This is my most recent book, published last year and I consider it my first real-ass book. It topped 100K words with plenty of room to spare and getting this story down on paper freed up a lot of extra ram space in my brain for new stories and new books to get written. There are plenty of good excerpts to choose from, but this one stuck out right away.
If you enjoy this excerpt, physical copies of The Last President can be purchased here and e-book copies are available here.
In a quiet neighborhood of Georgetown, Richard Ocampo was about to sit down and eat his breakfast. He wasn’t dressed yet; this was a Saturday morning, and he wasn’t due at the office until Monday. Barefoot, in his usual set of blue silk pajamas, he grabbed his usual robe off the hook where he always left it in the kitchen and put it on.
Ocampo was a creature of habit. He was also entering his sixth decade of life, and he was in relatively decent health. A stint in the army in his youth left him with a fondness for whiskey and pipe-smoking that had taken years to overcome. Now, he was entering his third decade of sobriety and had managed to fight his pipe-smoking habit to a draw: he allowed himself one pipe on Sunday afternoons, holidays, and moments of high stress that demanded he step outside and take a break to really think about what the best decision would actually be. He had short-cropped white hair, a deeply lined face, and a throaty growl of a voice that was a souvenir of the hard-living of his youth.
Every Saturday morning, he would toast an English muffin and smear some butter on top of it. When the butter was partially melted, he would add a generous dollop of orange marmalade and, using a knife, spread and mix the marmalade and the partially melted butter together to create a delectable piece of breakfast heaven. Together with his usual cup of black coffee, he would sit down in the quiet of his kitchen and stare out the window across his small yard to the canal. It was perfect. It was peaceful. And, just as he was about to pick up the first half of his English muffin, his doorbell rang.
With a hiss of irritation, he pushed back from his kitchen table and made his way out of the kitchen and down the narrow hallway to his front door and opened it.
“Oh,” he said.
“Richard,” said the first of his three guests. Ocampo knew who they were, of course: Colin Dexteran, a tall, thin spindle of a Congressman from Senekania, Gisela Fernandez-Yoder, an older lady with a shock of white hair who looked as though she would severely disapprove of anyone commenting on her age- (happily the voters of her district in Pennsylvania liked her enough to send her back to Congress like clockwork every two years); and. Finally came the youngest of the trio, Megan St. John, Congresswoman from Rhode Island, who just turned 25 the month prior. They were the leaders of the three main opposition parties in Congress. With a sigh, he stepped aside and gestured for them to enter. They knew his habits quite well, he thought. Which was probably why they were here.
Without another word, Ocampo closed the front door and then led the trio down the narrow hallway into the kitchen and sat. He took a bite of his English muffin and chewed it. He glanced up at the three of them before taking a sip of coffee and washing down his English muffin. Finally, he broke the silence.
“Well?”
“So,” Dexteran said. “President Mitchell is dead.”
“I had heard,” Ocampo said, drily.
“May we sit?” Fernandez-Yoder asked.
“Feel free,” Ocampo replied.
The three of them sat. “So, the Speaker is on his way back to Washington,” St, John said.
“That’s not exactly a surprise,” Ocampo said. “I imagine he’s having to restrain himself from celebrating too openly.” It was a well-known secret in Washington that the president and Speaker despised one another. “So, what are you all doing here?”
“I told you he was going to see through it,” Dexteran said. He leaned back in the chair and smiled a thin smile. “We’ll cut through the bullshit, Ocampo. We want to throw our weight behind a nominee.”
“That’s … insightful of you,” Ocampo said. “But you know the Speaker’s going to put up Parker, don’t you?”
“That’s why we want to announce today before he can get back to town and start lobbying for Parker,” St. John said. “They’ll vote for him, but they don’t like him that much. If there was a credible alternative.”
“One that could break off at least forty-five to fifty of the Speaker's votes,” Ocampo said. “And an alternative with pedigree enough that they’re willing to defy the whips to do so.”
“We think we have just the person in mind,” Dexteran replied. There was a long silence as Ocampo considered that statement. He took a couple more bites of his English muffin and sipped more of his coffee as the silence stretched and stretched, and then his eyes went very wide as he realized who they were talking about.
“You’re kidding.”
“It makes sense,” Fernandez-Yoder said.
“He’s got the pedigree with the Speaker’s party,” St. John said. “His dad was governor of Maryland and his great-grandmother was Speaker a few decades back.”
Ocampo threw back his head and started to laugh. He laughed for quite a long time before stopping. Tears were running down his face. He wiped them away and stood up, shaking his head. “Stay here,” he said. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed and then we’ll go, and I’ll show you who exactly you want to elevate to the presidency.”
~~~
Twenty minutes later, Ocampo’s transport came to a halt alongside the Foxhall Canal, which was one of the many that branched off of the Chesapeake-Ohio Canal, and the large swathe of the Potomac River. There were houseboats all along the canal, which ran along the west side of Foxhall Avenue. He stepped out of the transport and looked over at their destination. It was a long houseboat, larger than many, and painted navy blue with white shutters and trim for the windows. The transport bearing the three opposition leaders slid into the parking space next to his, and he waited as they all got out, looking somewhat confused and bewildered at their destination.
“Ocampo.” Dexteran said. “Where are we?”
