by Bob Mayer
“That’s the funniest thing you’ve said,” the president noted, “and it’s not that funny. You might be considered carrion, feeding off my dead carcass now that the country has discarded me.”
To that, the Keep had nothing to say.
“How many presidents have you served?”
“You’re the second, sir.”
“How’d you get this job?” he asked.
“I was selected, sir.”
“By who? My predecessor? Your predecessor?”
“No, sir.”
Templeton waited for amplification, but the Keep only seemed a font of information regarding history and secrets. He was so sick of it all.
“Who selected you?” he pressed.
The Keep’s face showed the tiniest glimmer of… was it irritation, the president wondered?
“Hannah chose me.”
“Of course,” the president said. “Who else but her.” It too was not a question. “How on earth does she find someone like you with the weird combination of knowing just about everything and reading the secrets in that book but having no desire to tell anyone?”
“It’s Hannah’s gift to find people with certain talents, sir.”
“And how do you get replaced?”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s on the last page of the book if I feel a need to replace myself.”
“You haven’t read it?” he asked in surprise.
“No.” She seemed genuinely confused. “Why would I read it? It’s to be read when I need to replace myself if need be.”
“What if you get hit by a bus?”
“There’s always Hannah, sir.” She shook her head, as if trying to figure out how to explain something to an ignorant child. “What you’ve never understood, Mister President, as no president before you has ever really understood, although some came close, is that the United States of America is like a finely tuned engine. It runs because there are those who maintain it in the shadows, on the inside. For my part, we run on information. We take it in, we give it out.”
“And the Cellar takes action when need be. Sanctions.”
She frowned that he even dared mention the name and the term, even here in the sanctity of the White House. “We have operatives who take action at Hannah’s directive.”
“But you’re not one of those operatives?”
“I keep the book, sir.”
Templeton got up. He walked to the table and took the book, turning it to face him, and looked down on a page where the Keep had been writing in longhand, adding Templeton’s comments to its contents. “The Book of Truths. Really torpedoes campaign promises and lofty goals when you walk in the room and lay it out.”
“It doesn’t have to, sir,” the Keep said. “It just makes the world real.”
“Same thing. Blew Kennedy’s missile gap right out of the water when he read the truth about the numbers in this book. There was a gap all right, but it was the opposite of what the Pentagon and the CIA and the defense industry was telling everyone.”
“It was the truth,” the Keep said. “It helped him make the right choices during the Missile Crisis.”
Templeton shook his head. “This shouldn’t be called the Book of Truths. It should be the Book of Secrets. Why don’t we just publish the thing and let the American public know all the truths in it?” He didn’t wait for, or expect, an answer. “That’s why they’re secrets.”
There was a loud crash from downstairs and voices raised in alarm.
The president headed for the door. “‘What fresh hell is this?’” he quoted. “Shakespeare always had a good line for any occasion.”
“It’s not Shakespeare,” the Keep informed him as he left the room to investigate. “Dorothy Parker.”
“Great,” the president muttered. “Can’t even let me get Shakespeare right.”
Just a minute earlier, Debbie Templeton had bolted from her Secret Service limo and darted into the Entrance Hall, two stories below where her father was. She immediately ran into some stewards who were carrying boxes of ornaments that flew out of their arms and onto the pink and white marble floor. The sound of breaking glass and ceramic filled the hall, followed by gasps of dismay from both stewards.
One of them fell to his knees, as if he could magically reassemble that which had been broken beyond repair. “They’re so old and precious!”
“Irreplaceable,” the other steward said in shock.
“Precious?” Debbie hissed in her best Gollum imitation. She shifted to her regular voice. “What the hell is wrong with you? They’re just balls of glass. Balls like your balls, if you had any.” She found this quite amusing and cackled maniacally.
This trumped the broken ornaments and the entire Entrance Hall froze in shock: the stewards touching up the decorations on the towering tree that dominated the room (adding ornaments from the states of a delegation of congressmen coming later in the day, pulling ones from states not represented), the carpenters adding to the gingerbread house display (produce from same states being featured, removing said produce from same nonrepresented states), and the waitstaff cleaning up after a reception for some group and preparing for the next.
Never a dull moment.
“Debbie!” The First Lady’s voice was pitched in a tone everyone recognized. She strode across the hall like she owned it instead of borrowing it for four years. She gripped Debbie’s upper arm in a vise grip and hauled her out of the hall and toward the State Dining Room, cutting a hard right and shoving her into the elevator. The door shut before the First Lady’s own two Secret Service guards could enter, so they sprinted up the stairs next to the elevator.
Inside the elevator, Helen Templeton pressed her daughter against the wall. “What has gotten into you?”
Debbie was laughing and crying at the same time, which basically made her a mess. She started blubbering. “Brennan, Mom. They took Brennan away. He cheated on me.”
“He cheated on you? Who took him away?” Mrs. Templeton handled the statements in her view of the order of priority.
“In high school! That’s why we didn’t go to the prom. He got a blowjob. From Mary McCarthy of all people. Can you believe that?”
