She recounted the story from the beginning to the end as they walked to his office. He let out a big breath. He understood his job was not to solve the problem, but to make sure the right people to solve it were there. Based on everything he knew about Aaron Baker, his number one draft choice for solving the problem would be here shortly.
Chief Joseph sent a text message to his friend, and President of the Adam Smith Society, Red Budzel, asking for names of experts on immigration law and U.S. relations with China.
“Did you know the whole thing with Aaron Baker and the dollar started because of a whitepaper he wrote for the Adam Smith Society?”
Aurora nodded affirmatively.
“I’d been advised to cut my ties with the organization because it’s seen as too political and right-wing. But it’s not, if you get to know what it is about. I met their President, Red Budzel, about ten years ago when I was asked to speak at a healthcare panel. It was about what was right and wrong with medicine. It wasn’t partisan at all.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I’m not sure this helps with our current investigation. At least from the perspective of anything I can do to be helpful.”
“But that’s what we need. We can’t afford another two thousand page healthcare bill written by lobbyists and assistants to the aides of Congressmen and the White House. We need to know what will happen if we challenge China. If we decide to halt immigration and revoke visas to Chinese citizens, can it be done with an executive order? What is legal? What is right? What is in the country’s best short and long-term interests?”
She nodded, understanding his point. “Who would help make the best policy?”
“It should be Congress, but everyone in the House is constantly running for re-election and let their lobbyists draft proposed legislation for them. Congressmen used to work, then serve, and often return to work after their term. Now when I look at the background of ninety percent of Congress, their first job was as an aide to someone in office. Then they ran for and won a local elected office. Then a Statewide office. Then Congress. An entire lifetime serving in office without understanding what it’s like to work in the real world.”
“How can I help?”
His cell phone buzzed. He read off the names that Red Budzel sent him. “Get these people to the White House as quickly as you can.”
“Yes Chief.”
His secretary had a friend of his from Ameriprobe holding for him on the phone; she knocked on his door to inform him. He thanked her and pressed the speaker button. “Erik Roze, you old dog.”
“Brandon Joseph, trying to take another step away from practicing medicine…”
“Erik, I’m sorry to cut chit chat short, but I have an FBI agent here, Aurora Wulfers, that has a few questions she really needs answered. We did a lot of work together on clinical trials at GW so I understand more than anyone the significance of proprietary information and research, but I’m calling in every favor now.”
“Okay Chief, what’s up?”
Aurora introduced herself and started asking questions about a cure for influenza. After five minutes, Erik confirmed they had several anti-viral drugs at various stages of development, but nothing like what the news was indicating. There have been no late-stage trials, no animal testing, no patents pending, or any initial hope to push a drug through the FDA fast track.
Aurora didn’t understand Erik’s exact words. “Sorry to disappoint, but we got nothing you can grab by the belt loops and pull in to seal the deal.” She didn’t quite understand his diction but she understood the message. Someone sent Xiaowan looking for something that did not exist.
Chapter 32
Aaron Baker, Manny Gaglione, and James Lerma were taken through White House security and led to the residential corridor. Manny had once donated a lot of money to a previous president and recognized the area where they were walking. He whispered to James, “I think we’re headed to the Lincoln Bedroom.”
The aide leading them knocked on the door. Xiaowan opened the door and wrapped herself around James. Tina saw Aaron and smiled in disbelief as she rushed around James and Xiaowan to hug him.
Tina kissed Aaron and laughed as she withdrew from the kiss. “You stink.”
Her hair was wet, she had just showered. “You look fresh,” he remarked, followed by, “and fantastic.”
“After the first debriefing, we were kind of in the way so Chief of Staff Joseph told someone to send us up here to get refreshed. It might be a long night.”
“There is only one shower in this bedroom. Aaron, you’re the only one who really needs it. Why don’t you go first in case we are short on time?”
Tina smiled at Manny. “Hi Manny. As usual, great advice.”
