The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol

by Josie Brown

  In reality, I’ve been on both sides of that particular coin so many times that I’m no longer sure of this myself. I have to admit I’d prefer he turn out to be the man I hope he is—if not for our friendship, then certainly for the sake of our country. I guess clearing him of the treason committed in the Oval Office is the best way to show my friendship to him.

  I just hope he doesn’t catch me in the act.

  He is there to greet me at Lion’s Lair grand entrance. He smiles warmly, and his posture is relaxed. As he helps me out of the car, he also pulls me in for a chaste kiss on the cheek.

  “California agrees with you,” I reply.

  He chuckles. “If only I could move the West Wing permanently to Hilldale.”

  I shake my head. “You’d only be transferring DC’s issues with it. Lion’s Lair would quickly lose its charm.”

  He stares, stymied, if only for a moment. “It’s not this stucco monstrosity I find so charming. You know that.”

  Yes, I do.

  In his eyes, I am a friend—to his chagrin, with only one, albeit very important benefit:

  I can save his presidency.

  Or break it.

  He places his hand on my arm in order to lead me in.

  I am assured his cell phone is on him because he pulls it out in order to ring Janie’s new au pair. “Sally, please let Trisha know that her mom and I are on our way up to fetch her. And tell Janie no tantrums, or else Trisha won’t be allowed over during the rest of the time we’re here at home.” He clicks off, shaking his head in annoyance.

  I look forward to meeting Sally. She’s got to be better than Janie’s last au pair, Frannie, who turned out to be a Quorum operative. The White House has had a hell of a time getting good help.

  After texting Arnie the code phrase that warns him to look for the Trojan going live (“Leaving soon to pick up groceries”), I slip my hand into the pocket of my jacket to engage the app that may end Lee’s and my friendship once and for all.

  I then count down the seconds until this may happen: two-hundred seventy, two-hundred sixty-nine, two-hundred sixty-eight, two-hundred sixty-seven…

  Lee walks at a leisurely pace: up the steps into the grand foyer, and toward the elevator that will take us to the top floor, where Janie’s bedroom suite is located.

  Once the door closes, and he’s assured we’re away from prying eyes and perked ears, he mutters, “I wish Babette were half as strict with Janie as I am. It would make life easier. Instead, she encourages Janie to pit us against each other so that she can be viewed as the ‘good parent’.”

  “That’s a shame,” I reply. “Although, I do understand her desire to stay close as Janie grows older.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. Babette’s fear isn’t about Janie growing older, but about her own aging. She doesn’t want to be the parent. She wants to be the indulgent older sister.”

  Ouch. But, yeah, he’s got Babette pegged.

  One-hundred forty-three, one-hundred forty-two, one-hundred forty-one…

  “Under any circumstances, it’s hard to bring up a child,” I point out. “With considerable wealth and all the trappings of the White House, it’s got to be nearly impossible to keep a child’s feet on the ground.”

  “Please don’t make excuses for Babette. We both know she’s self-centered. I’d hoped another child in her life would change her for the better, but who am I kidding? She’ll always put herself first. It’s just…it’s just who she is.”

  “Is Babette home?” I ask—a safe topic, I hope, but I doubt it.

  “No. We’re hosting Drucker and his wife, Tilly. She took them to the Reagan Presidential Library. Drucker wanted to pay his respects graveside.” Lee’s eyes roll skyward. “It’s a great photo op for him, as you can imagine.”

  I have to purse my lips to keep from laughing.

  Lee’s not. He’s frowning. He turns to stare at the door again.

  No better time to change the subject. “I’m so happy that Janie called Trisha. She hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”

  Lee reaches for my hand and squeezes it sympathetically. “Really? Why is that?”

  “She claims a ghost has been visiting her at night. Sadly, the ghost is Carl.”

  “That’s not a dream. It’s a nightmare.”

  How do I respond to that?

  I can’t. We’ve both learned the hard way that what he said is the truth.

