by Martha Carr
Walking just in front of Clemente were two Watchers who were familiar with the tunnels, leading the way with oversize flashlights that did a better job of lighting up the tunnel. Electric lights had been added decades ago but they had never done a very good job of pointing out the uneven terrain made by the oversized handmade clay bricks.
Clemente was not a fan of enclosed spaces and they’d already been underneath the ground for several minutes, and had taken several sharp turns till he couldn’t be sure exactly where they were on the map he had been shown. It was making him testy.
“You’re sure of where were going?” Said Clemente, an edge to his voice as they came to a T and the two watchers turned left without hesitation. They stopped and turned calmly to Clemente, the bigger man saying, “Yes sir. We’ve traveled this path many times. When we were part of the Secret Service it was required that we memorize all the routes, all the tunnels. That way if the electricity ever went out and we were completely in the dark we would still know how to get the President to safety as quickly as possible. It shouldn’t be much longer and we will be at the White House.”
“I want to take a different route out,” said Clemente. He was sweating through his shirt even though the tunnels were always cold even in the middle of summer.
“Not a problem, sir. We can take the route that would lead us by the Cathedral. Those tunnels tend to be wider and taller.”
“Should we start moving?” asked the other Watcher who was in the front.
“Do you have a satellite phone?” asked Clemente, holding out his hand.
It wasn’t really a question.
The taller Watcher pointed to the two Watchers who had been following them. Clemente turned, already annoyed and held out his hand again. The talkative Watcher pulled out the satellite phone, shaped like an oversized brick and hesitated, wondering if he should turn it on for Clemente.
Clemente snatched it out of his hand and growled.
“Don’t piss in your pants,” whispered the Watcher next to him.
Clemente put the phone up to his ear. “Is everyone gathered?” he asked. “Good. We will be there shortly,” he said, looking at the Watcher who led the group. The Watcher nodded, his face a solemn expression. The two Watchers who were in front were older and had been a part of Management most of their lives. They were used to taking orders and getting things done. Both of them had joined with Clemente after they had seen what had become of both Management and the Circle. The neat order of things was breaking down.
They wanted to be part of a winning team. The older Watcher had been responsible for the shot that killed Rodney Parrish. Both of them had seen him slip by when he first entered the hotel and they were responsible for making sure no one else was present.
They had proven their loyalty to Clemente and been rewarded with a promotion to his personal guards.
Clemente still smarted from the betrayal by Charlie Foyle, even if he had dealt with the betrayal already with a well-placed bomb. Still, he wasn’t going to take anyone else into his trust.
He handed the phone back to the Watcher behind him. “Go!” He said to the Watchers in front of him, and they dutifully turned and started shining the light on the path in front of them as they moved quickly and efficiently through the tunnel. It didn’t take long before they got to the basement of the White House and emerged through the door into the basement near a service elevator that could take them to the main floor and down the hallway to the Oval Office in the West Wing.
Waiting in the Cabinet room next door was the full cabinet including President Reese, sitting in the chair directly in front of the Rose Garden, and Vice President Wilmer Bough, seated by the fireplace.
President Reese rose as Clemente entered the room and all the heads turned to see who it was.
“What the hell is this?” asked Secretary Allen Gifford, the oldest member of the cabinet.
“This is a closed meeting for cabinet members only,” said Secretary Leland, Secretary of the treasury.
Secretary Gifford seemed to recognize Clemente and looked quickly from Clemente to President Reese, noting her lack of surprise. “What is this?” he asked, his words coming out slowly, one by one.
“We have a visitor for our meeting today,” said the President, a strain in her voice.
“It’s not your idea, is it?” said secretary Gifford gruffly, still standing. “I know who you are.”
Vice President Bough quickly came around the table, his hand outstretched. “Mr. Clemente, welcome to the Cabinet room. It’s an honor to have you here, sir. May I offer you my seat?”
George Clemente shook his head and waved his hand as if he was trying not to be a bother. He looked around the table and nodded at various people as if they were old friends. Secretary Gifford followed where he was looking and seemed only mildly surprised.
“Secretary Anguirre,” said Clemente, nodding. “I trust that the meeting is going well,” he said.
“Were just getting started,” said President Reese. Clemente looked as if he was waiting for something more but President Reese didn’t say anything else. She looked bothered by his presence.
“I extended the invitation,” said the Vice President. “Mr. Clemente has been a friend to this administration and I offered him the chance to come by and say hello to all of us.”
“I will just sit in the background and listen, if you don’t mind,” said Clemente, making his way around the table to where Richard Bach was sitting just behind the President. Bach stepped out of the way and offered his chair.
“Can I get you anything, Mr. Clemente?” asked Bach.
“Please don’t let me keep you from doing the important work of the nation,” said Clemente, as he sat down. Bach moved to a seat closer to the door of the Oval Office.
“So, we’ve been reduced to a farce?” asked Secretary Gifford. “I won’t passively participate,” he said, rising to leave the room.
