In strict legal terms, President Currey was well insulated from Longbow and the investigation surrounding it. But hundreds of powerful people in Washington who hadn’t been in Finn’s inner circle learned in detail what Currey had really been a part of. These men and women, at all levels of Justice and even the CIA, had no trouble grasping the severity of what had almost happened. Any one of them could stand in their children’s doorways late at night and consider Currey a man who’d intended to kill them. It wasn’t a good situation for the president. He knew it too.
He resigned from office three days into the investigation—yesterday. By that time, comparisons to Watergate had already fallen away. This was something much bigger. Essentially, the entire administration was stepping down. There’d been constitutional scholars on all the cable news nets talking about the event in terms of its logistics. Who the hell was in charge now? And how would that person be selected? Congress had managed to agree, pretty overwhelmingly, on at least a temporary solution: Richard Garner could come out of retirement. Maybe he could even finish out the term he’d been elected to, and 2012 could be another election year as scheduled. No one had offered much resistance to the idea, and Garner had been sworn in two hours before calling Travis on the plane.
All that remained to be squared away were the satellites themselves. They still had plenty of station-keeping propellant on board. Enough to boost them way out into what was called a disposal orbit, where they’d be harmless. But in the end, nearly everyone with any say in the matter had voted to go another route: push the damn things right down into the atmosphere and burn them to cinders.
“You should have a pretty good view of the show from Maui,” Garner said. “First re-entry is a couple hours from now between Hawaii and the Marshall Islands. About half of them should burn up over that area, and they’ll all be gone within the next twenty hours.”
“I’ve got a place in mind,” Travis said.
“Reservation for Rob Pullman?”
“His last.”
“If you want my advice,” Garner said, “try not to have the room to yourself all night.” He managed a laugh. “But who the hell am I to tell people what to do?”
They said good-bye and ended the call.
Travis rented a car at Kahului, went west to Highway 30 and took it south. He followed it clockwise around the broad sweep of the island’s western half, the Pacific at his left blazing with scattered evening sunlight. He passed upscale residential districts and clusters of hotels along the shore. Halfway up the west-side coast he took a left off the highway, and took another a quarter mile later. He pulled into the Hyatt Regency Maui, got out and followed a footpath to the beach. He stopped at the margin where the stone tiles met the sand.
He saw Paige after only a few seconds. She was sitting alone on a towel, staring at the sea. She hadn’t seen him yet.
Travis took out his wallet, withdrew a folded paper he’d kept in it for over two years, and stepped onto the beach.
Acknowledgments
This part would fill half the book if I listed everyone. Thank you to: Diana Gill and Gabe Robinson, for critical guidance throughout the story.
Christine Maddalena, Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, Michael Brennan, and more people than I can probably know, much less thank, at HarperCollins.
Janet Reid, my extremely cool agent, and everyone else at FinePrint, for a million reasons that would fill the other half of the book.
About the Author
PATRICK LEE lives in Michigan. He is the author of The Breach and Ghost Country. To find out more, please visit www.patrickleefiction.com.
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