  We make the rest of the trip in silence.

  He doesn’t let got of my hand until the elevator door opens.

  “Trisha doesn’t really want to go home.” This is Janie’s way of greeting me. “She’s afraid of her ghost dad.”

  Trisha ducks her head over her friend’s indiscretion.

  I take hold of my daughter’s hand. “If you want, I’ll sleep with you tonight. If he shows up again, I’ll tell him to go away, once and for all.”

  Hearing this, Lee’s eyes open wide. I guess I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped in keeping the hard edge out of my voice.

  At least my declaration puts a hopeful smile on my daughter’s face. Grateful, she hugs my waist.

  Lee puts a hand on Janie’s shoulder. “Let’s walk our guests to the front door.”

  “No! I won’t have anyone to play with tonight—so I won’t come down to eat with our boring old guests! Sally can bring my food up here to me,” Janie shouts. As if it will help her make her point, she crosses her arms and turns her back on him.

  Trisha’s eyes open in shock.

  She isn’t the only one taken aback by Janie’s pout. Anger flashes across Lee’s face. “No, Janie, unless you join us—and behave yourself—there will be no dinner tonight.” He motions us toward the door. “Ladies, shall we leave Janie to enjoy her pouting session in peace?”

  As we reach the hallway, my instinct is the same as Trisha’s: to look back at Janie.

  Suddenly realizing Lee meant business, Janie turns around at that very moment. Fear has dampened her eyes with tears. Seeing that we are staring back at her, she drops her head in shame, but is too proud to take back her threat.

  While I nudge Trisha down the hall and toward the elevator, my cell phone buzzes with a text message from Arnie.

  His coded message—We have no milk—is a bit of good news—for Lee anyway, if not our mission: There is no evidence that his phone took the leaked photos of the Operation Hercules white papers, or that he sent anything at all to Salem’s email address.

  Once again, we’re back to square one.

  When the elevator opens on the ground floor, Eve is waiting for us.

  After shaking my hand, she turns to her boss. “The first lady is running a half-hour late, Mr. President. The vice president wanted to take his time at the museum. Also, Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Courtland are waiting for you in your office. They say it’s a matter of utmost urgency.”

  Lee frowns. He turns to me. “If you’ll excuse me, Donna. Eve will walk you out.”

  “But of course, Mr. President.”

  He parts with a wistful smile. Maybe it’ll broaden when he gets the news from Ryan that all the suspects have been cleared—including himself.

  Ironically, it’ll also mean we’re back to square one: no suspects in the theft of the Operation Hercules research.

  Eve waits until he’s further down the hall before turning to me. “Mrs. Craig, when we last met, you asked me to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity in the West Wing.”

  She’s piqued my curiosity enough that I nod slightly.

  She hesitates before finally murmuring, “I don’t know if what I found relates to your investigation, but I know the president feels he can trust you with his life, which is enough for me to hand it off to you.”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  “I didn’t find it in the West Wing, but here at Lion’s Lair, in my private quarters. Previously, they belonged to Eileen Woodley. If you follow me, you can see it for yourself.” She leads Trisha and I back into the elevator then
pushes the button for the third floor, which holds Lion’s Lair’s guest quarters.

  The suite overlooks the Chiffrays’ private golf course. It’s done up in a sunny yellow, and its furnishings are less formal than the museum pieces throughout the downstairs. It has its own living room, dining room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a galley kitchen.

  Eve walks over to a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. Not all of its shelves are filled with tomes. Some contain curios. She pulls out one of the books: a John Le Carre novel: The Night Manager.

  “I was looking for something to read,” she continues. “Instead, I found this.”

  When she opens the novel, I see that the pages are centered out. The gap is square, and just large enough to hold something:

  An iPad.

  Yes, this is interesting.

  Eve takes it out and hands it to me. “It needs a password to open it.”

  “Do you know anything about Eileen Woodley’s departure from the president’s staff?”

