"The president just said some pretty harsh things, Mr. Hanson, along with saying you had something to do with the dismissal of the Davis bill regarding the removal of troops in Korea. Is any of that true?" a reporter said very shortly into an official press conference later that night. In fact, it was the second question.
"I'm going to speak frankly here," Zac said. "That's bullshit. The president vetoed the Davis Bill, that is why it was dismissed, and that's all there is to it. He just wants something on me so he can get rid of me as soon as possible. He thinks by saying that people will stop believing me and start believing him, but all it's doing is proving how much of a liar he really is. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do; it's not going to faze me in the least."
"Do you think he'll take any drastic measures in getting rid of you?" another reporter asked. Zac glanced at Madison, pausing shortly, before answering.
"I have reason to believe that by this time tomorrow I'll be on a plane to Korea." The room drew into an eerie silence. The rushing for questions whenever Zac finished a statement usually overtook all other sounds in the room, but now Zac could hear the cameras running and the people breathing. "Um�does anybody else have a question?"
"What makes you think that, Mr. Hanson?" someone from the back of the room spoke up. Zac looked over the people to him.
"Because he told me so himself." Silence. "Well, if that's all, I believe I'll be going now." Zac and Madison stood up and walked out of the room, a camera following them out. Once out of the room, Zac took Madison's hand. "That was the shortest press conference I have ever been to."
"Yeah," Madison agreed. They turned a corner into a hallway and ran into three rather large men in suits that heavily resembled the secret service that was swarming the President's hotel back in New York. Zac sighed. He knew why they were there. The tight grip on his hand told him Madison knew why they were there as well.
"Ah, just the person we were looking for," the man standing in the middle said. "If you'll come with us, Mr. Hanson�" Zac nodded.
"I'll see you soon," Zac said to Madison, and gave her a kiss. "I promise." He let go of her hand and was violently pushed forward by one of the men. "Hey! I can walk without your help, thank you very much." The man pushed him again and they left quickly. Madison stayed behind, a fist to her mouth, before she turned around and ran in the other direction. The camera that had followed them out of the press conference room had caught the entire thing on tape.
When Zac was out of the building, he was shoved into a car, shoved into a plane, and before he knew it he was back in front of the president's suite in New York by eight o'clock the next morning. Exhausted from traveling so late in the night (without much sleep), he yawned and rubbed his eyes as he walked into the suite. He was roughly escorted into a seat he'd been in just the day before, but this time he didn't have Madison by his side. It felt weird.
"Good morning, Mr. Hanson," Smith said as he walked into the room.
"Good morning, Smitty," Zac responded. "And what do I owe the pleasure of being dragged here in the middle of the night?"
"I think you have an idea."
"I have an idea, but I'd like to hear it from you." Zac's smile wasn't catching on to anybody in the room. He sighed and put an elbow on the table, his hand keeping his heavy head upright. "What do you want, Smitty?"
"To see you in Korea."
"You do realize if you send me to Korea it's not going to affect anything," Zac said. "You can do what you want with me, you can kill me, but I'm just a spokesperson for the people. They're still going to be around. This won't help you in the least. You're still going to lose this election."
"Maybe�but then I won't have to worry about you ever again."
"All right," Zac said, leaning back in his chair. "Do what you want. I don't care." Smith nodded.
"I planned on doing it my way whether you liked it or not." Smith extended his hand. "It was nice knowing you, Mr. Hanson." Zac looked at Smith's hand, then back up at his face, not bothering to accept it. "All right. Mr. McLaughlin will escort you out. I hope you'll enjoy your stay in Korea, it'll be a short one."
Zac eyed the man insolently as he was taken roughly out of the room.
Madison entered the Hanson home later the same day. As soon as she walked in she saw Taylor in the living room, but she didn't see any of the rest of the family. She closed the front door and walked over to the living room. The first thing she noticed was the television; Taylor was watching cartoons. She walked further into the room and noticed Zo� lying on the floor in front of the television, watching Bugs Bunny unabashedly. "Hey Taylor," she said, her voice surprising her. Taylor looked over at her, surprised.
"Oh, hey Maddie. I didn't hear you come in."
"Bugs?" she asked, nodding to the television.
"Well we've been watching nothing but CNN since that darn war started, Zo� was getting so bored we had to compromise. We've been watching cartoons all day." Madison nodded. Then he didn't know what had happened. "Where's Zac?" he asked. She lowered her eyes. "Oh my God what happened?"
"Did you hear the president's speech last night?" she asked. He nodded. "Well Zac made a rebuttal and I guess Smith didn't like it�"
"Where is he, Madison?" Taylor asked, standing up.
"Korea," she whispered.
"Oh my God!" Taylor yelled. Zo� sat up. He noticed her. "Zo, why don't you go find Mac and play? You've been watching television all day." Zo� got up and ran out of the room. "When did this happen?"
"Last night, right after the press conference. They grabbed him in the hallway and I haven't seen him since. There's nothing we can do about it now, Taylor. He's gone." Taylor fell back onto the couch. "He'll be okay, Taylor, Zac's a strong person�"
"No. You don't understand. You weren't there, Madison. I was there. No matter where they put him he's going to be affected by this. He can't handle it! I know he can't! Zac's not the kind of person who can go through a war! If anybody should not be sent to Korea it's Zac. Over there you have to kill or be killed, Madison, and Zac will never be able to kill a person."
