Gambit

by Karna Small Bodman

  “I’m not sure about a motive. Everybody at the White House is focused on motive too. In fact, I went up to talk to Bollinger this morning. I told him my theory. He said I was nuts.” Cammy took a bite of her salad and waved her fork. “Well, he always says I’m nuts. And you know what else he said about it?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘you couldn’t sell that idea on eBay’.”

  “Sounds just like him,” Mel muttered. “That guy really is pretty judgmental.”

  “Judgmental?” Cammy echoed. “He’s just to the right of Saint Peter.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I’m not sure. Right now I feel kind of like Paul Revere and nobody’s paying attention to my lantern.”

  Melanie rolled her eyes. “Look, Cam, you just may be on to something here. What about Hunt? Isn’t he working the whole intelligence-terrorist angle now?”

  Cammy shook her head. “I can’t go to him. We’re not even on speaking terms any more. Besides, he’s probably still in South America with that gorgeous woman.”

  “Still no word, huh? That seems so sad to me. I mean, after all you went through and everything he said. Back then, I mean.”

  “Yeah, well, I keep remembering some of my dad’s advice.”

  “What was that?”

  “Don’t just listen to what someone says, watch what he does.”

  Melanie paused and said, “I see what you mean. Okay, so what about Jayson Keller? I’ll bet he’d listen to you.”

  “Now that you mention it, I’m having dinner with him tonight.”

  “You’re what?” Mel exclaimed, almost knocking over her iced tea. She steadied the glass and stared at her friend. “When? Where? How did this happen? C’mon. Tell all,” she demanded.

  “He called me last night. He wants to get together and go over my research.”

  “Go over your research, my eye!” Melanie chided. “He wants to go over your bod.”

  Cammy gave her friend a sideways glance. “Oh, I’m not so sure about that. Man could obviously have any woman he wanted. Why me?”

  “Look in the mirror, my friend. Of course, maybe he’s only attracted to your mind,” she said with a wry smile.

  Cammy finished her yogurt and idly sifted through her thoughts. “I don’t know. But I figure that dinner can’t hurt. I’m going over to his place tonight.”

  “His place? You mean to the Naval Observatory?”

  “MmmHmm. That way, we don’t have to contend with nosy press people.”

  “I like it. And speaking of dinner dates, I’ve got one with Derek tomorrow night,” Mel said.

  “You’re really still hooked on that guy?”

  “Well, after watching his performance at those hearings, I have to say I’m having some second thoughts,” she admitted.

  “Why, what did he do?”

  “Let’s just say that it’s obvious he loves the cameras. He’s using these crashes to make himself the lead story on every network out there, and I’m afraid he’s getting a really early start on the presidential campaign.”

  “He does sound like the kind of guy who believes his own press releases. But how does that make him any different from all the other senators on the Hill?” Cammy asked.

  “I suppose you’ve got a point there. I just hate to see him use this whole terrorist thing to tear down the administration. I mean, wouldn’t you think they’d try to work together to figure out who’s attacking us?” Mel asked plaintively.

  “Not in this life, my dear. Anyway, let me know how it goes tomorrow.”

  “I will. Oh, about tomorrow. I do have a quick favor to ask.”

  “Sure, what?”

  “Well, I mean,” Melanie hesitated.”

  “Go on, what is it?”

  “After dinner, I might. I mean I may stay. Well, you know. At his place.”

  “Okay. You don’t have to explain,” Cammy said.

  “I know. What I mean is, since I may not be going home, could you do me a favor and go up and feed little Domino for me tomorrow night?”

  “The kitten?” Cammy asked. “Sure, no problem.” She looked over Melanie’s shoulder at the large clock on the back wall. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work. And Mel, I just may talk to Jayson about the whole China thing. I know it’s far-fetched, but we know somebody is masterminding these awful attacks, and I’ve just got this feeling that something terribly weird, something really strange and diabolical is going on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The sky was the color of pewter as Cammy drove down Massachusetts Avenue that evening. The rain had tapered off, but there was still the occasional drizzle. It was a cool evening so she had donned her light trench coat over a black skirt and light blue silk sweater that matched her eyes.

  She had finally begun to take Melanie’s advice about adding a bit of color to her wardrobe. She had a closet full of taupe, beige, white and ecru. Mel had told her that she always looked like an egret and should branch out a bit. She was hoping that this outfit would be appropriate for a casual dinner, even if it was with the second most powerful man in the country.

  She pulled up to the guard gate at the entrance to the vice president’s residence at One Observatory Circle. She showed her driver’s license to the agent who motioned for her to drive on up to the house. She knew that this place had quite a history, having been built back in the late 1800’s as a home for the head of the U.S. Naval Observatory. They even had a big telescope there in the old days where former presidents would trek up the hill to look at comets and planets.

  The large traditional home, built on a high point of rolling hills and lush acreage, became such a show piece that higher ranking officers kept trying to figure out a way to live there. Finally, in the 70’s, Congress decided to make it the official residence of the vice president.

