by Julie Hyzy
John, the middle child, stepped back to see better. “Can’t we take them home to our house?”
Maryann Blanchard shook her head. “We made these as gifts. It’s like giving your country a Christmas present.”
John looked unimpressed. Leah sucked her thumb and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. Only the oldest, Trey, had anything to say. “I wish I would’ve worked harder on it.”
She patted him on the head. “You did a wonderful job.”
From the sounds of things, the tree in the Blue Room was about to be lit. “Come on,” Maryann Blanchard said to her brood, “we don’t want to miss this.”
I smiled after them. The three kids were nowhere near as impressed with the White House as their mother was, but I supposed someday they could tell their own kids about being featured. Of course, if their father had any say in the matter, after the next election, they’d be living here themselves.
I would have loved to watch the tree-lighting ceremony, but it was my duty to stay put, to be ready for my turn to talk to the country about the small part I played in bringing the holidays to the president’s home.
The next room quieted, and someone lowered the room’s lights. A hush settled over the onlookers and even the reporters assigned to this room craned their necks to see.
I tried peering over the tops of the guests’ heads but had no luck.
After a prolonged silence, the room next door lit up, and everyone broke into spontaneous applause.
My heart pounded. Both because it was our turn next and because I was so proud of all we’d accomplished. Not just Marcel and I, not just the crew in the kitchen, but all of us. The country had been under siege-both from terrorists and economically-for an extended period of time. Those on the right side of the Senate aisle and their counterparts on the left could not agree on even the simplest matters, and pundits were having a field day.
These few weeks in the White House gave us all a respite. A time when we could just be together as citizens of this great country. A time for all of us to take a moment and reflect on the goodness that we all share. Whether we celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa-all of them, or none of them-we were doing so together.
Bindy appeared at the doorway to the Red Room, her hair blown back from her face, and her cheeks bright red, looking as though she’d run all the way from the East Appointment Gate. She scanned the room, one hand gripping the door frame, as though it was difficult to hold herself up. When she saw me, her expression changed. I would have characterized it as panicked. “Ollie, where are they?”
I had no doubt who she meant. I pointed. “In the Blue-”
She didn’t wait for me to finish. Bolting away, she spied little John Blanchard and grabbed him by the arm. He protested loudly.
Maryann Blanchard turned, as though to admonish her son, then saw Bindy standing there. “What are you-?”
“We have to go,” Bindy said.
I’d left my position next to the gingerbread house to follow. “What’s going on?”
Bindy ignored me.
Mrs. Blanchard shook her head and answered the assistant. “The tour isn’t over yet.” She tugged John closer.
“Your husband wants you home,” Bindy said. “Now.”
That got Maryann Blanchard’s back up. I watched fire light her eyes. “Oh really? Well, you can tell him that no matter what his quarrel is with the White House, I am not giving up the chance to have my children photographed at this event.”
Bindy shook her head, and pulled Mrs. Blanchard’s elbow. She spoke softly. “You don’t understand,” she said, her nervous giggle making its appearance. This time it sounded almost like a hiccup. “It’s an emergency.”
Mrs. Blanchard’s eyes clouded. “What happened?”
“Come with me. Please.”
“Mommy, I don’t want to go,” Trey said. “We haven’t got our pictures taken yet.”
Bindy’s gaze floated toward the three gingerbread men, then back to Mrs. Blanchard. “We have to go. Now.” She squeezed John’s arm and he cried out. “I’m not kidding. You’ve got to listen to me.”
The crowd around Mrs. Blanchard had begun to notice the minor fracas, and Mrs. Blanchard noticed them. Reluctantly gathering her children and shushing their complaints, she followed Bindy out the door. As soon as they were gone, the onlookers returned their attention to the question-and-answer session going on under the Blue Room’s spotlights.
I returned to my post, and tried to process what just happened.
“What was that all about?” Bucky asked.
Marcel snorted. “Who can understand such females as these? You remember how Bindy behaved when she worked here. Always too impressionable.”
Marcel was right. She’d been an unpredictable and often unstable staffer. I’d harbored hope that this new position, working for the senator, would have settled her down.
Senator Blanchard was apparently still angry enough at Mrs. Campbell that the very idea of his family being here appalled him. I didn’t for one minute buy Bindy’s excuse of an emergency. I’d seen the lie flit across her face as she grasped for a reason to persuade Mrs. Blanchard to leave the premises.
Bindy had been manic in her demeanor. Frantic, actually.
I looked up when Gav appeared in the doorway. Keeping one eye on the festivities next door, he sauntered over and spoke softly, close to my ear.
“This is not for public distribution,” he said.
He waited till I leaned back and met his eyes. “Okay.”
Bucky was close enough to listen in. At Gav’s glare, he stepped a few feet away.
Gav whispered, “Sean Baxter didn’t commit suicide.”
I jerked away from him, looking again into his face. Although in my gut I’d known that to be true, it was far different to hear someone in authority say the words. “Who killed him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “We don’t know yet.”
“But they know for sure it wasn’t suicide?”
He nodded. “And I checked that other rumor you asked me about.”