"Well what can we do about it, Taylor? He's over there and he's there because the president wants him there. There's nothing we can do to get him home until January! It's nearly September, that's only four months away."
"Zac won't be able to last four months in Korea," Taylor said. "Zac won't last four days in Korea. Not if he doesn't have somebody there protecting him." Madison sighed and looked up. Diana was standing in the doorway. She froze. Taylor looked over as well and saw his mother. "Mom!"
"What's going on?"
"Well, Mom�" Taylor said, looking back at Madison. "It's Zac."
"Oh my God," she said, putting her hands over her mouth. "Where is he?"
"The president sent him to Korea."
"Oh my God!"
"He'll be okay, though! He'll be all right! It's just until January, then Davis will bring him home. It's four months at the most. He might even be home sooner."
"No!" Diana yelled. "I've had enough of this! That man has sent three of my sons over there now and I won't have him get away with it! Why is he still president?"
"Mom, the election is two months away. Nothing you do now is going to affect anything. He's going to go out with a bang and this is his bang. You're not the only person affected by this."
"It's my son!"
"It's my brother!" Taylor said, trying his best to keep calm while his mother was nearly in hysterics. "Everybody in this country knows who Zac is and is going to be affected by this." Diana looked to Madison, fiddling with a ring on her finger. She opened her mouth to speak, but paused a moment. A look of curiosity crossing her face, she walked over to Madison and took her hand.
"What's this?"
"He said he was going to marry me when he got home," she said. "And everything in me says he'll come home. Don't worry about him." Diana sighed. "Don't. Neither of you should." Madison eyed Taylor who looked just as weary as his mother about the sudden news. "Can we turn the channel?" she asked, moving away from both Diana and Taylor. She found the clicker on the table and switched it to CNN.
September 4th, 2004
Dear Family,
That was as far as Isaac had gotten. He had tried on numerous occasions to write to his family ever since he'd sent that letter to Zac, but nothing had come out of him yet. That was kind of rude of him, sending that letter just saying "I'm fine" and nothing else. He'd felt guilty about it so whenever he got some free time he took some paper and a pencil and started to write a letter to them. He never got past the heading. Now it was months later; he was running out of paper.
Crumbling up the piece of paper, he threw it away and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Screw it. He didn't need to talk to them. They didn't need to hear from him. He was having a hard enough time already. His back hurt. When didn't his back hurt? Ever since he got out of the hospital and they stopped giving him medication on a daily basis he was hurting again. Maybe it hadn't healed as much as it should before they let him go, but another piercing attack forced half of the men out of the hospital beds because they needed them for someone who was more seriously injured. He was one of those, dismissed back to the fighting when not entirely healed.
"Hey, the newbies are here," someone said. It was Lenny, he'd been there almost as long as Isaac had. He was one of the few from the beginning. There'd been so many way back then, years ago, when the war first started. Now there was only a handful�no more than five. The rest of them died or got to go home. Not Isaac. He was stuck in this dreadful placed he now called home. Even after the war was over it would still be his home. He lived here, in this very spot on the north side of Seoul since the beginning. He was here probably longer than he'd been at home in Tulsa since he and his brothers hit it big even longer ago.
Feeling slightly festive, Isaac actually put a smile on his face (as hard as those were to come by these days) and turned around to see the new recruits, fresh faces from the US. He never bothered to look at the newbies; this actually was his first time doing so in at least a year. They always died so quickly he never bothered to learn their names until they'd been there long enough to look familiar. He had no idea why he was doing it either. Today just felt different.
A group of them entered and he scanned the faces. There was about twenty�large group today! Usually there were no more than ten at a time. This brigade never got more than ten at a time. It surprised him; they must have been running low. The group entered and was directed towards an area designated for the new recruits. He turned around and pulled out another sheet of paper to try to write home again. Behind him another three people entered.
"Ike?"
Isaac froze. Tears came to his eyes and for the first time since he came to this blasted country he was afraid. If there is a God, he thought, he wouldn't let this be my brother. Isaac turned around and was looking into the familiar eyes of his little brother. His hands began to shake.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Isaac asked.
"The president sent him here," Lenny said from across the room. "You'd know that if you listened to the news reports at all."
Isaac tore away from his brother and turned around, a tear slipping out of his normally stoic eye. Why did he have to come? Why here? Eighty percent of all of the new recruits die within their first week here and now his brother was one of them. And knowing Zac, hearing about the kind of life he was living back in the United States since the war began, Isaac was almost certain that he was going to be one of those eighty percent.
"I have to say, I am a huge fan," Lenny said, shaking Zac's hand. "We all love you over here. If it weren't for you�" Zac smiled.
"Thank you so much," he said. "I only do what I can. I wish I could have done more, though."
"It wasn't necessary! Everybody here looks up to you. The days go by faster when you're on the radio." Zac was almost glowing with pride. He wasn't good with flattery, and now hearing it from someone who he was set out to affect�it felt good. "How'd you end up here anyway?"
"I got on the president's bad side. Don't mess with a guy who has the power to send you to war," Zac said, lightly laughing. He'd been in good spirits ever since he'd gotten here, despite his surroundings and the fact that his older brother that he hadn't seen in two years looked like death and didn't want a thing to do with his own family.
When Isaac got up and left, Zac sighed. Lenny looked over at him. "He's always like this. Don't bother with him." Zac nodded. "How do you know him anyway?"
"He's my brother."