He pulls a piece of paper from a folder and turns it toward Cole. He points to a signature line and holds out a pen. “Sign here, please.”

Cole takes the pen. “What is this? What am I signing?”

“Pending official processing,” says the administrator, “you’re being released into the custody of the president of the United States.”

One of the guards takes Cole by the arm. “This way.” The other guards fall in behind them. They pass through a series of doors and corridors and arrive at a loading area with enough clearance for a semitruck.

When Cole is about ten feet from the loading bay’s door, an earsplitting Klaxon sounds. In one smooth motion, the door, via a mechanism that resembles a bank vault’s, appears to split in two, one part rising up and the other sinking into the floor.

Through the opening, Cole sees a floodlit road and a line of state trooper vehicles, lights flashing. A heavy black SUV roars up to the entrance and brakes to a stop.

Cole feels the grip on his arm release. He’s through the doorway and standing free.

The rear door of the SUV opens. Agent Doug Lambert steps out.

“Good morning, sir. Air Force One is waiting in Portsmouth. We’re here to take you home.”

CHAPTER
139

The White House

Three days later, once Maddy and Cole have shared sighs of relief, tears of joy, and their determination to make the state of their union unbreakable, the president delivers a speech to Congress.

“Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you today about trust.”

Maddy faces the full Congress, the members of her cabinet, the Supreme Court justices, and the guests in the gallery, all arrayed before her. And through the TV cameras placed strategically around the chamber, she faces the entire country as well. All are waiting and wondering what she will say.

She knows she has to nail this one.

In preparing what she would say and how she would say it, she researched FDR presenting the New Deal and Social Security to the country in the wake of the Great Depression, and LBJ presenting Medicare while the country still mourned the assassination of President Kennedy.

She knew she’d have everyone’s attention and only one chance to get it right.

“For most of the last year, my husband and I leaned hard on trust. Some days it seemed trust was all we had. And as you can imagine, it was sorely tested.

“We trusted the justice system, that it would eventually discover the truth and find the First Gentleman innocent of all the charges against him. We trusted the men and women who pursue and dispense justice every day of their working lives.

“In the end, our faith was justified, and we are both profoundly grateful for that.