Saints and Sinners

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Camp David

Frederick County

Maryland

Not many people realised that Camp David was only sixty-two miles from the White House and that the President could be there in about twenty minutes if he took his helicopter from the White House lawns. Howard Procter did not like helicopters. He spent the entire journey clinging onto the arms of his seat for dear life, whilst his little girls loved every minute of it from the look of them, and his dear Olivia sat with Hayleigh Bateman, lost in her prayers and hopefully spared his terror. Bill Bateman sat beside Procter, laughing at him, but it was soon over and he took his friend into his study for a much-needed reviver. They were spending the weekend reviewing the developing plans for affordable healthcare, delivered by the convent hospitals. Planning was well ahead of construction, partly because they wanted to see what happened in Boston, with Fletcher inspiring demonstrations and filing civil suits against them with gay abandon.

"The irony is that public opinion in Boston is still on our side?" Procter sighed as he drank his whisky, glad to feel the floorboards under his feet, his stomach returning to normal, whilst his heart rate settled down. "Fletcher can scream blue murder about the conditions our Sisters are kept in, but everyone knows what our prisons are like and letting the press have a list of the crimes these women committed worked like a charm...there is little or no sympathy for them anywhere, but definitely not in Boston?"

"So...it is not the good Christian people of Massachusetts demonstrating outside?"

"No, Mr President...they are flying in from all over the place...camping out on land where New Meadvale will rise from...the police decided that they would be more containable right under our noses?" Procter said, referring to his notes on his cell phone. "They seem to know that some of the nuns have arrived, incidentally?"

"Are we leaking again, Howard?" Bateman sighed, well aware just how sensitive Connor Symonds was on that particular subject.

"Not like you mean, Sir...lots of people are in and out of the hospital at the moment as the final fit outs take place, so they will see the nuns working as they deliver and set up all of the specialist equipment a modern hospital needs...it could be anyone?"

"My political advisors are concerned about the British involvement in the project...they fear that I am too closely linked to British Reformism...they think I should be setting out my stall to define American Reformism...to distance us from the fall out?" Bateman told the one man he was starting to trust within the White House bubble. Howard Procter was not any sort of sycophant, quite capable of forming his own opinions, whilst knowing when it was best not to express them. Every President had two teams he needed to lead and manage if his Presidency was going to work, firstly his own staff in his own office, who dealt with public relations, scheduling, speeches and public appearances, and secondly, his Cabinet, the men who did the real work, department by department. Procter had proved to be a capable Cabinet member, and a loyal friend, whilst often offering useful advice on how to manage the White House. Bateman trusted him and his instincts.

"You have been staunchly and very publicly pro-Britain for some twenty years...ever since you first ran for public office...to try and distance yourself now would just make you look weak, Mr President?" Procter suggested with a sigh, reluctant to get involved with the politics of their position. There might come a day when he had to be a real politician, if his ultimate ambitions turned in that direction, but he did not want to enter the game too soon. "Affordable healthcare is your policy...it defined your campaign...and it got you elected...consistency is important...a strong President sticks to his guns? And he stands by his friends, even in tough times...or he looks disloyal? But that doesn't mean you have to approve of everything they do or stay quiet when they are caught with their pants down, Sir?"