“West Virginia’s Third District,” Johnson said on her behalf. “Welcome to the Annex, ma’am.” He leaned forward and addressed the ear of the soldier who’d nearly shot McCrea. “Let her through. Her chief of staff is already here, a Mr. Mulvany?”

“Mulroney,” Victoria corrected.

“Yes, whatever. He’s been here. Just cleared the showers, in fact.”

“Showers?”

“It will make sense when you come in. Speaker Glendale has been asking for you.” Johnson extended his arm in a welcoming gesture as the soldier stepped to the side to make room for her.

Victoria turned back to face down the hill. “Caleb! Luke! Come on up, please.”

Johnson darted forward to fill the gap. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?”

The moment of truth had arrived. “I’m a single mom,” Victoria said. “I’m not leaving my boys alone while I seek shelter for myself.”

Johnson straightened his posture again. “All respect, ma’am, this place is not about shelter for anyone. It’s about the continuance of government.”

The boys arrived at her side. “Caleb and Luke Emerson, please say hello to Mr. Johnson.”

“Hello,” they said in unison.

Johnson ignored the boys. “Ma’am, they will not be allowed to enter the Annex.”

“And why is that?”

McCrea suspected that she understood the rules and the reason behind them, but she wanted to hear Johnson say it in front of others. That wasn’t going to do anything to ease the growing angst within the crowd.

“We simply don’t have the room available, ma’am,” Johnson said. “Five hundred thirty-five members of Congress plus one staff member each is almost eleven hundred people. Some members of Congress have six, seven children. We could never feed them all.”

“You certainly could,” Victoria said.

A crowd was beginning to buzz. They were on her side.

She continued, “As I understand it, when the doors close, they will remain closed for sixty days. If I do my math properly, at three meals per day, that’s a hundred eighty meals per member of Congress. That times eleven hundred . . .” She looked to the sky as she did the math in her head.

“A hundred and ninety-eight thousand,” Caleb said almost instantly.

“Let’s call it two hundred thousand,” Victoria said. “You and your staff have to eat, too. Mr. Johnson, by definition, you are prepared to deliver two hundred thousand meals to the people inside that bunker.”

Johnson said, “Ma’am, I know what you’re trying to do here, and it’s just not gonna happen.”

Victoria pretended not to hear. “Tough times lie ahead for all of us, Mr. Johnson. I know my colleagues, and sooner or later, they’re going to talk about shared sacrifice in the difficult times that lie ahead. Suppose we only feed ourselves one meal per day? That would bring the capacity up to at least three thousand refugees inside, would it not?”