The elevator doors opened on the top level revealing the president, the Keep standing behind him, thick leather book in her arms, and farther in the distance the aide with the football. Seconds later, two winded Secret Service agents came dashing out of the stairwell to their right.
“I always knew that boy was no good,” the First Lady said.
“Oh, Helen, give the girl a break,” the president said instinctively. “What boy? Brennan?”
“You don’t even know what’s going on,” the First Lady snapped at him. She spotted the Keep in the background. “What’s she doing here?”
The First Lady had gone on a purge the first months in the White House and any woman she considered attractive, aka a threat, was banished from the main residence. She’d forgotten about the Keep, whom she’d added to the list. Everyone, it seemed, forgot about the Keep.
It was also why a female officer never carried the football, something the president hadn’t noticed.
The president ignored his wife and removed her hand from his daughter’s arm. “What’s wrong, dear?”
Debbie collapsed into his arms, heaving with sobs, yet bursts of laughter poked through. “Brennan. He always accused me of sleeping with that stupid quarterback who cheated off me all senior year. Turns out he was the one who cheated. And all these years he’d been putting that on me. How shitty is that?” Just as quickly, her mind jumped tracks as she looked over her shoulder at her mother. “Do you think you have enough Botox, Mom? Really? For God’s sake, you haven’t been able to smile in years.”
“Debbie,” her father said.
“What are Rifts?” Debbie asked. “Fireflies? Bren seemed upset about them. More secrets?”
In the background, the Keep was startled, which meant she clenched her left fist tight and dug her fingernails in to
prevent showing any sign of being startled.
“And Pinnacle?” Debbie said. “He said something about Pinnacle?”
The president swallowed, ignored the questions, and misdirected, the way four years of dealing with the White House Press Corps had taught him. “I don’t care how upset you are, that’s no way to talk to your mother.”
Debbie pushed out of his arms and looked at him. “You’re not much better. Look at all the makeup you have on.”
“I have to address the press and the cameras wash you out so—” Templeton began to explain what he knew she already knew, but she cut him off by placing her hands on his face and trying to rub off the fake rose on his cheeks.
“Stop that!” Helen cried out. “It took that girl”—the First Lady rarely remembered any of the staff’s names, relying on “that girl” or “that guy”—“twenty minutes to do your father’s face.”
“I’m calling the doctor,” the president said as he gripped Debbie’s hands and pulled them away. Several Secret Service agents hovered in the background, uncertain what to do. Was this a threat to the First Family from the First Family, or was this a family squabble? Who, exactly, were they to protect from whom?
Their job sucked.
“Yes!” Debbie screeched, struggling against him. He was so surprised he let go. “Call the doctor,” Debbie continued, “and have him check out this loon you married.”
“I won’t stand for this!” the First Lady snapped. “Who do you think you are? I know you’re upset about Brennan and whatever he did, but it’s hardly fair for you to attack us about it. I told you a long time ago to walk away from him.”
Debbie ignored her. She looked at her father, perfectly calm for a moment. “Why did you marry her? She hates you, you know. She only cares about the power and she always wanted to live in this house and she saw you as the ticket. She helped get you here, but now what? What’s she going to do for an encore?”
The president took a step back, as if the words hit him with physical force. He spotted the Keep standing there, observing, book in her arms, and he knew this escapade would probably fill half a page. That made him angry. Something about presidents not having been divorced and remarrying, although hadn’t Reagan been married before Nancy?
He pointed at one of the agents, the female one. “You take care of her. Get her to the doctor. I’ve got a country to run and a press conference.” With that, he stepped into the elevator and hit the down button, then the close button several times hard.
The doors swished shut and he was free of the scene.
“I’ve never seen you treat us this disrespectfully,” Helen said mournfully, shaking her head sorrowfully, a nice show for the spectators. “It’s rather sad, Debbie,” she added, just in case no one had picked up the shake and tone.
“It’s not sad,” Debbie said. The female agent was at her side, reluctant to make a move. “You run this family like a corporation and you’re the CEO and all that matters is your bottom line. The world according to Helen, and we all must bow to you.”
Helen’s face flushed red. “You prim tight-laced little bitch. You think I don’t know exactly who you are and how you’ve tried to undermine me with your father since the day he brought me into his life? I’ve tolerated your condescension and little snips toward me since then, but not anymore. I will not stand for it!”
The Secret Service agents were swiveling their heads back and forth as if watching a really nasty tennis match with hard green exploding grenades instead of soft green bouncy balls.
Helen took a threatening step toward her stepdaughter, so threatening the female agent actually took up position in between them and got bumped by the First Lady into her daughter.
“I can’t believe I didn’t make him ship you off to boarding school!” Helen hissed. “Things would have been so much easier around here without you around.”
Debbie blinked, stunned in a moment of clarity. A horrified look crossed her face. “Helen! How old are you?”
“I’m fifty-two. And what of it? I look forty.”
“Oh my God,” Debbie whispered, the fight gone out as awareness washed over her.
“What, you self-important whiny baby? You think I look older?”
“You’ve never told anyone your real age before,” Debbie said. “Even when asked, you always change the subject.”
“So what if I haven’t?”
