Of course, right now, you’d have to be suicidal to brave the roiled winter waters.
Upslope, beyond the crane, a helipad had been leveled out in the middle of the yard. Even a bright orange windsock, which stood pointing like an angry finger to the north indicating a strong southerly wind despite the shielding trees.
At the head of the slope stood a very traditional stone house. The kind of house that would stand out even in an affluent neighborhood. Not for its size, though it wasn’t small, but rather for an English elegance. Ivy had climbed up the lower third of the front, creating a sunshield over a deep porch facing the view.
Daniel lost the view as the helicopter spun to face the wind and the wheels touched down on the helipad.
With the rotors still cranking, the crew chiefs piled out and tied the helicopter down to the large iron rings sunk into the helipad’s surface.
As the rotors finally wound down, and Daniel’s ears popped in relief, they all piled out into the roaring wind beneath a sky of crystalline, winter-blue and just stood there staring at the house. It was impossible, unlikely, and absolutely perfect.
The house looked pleasant, stood on neutral soil, and could be secured by a minimal team.
“Damn! That’s sweet.” Alice’s comment, barely louder than the wind, set them in motion across the lawn toward the house.
Chapter 26
One of the things Daniel had learned during his year as the White House Chief-of-Staff was that any concept of what he’d thought it meant to be busy was impossibly naïve. And in the week following the visit to the island house, it only got crazier. Seven days since his one-day trip across the country and back. He must have slept and eaten at some point, but right now he was far too tired to recall.
He slumped in his office chair.
Janet had somehow made room for a tiny Christmas tree, more of a Christmas bush, at the corner of this desk. A pine bough trim had been woven around the edges of the “Death Board”; a whiteboard covered with the strategy to defeat a couple of exceptionally short-sighted bills put forth by the opposition party. A small tintype print of a dollhouse that he’d grown rather fond of had been replaced by a triptych of original Currier and Ives lithographs on loan from the Smithsonian.
Daniel closed his eyes and tried to catch up with the last week’s events.
The island house had been toured, reviewed, and approved in under ten minutes. They’d ducked back across the border, thanked Captain Smith, and parted ways.
The Black Hawk crew departed to place their equipment and practice for the upcoming assignment. Daniel and Alice had found a small charter to take them to SeaTac airport. At D.C. they’d gone their separate ways and found even less time to be together over this week than the prior one, if that was even possible.
The inner circle on this operation was impossibly small which meant that practically everything had to be done by Daniel himself. That was above and beyond all of the work that came from the tail end of the pre-Holiday session in Congress.
In the last forty-eight hours he’d brokered peace and an acceptable approval margin on bills in education and farming. He’d failed on border and immigration controls, but the President had wrangled that one to the ground by a three-vote squeak in the House and two in the Senate. A win was a win, no matter how close, but it had left both of them strung out and exhausted.
Meanwhile, preparation for the upcoming North Korean operation continued. Beale and Henderson had moved their two Black Hawks into position.
Alice managed to push a message back up the chain to let their mystery guest know the plan once the Majors had finished formulating and rehearsing it.
The head of the PPD, the Secret Service’s Presidential Protection Detail, Agent Frank Adams, had been brought into the inner circle.
Frank had headed the detail since the President had first polled in the double digits, long before he was nominated. Frank had ridden herd on three Presidents and dozens of VIPs in his twenty-plus years in the service.
He had protested vehemently when not allowed to add another agent, or preferably an entire division. And when the head of the PPD protested, in that gravelly deep voice of his, and all six-two of him looming over Daniel, instant death in an immaculate black business suit, he paid attention.
Daniel had thought Adams would lock the President in the Oval Office. And maybe just shoot Daniel for good measure. Then the President had mentioned that Major Emily Beale was involved. In that instant the tone of the meeting changed entirely and Frank Adams was on board.
Daniel was left to puzzle over that abrupt change. As far as he knew the only time they’d met was when the First Lady had been killed and the animosity between them at the time had been unmistakable. Daniel tried to get Frank aside on the subject, but he was as mute as the Secret Service always was about security matters.
The one person Daniel never saw outside of strategy meetings was Dr. Alice Thompson. And that was killing him. She’d taken to texting him after the third time he’d fallen asleep with the phone to his ear, while they were talking.
“What’s in the calendar tonight?” she asked one night.
“Cinnamon Bears. Spicy!”
“Drink milk.”
And milk had worked to soothe the burning heat that had been boring a hole through his tongue.
“Spice drops tonight.”
“Christmas wish,” she’d texted whatever that night was. “I want to be there to kiss you.”
“Sour ones.”
“I take back my Christmas wish. Well, not really.”
Back and forth by phone and text as the entire middle page of the Advent calendar was emptied door by tiny door.
December 17th. Daniel slumped in his chair, ragged with exhaustion. It took concerted effort to reach out his arm and pull the Advent Calendar off the top of a mountain of vetting folders for a new Supreme Court justice. Arnold Johnson had let them know he’d be announcing his retirement on the first of the year and the scramble was on to choose President Matthews’ first replacement on the high court.
