Harrison nods. “I see what you mean.”
“Same thing at the White House. If you can persuade the First Lady to show up, perfect. That means the turnaround will take place quicker than I hoped. But if she’s still in a pissy mood and won’t show up, no problem. You step off Marine One, wave, and saunter back into the White House like nothing’s wrong, like you’re totally in control.”
“Fair enough,” Harrison says, and he remembers something from that morning with Tammy. “But I need you to do one more thing for me.”
Parker says, “My to-do list is pretty long, but go ahead.”
Harrison says, “Congressman Vickers. Last night’s speech was a near disaster, with a lot of my supporters being turned away. I want him out.”
“But that might—”
“I don’t care,” Harrison says. “He’s out by the end of the day, all right?”
“We’re up by six percent in Georgia.”
“Five point six percent,” Harrison says, remembering what his Tammy told him. “And it would probably be up another half point if it wasn’t for him. He’s gone.”
Parker nods, and Harrison sees there’s relief in his eyes. His chief of staff is seeing the President of the United States is back at work.
A soft rap on the door, and Harrison says, “Yes, come in.”
In comes the head of his protective detail, Jackson Thiel, and the large man looks troubled.
Harrison is suddenly afraid.
“Yes, Jackson, what is it?”
“Sir … the communications officer … he contacted me after you requested to talk to the First Lady.”
“All right,” Harrison says. “But why are you here?”
“Sir …”
“Yes?”
Jackson hesitates for the briefest and most frightening of seconds, and in a quiet and stone-cold voice, says:
“Sir … the First Lady … she can’t be located.”
CHAPTER 8
IT’S COOL AND dimly lit where I work, the better to see the surveillance monitors and the televisions broadcasting the latest news, gossip, and screaming headlines. I look up, scanning the screens, and for the benefit of my fellow Secret Service agents this morning, I try to keep a sense of professional decorum and manage not to laugh. The man I’ve sworn to die defending has just gotten caught putting his presidential pen into an unauthorized inkwell. He isn’t the first, and won’t be the last, and I don’t particularly care. The Secret Service is a protection agency. We’re not America’s Morality Police. There’s the low murmur of voices, the tapping of keyboards, and radio chatter from police scanners covering Metro DC and all of the local police departments, so we always know what’s going on with our somewhat friendly law enforcement neighbors.
My immediate deputy—Assistant Special Agent in Charge Scott Thompson—stands next to me and says, “What do you think, Sally?”
“Right now I want you to put the word out, especially to the Uniformed Division,” I say. “We’re going to get increased attention from the news media and the usual publicity hounds. I don’t want any fence jumpers, wanting to give the President romantic advice or a Bible, got it? Double up the patrols on the sidewalks … anybody approaches the fences, looks like they’re going to go over, we’re to stop them on the public side. Got it?”
“Got it, boss,” Scott says, and goes back to his desk. Scott is an ex-Army Ranger, bulky and tough, and respectful of me and everyone else in the chain of command, which makes him a keeper.
I shift my gaze from the network screens—AMBUSH IN ATLANTA seems to be the winning headline this morning—and glance at the electronic status board. We and other members of the Presidential Protective Division are fortunate with this administration in that there are no spoiled kids running around, trying to ditch their agents at bars or dance clubs, or slightly nutty mothers-in-law claiming that Peeping Toms are gazing at them undressing in their guest quarters. There’s just the President and First Lady, which makes my job a hell of a lot less complicated than my predecessor’s.
According to the status board, CANAL is on Marine One, seconds away from landing on the South Lawn, and CANARY is—
“Hey, Scotty,” I call out, just as he’s picking up the phone. “Mind telling me why CANARY is at a horse farm in Virginia? Her Plan of the Day this morning didn’t indicate that.”
He says, “Last-minute change of plans, boss. After the news this morning … well, who can blame her? Not me, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say, as I head back to my desk. I don’t like last-minute changes. You don’t have the time to prep the visiting area, check out the neighborhood, track down those nuts on the class three list who have made threats against the First Family in the past. The only upside is that with something as sudden as this horse farm visit, you can surprise any bad guys out there hovering around.
And the downside, of course, is that any bad guys out there— especially the patient and tough ones—can react quickly to an opportunity and kill your protectee.
Not a good way to get promoted.
I call over to my assistant. “Hey, Scotty. When you’re done there, contact CANARY’s detail.”
“Sure, boss. What do you want?”
A little whisper of concern seems to be on my shoulder. “Make sure everything’s fine.”
“If it weren’t fine, you’d be the first to know.”
“Scotty,” I say. “Make the damn call.”
And I try to get back to work.
CHAPTER 9
MY DESK IS shoved in a corner of the White House basement office called Room W-17, which is the command center for the Secret Service at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Since I’ve been assigned here, one of the few jokes I’ve told about the place to friends and family is that my staff and I are closer than anyone else to the Oval Office, only seven feet away.
That usually brings ooohs and aaahs of appreciation, until I tell them the punch line: I and the others working in Room W-17—also known as Horsepower—are seven feet below the Oval Office.
Not exactly within spitting distance.
My desk has a wooden nameplate my eleven-year-old daughter, Amelia, made for me two years ago with wood and a burning tool that says, in clumsy letters, SALLY GRISSOM, AWESOME AGENT. The only agent who ever laughed at the nameplate is now with Homeland Security, inspecting cargo containers in Anchorage. What the nameplate should say is SALLY GRISSOM, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, PRESIDENTIAL PROTECTIVE DIVISION, but as much as Amelia enjoys making me gifts, I think if I asked her to make me a new one with my correct title, she just might cry.
A closed-circuit feed from one of the scores of surveillance cameras shows Marine One landing on the South Lawn. Hoo-boy, I think, I bet the President wishes he was still up in the air, circling around, high up from his angry wife and the very hungry news media.
Then I get back to work.
No doubt the rest of the nation is going to be shocked by what’s been uncovered about the President, but not me. Unlike 99 percent of the rest of the Secret Service detail, I’m a DC girl, through and through, and know all about the rumors and scandals that always bubble below the surface here among the pretty old buildings. Politics is politics, and human nature will always be human nature, so why pretend to be stunned?