Castle Bravo

by Karna Small Bodman

  “Ever since he had that heart operation, she’s been kinda freaked out, it seems.”

  “Guess they’re pretty close”

  “Sure are. All I can do is try to convince her that we’ll be fine.”

  “Can you do that?” Godfrey asked raising his eyebrows.

  “I have no idea.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Samantha glanced at the president’s schedule and flipped through a set of talking points for one of his meetings with a citizen who had called in a threat. It was actually a 12-year-old boy who thought a guy’s behavior at a Metro station was rather strange, and he had used his cell phone to alert the police. They had raced down and found the guy had some poisons in a suitcase. The president was going to give a special award to the kid in the Rose Garden. Nice touch.

  When she had driven in at dawn, it looked like it would be a lovely summer day. She caught herself wishing she could play hooky, just once, and go running. Or better yet, go swim some laps at the health club. Since being promoted to the top job after the previous occupant had flamed out and been arrested for a hit and run, among other transgressions, she’d had precious little time to think about staying in shape. Then again, she ran up and down the stairs in the West Wing and darted back and forth to meetings in the EEOB all day long, so at least she was keeping her heart rate up.

  She checked her watch and saw that it was time for the daily call that often sent her heart rate rising even more while she was just listening on the phone. Samantha dialed up the daily inter-agency conference call on her secure phone. “Samantha Reid here.”

  “Morning Samantha,” the CIA contact said. “I’ve got DHS, State, and FBI on. We’re just waiting for DOD and we’ll get started.” He paused, and Samantha could hear him rustling some papers in the background. Then she heard the Pentagon assistant secretary click on. “Guess we’re all here now,” the moderator said. “Full plate today, and I’d like to start with the exercises planned for Washington’s Puget Sound. As you all know, DHS and DOT are coordinating this one. They’ll have emergency boats out there with new radiation detectors to be sure we can prevent a terrorist group from smuggling any kind of nuclear material in through that harbor.”

  “Why’d we pick Puget Sound? I mean, we’ve got, what? Ninety-five thousand miles of coastline in this country? Why there?” the FBI agent asked.

  The DHS rep answered. “It’s as good a place as any to test the equipment. They’ve got two commercial ports, biggest ferry system, pleasure boats, the whole gamilla. Anyway, we’re on track with that one. I’ll report back in a couple of days whether our stuff works or not.”

  “Next item,” the FBI agent said. “Border patrol has been picking up a ton of illegals coming into Texas who speak Chinese, Arabic, and Farsi. Forget the Mexicans looking for work. We’ve got a huge problem tracking these other guys. DHS, are you coordinating those searches?”

  “You bet. Trouble is Congress has cut funding for the fences, especially the virtual fence. As for what’s left of the original fence, there’s a gang that’s taking down the connecting posts and putting up cardboard look-alikes which they can mow down when their groups are ready to cross. We need more manpower, and we’ve got a request ready to go to the Hill. Oh, and one other item. Guess this could go into the comic relief category. Just figured out that the uniforms for our Border Patrol guys are made in … you guessed it … Mexico. We’re looking for a new supplier.”

  “Samantha, what’ve you got in your shop today?”

  “NSA picked up some chatter about a possible cyanide attack on the DC Metro system. DOT is all over it. Jim’s trying to get traction on some biological components that may be missing. I could have more on that tomorrow. But meanwhile, I want to talk about another issue I brought up the other day about preparing for an EMP attack.”

  “Uh, Samantha,” the moderator interrupted. “Have you seen any actionable intelligence that anything like that is even remotely on anybody’s radar screen?”

  “Yes, well in a way. And I said before, the Iranians have been testing certain types of missiles out in the Caspian that they could use to stage such an attack. It almost looks like a rehearsal. And even if they’re not planning to use them, we have no idea who they’re selling them to.”

  “But wait,” the CIA agent said, “They may have the missiles, but we have no intel to indicate they’ve figured out how to miniaturize a nuke so it could be used as a warhead. You know that. So why all of this anxiety on your part?”

