“They might be right,” Bidwell said. “The next in line under the Constitution is the Speaker.”
“The Speaker is Colonel Robertson's brother-in-law,” Wilson said. “Is there any indication that the Speaker might be inclined to go along with all this?”
“All what, Uncle Tim?” Taylor came out of the bathroom.
“It's on the television, Taylor,” Hardesty said quietly. “That story that we heard on the radio in the car – the story that you and your dad and your Uncle Tim were missing, and that I was holding you hostage.”
“But that isn't true,” Taylor said.
“Sometimes,” Bidwell said gravely, “Taylor, when ... grownups want to get things their way, they imagine the worst thing they can imagine someone doing, and then they tell that to other people as if it were true. That's what's happening here.”
“Is that why that man accused you and Aunt Mickie of cheating Uncle Ben?”
Hardesty's mouth fell open and Wilson looked like he'd been sucker-punched, but Bidwell nodded. “That's exactly why.”
Taylor turned and looked at the other grownups. “Dad would never cheat Uncle Ben. They work together all the time. They've been working together since I was little. Aunt Mickie and Tasha and Caylee are our friends, too. I used to stay with them after school, until Dad finished working in his office in the evenings.”
“Taylor,” Wilson said, “I know that. I've been with your Dad for years, too.” He sighed and looked across at Hardesty. “I even know how it started. A letter from overseas to a lonely man, who needed to talk to someone with a woman's perspective after he read it – and the woman he went to talk to happened to be his best friend's wife, who had her own worries about her husband's workload. Not to mention basic things like this health and safety.
“I didn't realize it was anything but a conversation between friends – I still don't think it was. But when the senior aide to the Joint Chiefs comes double-timing down the hall asking for the Vice President ...” he sighed and shook his head. “I opened the door, and there they were, crying, with their arms around each other.
“Robertson said something – I don't even remember what it was, now, but he took off like a scalded dog. That afternoon we got the telegram about Mrs. Bidwell ...”
Hardesty wrapped Taylor in a hug. “So for five solid months, this thing's been building up based on that ...petty ... excuse?”
Bidwell, wearily, shook his head. “No,” he said. “This thing's been building up for a lot longer than that. I know what Robertson said, Tim. The word was miscegenation.”
Wilson closed his eyes and stepped backward, shaken to the core. Hardesty looked up at the man who'd hired her to tutor his son. He stood there, looking at them.
“I swear I never thought about it, before what Robertson said that day, but yes, I do know what that must have looked like to him. A man who sees what he hopes he can use against someone, before he looks for the truth – that's the kind of man Robertson has always been. It's a very good thing, in some professions. It makes a lot of sense if you're on a battlefield and can't be sure who's on your side, for example. But it must be a difficult way to run your life – as if you never knew for sure whose side anybody's on.” He shook his head. “He's wrong about what he saw that day, although ... Mikaela is a lovely woman. In hindsight I guess I should've realized just exactly how believable a scandal like that could seem, for someone who ... didn't trust me.”
Taylor shook off Hardesty's hold and ran to his dad. “It's not you. He ... hates ... Uncle Ben and Aunt Mickie, Dad, and Tasha and Kayli too. He called them ... mud people.”
Wilson whitened further, and Bidwell ground his teeth. Hardesty put her head in her hands.
“I can't believe a senior officer would express that kind of prejudice in front of a child,” she said finally.
“I can,” Bidwell said. “I'm enough older than you two so that I remember when the services were separate, when schools and theaters and churches were segregated and black people were supposed to ride in the back of the bus and drink at different bubblers. I thought ... we'd come past that, when Ben won.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I thought we had a chance to just move on into a better future. It felt like we could put all those ugly old ideas away, because they didn't matter any more.
“I should have been paying closer attention.”
Hardesty sighed and shook her head. “So many people were so happy, when the two of you won, five years ago.”
“Five years ago. It's a lifetime. So much work done, but so much still to do,” Bidwell said slowly. “I so hoped Taylor would be able to grow up without having to do this part over again.”
“Stubborn things, people and stupidity,” Hardesty muttered.
Wilson launched a comment into the room. “Is there any truth to what Robertson's been suggesting?”
“Oh, sure,” Bidwell said archly.
“No,” Wilson said. “Not the personal ugliness. The political ugliness.”
“That we were going to reprioritize the budget, overhaul the structure of the armed forces?” Bidwell leaned back against the cabinet. “Of course. We had to figure out ways to pay for the things we need, Tim. I thought you'd heard enough of the meetings to realize that.”
“I heard plenty,” Wilson said. “But I confess, I didn't understand everything I heard.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I'm a bodyguard, when you come right down to it. My specialty is protection – not policymaking.”
Hardesty began to pace around the couch.
“We gotta talk to Uncle Ben,” Taylor said. “Aunt Mickie, too.”
“That much is indisputable,” Bidwell said. “How to arrange that, though ... that's what we're not sure about, Taylor. We don't even know exactly where your Aunt Mickie and the girls are.”
“I thought they were supposed to be checking out a school for Tasha to go to,” Taylor said.
“The TV this morning ...” Wilson began.
“Gave implications otherwise,” Hardesty reminded him, emphasizing a word very subtly. Wilson's eyes widened, and then he began to nod.
“Hostages,” was all he said.

(To be continued)