Wisecarver stepped throughout the edge. “Good morning, Mr. President.” He gave a bit of nod. Beneath his arm he carried a single binder. “Good morning, Trent.” Smith gestured for Wisecarver to sit down with him on the couch whereas Hunt and Hendrickson sat reverse. As they settled in, Julia caught Wisecarver glancing on the half dozen different binders unfold throughout the espresso desk, as if gauging the competitors. The president cleared his throat. “As you all know, Speaker Wisecarver believes a unity government, in which I’d select a vice president from his party, would be in the best interests of our country …”

Julia felt her godfather shift in his seat, as if he couldn’t fairly abdomen the concept Wisecarver’s curiosity within the matter had something to do with the nation versus his personal bare ambition. While the president spoke, Wisecarver regarded across the room, his eyes working the partitions. As Speaker, he’d been within the Oval Office loads of instances earlier than as a visitor of President Castro, however he gave the impression to be taking all of it in for the primary time, as if he had been rearranging the furnishings in his creativeness and, fairly actually, measuring the drapes.

Smith completed. It was Wisecarver’s flip to talk: “With the loss of President Castro, our country has gone through a significant trauma. Now it’s time for us to heal. The formation of a unity government is an important first step in that healing process. The people are in the streets telling us this. We can’t afford to ignore them any longer. Really, we have little choice in the matter. Either we heal together, or we tear ourselves apart.”

“Is that a suggestion?” Hendrickson requested. “Or an ultimatum?”

“It’s a reality, Bunt.” Wisecarver glanced down on the binders on the desk. “If you pick one of those candidates, you’re tying my hands.”

“Tying your hands how?” Hendrickson leaned ahead in order that he was perched on the sting of the couch.

“Well, for starters, they won’t go home anytime soon,” and Wisecarver gestured to the encampment out the window. “There’s also the commission investigating President Castro’s death to consider, a process that could drag on, depending on who we in the Congress appoint to lead it. If you need more reasons than those two, I could continue.”

“That won’t be necessary,” the president stated to Wisecarver. He turned to Hendrickson with a appear to be a baby pleading with an excessively protecting mum or dad. He couldn’t maintain this degree of battle, the protests across the nation, the machinations of his political rivals. Like any performer, Smith cared deeply what different individuals considered him and couldn’t tolerate being hated, or a minimum of being hated to this diploma. He had all of a politician’s neediness with none of the crafty. He was doomed.

Julia Hunt might see her godfather reconsidering what Wisecarver provided. A unity authorities would de-escalate the present disaster, a minimum of within the close to time period. In the long run, elevating a Truther might show an astute transfer. It would diffuse Wisecarver’s energy inside the social gathering. Also, relying on who that individual was, having regular management—a minimum of steadier than Smith—might assist stabilize the nation, or a minimum of preserve it from tearing itself aside, to make use of Wisecarver’s phrases. But all of it trusted who he was proposing.

Hendrickson requested for the title.

Wisecarver reached throughout the espresso desk and handed him the binder he’d introduced, with its pages of due diligence. Julia Hunt leaned over her godfather’s shoulder as he opened it. Of course, she thought. On the primary web page she glimpsed the official portrait of Senator Nat Shriver.

COMING SOON

2054, Part V: From Tokyo With Love
“Had this all been contrived? Had his life become a game in which everyone knew the rules but him?”

From 2054: A Novel, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, USN, to be printed on March twelfth, 2024, by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis.

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