Then the elevator doors opened, and they were underground, in the hubbub of the forming motorcade. Scores of people. Texas State Troopers on motorcycles. More in squad cars. Secret Service in discreetly armored sedans. More sedans for staff and aides. And the special vehicles: the armed and armored Rapid Response vehicles that held Secret Service squads dressed more like marines than bodyguards; the Hazmat vehicle for responding to a bio- radio- or chem-attack on the President; the White House Comms vehicle with its ultra-high-bandwidth links from which you could run the free world; the Local Air Superiority Vehicle, with its fleet of hundreds of tiny drones and counter drones, equipped to ensure the President’s convoy was never taken by surprise.

The Army Colonel with the Football, the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes.

How did I go from writing policy briefs to this? Pryce wondered.

Did it help that Stephen was dead? She felt a pang of guilt at the thought. But it wasn’t the first time it had struck her.

Would I have made it this far if my husband had lived? If we’d had the kid we’d planned to have?

ther women have

“Carolyn!” Stockton snapped.

Pryce looked up. A Secret Service agent was holding open a door to the Beast, the custom limousine the President rode in. A vehicle like no other.

“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, and strode forward, into the belly of the Beast, and took her seat facing backwards, towards the President and his wife.

John Stockton was looking out the window. And Pryce felt even guiltier for the thought she’d just had. During Stephen’s cancer, and afterwards… The Stocktons had been good to her. Both John and Cindy had supported her, back when he’d been a Senator, and then VP.

And if she’d thrown herself into the job? If work was all she did the last decade?

Work was rational. Work was analytical. Work had always been something she excelled at – since grad school, since her doctorate, since her first book. She could break down problems into smaller problems, see how the pieces fit together, articulate them in ways others could understand, quantify things previously unquantified, propose solutions others had never seen.

She sighed. Throwing herself into that was easier than coping with a dead husband. With not having the child she’d planned to have.

The police cruiser lights came on. Pryce turned to look out the Beast’s window. Drones took flight, flanking the ground-based vehicles, ready to spring out to expand their surveillance and intercept any fast moving hostile.

Then they were moving. They went up the ramp, out into dim pre-dawn light of Houston at 6am.

Then she saw the protest.