President Donaldson kissed his wife and daughters at the door to the lawn.  With the current mood of the country the president was discouraged from going outside except when he was leaving the White House and when he did the secret service wanted him to keep moving when in the open.  He mused that prisoners got better treatment from their jailers they got fresh air and exercise.  He also noted that the keep moving was the same instructions soldiers followed in battle.  Julia hurried the two girls out through the lawn to Marine 1.  It was like running a gantlet, crossing a no man’s land and it was in their back yard.  Even the president’s family had been affected by the threats. Although they would not admit it they too were nearly prisoners in the White House.  The girls were being schooled there so they do not have to go out.  The three women longed to get away and be free from the continual stress.  Mitzi often told Dave, “Blonds have to shop.”  As Marine 1 lifted off from the lawn Dave Donaldson watched Mitzi wave to him through the window.  As she vanished from view he returned to the oval office.  There had to be a way to bring the country back to sensibility.  But Dave had no idea how that could be done.  He thought, “I would give almost anything.”  Later he would remember that moment and realize the personal cost.

When Dave disappeared from view Mitzi turned to supervise her two daughters inside Marine 1.  The older one, Judi already had out a mirror.  She was already checking her hair and repairing the damage done by the rotor wash as they boarded.  To reduce the time on the ground with the family on board the engines were left running.  Jaci, the younger had her nose firmly in a book, her usual stance.  She was reading a book from the fifties called “Seven Days in May.”  It was just one of many books on the presidency she had read in the last two years.  Her favorite, she had read it several times was “Advise and Consent” but “The Man” was a close second.  As the chopper flew south she read the passage in which Air Force General Barney Rostow flies a jet fighter to Washington to save the presidency.  She longed for a Barney Rostow, one who would save her father from the awful grip of the mean conservatives.    She longed for someone like Jack, who she met in Clancy’s books to come and make things right.  She knew these men existed only on the printed page and in her mind but she hoped someone would step forward to defeat the evil Republicans.