  “Before taking her place, I’d previously worked for the secretary of state, so I wasn’t part of the West Wing staff when…when Eileen passed. But I’d heard scuttlebutt: something to do with a breach of protocol, despite the fact that she’d been with him for years, even during his time in the private sector.” She looks down at the iPad. “I presume it was hidden in this manner for a reason that may jeopardize POTUS, should it be revealed in anything other than your investigation. As you requested, I want to ensure his hands are clean.”

  “I’m sure the president would appreciate your actions in this regard. My hope is that once we break the password and determine what and why it was left in this manner, he’ll be able to thank you in person.”

  I slip the iPad into my purse. “I guess you should walk us out.”

  Eve looks down at her watch. “And the sooner the better. We want to get you down the hill before the others get back from Simi Valley.”

  I get it. The last thing Eve needs is to be blamed yet again for my presence.

  We reach Hilldale Avenue just as the first lady’s motorcade is pulling onto it from our gated community’s secure main gate.

  Trisha slumps down in her seat. “Whew! That was close, Mommy!”

  She’s telling me.

  Chapter 10

  Dead Man Walking

  In prison parlance, “dead man walking” is the term for a condemned prisoner making his last walk to the death chamber.

  Popular culture also uses it as a way to indicate an unavoidable loss that is about to occur to an unsuspecting victim. You could use it as well, to describe:

  An employee who doesn’t know he’s about to get fired, despite the fact that the rest of his office has been clued in;

  A presidential candidate who goes through the motions of campaigning after Super Tuesday, in spite of the fact that poll results show he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell; and

  Someone with no inkling that he has a target on his back.

  Whereas the first two examples are metaphorical, the last one could be literal. Word to the wise: If it’s you who pulls the trigger, don’t miss.

  And if you succeed, don’t get caught. Lethal injection is far worse than Botox.

  We come home to a full house.

  Jack is in the backyard, grilling burgers in an apron that proclaims MR. GOOD LOOKING IS COOKING, while Abu butters buns and lays them on the warming rack. Ryan and Arnie nurse beers on two of our outdoor chaise lounges. Emma sits with them on a third chaise, but she’s sipping bottled water.

  Out on our grassy lawn, Evan and Mary each hold a chubby little palm of Emma and Arnie’s toddler son, Nicky, as he attempts a few unsteady steps.

  This doesn’t look like any traditional family gathering, but I have to ask anyway: “Where are Aunt Phyllis and Jeff?”

  “Aunt Phyllis is at her meditation class,” Jack informs us. “And Jeff is upstairs, in his bedroom.”

  “Oh…I forgot! He may need me for our ’speriment!” Trisha bounds into the house.

  I open my purse in order to toss the iPad on Arnie’s lap. “Do you think you can break the password on this?”

  Smiling, he lifts it up. “Is that a dare?”

  “Yes. And the sooner the better. It once belonged to Eileen Woodley.”

  Arnie’s smile fades. “I’m on it.” He leaps up and heads to the kitchen.

  I take his chaise.

  “Where did you get it?” Ryan asks.

  “Eve found it within a book in Eileen’s old quarters at Lion’s Lair. POTUS doesn’t even know about it yet.”

  Ryan sits up.

  Emma, “Oh, my god!”

  Hearing her, Nicky squeals too, before plopping down on the grass.

  “Phew!” Evan mutters. “I think he sat in his…you know…”

  Jack’s reaction to the news is to freeze. But the burger he flips in mid-air is still subject to gravitational pull. It falls on the ground.

  One of our dogs, Rin Tin Tin, scarfs it up. The other, Lassie, chases after him, whining all the way.

  “Get in here—now!” Arnie yells. “You’ve got to see this!”

  He doesn’t have to ask twice. Ryan, Jack, Abu, Emma, and I run into the house.

  “Wait!” Mary shouts. “What about Nicky’s, er, poo?”

