“I am so tired.”

“I understand, David. There’s only one thing left for you to do. Then you can go back to bed for a few hours. Wake up, maybe feel refreshed a little, and be with your family. You can go to Camp David and stay secluded for the duration. No prying eyes. No questions. No decisions to make.”

Barrett looked up. “What do I need to do?”

Keller slipped a piece of paper on the desk in front of him. “I drafted some very brief remarks for you. All they say is everything we’ve discussed. For the good of the country, you’re stepping aside indefinitely. You are appointing Vice President Mark Baylor to the role of Interim President on your behalf. President Baylor should be considered to have all the powers of the Presidency until further notice.”

Barrett picked up the paper. He stared at it, but didn’t seem to read it. It seemed like it could have been upside down for all he cared.

“We can tape the segment right here in the office. No reporters. No questions. A simple statement from you. Twenty minutes later, Mark takes the Oath of Office.”

Barrett slid the paper back onto the desk. He gazed around the Oval Office for a long moment.

“Okay,” he said.

* * *

The surge in confidence was palpable. Even a jaded old hand like Lawrence Keller, a man who had been through decades of political infighting in Washington, could feel the difference.

A new group moved through the hallways of the West Wing. At the head of the pack, aides and assistants double-stepping to keep pace, was Interim President of the United States Mark Baylor. Keller the long-distance runner moved along fluidly beside him.

Baylor was tall, like they all were. He was broad, a little broader now than was probably healthy. His hair was white. He was from a rich family, like David Barrett, but somehow it was a different kind of wealth.

Eight generations before, a hardscrabble male ancestor of Baylor’s had stepped off a sailing ship from England, and immediately set about acquiring vast areas of northern wilderness, regardless of how the people who already lived there felt about it. The Baylor family were lumber barons, and had been for two centuries.

Mark Baylor had attended East Coast prep schools, just like any other member of the ruling class. But he took no military deferments—his family wouldn’t hear of it. He deferred his entry to Yale instead, and joined the Marine Corps as a raw recruit on Parris Island. He took his lumps, served in Vietnam, and came back with two Purple Hearts for his troubles. Then he went to Yale.

It had seemed all along to Keller that Mark Baylor wasn’t the Vice President. He was the President in waiting. The shadow President.