“It’s Saturday morning,” Ocampo said. “This is where he’ll be.”
“Here?” Fernandez-Yoder said.
“Here,” Ocampo replied. “It’s his weekend ‘party boat.’” Ocampo jerked his head toward the boat. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led them to a narrow gate that he opened and led them down a gang plank and onto the boat. He stepped across the deck and opened the two French doors at the back of the boat and stepped into the living room area.
“Oh,” St. John said.
“Oh my,” Fernandez-Yoder added.
Bottles were strewn everywhere across the living room. At least six people were sprawled on the couches and chairs in the room, in various stages of undress. They were all asleep, and one of them was snoring loudly. A young woman on a chair stirred at the noise, sat up slightly, and, opening her eyes, looked at them. She shook her head and then slumped back down onto the chair and fell back asleep.
Ocampo led them into the kitchen and then to the small dining area. He kept moving and led them to some stairs. He climbed the stairs and then went down the long hall to the bedroom and, without knocking, opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.
A young man was in the bed, snoring loudly, his companions on either side of him asleep as well. Ocampo cleared his throat loudly. Nothing. Then he stomped his foot a couple of times. Nothing. Finally, “Zeb.”
The young man stirred. Ocampo rolled his eyes. “Zeb!” he yelled.
This worked. The young man sat bolt upright in bed and then groaned and clutched his head. “Ocampo… What are you doing here?”
“Get up,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” Zeb suddenly realized that there were other people in the room and drew the blankets up closer to his body. “You brought friends.”
“Not exactly,” Ocampo said. “They brought me.”
“Ugh, do we have to do this now?”
Zeb’s companions were stirring and the one to his left, a young woman with blond hair, rolled over and sat up. “Zeb … who?”
The companion to his right, a slightly chubby-looking young man with black hair, also sat up in bed. “What’s going on?” He looked down and realized his lack of dress and then looked over at Zeb and the blonde. “Did we?”
“I’m pretty sure we did,” Zeb replied, sheepishly.
“Oh, we definitely did,” the blonde added with a smile. “It was excellent.”
Both Zeb and the black-haired young man blushed.
Ocampo rolled his eyes again. “We’ll be in the dining room,” he said firmly. “Get some clothes on and I’ll brew up some coffee.” He turned and ushered the opposition leaders out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Then he led them down the narrow hall and down the stairs to the dining room, where he gestured for them to sit.
“Who wants coffee?” Ocampo asked them.
Megan St. John stirred and said, “I’ll take a cup. Black please.”
“Can do,” Ocampo replied and ducked into the kitchen. There was the sound of cupboards opening, the clinking of mugs followed, some whirring, and the sound of liquid dripping into a coffee pot. A minute or so after that, Ocampo returned with two mugs and handed one to St. John before sitting down.
“So,” he said. “That was your candidate.”
“I always assumed his nickname was a carryover from his college days,” Dexteran said.
“Congressman Partyboy?” Ocampo said. “Oh no, this is what he does every weekend. Always has been. Zeb is a smart kid, and if he believes something is right, he’ll do it and do it well. But you all need to be aware of who it is you want to elevate.”
“He can’t be this bad, can he?” Fernandez-Yoder asked.
“He is absolutely this bad,” Ocampo replied. “He shows up for work pretty well Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and I can usually get him dried out enough to function when it’s time to campaign. But he comes from a rich family, has money, he’s single, and he loves a good party. Probably more than he loves his congressional seat, to be totally honest.”
“How does he get anything done?” St. John asked.
“He doesn’t,” Ocampo replied bluntly. “Didn’t you check the congressional records? He doesn’t craft legislation. He barely shows up for his committee assignments half the time. I’m the one keeping his office staffed and running. I tell him what needs voting on, we’ll talk about it if he needs to, and then he makes up his mind and goes and votes. He’s a dedicated seat-filler. A backbencher extraordinaire.”
“That,” Dexteran said. “Might not be the worst thing in the world.”
“I see what you’re saying, Colin,” Fernandez-Yoder replied. “We could … manage things for him.”
“The president doesn’t do much these days,” St. John added. “He could be a useful … symbol.”
“But what if we need him to be more than that?” Ocampo said. “The Emergency Powers Amendment exists for a reason, after all.” Looking around the table, Ocampo suddenly realized that he wasn’t factored into their equations. He was a flunky. He was an underling. He was someone they could control as well unless he proved inconvenient to them. Then he could be discarded. We’ll see about that, he thought to himself, wondering if they knew how transparently obvious their intentions were.
St. John shrugged. “You said he was a good kid and if he believes something is right, he’ll do it, right?”
“Well,” Ocampo said. “Yes, but—”
“The odds of needing to invoke the Emergency Powers Amendment are low,” Dexteran said. “The Wall will protect us.”
“The Wall will protect us,” Fernandez-Yoder and St. John repeated together.
Ocampo looked dubious. They all turned as they heard a noise on the stairs. Zeb came down, clad in shorts and a t-shirt of some kind. He glanced over and, shaking his head, ducked into the kitchen and emerged a moment later with a mug of coffee and sat at the last remaining chair at the table.
“Well?” Zeb said.
“Kid,” Ocampo said, “They want to promote you.”
“Promote me to what?”
Ocampo told him.
Zeb leaned back in his chair. “Have you completely lost your minds?”