Berry, Steve - Cotton Malone 11 - The 14th Colony by Berry Steve

Author:Berry, Steve [Berry, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, United States, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense, Crime, Murder, Historical, Spies & Politics, Espionage, Political, Thrillers
ISBN: 1473628296
Amazon: B0140MQTP8
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2016-04-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

WASHINGTON, DC

Stephanie led the way into the Oval Office, Luke close on her heels. Danny had told them to come straight here from Annapolis, sleep would have to wait. Inside she spotted the president and his chief of staff, along with one other visitor.

Nikolai Osin.

“Close the door,” Danny said to Luke.

She noticed how the office had changed, the walls bare in places, the array of photographs and memorabilia that Danny liked to scatter everywhere all gone. Thirty-seven hours from now his time behind the Resolute desk would end and a new president would assume power, a man who would decorate the Oval Office to suit his own taste.

“Kind of depressing, isn’t it?” Danny said, noticing her scan of the room.

“It’s what makes this country great,” she said.

Where other nations struggled with transitions of power, here it happened seamlessly. The Constitution originally provided that a president would be elected in November and assume office the following March 4. Eventually, those ensuing four months proved a problem. Seven states seceded during the time between Buchanan’s exit and Lincoln’s arrival. The Great Depression deepened waiting for Roosevelt to take control from Hoover. A lame-duck president, right or wrong, came to be perceived as no more than a default leader, his opinion irrelevant—while the incoming president suffered from not yet being legally empowered to do anything.

The 20th Amendment changed all that, ending a president’s term precisely at noon on January 20. Acts of Congress followed that required the incoming president be provided a full transition team, access to all government services, training for new personnel, and funding to handle any and all costs. She knew what would happen at 12:01 P.M. Sunday, just after President Warner Scott Fox took the oath. Files and records that had not already been removed would immediately be purged. Access codes and passwords would change. New faces would flood into the White House and immediately assume their duties. Even the archives of speeches, press briefings, announcements, and videos concerning the past eight years of the Daniels administration would vanish from the White House’s official website. By 12:05 the transition would be complete, without government ever losing a beat.

“That’s the thing about us,” Danny said. “So civilized. But it’s still damn depressing. And I told my people, no pranks.”

It had become commonplace for the old to leave a few surprises for the new. The most famous was when the Clinton people removed W’s from keyboards before the younger George Bush took the oath.

She sat on a settee with Luke, facing Osin and Edwin Davis. Danny filled a high-backed Tennessee rocker. How many times had she been here? Too many to count. How many crises? More than her share.

And this could be her last.

“You do realize that I no longer carry a security clearance,” she said. “I’m officially a civilian.”

“And Edwin’s looking for a job, Osin may get killed, Luke there, on Monday, has to go to work for somebody else, and I’m a lame duck. We all got our problems.

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