They went back to the room.  Mitzi, Judi and Jaci slept for a while but by ten Jaci was awake.  The secret service agent delivered several boxes while they were sleeping.  Sandra showed the box to Jaci, it was a new Dell laptop with every option you could think of.  Sandra helped her plug it all in.  When she turned on the computer it booted up.  She was amazed it was set up just like the one in her room at the White House.  With one new icon on the screen she connected to the White House server and went to Mozilla.   She then went to YAHOO and typed in “amputee”.  The search turned up a site and she clicked on it.  It showed a thumbnail of an amputee bent over, standing on one leg with her stump in the air behind her.  The animated picture moved into several positions as she watched.  The young woman was wearing a black jump suit.  The left leg of the suit had been tailored to cover her stump snugly.  Jaci noted she actually looked nice.  There was a link for “AMPUTEE MODELS”, she clicked on it and there were thumbnails of Joy, Debbie, Crissy and a couple of others.  She noted the ones that were single above the knee amputees, Joy, Crissy and Debbie were both RIGHT ABOVE THE KNEE, RAK as they were listed.  She clicked on the thumbnail and there was Debbie in a teddy with her stump in a shortened nylon and boldly displayed on the stair rail as she leaned on it.  Debbie was attractive, no, really sexy, but she was much older.  She clicked back to the previous page and clicked on Joy.  Joy was attractive but too sexy, not the image she wanted.  When she went to Crissy she saw someone she could identify with.  She found that Crissy was featured in a video and there were pictures of her.  A little more checking and she found Carol, an LAK like Judi and Carla a DAK like her mom.  She actually found a picture of Carla standing on her two legs!  Her mom must see this.

She called Sandra over quietly.  They looked at the pictures and videos available.  Sandra motioned to another agent, she talked to him; he went out and returned in a few minutes.  He was carrying a paper with some information.  “Here, order what you want, they will come to a safe place, the credit card is not traceable.  Keep this, if you want anything within reason, get it.  Your dad said you have a $1500 limit for now.”  He walked away.  Sandra helped Jaci place the order and suggested Federal Express as the method of shipment.  They should arrive in a couple of days.

Dave dropped in for the evening meal again.  The violence in the country came up again.  There had been more acts overnight and some were now happening even in daylight.  As he discussed the dilemma with his family Mitzi suggested that they hold a press conference with them in wheelchairs.  Dave liked the idea but wondered what might go wrong if someone saw the end of a pylon or in some way recognized that the leg was missing.  The socket was larger in diameter than their leg it might cause someone who was really astute to notice. Dave was adamant, they must be one hundred percent sure nobody would notice until the right time.  He privately was not sure when that would be.

It was Judi that came up with the solution.  “Do any of you remember Susan Berlanger, she was played by Kristy McNichols in the movie, ‘Just The Way You Are.’  She had a bad leg from polio.   She had a doctor put a cast on it and she went to a ski resort where there were others with casts.  Nobody noticed her lame leg.”

Her mother questioned this, “We can’t put a cast on a leg that isn’t there.”

“But on the contrary, we can.”

“How?”

“Jaci and I are close to the same size. They can make a cast of my right leg and one of her left leg.  They cut them off, patch them a little to match what our other leg would look like in a cast and fix them so they slip over the socket and attach to it instead of the pylon.” 

“What about me?”

Dave had the answer, “That’s easy.  We get Tracy to come in and they make casts of her legs for you.  She’s called about ten times and has asked if we need her.  We can’t tell her what happened till she gets here but we need her now.  Let’s give her a call.  I bet she will be on the next plane.”  Tracy was Mitzi’s younger fraternal twin sister.

“But what if someone gets suspicious and starts to really check?”

“Why should they?  If the casts look good we can go out with them on and nobody will know.  We could carry on the deception for as long as we need to.”

Dave thought for a few minutes and then said, “It might work.  Let me get someone to see if this is a possible.”  Later he would remember the use of the word deception and realize that they were headed into trouble when that was the motive.

Dave motioned to the Secret Service agent and within minutes a doctor appeared.  They explained the situation to him.  He sat there in thought for a few minutes.  “It is possible but if we are to totally avoid a bad situation we must make the cast fit the stump, not the socket.  That will make it too large.  I think what you want to do is possible.” 

“Think about it.  See if you can make it work.”

“I’m sure we can.  It’s just a matter of how and if we can do it quickly.”

The First Family: Chapter 1 – Introduction

The First Family 32: Jaci’s Upgraded Leg

The First Family 34: Preparing the Deception