“About Nick Volkov?”
“He didn’t kill Mr. Sinclair,” he said. “But someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like he did.”
“What does that mean?”
Gav gave a slight headshake. “Tell you more later. For now, just be aware.”
Like a ghost, he slid away.
Be aware? Of what? I wondered.
Bucky moved to stand next to me again just as the group began to filter into the Red Room. This was it: my time to shine. But I couldn’t feel the joy. Something was holding me back. A tight, annoying prickle told me something wasn’t quite right.
Cameras were set up and the First Lady was led to her spot just in front of the gingerbread house. It was then I realized that I was standing next to the switch. Mrs. Campbell would have to get in close to me in order to turn it on. Which meant I would have to move when the time came. A perfect photo opportunity, with the pastry chef on one side and the First Lady on the other. Whoever had plotted this out had vision.
Too bad poor Yi-im had gone home sick. If he’d been standing right here, he’d have been in the picture, too.
A feeling prickled the back of my arms and creeped across my shoulder blades.
I stole a look at the three gingerbread men the Blanchard family had insisted we place prominently in this room. The three men that, according to Agda, Yi-im had supposedly been “fixing” late last night.
I’d convinced myself she’d been mistaken in her observation. But… why had I made that assumption? Agda had been the personification of precision since we’d hired her. And for some reason, I’d chosen to doubt her when it came to Yi-im.
Yi-im, a “lazy man” by Jackson’s standards, who’d maneuvered his way into the pastry kitchen, even though he’d been hired as a butler.
I shook my head and paid attention to the ceremony.
Mrs. Campbell was wearing a black skirt suit, with no
festive adornment whatsoever. Although she smiled as she took up her position next to Marcel, I knew from the look in her eyes that she couldn’t wait for this tour to be over. But we’d all worked so hard, and I knew she wouldn’t want to disappoint our nation’s citizens.
I thought about the dysfunctional champagne fountain. I wondered if anyone even missed it.
My mind flashed-a quick recollection-Curly sitting under the fountain, proclaiming nothing wrong with the device.
And yet it had blown water to the ceiling when activated in this room.
Here.
I swallowed.
The gingerbread house was exactly where the champagne fountain once stood.
Marcel nodded in answer to a question Mrs. Campbell posed. I hadn’t paid attention, but forced myself to refocus.
“And this only took you two weeks?” Mrs. Campbell said. “I don’t think I could create something this beautiful in a year.”
A titter of polite laughter from the audience. Marcel nodded again. “Thank you.”
I leaned back and peeked behind the skirted table, hoping no one would notice me. In order to get the gingerbread house to light up at just the perfect time, it had been plugged in-into two separate outlets that would work together, to light up both the inside and the outside of the structure.
These were the same two outlets the fountain had been plugged into before. Two outlets. Just like the two sockets that Stanley had shown me.
Blood rushed from my face to my feet. Bucky sidled closer. “Hang in there.”
I caught sight of Gav, watching everything from a far corner of the room, and thought about the real bomb that only he and I knew about. He gave me a funny look and I remembered, suddenly, Tom’s one-on-one lesson. He’d told me that explosives could take almost any shape. He’d shown me pictures. I thought about Gav’s training session with the simulated bomb in the presidential seal. I’d screwed that up because I hadn’t noticed the wires. If only I’d seen…
The wires.
I twisted my head. The Blanchard gingerbread men.
“My God,” I said, finally piecing everything together.
Mrs. Campbell started toward me-toward the switch.
Frozen by wild terror, I couldn’t move. Bucky tugged at my elbow, urging me to step away.
“No,” I said to him. “I think…”
It couldn’t be. Could it? I stared at the gingerbread men again.
Bucky’s teeth were clenched. “Ollie, come on.”
Mrs. Campbell gave me an uncomfortable smile as she shoehorned her way between me and the house.
“And our theme this year wouldn’t be complete without Marcel’s masterpiece, an absolutely magnificent reproduction of the White House.” Mrs. Campbell smiled, shooting me a look of confusion. I still hadn’t moved. “I give you our holiday theme and invite you all to enjoy… ‘Together we celebrate-Welcome Home.’ ” Her finger skimmed the switch.
“No!” I shouted, pushing her away from the table. I dove beneath the skirting and grabbed at the cords-one in each hand. They pulled free from the outlet with more ease than I expected, which sent me tumbling backward, dragging the tabletop with me.
Its base upset, the gingerbread house tilted for a crazed, breathless moment, then slid away, crashing onto the floor behind me, into a million tiny crumbles.
“Sacre bleu!” Marcel screamed. “Olivia, what have you done?” I peered out from under the skirting, flipping the fabric up to see him holding his head in his hands, a disbelieving, furious expression on his face.
I sat on the floor, looking up at Mrs. Campbell, who stared down at me for a long moment, her hands over her mouth.
I was vaguely aware of incessant clicking, of hundreds of flashes, as the photographers captured my moment of shame for all posterity.
Gav had moved in, as had a crew of Secret Service personnel. “That’s enough. Everyone out.”
As reporters and others plied them with questions, I heard the repeated refrain: “We will issue a statement later. No questions now.”