Daniel’s phone buzzed as he pulled the calendar into his lap. He dragged it out and had to blink several times before his eyes would focus on the message.
“What’s the third picture?”
Of course Alice would notice and keep track. Three page spreads, twenty-four days, hence eight days per page. December 17th, the start of page three of the Advent calendar.
He untied the red ribbon and carefully unfolded the book to inspect the interior.
Page one, loading the sleigh.
Page two, the Christmas Hamster leaving the gifts under the tree in such bounty they spilled across the floor.
Page three. He had to stop a moment and catch his breath. It was simply that beautiful.
“What is it?” Alice’s text buzzed his phone again.
“It’s us.” Daniel hit send before he quite realized what he’d done. He looked desperately for an “untext” option, but there wasn’t one. Besides, it was true. It was an image that had been forming slowly in his head. Building in quiet layers without his noticing until he saw the image of it spread before him. An image of his life as he couldn’t quite see it yet. Or rather hadn’t until he opened the page. It was how “home” was meant to be.
“Show me.”
“Wish I could,” he sent back. But he had hours of work before he’d have a chance of going to bed, never mind time to see Alice.
“Show me.”
Daniel hit reply on the phone, but something didn’t look right. That’s when it registered that he’d heard the last comment, not read it.
He looked up and there she sat across from him, slouched in his chair, red-and-green checked sneakers propped on the edge of his desk. A bountifully soft-looking sweater in palest gold wrapped her like a warm embrace.
When he looked into he
r eyes, her soft, hazeled, smiling eyes, his phone buzzed sharply.
Habit, he couldn’t help himself, he glanced down.
“Show me.”
When he looked back up, she raised her hand from below his line of sight and revealed her phone.
He handed across the calendar.
She took it and set it across her lap without sitting up.
Daniel slumped back in his chair and watched Alice as she viewed the final picture on the calendar.
Her bangs had slid down over her eyes but he could see the softness enter her body in the rounding of the shoulders, the cool hand placed against a cheek perhaps suddenly too warm, and finally the palm of her hand rested over her heart.
She looked at it for a long, long time. Then she closed it slowly, as if it were delicate and precious and held it to her chest wrapped in both arms for a moment. She stood and placed it on top of the most stable stack on his desk and circled around to him.
Alice didn’t speak. She didn’t kiss him. She simply held out a hand. When he took it, she pulled him inexorably to his feet.
In silence, she led him through the twisting passages of the West Wing and the White House. Only when they arrived in his bedroom on the third floor of the Residence, did she speak.
“Show me.”
Chapter 27
Alice woke alone. Knew she was alone in Daniel’s four-poster bed without even opening her eyes.
She knew she shouldn’t be surprised, but it hurt anyway.
Toughen up, Thompson. You’re used to this.
She was. Most men she’d ever dated left before daybreak. Left her alone in her bed or even stranger, alone in theirs. Over time she’d gone out on fewer and fewer dates. And become more and more selective on who passed through the first date successfully, never mind through her door.
Somehow Daniel strode through her barricades from the moment she saw him in that three-piece suit befuddled by an Advent calendar.
Last night had been another voyage into amazing, mind-bending sex. Yet now she woke alone.
She opened one eye to inspect the dent in the navy blue flannel-covered pillow beside her.
No note.
No flower.
Nothing.
She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands and let out a frustrated growl. When the hell was she going to learn?
Time to get moving.
She sat up, the sheets sliding into her lap and one bare leg stretched out to snag her underwear from the floor, when she heard the door open.
“Holy shit!” Daniel’s voice was low and hoarse.
He stood barefoot, his shirt partially buttoned, wrong by two buttonholes, and a pair of pants with the belt undone and riding low on those delicious hips. He held a large tray that he was dangerously close to bobbling onto the hardwood floor.
It had a single flower in a slender-necked crystal vase. A red rose. And a breakfast spread that could kill her. The man had cooked for her. It smelled glorious.
“Hold it.” Alice thought back through their various conversations. “You never swear.”
“I also don’t often see the Goddess Venus rising naked from my bed. And I do, too, swear.”
“Never heard it.” Alice pulled the sheet back up to her neck, and slid her leg back under the covers fighting a blush as hard as she could. At least Daniel had regained control of the tray.
“I don’t swear around you.”
“Why?”
“You’re a lady.”
Alice laughed. “No, I’m not!”
Daniel straightened in ire, clearly ready to leap to her defense. His control-of-tray skills once again drifted dangerously toward loss. Not with her flower on it. She scooted forward, trying to trap the sheet across her body with her chin as she rescued the tray. It sort of worked, only one breast was exposed by the time she’d maneuvered the tray to the bed and had the vase safely cradled in her hands.
“Who says you aren’t a lady?” He was truly indignant on her behalf.
