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He looks to the clock.
Thirty-five minutes left.
He listens hard but nothing comes to him.
His resignation … a piece of theater, that’s all. Even if it’s signed and acknowledged, who will take over? The vice president, in a coma? The disgraced speaker of the House, stuck on an aircraft heading to California? The president pro tempore of the Senate, who, he knows, wears adult diapers and forgets his name afterlunch? The secretary of state, in Davos at this moment, heavily drunk and consorting with high-priced escorts?
No, it’ll be a temporary theater.
Sign the damn paper, get these bitches out of his office, and return to work.
Who will be believed?
The president of the United States?
Or the CIA director, whom he just fired?
He opens the center desk drawer of theResolutedesk, finds a piece of plain stationery withTHE WHITE HOUSEcentered at the top of the page, along with a drawing of it.
Taking a pen, he makes a short series of phrases addressing it to his secretary of state, after scrawling in today’s date:
Dear Secretary Bray,
I hereby resign the office of the President of the United States.
Sincerely,
Keegan Barrett
He starts to say, “I’ll have this couriered over to the deputy secretary of state at his office—”
And is shocked when Hannah Abrams takes it from his hand.
She scrawls something at the bottom, stands up.
“No offense, sir,” she says. “I’ll take care of it. Noa?”
Noa Himel gets up and shoots one more disgusted look at Barrett, but he keeps quiet, knowing that no matter what these two are up to, the clock is running out.
The Oval Office door swings open, but Hannah turns.
“This was for the best, sir. You have my deep appreciation, and that of the people of the United States.”
He clears his throat. “Get out of my sight.”
CHAPTER 142
OUTSIDE OF THE Oval Office, her security officer Ralph stands up. She’s surprised to see chief of staff Quinn Lawrence standing there as well, like a battered son waiting to see how mom and dad’s latest fight will shake out. There’s even a huddle of White House staffers down the corridor, looking at them, not sure what they’re looking at, only knowing that something historic is going on.
Hannah hands the resignation letter—with her initials and the time scrawled on the bottom—to Ralph. “Get the hell over to the State Department as fast as you can, and if you have to run people down, do it. Make sure it’s hand delivered to the deputy secretary of state.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, glancing at the letter and breaking into a run.
Her bag is flashing again.
She takes out the Agency-issued cell phone, sees the second FLASH message of the day, feels like collapsing in relief.
“Quinn … you’ve been a hero today. Honest to God. President Barrett resigned a moment ago. Best as you can, keep an eye on him, ignore any orders and directives he might issue.”