  Emma runs back to her chaise. Underneath it is a diaper bag. She tosses it at Evan. “It’s never too early to learn! Remember, after you use a baby wipe, powder him!”

  The teens stand there in shock.

  I brace myself for a similar reaction to what my Acme team is about to see.

  “They used drones.” Arnie stabs a stubby finger at the far left third of his laptop’s triple-split screen.

  He has zoomed in as close as possible so that we can see them: three, perhaps the size of gnats, and possibly made of a clear plastic so that they are all but invisible to the naked eye.

  “I don’t get it,” I murmur.

  “You will,” he assures us. “Just watch. The portion of the screen on the far left is the feed from the White House’s hallway security cameras.”

  I recognize the location: it’s the anteroom next to the Roosevelt Room.

  “I’m going to back it up, so that you see where this little critter comes from.” He reverses the feed just a few seconds—

  So that we see them fly out from under the catering cart being wheeled into the Roosevelt room.

  Well, what do you know?

  “Now, watch the middle section of the screen. It’s from one of several feeds I just pulled off Eileen’s iPad. Somehow, she rigged a camera in the ceiling of the Roosevelt Room, and another in the Oval Office. Both must still be live. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have captured last week’s meeting, or what happened when everyone broke for lunch.”

  “Holy shit,” Ryan mutters.

  In the feed, the caterers set up the coffee and tea service, while the drones, which are never within peripheral vision, move very quickly toward a far corner of the ceiling.

  Arnie freezes the feed. “The drones wait there, even after the meeting starts. Here we go.”

  He runs the feed without sound so that we can’t hear the discussion that is for the attendees only.

  “Now, I’ll fast-forward, so that you see what happened during the lunch break. Just watch the middle feed and you’ll see how the white papers were compromised,” he adds.

  Suddenly, the attendees leave the room at warp speed. When the doors shut behind them, the drones swoop down over the table, scanning it for what they need: white paper left on the table.

  They find one: in front of the chair where Rudy Brooks sat.

  One of the drones hovers for a moment, possibly taking a photo of the cover sheet. Next, another drone works as a paperweight while another flips to the next page. This goes on until all the pages have been photographed.

  The drones freeze when the door opens and someone enters: Shelley. She goes to her seat in order to take her pocketbook off the table, where she left it: on top
of a white paper.

  After she leaves, the drones move toward it. The same covert ballet occurs: scanning, shooting, and moving papers.

  When finished, the drones look for the final paper, but all the rest are in briefcases, or covered by dossier folders.

  Finally, a door opens: Rudy enters.

  He doesn’t notice the drones leaving in his wake while he picks up his cell phone. A second later, he startles the caterers, who return with fresh coffee urns.

  Whereas Rudy goes back to the dining room, the drones hover in a corner of the Oval Office reception room’s ceiling.

  Babette’s entrance into the Oval Office itself gives them their chance to enter with her.

  Arnie switches the feed in Eileen’s iPad to the Oval Office. The drones have already taken their positions in a ceiling corner, waiting for the perfect time to scan the last white paper. They get it after Lee enters, has an agitated discussion with Babette, and then escorts her out the door.

  When he comes back to grab his copies of the white papers, they head out the door with him—

  Only they head down the hall, flying high over the heads of unsuspecting staffers.

  “Where did they go?” Jack asks.

  Arnie shrugs. “Great question. I’ll know after further examination of the footage. But I do have one last gem.”

  The screen now goes to a single still shot: it’s the cover of one of the white papers. In quick succession, we see each page.

  “The drone’s feed was also sent to the iPad,” Arnie explains.

  “Does its IP address match up to the device that sent the email to Salem?”

  “No. It came from elsewhere. I’m tracing it now, but it’s been masked. I should have it in a couple of hours, though.” He smiles encouragingly. “Maybe after we eat? Speaking of which, I’m getting sort of hungry.”

  “Oh, hell! I left the burgers on the grill!” Jack runs out the kitchen door.