  “Okay,” Samantha replied. “Let’s just say that I do see a big threat out there, if not from Iran, then possibly from others. I don’t want us to be the French at Agincourt.”

  “Aren’t you being a little overly dramatic? This isn’t exactly the 15th century,” the DHS rep said.

  “No, but if a bunch of terrorists were able to stage that kind of attack, it’ll seem like it. I want to get a threat assessment going. I want to see proposals made to harden our electricity grid. I want to see a budget for safeguarding more of our military communications.”

  “We’ve already hardened a lot of ours,” the assistant secretary from the Pentagon said.

  “All of them?” Samantha asked.

  “Well, not all,” he conceded. “Besides, with these deficits, we’ve had our budget trimmed so much we had to cancel a bunch of tests of our missile defense system.”

  “Which is exactly the system we’ll need to stop an EMP attack!” Samantha interjected. “When will Congress ever learn?”

  “Time’s up, folks,” the moderator said. “Samantha, if you get the go-ahead from higher-ups at the White House, for an assessment or anything else on your list, keep us posted. But meanwhile, we all have more than enough to keep our staffs busy. Anything new develops before tomorrow’s call, you all know the drill. CC me and the others in a classified email. Talk to you later.” And with that everyone promptly hung up while Samantha gripped the phone, stared at it and just sighed.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “What’s this?” Samantha asked as Tripp handed her two print-outs.

  “Trying to decide where to take you to dinner tonight,” he replied, stepping inside her Georgetown condo. When my folks are in town, they always like to go to the Four Seasons down the street, so I printed out their menu. But Godfrey likes to hang out at The Palm, so I printed that one out too. I haven’t taken you to either one, so I figured we should check them out. What do you think?”

  Samantha perused the first page from the Four Seasons. “Hamachi Salad, Scallops, Octopus, Striped Bass.” Then she switched to the one from The Palm and read out loud, “Wedge of iceberg with blue cheese dressing, New York Strip Steak with Hand-cut French Fries and Creamed Spinach. Hmmmm,” she said as she glanced up him and grinned. “Guess it’s rather obvious. We’re going to The Palm.”

  “Hoped you’d say that.” He gathered her in his arms as the menus fluttered to the floor. “Good choice, but my first choice is to taste you, sweetheart.” He lowered his mouth to hers and pulled her tightly against his chest. He savored the feel of this woman and, once again sensed the hint of vanilla in her hair. He loved the masses of dark brown hair that framed her face. He liked that little widow’s peak thing on her forehead too. He liked the way her great bod molded into his. The fact that she was about 5′8″ and he was 6′1″ meant he didn’t have to bend way over to make it work. He cradled her head and kissed her once more. When she finally broke free, she whispered, “Do we need a reservation?”

  “I made them at both places, just covering my bases. I’ll call the hotel and cancel.” He pulled out his cell phone and made the call while Samantha went into her tiny living room past the beige couch and walnut butler’s table, flanked by dark green side chairs, and two floor lamps. She turned out the lights, grabbed her purse and, with Tripp pocketing his cell, they closed and locked her door.

  Tripp drove over to 19th Street and was about to turn
right toward the restaurant when he pointed to a sign in a store window. “Hey, would you look at that? Don’t see too many of those around D.C.” Samantha peered at a sign that read, LAND OF THE FREE … BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.

  “I can see why you like it. Do you ever miss the Navy?”

  “Not really. Did my time, had a lot of adventures. Well, I’ve told you about most of them. Seems like the stuff I’m doing now gets me to more places than the Navy ever did.”

  “I know,” Samantha said in a plaintive tone. “And now you’re leaving again. When?”

  “Late tomorrow.”