I hung my head and sat under the table, with Marcel sobbing behind me, and Bucky shuffling through the broken pieces of house that littered the floor. “You sure did it this time, Ace,” he said.
I looked up. “Thanks.”
Mrs. Campbell had been whisked away by her protection detail, and I was surrounded by Secret Service who didn’t wear happy-to-see-me looks.
Gav broke through their perimeter. “What happened?”
Now that I needed to put it into words, I hesitated. What if I was wrong?
I pointed to the gingerbread men that had tumbled to the ground along with the house. Not one of them had broken. “I think there might be plastic explosives in those,” I said.
One of the agents behind Gav rolled his eyes, but Gav picked one up.
I bit my bottom lip. “And I think those two outlets have a floating neutral.”
“A what?”
I explained, realizing how ridiculous everything sounded when spoken aloud. “If there is a floating neutral, then the gingerbread house would have gotten too much voltage,” I said. “There are sparklers-little pyrotechnic things that Marcel added-but I think his assistant added more.” I licked my lips, my voice cracking under the pressure. “If the voltage would have hit… Well, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Before I’d finished my explanation, Gav had picked up one of the three Blanchard gingerbread men. His brow furrowed as he examined the back of the decoration. “I don’t see anything-”
My heart dropped. I’d be sacked for sure this time.
“Wait,” he said, turning the design around to the front. To one of the other agents, he said, “Get Morton up here.”
“What is it?” I asked.
The agents around me had relaxed their positions a little. They’d taken the weeping Marcel away. Bucky had asked to stay but had been sent back downstairs.
Gav shook his head. Within moments a burly man wearing body armor arrived. Morton. Gav handed him all three gingerbread men to examine.
“Don’t feel like standing up yet, do you?” Gav asked me.
I knew my legs wouldn’t handle it. “No.”
He sat on the floor next to me, and released the collection of agents whose very presence crowded the room more than all the reporters, visitors, and photographers had, combined.
“You’re going to get crumbs all over your suit pants,” I said.
“Hazard of the job.”
“What did I do?” I asked.
“One of two things,” he said. “You either gave the media a whopper of a story to ruin you with…”
I moaned and put my head down.
“Or you saved a lot of lives, including the First Lady’s.”
Morton spoke. “Special Agent-in-Charge?”
Gavin looked up. “Yes?”
“Clear the building.”
CHAPTER 23
“WHERE’S THE FIRST LADY?” I ASKED AS GAV rushed me from the room.
Two Secret Service agents accompanied us, Patricia Berland and Kevin Martin. Agent Martin shook his head, refusing to answer.
I’d expected to be led outside, as we had when I’d shouted the alarm Saturday, but to my surprise, I was herded into the East Wing and down the now-familiar set of stairs. “The bunker?” I asked.
Gav kept his lips tight and never broke stride. When the agents ushered us into the first door on the right, I was visited with a peculiar sense of déjà vu. This is where it all had begun, just days ago, when the fake bomb had been found… when Sean was still alive.
My sense of repeating past events was heightened when I walked in to see the First Lady sitting at the table where the three of us had shared our lunch.
She stood. “Ollie, I just heard what you did.”
The enormity of the experience was making my legs heavy, my head tight. I made it to one of the chairs and didn’t even think twice about etiquette. I sat down and blew out a shaky breath.
/> Gav and the two agents sat with us while we went over details. I explained again why I suspected an explosive, and a misfire in the electrical system that would trigger it. When I told them that this unusual phenomena could be purposely engineered, Agent Martin said, “Then they had to have had help from the inside.”
“Curly!” I sat up, startled by my own realization. “The electrician who took over when Gene was killed. He’s been fighting me the whole way. I tried to get him to look at the problem, but he refused.” I spoke very quickly, gauging the three agents watching me, trying hard not to be stalled by their solemn expressions. “I think he might have set all this up. He was impossible to deal with. And…” I was grasping at straws, but I couldn’t stop myself. “He might have even been the one who had me attacked.”
Mrs. Campbell had been silent for most of this. When she spoke, she did so very quietly. “I can’t believe that anyone would want to harm me,” she said. “I know the gingerbread men were contributed by the Blanchard family. But how can you be sure that Treyton Blanchard is behind this? Couldn’t it have been someone else?”
I looked to Gav. He answered, “We’re rounding up a number of people for questioning right now. We’d been operating under the assumption that the president was the bomber’s target, but with the information we have now, we believe that you may have been the target all along.”
Mrs. Campbell looked away.
Agent Martin held a hand up. He held tight to his earpiece and listened closely. “We’re needed back upstairs,” he said, and started for the door. Agent Berland followed him.
Gav started to leave, too. “Will you be all right for a little while?” he asked.
The prickle at my shoulders was back. I was missing something.
He was just about out the door, when I said, “Wait.”
Motioning for the two agents to go on ahead without him, Gav stopped. “What is it?”
When Tom had taken me through his version of Explosives 101, he’d been adamant on one point. In fact, he’d pounded the concept into my brain by making me repeat a mantra, over and over. “Always assume there’s a secondary device.”