“Right. You realize we’re not the easiest people for her to live with these days.”
“Easier than Mark,” Raquel sniffed. “He liked to make Mom feel like dog-doo. Even I remember that.”
“I used to want her to hit him with something,” Becca put in. “A baseball bat.”
Ben was impressed. Ordinarily Becca was calm and even-tempered. “So we’re not going to mention any of this at home,” he said. “Okay?”
“Of course we won’t,” Raquel answered.
“She’s going to find out anyway,” Becca pointed out.
“Sooner or later. But let’s not have it be here at home.”
Becca cocked an eye, frowning, looking as if she was examining the statement. “It would be a lot easier for her if she’d just read some of Dove’s talks. She’d have an explanation then, even if she didn’t believe it.”
“I’ve suggested that to her. She says she doesn’t have time. ‘Maybe later.’ ” He set quotation marks with his fingers.
Becca shrugged. “I’m glad I didn’t grow up with her parents. It had to be tough, being a late-cycle mature warrior, growing up with a fledgling warrior mother and a fledgling priest father. No common reality, just orders and lectures! I suppose it was something she had to experience for the lessons, but she’s my mom, and I hate to see her go through stuff like she does.”
Raquel went to Ben and hugged his neck. “I’m glad she’s married to you now,” she said.
“Why, thank you, Miss Shoreff. I’m glad too.”
Legally the girls still wore Mark’s name, but they’d have been offended if he’d used it. They were even registered in school as Shoreff.
The three of them finished their drinks quietly, as if thinking. Even Raquel said nothing more till they were nearly done. It was Ben who broke the quiet.
“It’d be a good idea for you two to go back to bed now. There’s school tomorrow.”
“Are you going back to bed too?” Raquel asked.
“Yes, I think I will. I thought I’d sit up and read awhile, but I guess what I really wanted was to talk to you guys.”
They all went back to bed then, and before long even the girls were asleep.
62
Phone Calls
Each morning, Florence Metzger read the news clippings excerpted for her by her computer. She’d given it a number of key topics, which it used to glean articles from a large array of newsfax, papers, telecasts and zines. One of those topics was Millennium, another Ngunda. Anyone who’d taken the interest of the public so strongly, and drew such crowds worldwide—who’d created such a following and such fierce hostility, from Kabul to Dubuque, from Melbourne to Reykjavik—anyone like that was important. And if some nut case succeeded in killing him . . .
The man preached hope, a hope tied in with self-responsibility. His murder would be a public wound, and the public was already overwounded.
Besides, David was involved with him, admired him, and almost surely helped finance him. The Post said he did, listing him with more than a dozen others, all of them sponsors of Hand and Ladder and Bailout, as well.
Now, according to the clippings, Ngunda was going to tour the South and Midwest in a bus, of all things. She couldn’t imagine anything that would present more security problems for him, or more opportunities for the people who wanted him dead.
Reaching, she tapped out David’s confidential access. It took a minute, and twice her quick fingers had to tap out further instructions; he’d augmented his firewall since the Black Plague.
Finally she had him. When he saw who it was, he activated his own camera, so she could see too.
“Good morning, Madam President. It’s nice to see your worried face this morning. Can I do something for you?”
“You can advise me. I see by the fax that Ngunda has a bus tour scheduled for the Midwest and South—which scares the bejasus out of me. I don’t want to see him killed; it would be bad for the country at a time like this. But I have the impression from the media that he pays little attention to risks, so I intend to dog his tour with federal marshals, and try to get him through it alive. And it will help if he’s cooperative. Can you influence him?”