“This is becoming a habit,” said the Vice President. “I think you’ve left more Cabinet meetings abruptly lately than you’ve stayed.”
President Reese glared at the Vice President. “Did I miss something? Are you now leading this meeting, Vice President?” asked the President.
“Of course not, Madame President,” said the Vice President with an icy smile as he gave her a nod.
“Feel free to leave, Secretary Gifford but it’s only a gesture. It was always only a gesture,” said the President. “I never needed your permission to appoint who I wanted to appoint as a judge. The Senate has already let it be known that they’ll approve my choices and everyone has been notified of their selection. There are no skeletons in anyone’s closet that you will be able to dig out and use to derail this. No one will even remember that you marched out of the room out of some overblown sign of integrity.”
Secretary Gifford paused momentarily, his hands resting on the table in front of him as he stood in front of his chair. “For today, this will have to be enough,” he said, as he seemed to choose his words carefully, glancing back and forth between Clemente and the President. “Bring me a glass of water,” he shouted at Bach, before turning his attention to Clemente and holding his gaze there, steadily. “While I can still get a glass of water,” he said.
Clemente bristled as a few of the Cabinet members shifted in their seats, not making eye contact with anyone.
“Enough of the theatrics, Allen. If you’re going, go,” said the President. “There isn’t much left to do here anyway. We won’t be in need of a quorum. Be a paper tiger, we will all still somehow manage.”
Secretary Gifford took a long slow look around the room making a note of everyone who was in their before turning and walking out of the door, followed closely by his aides. He waited until he was well out of earshot of anyone before making a phone call.
“Hello Esther, you are right. The rot goes all the way to the top. It’s worse than I thought. Clemente is become emboldened and is appearing in the White House without worry of who mi
ght see him. No, he doesn’t know who I am. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then, make sure he doesn’t find out. If he knew that you are a zwanzig, then he’d know that all of your children and grandchildren are descendants as well. Most of those he’s known about have not fared well,” said Esther Ackerman, sitting behind the cash register at her bookstore in Richmond Virginia. “There aren’t many of us left, the original twenty who survived the last time someone tried to wipe out the Circle. Clemente has figured out who the rest of us are, I’m quite certain. You have been able to pass.”
“I hate that word, pass. I’m not sure about what you said anymore, anyway,” said the secretary. “I don’t have as much influence as you think. I’ve become a useless old man.”
“Pity does not look good on anyone,” said Esther. “Keep your identity hidden. Harriet Jones and I will do the same. We’re the only ones who know and Harriet has proven herself to be very good at keeping secrets of every kind. As long as Ellen Reese never figures it out you still may be able to help our cause.”
“Madam President already knows where my loyalties lie. I can’t imagine what keeping the secret will add to things.”
“Sometimes, knowing the depth of someone’s devotion helps to gauge just how far they would go. Right now, she thinks that your loyalties would stop at a vote. I know they would go much further. I remember what it was like before we escaped all those years ago.”
“Point taken,” said the Secretary. “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do to stop George Clemente from getting access to sanction shipping arrangements.”
“Not all is lost,” said Esther. “Go back to the meeting and at least be there as an observer. If you aren’t there then we have no eyes or ears and you have the unique ability to detect what’s going on underneath what everyone is saying. If you aren’t there then we might as well be deaf and blind. That would be a worse fate than you suffering through a meeting with George Clemente. Take your ego out of it.”
“This has nothing to do with my ego,” hissed the Secretary into the phone.
“It’s nice to see you still have some spit and vinegar even at your advanced age,” said Esther. “Go back to the meeting. Tell them you decided to fulfill your duties as Secretary and remained to the close. They’ll take it as a concession, let them. You can be your normal, critical self. We’d hate for them to think something was up. You can even do your usual routine and shut your eyes and rest your head in your hand.”
“I never expected to be neutered this late in life,” said the Secretary. “Fine, I’ll go back to the meeting. Stranger things have happened of late. Perhaps there will be something said that will prove useful to us later. I shouldn’t assume,” he said, calming down. “It’s even a strange thing to realize that I have been on active duty almost my entire life. A war that never ended.”
“Allen, my friend, I’ve come to see survival, a warm bed, and a good cup of tea as successful. However, if we manage to kill George Clemente, I will take that as a win sweeter than any other.”
The Secretary arrived back at the Cabinet room just as the meeting was breaking up, earlier than expected. Secretary Leland met him at the door, saying, “That Clemente said he needed to speak with the President and she ended the meeting. Kind of tells you who was really in charge for those last few minutes. I suppose, who’s in charge all the time.”
“Where are they now?” asked Secretary Gifford.
“They’re huddling in the Oval Office, if you can believe that. The lizard, Richard Bach went with them but he’s only there to do someone’s bidding.”
“Whoever can give him the smallest amount of time in the spotlight,” said Secretary Gifford.
Secretary Gifford did not wait around to find out how long they would be in the Oval Office. At this point, he knew it was pointless to make an appearance. It would look too suspicious if he pressed it much further because there was nothing for him to gain.
