Silent Waters

Chapter 53

John Penn pushed his son’s wheelchair along the paved path toward the lawns that overlooked the Cliff Walk and Atlantic Ocean. Three secret service agents trailed them.

“Nice to have the rain finally stop, don’t you think?” he asked Owen.

The young man gave him a thumbs up response.

“Tell me if you get cold.”

The nineteen-year-old tapped the arm of his wheelchair. John knew that meant, ‘Okay.’

Owen’s speech was still indistinct. He wasn’t able to pronounce certain vowels, and words tended to run into one another. He hadn’t regained the complete use of his vocal cords after the accident and the tracheotomy, but he could talk. Yet he only chose to exercise that ability with his family.

They were at the end of the campaign, and John now realized how much he missed his privacy. He regretted the discomfort he caused his son, his wife, and his daughter by putting them in the public eye, twenty-four seven.

Owen, though, was the one he felt sorry for most. Anna and Aileen were outspoken and could hand out two jabs for every one that came their way, but Owen had fewer resources to defend himself. He’d been limited to the bed and this wheelchair since he was sixteen. Two weeks after his birthday, he’d been a passenger in a car driven by one of his friends. Speeding, poor road conditions, lack of experience. They could have blamed it on a dozen things. The end result was that the driver had been killed instantly, and Aileen and John had to wait months before knowing if their child was going to make it through.

And Owen had made it. But the extent of his progress continued to be a big unknown. He had the use of both hands, although he lacked many motor skills. He could eat and drink and breathe without any apparatus. John was certain that Owen’s mind was sharper than the rest of the Penn family combined.

As a family, they had come to peace with Owen’s condition. He was alive and that was the most important thing to all of them.

John had been too caught up in the whirlwind of the campaign and how far ahead he was in the polls to take the time to reassess the pros and cons of what he was doing to his family. Today had been an eye-opener. He wasn’t sure anymore which would be the worse fate, losing this election or winning it.

Owen made a motion with his hand, and John looked to their right.

Anthony McCarthy was coming their way, and from the look on the man’s face and the length of his strides, John decided his campaign manager must be pissed off. The senator shook his head. He could only imagine what this was about.

McCarthy joined them where the two paths merged some twenty yards ahead. McCarthy and Owen exchanged a handshake.

“I’ve arranged a news conference for six o’clock. You should be inside, Senator, preparing.”

“I don’t have to prepare anything, because there isn’t going to be a news conference.”

“I knew it,” McCarthy said with a heavy sigh. “John, don’t do this to me.”

The senator was getting to know this routine. Temper followed by the laying on of guilt. The second tactic always worked better on him than the first.

He didn’t even look at his manager. “We agreed about this yesterday, Anthony. No. In fact, I think it was last week. No more campaigning. I’m spending the evening with my family. That’s all there is to it.”

“A week ago, even yesterday, you were light years ahead of Hawkins in the polls. Right now, with what’s happened, it’s suddenly a dead heat. He’s had ample opportunities to be in front of television screens today, tooting his own horn.”

“He’s been doing his job as the president,” Penn corrected.

“He’s been taking credit for it, too. Now it’s time for you to go out there and remind the American people that the end results wouldn’t have been any different if you were the one in office. The armed forces were the ones who got the job done. No personal glory belongs to Hawkins.”

Penn moved Owen’s chair next to a bench so that his son was facing them. “I would never stand at a podium and tell the American people a blatant lie. And that would be a lie. The end result would have been different if I were the one calling the shots.”

McCarthy brought a hand to his forehead. “You would never admit that you were planning to meet the hijackers’ demands.”

“I wouldn’t say that because it isn’t true,” Penn said, bristling. “What I wouldn’t have done was to go in front of everyone and say that the crisis was over when those hijackers are still running free somewhere. This thing is far from over, but Hawkins is using the retaking of the submarine to swing votes. The problem is that he has jumped the gun. How can he know that the hijacking wasn’t the first step in a multi-pronged attack strategy? That a runaway oil tanker in the Midwest won’t barrel into a government building. Or that some kind of missile isn’t being aimed this minute at the Golden Gate Bridge. Or any of a dozen other possible disasters. He can’t know, and he’s irresponsible for telling Americans that they are safe.”

“These are the concerns he’ll bring up on Wednesday, the day after the election,” McCarthy reminded him. “Right now, there’s only one thing on Hawkins’s mind and that is winning votes.”

“Well, that’s wrong,” Penn said passionately. “We’re no safer than we were three hours ago. That submarine is still sitting in the Sound, and he can’t know that it won’t be blown to pieces at any moment, poisoning the most densely populated area in the country with radiation that will render this area uninhabitable for the next ten thousand years. He doesn’t have a clue what’s become of the people responsible for that hijacking. This job isn’t even half done.”

“Why don’t you go to that press conference at six and tell the reporters what you just said?” McCarthy persisted.

Penn shrugged and sat on the bench next to Owen. “I can’t. I hate backseat drivers. That’s never been my style.”

“I can’t fucking believe it,” McCarthy cursed. “You’re getting cold feet. You’re turning your back on everything you’ve done so far.”

“It’s not that,” Penn said, planting his elbows on his knees, looking down at the grass growing between blocks of stone.

“Then what is it?”

There were plenty of reasons, but the most important one was the young man sitting in the wheelchair next to him. John looked up, shaking his head, unable to respond.

Owen’s hand reached for his father’s. John took it and looked over at his son.

“You owe it to people, Dad,” Owen said in his slow, labored way. “Hawkins is an asshole. We need you to tell truth. Go out… tell them. Please, Dad. Do it for me. For Mom. For all of us.”