The children of the world are killing themselves by the thousands, and her daughter is missing. How can any of them be here, acting like the world hasn’t fallen off its axis, like they aren’t all careening toward extinction?
She stands, drops the wad of stained paper into the bowl, flushes. She can do this. She can win this. For her mother, who worked two jobs. For her father, who was never too busy to help her with her homework. For her sister, who died of ovarian cancer when she was twenty-seven, for Remy, for Hadrian, for Story.
This is what winners do. They win.
She touches her hair, straightens her blouse, and then—taking control of her emotions, dropping them down a deep dark hole—she reaches for the door.
*
The gallery is packed when they reach the Senate hearing room, as if the town can sense that the end is near. All the seats are full, with standing room in the back. They have come to support her, to taunt her, or simply to catch the best drama in town. Margot keeps her eyes light as she enters, lets her lawyer lead the way to her seat. She pulls out her chair, aware of flashbulb pops, aware that her image is going out live. Smoothing her skirt, she becomes aware that Remy is still outside the doors of the hearing room. He is talking to a man in a black suit with an earwig. As they talk, Remy looks in Margot’s direction, eyes wide. But Margot doesn’t have time to process the look, because the Justice Committee chairman has entered. She stands respectfully as he takes his seat, bangs the gavel.
Behind him, as the inner doors are being closed, another senator enters, Kurt LaRue, junior senator from Idaho. He is wearing a camel hair overcoat on top of his blue suit, despite the heat.
The chairman bangs his gavel, calling the session to order. “Okay, okay,” he says, “settle down.”
Margot sits. There is something about the scene that sets her teeth on edge, a feeling of wrongness, but before she can unpack it, Remy is at her elbow, whispering in her ear.
“They found him,” he says.
“Not now,” Margot says, before she can process the words, aware that she is on camera, that the chairman is thanking her for her patience and professionalism throughout this long process. But Remy refuses to take his seat.
“Felix,” he says. “The boyfriend. They found Story’s boyfriend in Marfa. Arrested him. He’s been arrested.”
Margot turns. “Where?” she hisses.
“West Texas,” he says. “Something about criminal trespass and attempted kidnapping.”
“What?”
“Judge Nadir?” says the chairman pointedly, leaning into his microphone.
“Just a minute, sir,” says Margot, “please. It’s about my daughter.”
A wave of intrigue courses through the room, murmuring voices. The chairman bangs his gavel.
“Order,” he says. “Judge, do you need a recess?”
Margot looks over at the dais. The chairman is in his seat, surrounded by the other senators on the committee. Their aides sit behind them. Officers from the Capitol Police guard the edges of the dais, wary of protesters.
Senator LaRue is standing behind the chairman. He has a narrow chin and a weak comb-over, and he is sweating in his overcoat.
He mumbles something Margot doesn’t hear. Then repeats it louder.
“Mr. Chairman,” he says.
The chairman turns, confused. Why is the junior senator from Idaho standing behind him in a camel hair coat, blinking sweat from his eyes. “What?” the chairman says, the sound of it lost to his microphone.
“I said I have a statement to make,” says LaRue loudly, pulling himself to his full height and facing the cameras.
The chairman scowls, turns his back on the junior senator. “Closing statements will be done in order of seniority,” the chairman tells him. “Sit down.”
Remy squeezes Margot’s arm. “Did you hear me?” he says. “The FBI has Margot’s boyfriend in custody in El Paso.”
Margot’s lawyer leans over, the corners of his mouth tight. “Sit down,” he hisses.
“No!” comes a voice from the front, and everything stops. Startled, Margot turns to see that Senator LaRue has climbed up onto the dais. His arms are outstretched. He appears to be holding something in his right hand. Is it a pen?
“Enough,” he shouts, as the cameras turn. “We are the storm. Look at our majesty and tremble.”
He opens his coat with his left hand. Underneath it is some kind of lumpy black vest.
Margot stands without thinking. Behind her there is a scream. She is aware of the Capitol Police moving toward the dais, aware of the other senators stumbling to their feet, confused, only some of them realizing what is happening. That the junior senator from Idaho has used his lunch break to turn himself into a human bomb.
Margot thinks of her son, safe at the hotel, of her daughter, alive or dead. She has time only to grab her husband’s hand, to say a one-word prayer, and then—
“Long live the God King,” yells Senator LaRue, and everything goes white.
Boogaloo
The Prophet is asleep in his chair when the door bursts open and Homeland Security Nancy comes in with three other agents. They unchain him and hustle him from the room at a dead run, suspending him at the elbows. In the elevator, riding down, the Prophet yawns. He’d been having the most wonderful dream about utopia. Mountain streams and bison, spring snow and summer thaws. Nothing but children as far as the eye could see. They would build houses and grow their own crops. The dream is so vivid, he wakes up crying. But that’s tomorrow’s promise. He must live in the now, for this is the most dangerous moment of all, what happens in the next twenty-four hours. If Simon is free. If he has found the others. If they are moving north. After all, God can show us the path, but he can’t walk it for us.
8. A Scout Is Cheerful
“Are you taking us to Washington DC?” he asks.
“Quiet,” says one of the agents.
The elevator descends. The Prophet hums low in his throat. He has the resting heart rate of a man who knows what’s going to happen next.
“I told you it was close,” he says.