James introduced Manny to Xiaowan. Tina looked at Aaron suspiciously and asked him, “Are you okay?”
He frowned. “Bad hangover. Terrible.”
“I’ll see if we can rustle anything up to help you. Why don’t you help us all and go take a shower and brush your teeth.”
As if on cue, the porters arrived with their bags. They had made it through screening before their luggage cleared. Aaron took his suitcase into the bathroom with him.
Tina asked one of the porters, “Do you know if there are any medical supplies here?”
“There is a physician at the White House. He has access to pretty much everything, or we can send someone out for you. What do you need?”
“A liter of saline in an IV drip and a large banana.”
“That’s rather specific. I’ll go see if we can find that or have the doctor come up.”
James looked at Xiaowan awkwardly for a second and whispered, “Do we tip them?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
When the two porters left, Xiaowan, Tina, and James all sat down on the bed and Manny paced while Aaron showered. Xiaowan asked, “What do we do now?”
James said, “I guess we keep following Aaron’s lead. I mean, we are in the Lincoln Bedroom right now, not in Sing-Sing. What happened while you guys were here? Did you meet the President?”
Xiaowan and Tina nodded, then filled them in on the meetings and gave them more details about the first debriefing.
Manny interrupted his pacing to answer a knock on the door. A black man in his early forties asked, “Did someone need medical help?”
Tina got off of the bed. “Dr. Tina Lee, emergency physician. I have a patient that is dehydrated and has a minor vitamin B deficiency.”
The doctor extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, doctor. I am Dr. Ryan Benjamin. Is your diagnosis a hangover?”
She smiled at him. “Yes, and he will need to be at full capacity so an IV bag, a banana, and maybe a cup of coffee would do wonders for him.”
The doctor opened up the bag he brought with him and handed her an IV bag filled with saline. “I’ll ask the kitchen to bring you guys a fruit plate and coffee. I take it you can handle the bag, Dr. Lee?”
“Yes, doctor. Thank you so much,” Tina said, accepting the bag with its accoutrements.
“My pleasure.”
When the doctor left, Manny asked Tina, “Did they tell you what happens next? Are we supposed to sit here and wait to be called into a meeting room? Are we free to leave?”
James wondered where the heck Manny would rather be than in the White House during this crisis. “Something wrong with being here?”
“I need to meet with someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone who I think might have some information about this case.”
Xiaowan was suspicious. “Who is that?”
“Kimbo,” a female voice called out, which turned everyone’s head towards the door.
James’ frown at the name turned into half a smile when he saw that the voice came from Aurora Wulfers, who was standing beside Nat.
Xiaowan asked Manny, “Is that true?”
Manny smiled and nodded at Xiaowan, then turned to Aurora. “Nice investigation, Agent Wulfers.”
; “Thank you. Kimbo will be landing in about two hours. What will you two be talking about?”
Manny pulled out his cell phone and clicked on an app that brought up the Hong Kong stock exchange. “I won’t be able to divulge any client information. But I’m sure you are aware the Hong Kong stock exchange will open at nine pm tonight, our time, and tomorrow morning trading opens here at nine thirty am. Mr. Bo will be able to afford my exorbitant rates.”
Aurora filed that in her mental cabinet as Xiaowan asked in disbelief, “You and Kimbo did this for money?”
James’ mouth fell slightly agape as he tried to shake off Xiaowan’s line of thinking. Tina felt unsteadied and wished Aaron wasn’t in the shower so that he could hear this.
Manny shook his head. “No. Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t know for certain that Kimbo bought options, but Aaron said there was an outsized purchase. I would bet you a dollar that Kimbo made money on this.”
James asked, “Manny?”
“I wasn’t sure until I called him. Even still, I’m not sure what his involvement is. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if he fits into all of this, which is why I told him to get to Washington D.C. right away to help make sure we don’t start World War III. “
Tina, Xiaowan, and Aurora all looked at each other wondering what conversation those two were having.