She let the sheet drop and held her arms out to the sides, careful to keep the rose upright. “Hello, naked in your bed. For the second time. We met less than two weeks ago.”
“More than. Sixteen days, five hours, and thirty-eight minutes.” He barely hesitated to check the bedside clock.
Alice reached for the sheet again. “What am I going to do with you?” She also knew it to the minute, but that was simply how her mind worked. She certainly hadn’t expected him to as well. He kept charming her, even when she didn’t want to be.
“Well, I could make a few suggestions, but your breakfast would be cold.”
It was long gone cold when they finally got around to eating it.
Chapter 28
Alice was tying his tie as he buttoned her blouse. Such a damn gentleman he didn’t even feel up the woman he’d just spent most of the night ravaging, and not so many minutes ago slathering with a soapy washcloth in the shower.
“There actually was a reason I came by last night.”
He leaned in and kissed her so slowly and gently, as if he had all day rather than a mere six minutes to get to his first meeting of the day.
“Nice, Dr. Darlington. Really, really nice.” Alice tried not to sigh like a schoolgirl. “But that wasn’t it.”
“Oh, well, worth a try.”
“Try again…”
He leaned back in eager as a teenager.
“Later.” She managed to complete her sentence and place a hand on his chest in time to stop his forward motion. If he kissed her like that again she’d be dragging him back to bed whether or not the Minority Whip was waiting for him.
“They’ve decided to take the Black Hawks?”
Daniel was sharp enough that he didn’t even blink at the topic change. “Yes. The Majors believe they can fly a lower profile with the Hawks than in the Hound. And the Mil Hound simply didn’t have the necessary reactive ability if the situation became sticky.”
“Picture it. The new leader of North Korea, a clandestine meeting, and a military helicopter.”
“It’s probably expected.”
“Filled with military personnel…” Alice let her words drag out.
Daniel only hesitated a moment longer before offering a low whistle.
“I didn’t see that.” He straightened her sweater and her blouse, fussing with the collar, but clearly his mind was somewhere else.
“A civilian needs to be there for the ride.” Alice did her best to make it a perfectly neutral statement.
“And that someone is?”
Alice didn’t like her answer. Didn’t like the image of that helicopter risking its way into North Korea, opening a door into unknown danger, and the man stepping out was…
“Me.” Daniel’s face went white as he answered his own question. “Oh man. Now I really wish I did swear.”
Chapter 29
“You promise you aren’t going to kill me?” Daniel had to shout to be heard over the noise on the deck of the aircraft carrier.
“Nuh-uh! No such promises.” Major Beale was practically laughing at him and Daniel had no recourse.
He was only so much baggage. Had been for the last twenty hours.
Civilian transport had moved him from Dulles to Tokyo over the pole. Then a quick transport had shuffled him down to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. Thirty minutes later, a Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, only recently authorized to operate over Japanese soil, lifted him into international waters and dropped him on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Harry S. Truman at close to midnight.
Beale and Henderson had awaited him there. The Sea of Japan was in a very bad mood tonight. Waves strong enough to roll the carrier’s deck by several feet rushed by unseen in the darkness below. The wind cast nasty ice particles at his face; cast the same way a machine gun cast bullet
s, continuous and painful.
The group of them as much blew into as climbed aboard the waiting Black Hawk.
“Is this safe flying weather?” he listened to the rattle of the ice against the cargo bay door windows once they were closed and he could hear himself think.
Big John, one of the crew chiefs, flashed a grin at him from where he somehow had mashed into the tiny seat set up for the crew chiefs.
“When the post office gives it up as a bad job, we do their deliveries.”
Great.
Tim handed him a helmet and suggested he buckle in as the turbine engines began whining to life. Outside he could see the organized scurry of the deck crew preparing to receive an incoming jet and launch their helicopter. All their vests color-coded by their tasks. The deck was not awash in a blaze of light as he’d expected. For night operations, they didn’t want to blind the pilots, so lights were low and carefully positioned.
Inside the helicopter there was actually very little to see. Daniel sat in one of the three seats across the back of the cabin. Cabin, a glorious word for a space four feet high and perhaps eight-by-eight feet inside. He tried to imagine it crammed with a dozen troops and all their gear and couldn’t imagine it. Of course, the Major’s helicopter was an attack version, so carrying crew would be less of a priority.
At the very front of the cabin the two crew chiefs sat back-to-back. Immediately in front of them were closed windows. Daniel knew they could swing those windows aside in moments and grasp the controls of the mini-guns rigged there. For now, they were just passive travelers, any information they might need projected on the inside of their visors.
Daniel’s visor was clear. A “dummies helmet” he’d been informed. They didn’t want to be revealing any more than they had to for their North Korean guest. Henderson figured it would be more politic if Daniel wore the same thing they had. Clear plastic, audio hookup only. And an emergency locator beacon if they had to ditch in the ocean.
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