  Cammy had driven by the place every time she had gone down to the White House. Now, she was anxious to see what the inside was like. When she rang the bell, it wasn’t an agent or steward who opened the door, it was Jayson Keller himself, dressed in dark grey slacks, a blue and white striped button down shirt that was open at the neck, and a navy blue blazer.

  “Good evening, Cammy, good of you to come,” he said with a broad smile. “Here, let me take your coat. Guess it’s still a bit misty out there.”

  She took off her trench coat, put her purse on a hall table and followed Jay along the hardwood floors into the nicely appointed living room. He motioned for her to sit down on one of the light green sofas behind a glass coffee table. She gazed at a series of paintings and realized that they must be on loan from a museum. They were all lovely landscapes and bore little brass plates with the name of the artist and date they had been painted. Impressive, she thought.

  A steward then appeared and inquired about a drink before dinner. Cammy opted for a glass of Chardonnay while Jay asked for a Scotch neat.

  “Now then,” he said, sitting down across from her, “before we get to the heavy issues, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself? All I know is that you are a brilliant scientist who invents breakthrough technologies for missile defense. And that’s a pretty heavy topic all by itself. But what about you? Tell me where you’re from. Seems that everybody in Washington is from somewhere else.”

  Cammy leaned back on the soft down cushions and thought about her reply. He certainly was playing the role of the gracious host. She had to wonder if all he really wanted tonight was an update on her work. It wasn’t starting out that way.

  “I’m from a lot of places, I guess. My dad was an Air Force pilot. We spent a lot of time at Travis Air Force Base out in California. I love that area. It’s pretty close to San Francisco, you know.”

  “Yes, I know it well. I campaigned all over California the summer before the election. The only problem was that everywhere we went, it was nice and warm, but when we got to San Francisco, the fog was in and …”

  Cammy smil
ed as she interrupted, “And you froze! Remember Mark Twain’s line about the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco?”

  “He got that one right. But you say your dad was a pilot? Where is he now?”

  Cammy hesitated and her face clouded over as the fiery images once again invaded her mind’s eye. “Uh, he died in a plane crash when I was in high school.”

  “Oh, Cammy, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. What happened?”

  “He was testing a new Sidewinder missile. It miss-fired and his plane went down.”

  Jay got up and moved over to sit down next to her on the couch. He took her hand and said gently, “I can imagine how you felt when that happened. I went through a pretty tough time once too.”

  “You mean when your wife died?” Cammy said, looking up into his slate grey eyes. They reminded her of the sky outside. Dark and just as troubled.

  “Yes, it was pretty rough. It happened during the campaign, you know.” Cammy nodded. “I was on the road so much, I wasn’t even there when the aneurysm hit. I raced home, but it was too late.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I worked my way through it as I’m sure you had to do.”

  The steward brought their drinks on a sterling silver tray, handed Cammy her wine glass, along with a small square linen napkin, and gave the vice president his cocktail. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “Yes, that’s fine for now,” Jayson said. Turning back to Cammy, he raised his glass, “Let’s toast to the future with the hope that it’s a better one, shall we?”

  Cammy touched the tip of her glass to his and took a sip. “Yes, let’s do that.”

  “Well, looking ahead, we’re keeping a full plate of issues front and center that have nothing to do with airplanes.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you had time for anything else these days. What’s going on?”

  “Let’s see,” Jayson said, leaning back against the cushions and stretched his legs underneath the coffee table. “We had an economic policy discussion today on more health care reforms. The trouble is, the doctors are complaining that if they order too many tests, the insurance companies complain. But if they don’t order enough tests, their malpractice insurance rates go up.”

  “I’ve often thought that what we have now is a veterinary system of medicine.”

  “Veterinary system? What do you mean?”

  Cammy took another sip of her wine and explained. “When you take your dog to the vet, the vet does what you, the person paying the bill, tells him to do. It’s not necessarily what’s best for the dog. He’s got no say in the matter. And it’s just like that with us. We go to the doctor, and the doctor does what the insurance company—the one paying the bill—says he can do.”

  Jay drank a bit of Scotch and nodded. “Good analysis. Can I use that in one of my speeches?”

  “Be my guest. What else is going on?”

  “Let’s see. The animal rights people are all over us for a whole bunch of issues.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for one thing, word got out that the president’s grandchildren keep goldfish in a glass bowl.”

  “So? Everybody does.”

  “According to the Rights crowd, if you keep the fish in a small bowl, it can go blind.”

  “How can they tell?” Cammy asked, with a half smile.

  Jayson laughed. “Beats me. Oh, but in the good news category, our science advisor said today that they think they’ve broken the genetic code of beets.”

  Cammy almost choked on her wine. “So now we can make biotech borscht?”

  The steward walked back into the room and cleared his throat. “And on that note,” the vice president said with a smile, “I believe dinner is ready.” Jayson got up and offered Cammy a hand. He led the way into the dining room where they sat down at a large oval table that could have handled sixteen guests. Just two places were set at one end.