  Samantha thought about all the times she had said goodbye to Tripp as he went jetting off to yet another negotiation or assignment for Geo-Global. The last time she had been on an airplane was when she had flown down to Venezuela to arrange a rescue operation when Tripp had gotten into trouble down there. He had been kidnapped by a street gang and held for ransom. She had arranged for his company to pay a fee to a private contractor Tripp had once worked for after his stint in the Navy. It was an outfit that did security work for clients all over the world. They had mounted a very clever operation, found him, drugged the bad guys and high-tailed it out of town. It had taken all her courage to get on that plane since her fear of heights hadn’t improved much over the years. Except now that she thought about it, maybe it was getting a little better because every time she went over to Tripp’s apartment up on the 18th floor and they stepped out on his balcony, she didn’t shake as much anymore. Maybe it was Tripp’s proximity that calmed her down. And now with her crazy White House hours, she hadn’t traveled or stayed in a hotel in months. When she thought about that, it occurred to her that it had been a long time since anybody had put a mint on her pillow.

  “Here we are,” Tripp said, pulling up in front of the long awning in front of The Palm. The valet opened his door, handed him a chit and then ran around to help Samantha. Once inside, Samantha pointed to a wall of drawings. “Looks like they’ve got a caricature of just about every politician in town.”

  “Yeah. Kind of like the walls over at Burning Tree. We’ve got caricatures up there too. But just of the members.”

  “Is yours up there?” She asked, waiting in line for the maitre‘d.

  “Not yet. I’m not that important. But speaking of important, tell me the latest. Since knowledge is power in this town, what knowledge have you amassed since I last saw you?” he asked with a sly smile.

  “A lot,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t make me feel powerful. In fact, when I get on our conference calls, I feel like I’ve been relegated to the role of spear carrier in some dreadful opera.”

  He laughed quietly and replied, “From your descriptions of that White House, sounds more like a soap opera to me.”

  “May I help you, sir?” the maitre d’ asked.

  “Yes, reservation under the name of Adams. I reserved a booth.”

  He consulted his roster, checked off the name, pulled two menus from behind his stand and handed them to a young man hovering nearby who showed them to their table.

  “Now what’s this about not having any power?” Tripp asked as he smiled across at her.

  “Well, I don’t mean absolutely no power. It’s just that I’m working on a particular issue and nobody else seems to think it’s important.”

  “I know what you mean about being ignored. Yesterday I had lunch over at the Metropolitan Club with another member of our Kazakhstan consortium.”

  “You mean somebody else is going with you besides daddy?”

  “No. I’ve got their proxy. That’s not the point. I was just thinking about all the guys I see over at that Club all the time who are usually ignored by the current administration.”

  “What kind of guys? I hardly ever have time to go out to lunch. And if I do go, it’s really quick and not to some private club.”

  “Well, over there you always see the used-to-be’s.”

  “Used-to-be’s?”

  “Sure. You know. The guy who used to be secretary of State, the one who used to be director of the CIA, former ambassadors, former senators. You rarely see the people who are in power. They’re too busy exercising it to go there for lunch. Just like you, my dear. And as for the formers, well you know how it is. Once you have an important job in this town, you never leave. You hang around, try to get some position as a lobbyist, join a law firm or if you can’t line up one, you just call yourself a consultant. You don’t have power any more, but you do have time to have lunch at the Metropolitan Club.”

  Samantha laughed in spite of her mood. “Guess you have a point there.”

  A waiter appeared. Tripp scanned the wine list. “Bring us a bottle of Carneros Pinot Noir if you would, please.” He looked at Samantha, “I think you’ll like that one.” The waiter scurried off as Tripp continued. “Now then, what’s this issue that nobody wants to pay attention to? Oh wait, isn’t that Max Federman over there?” Tripp nodded to a table across the room.

  Samantha turned to look over her shoulder. “Sure is. I think the other guy is one of the major contributors to Jayson Keller’s election campaign.”

  “They both look like they eat here a lot,” Tripp said.

  Samantha chuckled. “What’s that in front of them?”