Aurora asked, “Not sure about what?”
James said, “He can’t answer that.” He looked at Manny and asked, “Can you?”
Manny shook his head.
Freshly showered, and in slacks and a button-down shirt, Aaron came out of the bathroom to a deathly quiet room. “Hi Aurora, what’s going on?”
Xiaowan responded, “Manny has a relationship with Kimbo. He and James seem to know something we don’t.”
“James, we need all cards on the table. What’s going on with Manny Gaglione?” Aurora asked.
James looked at Xiaowan while he answered Aurora. “Manny has to protect his client. If he finds out his client did anything wrong, he can’t say.”
“There are about two hundred laws I’ll need to get associates to review to make sure, but I imagine that Kenji Bo has not committed any crimes.”
“What the fuck, Manny?” Aaron asked. “Wait, you said that you weren’t close to him.”
“I’m not. I haven’t seen him or spoken with him in years. I had just remembered something he told me a while back, that one day he would need my help on something big. I’m thinking this is it.”
“Did you call him from the plane? Was that your client?” Aaron asked.
Manny nodded.
“How did you have his number if you aren’t close to him?”
“Aaron, those of us with iPhones transfer our entire address book to our current phone each time we upgrade. I have over six hundred phone numbers in my phone. I’m not part of any conspiracy here. Come on, Aaron. Come on.”
Aaron rubbed his head wondering if he was still drunk and hallucinating. Could Manny be in league with this Kimbo guy? Aurora thought the same thing and proposed, “Let’s pick him up at the airport. It will be me, you, and the Secret Service. We’ll drive a car with a partition so you can speak with him in private.”
“Great idea,” Manny agreed.
A knock on the open door drew everyone’s attention. A man in a suit said, “Mr. Baker, the President would like to see you in fifteen minutes.”
Tina pulled Aaron onto the bed and hooked the IV up to him. Aaron whispered, “How about the next time we leave SoCal, we don’t end up in Washington D.C. with an IV in my arm?”
Tina smiled warmly at him. “Deal.”
James handed Aaron a bottle of water that he drank to help speed up his recovery. Aaron couldn’t even look at Manny. He felt betrayed but wasn’t exactly sure why. Aurora felt this new stress in the room. “Manny, why don’t you come with us? You can debrief us before we go get Kimbo.”
After Nat led Manny out of the room, Aurora approached Xiaowan. “I just spoke with Erik Roze.”
Xiaowan nodded, showing she recognized that he worked at Ameriprobe.
“He told me that there is no advanced anti-viral for influenza. You were right.”
Xiaowan looked at Aaron. “All for a hoax?”
“You still did the right thing. And it’s better to have to encounter this with us now rather than face some weaponizable biological agent sometime down the road.”
Xiaowan nodded. James put his arm around her to give her a little comfort. For the next ten minutes, the group exchanged more information about what they had learned.
Tina gave the IV bag a little squeeze, removed the catheter, gave Aaron a kiss, and said, “Go save the country again.”
Freddy was waiting in the hallway. He introduced himself to Aaron and led him to the waiting room outside the Oval Office. Aaron’s heart raced like it did before every oral argument in court. His adrenaline surged as if he was a gladiator going into combat. But he had to wait. The President was in a meeting. Aaron tried to calm himself. A few minutes later, Aaron found his pulse returning to normal.
He focused his mind on the proposals that he and Manny researched on the airplane ride. His pulse quickened again when he wondered what Manny’s true role was in all of this and what exactly it was that Manny wasn’t tell him.
Twenty minutes later, Aaron wondered why he was called down but made to wait. Was there news? Did something happen? Aaron teetered between boredom, worry, nervousness, anxiousness, and excitement. And now the liter of saline, bottle of water, and coffee were all hitting him at once; he really had to pee.
