, anything to break the steady succession of thoughts and pictures. He would have to get ready soon. Time — and government — stopped for no man. He still had professional obligations. But lord God, Hood thought, he didn’t feel like going. Talking, putting on a happy face the way he did with his son, wondering who knew and who didn’t in the instant message machine known as the Washington grapevine.

  He looked up at the ceiling. Part of him had wanted this to happen. Hood wanted the freedom to do his job. He wanted an end to being judged and criticized by Sharon. He also wanted to stop constantly disappointing his wife.

  But another part of him, by far the largest part, was bitterly sad that it had come to this. There would be no more shared experiences, and the children were going to suffer for their parents’ shortcomings.

  As the finality of the divorce hit him, hit him hard, Hood allowed the tears to flow.

  THREE

  Washington, D.C.

  Sunday, 6:32 P.M.

  Sixty-one-year-old First Lady Megan Catherine Lawrence paused before the late-seventeenth-century gilded pier mirror over a matching commode. She gave her short, straight, silver hair and ivory satin gown one last check before picking up her white gloves and leaving her third-floor salon. Satisfied, the tall, slender, elegant woman crossed the South American rug collected by President Herbert Hoover and entered the private presidential bedroom. The president’s private dressing room was directly across from her. As she stepped out, she looked out at the lamp-lit white walls and light-blue Kennedy curtains, the bed that was first used by Grover and Frances Cleveland, the rocking chair where delicate, devoted Eliza Johnson awaited word of her husband Andrew’s impeachment trial in 1868, and the bedside table where each night the seventh president, Andrew Jack-son, would remove a miniature portrait of his dead wife from it
s place beside his heart, set it on the table next to her well-read Bible, and made certain that her face was the first thing he saw each morning.

  As she looked out at the room, Megan smiled. When they first moved into the White House, friends and acquaintances would say to her, “It must be amazing having access to all the secret information about President Kennedy’s missing brain and the Roswell aliens.” She told them the secret was that there was no secret information. The only amazing thing was that, after nearly seven years of living in the White House, Megan still felt a thrill to be here among the ghosts, the greatness, the art, and the history.

  Her husband, former Governor Michael Lawrence, had been president of the United States for one term when a series of stock market tumbles helped the moderate conservative lose a close election to Washington outsiders Ronald Bozer and Jack Jordan. Pundits said it was as much the family lumber fortune of the Oregon redwood that had made the president a target, since he was largely unaffected by the downturn. Michael Lawrence didn’t agree, and he was not a quitter. Rather than become a token partner in some law firm or join the board of directors of his family corporation, the former president stayed in Washington, set up a nonpartisan think tank, American Sense, and was a hands-on manager. He used the next eight years to find ways to fix or fine-tune what he perceived had been wrong with his first term, from the economy to foreign policy to social programs. His think tank members did the Sunday morning talk show circuit, wrote op-ed pieces, published books, and gave speeches. With a weak incumbent vice president to run against, and a new vice president on his own ticket — New York Senator Charles Gotten — Mi chael Lawrence decisively won reelection. His popularity rating remained in the 60 percent region, and reelection was considered a fait accompli.

  Megan crossed the room to the president’s dressing room. The door was shut, which was the only way to keep the bathroom warm, since draftiness came with the old walls and history. That meant her husband was probably still in the shower, which was surprising. Selected guests would be arriving at the second-floor study for a small, private half-hour cocktail reception at seven. Her husband usually liked to be ready fifteen minutes before that to sit with his thick personnel folder and review the likes, dislikes, hobbies, and family data of foreign guests. Tonight, he had the newly appointed acting ambassadors from Sweden and Italy coming up before a state dinner for key United Nations delegates. Their predecessors had been assassinated during the recent siege, and the replacements had been named quickly to show the world that terrorism could not stop the pursuits of peace and diplomacy. The president wanted a chance to meet the two men privately. After that, they’d go down to the Blue Room for a formal predinner reception with other influential United Nations delegates. Then it was on to the dinner itself, which was designed to show unity and support after the attack the previous week.

  The president had come up shortly before six o’clock, which should have given him plenty of time to shower and shave. Megan couldn’t understand what was keeping him. Perhaps he was on the phone. His staff tried to keep calls to the private residence to a minimum, but he’d been getting more and more calls over the past few days, sometimes in the small hours of the morning. She did not want to sleep in one of the guest bedrooms, but she wasn’t a youngster anymore. Years ago, when they first started campaigning for public office, she used to be able to get by on two or three hours of sleep. No more. It had to be even worse on her husband. He was looking more tired than usual and desperately needed rest. The crisis at the United Nations had forced them to cancel a planned vacation in the northwest, and they had not been able to reschedule it.