  They began their dinner with a serving of Senegalese soup, followed by broiled salmon, brown rice with pecans and haricot verte. The steward served more wine and Cammy began to feel slightly light-headed. It was a pleasant feeling, though. Here she was, having a very private dinner with a handsome, charismatic man who was charming, humorous and quite attentive. The way his gaze seemed to follow her every move almost made her blush.

  At one point, he reached over and touched her hand again. It was a warm touch. An inviting touch, and it made her speculate about what it would be like to have not just his hands, but his arms around her.

  The last man she had been close to was Hunt Daniels and every time he had touched her, she felt herself melting. Was she melting now? Not exactly. Maybe the wine was dulling her senses a bit. After all, Jayson Keller was quite a catch. She took another drink of wine and tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

  “And so I wanted to hear about your work on the laser and any other ideas you have about this situation.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about those missiles and trying to figure out exactly how they’re targeting our planes.”

  “Yes?” Jay prompted.

  “Remember in our other meeting, I told you about the work I had done with Wen Hu at M.I.T.?”

  “Yes, of course, Tragic situation. I’m just glad you weren’t inside,” he said in a gentle voice.

  “I know. But when we were collaborating on the whole project, we had this idea that the missiles might possibly be using a new high-resolution camera, an imaging seeker that uses a CCD array. It takes a picture of its target and then tracks the object.”

  “And you think somebody might have put this kind of camera on a missile?”

  “Sure. Let’s say it has a memory chip so that when it takes the photo, it follows that particular object. I call it bread-crumb technology.”

  “Cute,” he said. “But what about deceiving our radar?”

  “As I said before, I think the missile has stealth capability,” Cammy declared.

  “I thought I was up on a lot of military applications, but who do you think would have such technology?” he asked staring intently.

  “Well, China.” she replied. “Dr. Hu learned about the photo angle from a contact in Beijing.”

  “China!” He narrowed his eyes and thought for a long moment while he tasted the salmon. “Intriguing. They sure as hell have the capability.”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “Of the top nine Chinese leaders, eight are engineers and one is a geologist, and their kids are way ahead of ours when it comes to studying science and math. Of course they can develop great technology.”

  “You’re right. We know they’re hacking into all of our systems, stealing industrial secrets right and left. We’ve had to spend beaucoup bucks upgrading our cyber security systems over at the Pentagon because of their penetration. Then again, you probably know that.”

  “Sure. I’ve read a lot about it,” Cammy said. “And what are most of our universities producing these days?”

  “Lawyers and investment bankers,” Jay answered.

  “And not enough scientists and engineers. See what I mean? I really think it’s China.”

  Jayson finished his rice while mulling over Cammy’s theory. He thought about a lot of other women on the staff who made presentations in meetings. Many of them often prefaced their remarks with an apology. This may not be what you’re looking for, or I hope I’m not over-stepping my bounds here but … Cammy didn’t use such preambles. She dove right into her subject like an Olympian swimmer executing a jack knife. He liked that.

  The steward came in to offer seconds but Cammy said, “No thank you, it was lovely.” Jay shook his head as well. The man took his silver serving tray back into the kitchen.

  “China,” Jay repeated. “But why? What the hell is their motive? I’ve been grappling with this ever since the first plane was shot down. I’ve gone through every possible scenario and each time I can only come up with al Qaeda or some similar group. The trouble is, that bunch always ends up t
aking credit for their killing sprees. Not this time. In fact, they’re denying it on their websites and all over Twitter.”

  “I know what you mean,” Cammy said, her eyes guarded. “I don’t know about a motive. But let me ask you this. Can you direct some of our satellites to photograph areas in China where they might have built new missile factories? I mean, they have plenty of places they could make things, but I’m thinking that if this is a whole new generation of missiles, maybe there are brand new facilities of some kind that we can see. If we can figure out where to look, I mean.”

  “Cammy, that’s a very good idea. I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.” The steward came into the dining room again. This time he placed a simple dish of chocolate ice cream at each place and then picked up a silver carafe from the side board and poured each of them a cup of steaming coffee.

  “Hope you like chocolate,” Jay said.

  “Are you kidding? This is perfect. Thank you.”

  They finished their dinner, going over Cammy’s latest theories once more. They moved back into the living room but before sitting down again, Cammy glanced at her watch. It was eleven o’clock. “Gosh, I didn’t realize it was so late. I completely lost track of the time,” she said.

  “I did too.”

  She started toward the entry hall and he followed, pausing at the closet to retrieve her trench coat. “I think the rain has stopped. There won’t be much traffic this time of night. I’m just sorry I can’t escort you home.”

  “Oh, no problem. It won’t take long to get back to Bethesda.”

  As he helped with her coat, he took hold of her shoulders and turned her around. His face was inches from hers. He nudged her chin up, leaned down and gently kissed her. She was so stunned, she hardly knew how to react. When he encircled her with his arms and deepened the kiss, she closed her eyes and felt herself being pulled into a very strong embrace. His tongue found hers and he cradled her head with one hand, his fingers twining through her long blond hair, the faint scent of vanilla lingering there.

  “I’ve wanted to do that since the first time I laid eyes on you,” he murmured.