  “Looks like huge plates of fried onions. Guess that’s why they both could use a membership in Weight Watchers.”

  “On the subject of Max, he’s been watching me at the White House lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s trying to muzzle me when it comes to some of my issues. My job is to analyze threats and work with all sorts of organizations to figure out ways to deal with them. Well, you know that. But he says his job is to get Keller elected and he doesn’t want me calling attention to any of our vulnerabilities. He’s trying to paint a picture of an administration where everything is hunky-dory so they can tell voters to keep it that way.”

  “So what if something happens on their watch? They’ll get blamed big-time.”

  “That’s the whole point and I am really getting worried about a new threat. I guess I can tell you. I mean it’s been out there for years, but now I’ve seen some reports that make me very nervous.” She went on to tell him about the effects of an EMP attack, how all computers, electronics, everything would be fried, how people would starve because trains, trucks and cars couldn’t move.

  “Guess we shouldn’t have had that ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program a while back,” Tripp observed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, think about it. We got rid of all the old cars. But they’re the only ones that don’t run on fancy electronic systems. We should try to keep a few Chevies from the 1950’s around, right?”

  Samantha shook her head. “Get serious. This is really important.”

  “I know, honey.” Tripp reached across the table and took her hand. “I don’t mean to make light of any of your issues. Just trying to lighten the mood here. After all, this is our last night. For a while anyway.”

  He gazed into her eyes. Those dark green eyes that always kept him mesmerized. It was times like this that he wished he had a simple desk job in the city. Not one where he had to go traveling all over the world, visiting everything from dictators to dachas. Maybe after this trip he could cool it for a while. Spend more time with Samantha. Maybe. With him and Samantha, it was always maybe.

  “Here you are sir, a nice vintage,” the waiter said, expertly pulling out the cork and pouring a bit of wine in Tripp’s glass. He took a sip, nodded to the waiter who filled Samantha’s wine glass about a third full and then did the same for Tripp. “Have you decided on dinner yet, sir?”

  Tripp had already checked out the menu online but looked to Samantha. She said, “Sure. A small Caesar salad and a strip steak medium rare with a side of creamed spinach.”

  “Same for me, except I’ll start with the iceberg and blue cheese.” The waiter hurried off. And Tripp said, “Now then, before I leave I just wante
d to mention that last season we talked about going down to Naples to visit my folks. We never made it. But they keep bugging me about bringing you down there sometime. They have a ton of friends who always want to come to their place there in Port Royal. Dad says that when all these people make the trek south to stay at his place, he calls it the Mooch March.”

  Samantha burst out laughing. “So everybody mooches on your parents. When you have a gorgeous place, what do you expect? But you really think they want us down there too?”

  “Of course they do. I know you never know when you can get away. Just keep it in mind. We can always head out sort of spur-of-the-moment. Anyway, about my own trip, I wanted to let you know that we’ve got it all scoped out. I’m meeting Jake tomorrow night at JFK. Then we’re taking a flight to Frankfurt, changing planes and heading over to Almaty. Used to be their capital. But that’s been moved. Almaty is still the financial center of the country. Kind of like our New York, I guess. Anyway, that’s where we’re having our meetings because given a choice, all the business types, even the government types, look for excuses to spend time there.”

  “It’s just that it’s all so far away,” Samantha said, sipping her wine.

  “I know. But once we get a new contract settled, Jake and I are heading over to Atyrau. That’s on the Caspian. A lot of exploration is going on in that area. Well, south and west of there anyway. There’s a port there for the oil tankers. Not as neat as Almaty by a long shot, but we’ve got a bunch of guys out there scouting locations, and that’s where Jake is going to come in real handy.”

  The waiter sidled up to the table carrying two plates. “And here is your salad, madam. And one for you, sir. Anything else I can get for you. More bread perhaps?”

  Samantha shook her head and the waiter disappeared into the din of conversation.

  “That’s what worries me,” she said, taking a bite of the lettuce.