Hugo was on his second double shot of scotch, and the senator might have been one or two up on him before they sat back to regroup from this crushing blow. He wondered how the fates could be so cruel as to allow Burkmeister to go and die at a time like this. “Senator,” Bromfield said, slurring a bit, “the president has now become a martyr. We can’t attack martyrs. We can’t even attack that commie lover McCarty because he’s the new knight in shining armor here to save the nation. We have at least two immediate problems to address. First, we need to put the kibosh on our resolution to censure Burkmeister, and that will take some doing because I’ve already sent it around to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.” Collingsworth groaned. When the media found out what he was about to do to Burkmeister, it would be his own bloodbath. Even his sympathetic friends in the senate—and there were precious few—would drop him like a hot potato. “Second, Senator, we’ll have to pull the plug on our arrangement with Wellington Crane.”