The underarms on his light blue shirt were visibly a darker color. That made him flush a little red with embarrassment. He was about to ask a secretary to show him to a restroom when the door to the Oval Office opened. Chief of Staff Brandon Joseph said, “Come on in, Aaron.”
Aaron looked thoroughly confused. He recognized Dr. Joseph as the Chief Physician at George Washington Hospital. “Dr. Joseph?”
Chief Joseph extended his hand and confirmed, “Yes Aaron. The President asked me to serve as his Chief of Staff. If I could run a hospital and find time to keep your secrets and help you, he figured I could be a valuable asset to help him staff the leadership of the country.”
Aaron shook his hand firmly and reached out to touch Dr. Joseph’s right hand with his left. Aaron felt like giving Dr. Joseph a hug but this gesture seemed as far as proper decorum would allow outside such a place as the Oval Office.
“Glad to have you here. Let’s see if we can’t help President Shortree sort this thing out.”
Aaron leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Hopefully quickly, I need to pee.”
The two shared a little chuckle and then Aaron entered the Oval Office. The President came from behind his desk and shook Aaron’s hand. “Welcome to the Oval Office.” The President pointed to chairs surrounding a coffee table. “Have a seat.”
Aaron noticed that they were the only three people in the room. He looked around and saw another door and presumed the President had other guests that exited from the other door. “President Shortree, how can I be of service?”
“I want to know if you have any information that can help us understand how this situation started and what current state we find ourselves in.”
“Mr. President, Dr. Joseph, my client has pretty much allowed me to discuss everything with other people, so I won’t be violating the attorney-client privilege with what I tell you. But it should also be made clear that you are asking for my thoughts and my opinions in a time of international crisis. As such, nothing said is on behalf of my client or is to be construed as an admission of any crime or wrongdoing.”
The President said to Chief Joseph, “Lawyers.”
Addressing Aaron, he said, “That’s why I picked you. I can get the Attorney General to draft something, but Aaron, you have my word that I want to get to the bottom of this situation with the Chinese spy program and do the right thing. Your client came to you; you wen
t to the FBI. You did, and are doing, the right thing. Gone are the days of trying to sweep things under the rug for poll ratings. Just help me do what’s right.”
Feeling somewhat assured but still guarded without an express immunity agreement for his client, Aaron proceeded. “The whole underlying flu theft appears to be a hoax.”
The President’s eyebrows rose hardly believing Aaron could be in the know already. Chief Joseph clarified, “A hoax, not a mistake?”
Aaron confirmed, “Hoax.”
President Shortree said, “That’s what I was just briefed on as well. I spoke with the CEO of Ameriprobe who agreed. So what was the purpose of this hoax?”
“We don’t know for sure. My immediate thought is that this man named Kenji Bo was part of the program for a long time and he was tired of getting pressured by the Chinese to do things for them. And that he somehow put this in motion to expose the program.”
Chief Joseph asked, “Why?”
“Agent Aurora Wulfers and my friend who is Mr. Bo’s attorney, Manny Gaglione, are headed to the airport to pick him up. He should be here in a few hours and can definitively answer what I can only speculate.”
“Speculate, please.”
“He felt hemmed in by the Chinese. Maybe they asked him for something that was the straw that broke his back. Maybe he saw how you handled the dollar crisis and how your administration became transparent and thought you could handle it. I don’t know how far you want me to speculate…”
“That’s good. How would you handle it?”
“Assuming the priorities are avoiding a war, any further espionage, and mass prejudice against Chinese Americans and lawful Chinese guests, I think there’s only one way to deal with this.”
The President originally budgeted fifteen minutes for his meeting with Aaron Baker, but it was Aaron who needed the first break to use the bathroom after thirty minutes. When Aaron returned, the President said, “Thank you Aaron. I’m going to ask that you work with my speechwriters to put something together along the lines of what we talked about in here. We’ll confirm our information with this Kimbo character and address the nation later tonight.”
Sunshine or Lead Page 26