“This discussion is all well and good,” Representative Gerald Younger pointed out. Like the Secretary of State, he was technically an interloper in this building, but many representatives were in and out of the Senate Building on a regular basis. Younger was one of them. He was also several decades younger than any of the discussion’s other participants, and his tone was brisk, almost impatient. “The fact is, though, that whatever we may think, President Pritchart doesn’t agree with us. And with all due respect, Arnold, it looks to me like she’s holding the rest of the Cabinet in line with her own policy.”

“Yes, she is… so far,” the older Giancola admitted. “But it’s not as cut and dried as it may look from the outside. Theisman is completely in her corner, of course. So are Hanriot, LePic, Gregory, and Sanderson, to one degree or another.” Rachel Hanriot was the Secretary of the Treasury, Denis LePic was the Attorney General, Stan Gregory was the Secretary of Urban Affairs, and Walter Sanderson was the Interior Secretary. “But Sanderson is more than half way to seeing things my way, and Nesbitt, Staunton, and Barloi have both told me privately that they agree with me.” Toby Nesbitt was the Secretary of Commerce, Sandra Staunton was the Secretary of Biosciences, and Henrietta Barloi was the Secretary of Technology. “So if Sanderson decides to come out openly on our side, the Cabinet will actually be split almost straight down the middle.”

“It will?” Younger sounded surprised, and his expression was thoughtful.

“Damn right it will,” the Secretary of State replied.

“What about Trajan and Usher?” Younger asked. Wilhelm Trajan’s Foreign Intelligence Service and Kevin Usher’s Federal Investigation Agency both came under the Justice Department and reported to LePic, much to Giancola’s resentful chagrin. In his opinion, Justice should have the FIA, but State should have jurisdiction over ForInt. Pritchart hadn’t seen things that way, and her decision to place both under LePic was one more point of contention, as far as he was concerned.

“Both of them are lined up behind the President, of course,” he said testily. “What else did you expect? But neither of them holds a cabinet-level appointment, either. They’re just very senior bureaucrats, and what they think or don’t think doesn’t affect the balance of power, if you will, in the Cabinet.”

“Which won’t matter a great deal,” McGwire pointed out calmly. “Eloise Pritchart is the President, after all. Under the Constitution, that means her one vote outnumbers all the rest of the Cabinet combined. And even if it didn’t, do you really want to risk pissing off Thomas Theisman?”

“If he were a Pierre or a Saint-Just, I wouldn’t,” Giancola said frankly. “But he’s not. He really is obsessed with restoring ‘the rule of law.’ If he weren’t, he never would have brought in Pritchart in the first place.”

“And if he thinks you’re challenging the ‘rule of law,’ you’re likely to get a chance to exchange personal notes with Oscar Saint-Just,” McGwire said dryly.