  The First Lady stopped by the six-panel door and listened. The shower was not running. Neither was the water in the sink. And it didn’t sound as if he was on the phone.

  “Michael?”

  Her husband did not answer. She turned the bright brass handle and opened the door.

  There was a narrow anteroom before the bathroom. In an alcove to the right was a stand-alone cherry wood wardrobe where the president’s valet left his clothes for the day. In an alcove to the left was a matching cherry wood dressing table with a large, brightly lit wall mirror above it. The president was dressed in a royal blue bathrobe. He was standing there, breathing heavily, a look of rage in his narrow blue eyes. His fists were white-knuckle tight at his sides.

  “Michael, are you all right?”

  He glared at her. She had never seen him look so angry and — disoriented was the word that came to mind. It frightened her deeply.

  “Michael, what is it?”

  He looked back at the mirror. His eyes softened and his hands relaxed. His breathing came more easily. Then he slowly lowered himself into a walnut side chair in front of the dressing table.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A moment ago, you looked like you wanted to take a bite out of something,” Megan told him.

  He shook his head. “That was just leftover energy from my exercises,” he said.

  “Your exercises? I thought you were at a meeting before.”

  “I was just doing isometrics,” he told her. “Senator Samuels does them for ten minutes every morning and evening. He says they’re a great tension releaser when you can’t get to the gym.”

  Megan did not believe him. Her husband perspired easily when he exercised. His forehead and upper lip were dry. Something else was happening here. He had seemed increasingly distant the past few days, and it was starting to scare her.

  She stepped forward, coming to his side, and touched his face.

  “Something’s bothering you, hon,” she said. “Talk to me.”

  The president looked at her. “It’s nothing,” he said. “These past couple of days have been rough, that’s all.”

  “You mean the calls at night—”

  “That, plus everything else that’s going on,” the president said.

  “Is it worse than usual?”

  “In some ways,” he said.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not right now,” he said, forcing a little smile. His deep voice had regained some of its vigor and confidence, and his eyes had a little sparkle now. The president took her hands in his and rose. He stood just over six-foot-four. He looked down at her. “You look beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Megan said. “But you’ve still got me worried.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. He looked to his right. There was a shelf with a gold clock that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson. “It’s late,” the president said. “I’d better get ready.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” she told him. “And you’d better do something about your eyes.”

  “My eyes?” he said, glancing at the mirror. He’d gotten up even earlier than she had that morning, and his eyes were severely bloodshot. It was bad for an individual in a position of great responsibility to look weak or tired.

  “I didn’t sleep very well last night,” he said, touching and tugging on the skin around them. “A few eyedrops will take care of that.” The president turned back to his wife and kissed her gently on the forehead. “It’s all right, I promise,” he said, then smiled again and turned away.

  Megan watched as her husband walked slowly toward the bathroom and shut the door. She heard him turn on the shower. She listened. Michael usually hummed rock and roll oldies when he showered. Sometimes he even sang. Tonight he was silent.

  For the first time in a long time, Megan didn’t believe what her husband had told her. No politician was entirely truthful on the outside. Sometimes they had to say what voters and political rivals wanted to hear. But Michael was an honest man on the inside, at least with Megan. When she looked into his eyes, she knew whether or not he was hiding something. When he was, Megan could usually coax him into telling her about it.

  But not today, and that bothered her deeply. She was suddenly very
scared for him.

  Slowly, Megan walked back toward her own dressing room. She pulled on her gloves and tried to concentrate on what she had to do for the next four hours. She had to be an outgoing hostess. She had to be gracious and complimentary to the delegates’ wives. At least she would be with people she didn’t know. It was easier to hide her feelings when she was with strangers. They would not know that she was putting on an act.

  But it would be an act.

  Megan went back into the bedroom. There was a small, early-nineteenth-century mahogany Tambour writing cabinet on her side of the bed. She picked up a folder from her executive secretary and went over the guest list, paying particular attention to the names of the foreign delegates and their wives. There was a phonetic guide beside each name, and she reviewed the pronunciation aloud. The names came easily to the First Lady. She had an affinity for language and had planned on becoming a translator when she met and married her husband. Ironically, she had wanted to work for the United Nations.

  Megan closed the folder and set it down. She looked around the room. The magic was still here, the lurking spirits and the resonance of great drama. But she was also acutely aware of something she didn’t often feel here. Here, in a house that was literally watched by every eye in the world.

  She suddenly felt a great sense of isolation.