He turned back at the last second and asked, “Did the vice president go in with them?”
“He held the door,” said Secretary Leland.
Behind the doors of the Oval Office, George Clemente was having the time of his life. He was sitting in the chair behind the Kennedy desk in front of the French doors that led to the most famous rose garden in the world. The President and Richard Bach were seated on the two couches that faced each other, not too far in front of the desk. The Vice President was seated in a side chair upholstered in an expensive pale silk, perched just on the edge of the seat.
Clemente was smiling broadly, showing the gap on the side were a tooth had once been knocked out in a fight long ago. He was running his hands over the ink blotter in front of him that had been so carefully picked out by President Reese. She was doing her best not to notice, and failing.
“Now then,” said Clemente, “where were we?” He seemed distracted by his surroundings and hesitated, gazing at all the different treasures that filled the room. “I dreamed of this moment. I knew it would happen. If there’s one thing that being in Management taught me, it’s that politics is not about voters. Ever. It’s about what you can do behind the scenes where the voters will never see it. It’s about keeping the voters happy by giving them the minimum to convince them you went to work for them just to bring them a small shiny token.”
There was a knock at the door and one of the Watchers who came through the tunnels with Clemente stepped inside.
“Sir, we should get going soon. There will be a change in the Secret Service in under an hour and I cannot guarantee the loyalty of everyone on the next shift. In order to get you successfully to the tunnels without anyone witnesses, we will have to leave in the next ten minutes.”
“Very well then, give me those ten minutes,” said Clemente.
The Watcher nodded his head and slipped out of the door, shutting it quietly behind him.
“The young man has a point. It’s too early to celebrate,” said Clemente, smiling despite himself. “But we are close,” he said, tapping the desk with a stab of his finger. “There is really only one thing that can possibly stand between me and the completion of this plan, which also means between all of you successfully living through all of this.”
“Do you really think that you could assassinate two sitting presidents, one right after the other and that wouldn’t finally make the American people stand up and take notice? You don’t think that would lay the conspiracy bare in front of them?” asked the president. She nervously tried to tuck a stiff curl behind her ear.
“They would look away with the right motivation,” said Clemente. “Think about it, right now the American people are afraid of what’s coming out of their taps.”
“You created that,” said President Reese, angrily.
“That won’t matter. Not if I’m also the one who suddenly saves the day and manages to make sure they have more than enough water to feed the crops, take a shower, do the dishes and drink a glass down without worry. We all know I’m the one who can do that, too. I can do it at the same time that I’m selling the excess to another country creating debt again and establishing the United States as the predominant force in the world. That was a good plan, Bach.”
“The United States, or you, alone?” asked President Reese.
Richard Bach fidgeted nervously on the couch. He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but there, checking his watch for the time.
“Not to worry, Mr. Bach. I will soon be gone,” said George Clemente. “Until then, make sure nothing goes wrong. I’ve already had all the interference I can stomach from one suburban family, and I plan to do something about that as well. Anything else goes wrong and it would be easier just to remove all of you.”
“Sir?” The Watcher was at the door again. “It’s time.”
Clemente rose reluctantly from behind the desk and took one last look around the office. “I’ll be back,” he said, and strode out of the office as if he was just leaving for the day. He stopped at the door and turned around, �
�Bach, get up, you’re coming with me. You’ve proven yourself to be quite resourceful and trustworthy in your own peculiar way. I have something I need you to do.”
“My wife is expecting me home for dinner,” said Bach, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse why he couldn’t just leave the White House in the company of Clemente, not knowing where he would be going and how long he’d be gone.
“Surely, President Reese can let her know that you might be late,” Clemente said, threateningly.
The two Watchers, Clemente and Bach took the elevator down to the basement in the White House and quickly moved toward the door and the tunnel. The entire time, Richard Bach was trying to figure out how he could leave without a bullet hole in his head. Nothing was coming to him and he reluctantly followed behind the group. They were met at the door of the tunnel by the two remaining Watchers who once again took up the rear, leaving Richard with even less room to maneuver an escape.
He wasn’t entirely sure that they didn’t plan to shoot him within one of the tunnels and just leave his body there, never to be seen again.
“Were taking the alternate tunnel?” asked Clemente.
“Yes sir, it’s a wider tunnel that’s not quite as old. Easier to maneuver. At this time of day, it’s even a better place to exit and we will have an easier time getting to the waiting vans without anyone noticing us.”
The group moved steadily down the tunnel, taking first the left and then a right and then a right again. The lead Watcher shined the oversized flashlight, lighting the way as Bach did his best to keep up with the group, while walking as far away from George Clemente as the two Watchers behind him would allow.
They came around a long curve in the tunnel and Bach thought he heard the sound of scratching, making him wonder how many rats were in the tunnel with them. Clemente didn’t seem to notice the noise and the two Watchers behind Bach started pushing him, in an effort to get him to walk faster.
They got further around the curve as a large section of the wall started to give way.