Debbie broke and ran for the stairs, screaming for her father, the Secret Service hot on her heels, all the while screaming: “We can’t lie! We can’t lie!”
They caught her just as she reached the top stair and it took three of them, one from her restaurant detail, to subdue her. All the while she protested: “You’ve got to stop him. You’ve got to stop my dad!”
Helen snapped her finger at another agent and he produced a cigarette and lighter, apparently well trained at the finger snap. She fired it up and regarded her stepdaughter. “You’ve gone over the edge now. Finally. When it does me no good.”
The Secret Service guy from her detail shook his head as he looked into Debbie’s eyes. “You look so sweet but I always thought you’d be a great lay.”
Debbie stopped struggling. “We’re all up shit creek now.” And then she kissed him, lips full on, mouth open.
Helen laughed. “See. I always knew what you were. Just like me.”
And in the background, the Keep had her special cell phone out and hit autodial one: her direct line to Hannah to inform her of the situation, part of which Hannah was already reacting to, the Cellar having intercepted the contain Protocol call from Upton earlier and the 666 call from Colonel Johnston at DORKA.
President Templeton walked past Chief of Staff Louis McBride without acknowledging him. He was in the Cross Hall en route to the Entrance Hall where he was to address a handpicked group of reporters in front of the Christmas tree about some bullshit—he couldn’t remember what exactly—but the speech would be on the podium, carefully written and vetted by the worker bees in the West Wing. Just the thought of more Christmas bullshit made the president furious. Plus there was whatever the hell was up with Debbie. The day had begun bad and was continuing to get worse.
“What’s wrong with your face, Mister President?” McBride asked, reaching out and trying to slow his charge. “You can’t go out there looking like that.”
The president pushed him aside and walked up to the podium, the tree looming behind him. He cleared his throat, glanced at the notes already in place on the podium. He picked them up, then tossed them away. He stared straight at the camera while McBride hovered just out of view. “My fellow Americans. You are so naive. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to deal with your total lack of understanding, your inability to process information, your willingness to believe whatever garbage some cable news channel spews out like so much—”
“Cut the feed!” McBride screamed. “Cut the feed!”
Except it had never been live.
Hannah’s reach from her office deep underneath the National Security Agency was long and efficient.
“We’re in lockdown! Security code bravo-tango-six-eight-two.” The tall woman stalking down the Cross Hall emanated total command.
The Secret Service hesitated at the lack of recognition.
“Move, people!” Moms snapped, holding up one of her real fake badges. “Listen to the security code for the day! Bravo-tango-six-eight-two. Seal off the residence from both wings and the outside. NOW! We are in one hundred percent lockdown and isolation.
“We have a contagious pathogen loose in the White House. No one gets out!”
Brennan had always thoughts tears would eventually run dry, but he had not stopped sobbing during the trip.
The Secret Service agents had whisked him to a helicopter with no markings at the helipad behind the White House. The chopper was waiting for them, blades turning. The smirker had shoved Brennan, still cuffed, out the door, causing him to fall facedown on the concrete. Two contractors, black bal
aclavas covering their faces, picked him up and tossed him in the back of the chopper. It lifted off immediately.
That was his first hint he was in more serious trouble than Debbie knowing about the blowjob he’d gotten from Mary McCarthy in the chem lab. He started to beg and they gagged him and put a black hood over his head. They were speaking to each other in some language he could only guess at but remembered from the interrogation room. They were on the radio and seemed concerned about something they were hearing.
After a flight of indeterminate length, but not overly long, during which Brennan’s mind kept replaying over and over all the many mistakes he’d made and people he’d harmed, the helicopter landed. He was dragged off and hustled along through doors he could hear clanging into an elevator that dropped fast and far, then out of the elevator and through another door that slammed shut with a very solid thud.
One of those thuds that seemed to intimate the door would never, ever open again.
Between the thud and the screams and arguments echoing ahead in what was apparently a large chamber, Brennan knew he was in very, very deep shit.
Then there was also the burst of automatic weapon fire.
From helicopter to military jet with afterburners to Area 51, Nada had made it from LA to Nevada faster than a degenerate gambler snorting coke off a whore’s ass on a private Learjet. At least that’s the way Roland dissected it.
That it made little sense meant it was pure Roland. Everyone was very impressed that Roland knew the word degenerate, although Kirk privately bet Mac that Roland had no idea what it meant. Mac reminded him that Scout had used the term during the “Fun in North Carolina,” and Kirk argued that still didn’t mean Roland knew what it meant.
The rest of the team had come in on the Snake just before Nada landed on the Area 51 airstrip. The Snake was being refueled and they were mission prepping around the craft, waiting for Ms. Jones’s voice to brief them on the mission, which was unusual.
Unusual in that they were at Area 51; unusual in that Moms wasn’t with them; unusual in that they were waiting after an alert. Nightstalker Protocol, called Standing Operating Procedures elsewhere, was Nada’s Bible. Every team member carried an acetate copy on their person. He had twenty-three items in the pre-op load Protocol. He’d erase the checks when they got back in order to be ready for the next mission.