Rules of Engagement

by Ken Fite

  I WAITED FOR James Keller in the president’s dining room, located down the hall from the Oval Office, just past the president’s private study. Gregory, the president’s personal chef, had already taken my order and placed two steaming cups of black coffee on the small table that Keller, and the others who had held the office before him, dined at when having casual meals alone or with staff members. Chef, as Keller liked to call the man, already knew what Keller wanted: three eggs with wheat toast and strong black coffee. I told Chef that I’d take the same thing, and I sat alone, sipping the steaming coffee as I waited for my friend to arrive.

  The president entered with a newspaper tucked under his arm, and I stood to shake his hand. Taking a seat across from me, Keller set the paper down on the table to his right. I read the upside-down headline.

  “Russian spy ship patrolling off America’s east coast,” I said. “Guess the Times got tipped off somehow.”

  “The leaks are all over the place, Blake. Hard to tell where they come from. Could be from within the intelligence community or inside the damn White House.” Keller took a sip of coffee before continuing. “This one’s not too bad. They send one of these ships up from Cuba about once a year, it seems. They’re harmless. You and I both know that the Russians like to play two cards: intimidation and misinformation.” Keller grabbed the paper, turned it over, and smiled. “Enough about that. How are you doing, son?”

  I took a sip of the hot coffee and set the cup down. “I’m fine, Mr. President,” I said and forced a smile.

  Keller looked me over as Chef returned and set two identical plates of food down in front of us. We thanked the man, and the president lowered his head, briefly closed his eyes, and began eating. “Blake,” he said after what felt like an eternity of silence between us, “have I ever told you about how I met my wife?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, sir. I’ve heard a lot of your stories over the years, but not that one.”

  Keller nodded and looked down again as he gathered his thoughts. “I was just a kid, really. About twenty years old, tail end of the Vietnam War right before the Fall of Saigon. My parents knew how much I loved to read and would send me care packages from time to time. Mostly letters. But they also sent me novels. Used paperbacks. All they could afford, really.” Keller looked past me as he reflected on his younger years.

  Wondering where the president was going with his story, I set my fork down and leaned back in my chair.

  His smile broadened. He shook his head as a flood of memories from many years ago rushed over him. “My parents,” he continued, “they knew I liked reading spy fiction, adventure-type novels back then.” Keller turned his gaze back to me. “But sometimes they’d send over these coming-of-age-type books. My last Christmas over there, I got a package from them. They sent me a used copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee.”

  I nodded to let him know I wasn’t that young to not know the author or the book.

  “So I read the thing when I could. Wasn’t my kind of book, but it started to grow on me. And all over the pages were markings and notes from the previous owner, which I didn’t appreciate at first. Who writes in books like that?” he asked, furrowing his brow and taking a sip of his coffee. “A lot of people, it turns out.”

  Keller’s personal chef entered the room and walked over to the table and warmed up our cups of coffee. We thanked him, and I pushed my plate aside as I started to get pulled deeper into the president’s story.

  “Son, the handwriting was just beautiful. The notes the previous owner made in the margins, they were just so insightful. Said the theme of the book wasn’t about prejudice but, rather, about the coexistence of good and evil. It made me appreciate the book even more. And I have to tell you,” said Keller, his face brightening as he paused to think about that time in his life, “when I finished the thing, I almost put it away, but I decided to read it again. This time, instead of skipping to the first chapter, I carefully flipped through the first few pages, thinking that I would really be intentional and go through it slowly this time.”

  The president looked at me, inviting me to ask the next logical question. So I did. “What’d you find?”

  “The previous owner’s name and address. Right there on the inside cover, just in case the book got lost.”

  “Margaret?”

  Keller nodded. “Margaret Nelson. She lived in New York City at the time. Her parents donated the book.”

  Shaking my head in disbelief, I asked, “So what did you do?”

  “I wrote to her, son,” Keller said with a chuckle. “Told her I had her book. We exchanged letters for about six months or so. We wrote about the novel. Then I wrote about the war, and she told me about everything happening back at home. Nixon. Watergate. Ford’s pardoning of the man. After a while, our letters became more personal. Blake, I was falling in love with a woman I had never met. When the war came to an end and I was sent home, they told me I would pass through Grand Central Station. I told her that I wanted to meet her. She wrote back and agreed on the condition of only wanting to get her book back,” said Keller with quiet laughter. “Said she’d be wearing a pink rose on her lapel so I’d know who she was.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, I got there and found the spot she had told me to go to, and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen approached. She smiled at me and I smiled back. Then she kept walking past me and disappeared.”

  “It wasn’t her?” I asked.

  “She didn’t have the rose. I stopped and looked all around and finally spotted a woman in the crowd standing alone up against a large column. Blake, I was just devastated. She was an older woman, must have been in her early sixties, I guess around my age now. I just stared at her from across the large room.”

  Confused, I asked, “So what did you do?”

  “I walked up to her, son. I saluted, presented her the novel, and told her how excited I was to meet her. And I asked if I could take her to dinner as a way of saying thanks for lending me her book for so long.” I shook my head, but Keller held up a hand so he could continue. “She said, ‘Son, I don’t know what this is all about, but that woman I saw walk by you gave me twenty dollars and asked me to wear this rose and wait here for fifteen minutes. Said if a soldier approached, to tell him that she’d be waiting in that restaurant over there for him to return her book to her.’ So I thanked the woman and left to go find Margaret.”

  I put my elbows on the table and leaned in, resting my chin on my folded hands. “Do you still have it?”

  “The book?” asked Keller as his smile started to fade. “We lost it in the move from Chicago to the White House.” I noticed that Keller’s eyes started to tear, and he blinked repeatedly to try to hide it from me. “Looked everywhere for it. Both of us did. That book represented the special bond that Margaret and I had together. And it’s gone.” Keller took a long sip of coffee as we sat in silence. “I miss her,” he finally said as he looked down and twisted the wedding band that he refused to stop wearing. “But the good Lord doesn’t take us down a straight path, does he?” Keller paused again. “When’s the last time you saw her, Blake?”

  “Jami?” I asked and looked away as I shook my head. “At the funeral, I guess. So about three months.”

  “You should call her,” he said, twisting his wedding band. “You only live once, son. Try to make it count.”

  FOUR

  MEG TAYLOR SAT in the appropriate seat reserved for the New York Times, second row back from the podium, right behind the Reuters guy and directly in front of a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. Flanked by journalists from the Washington Post and AP Radio, both yelling over each other the moment Press Secretary Jeff Brewer finished answering a question, Taylor struggled to keep up and get a word in.

  “I can assure you, Mike,” said Brewer, gesturing to the NBC News representative all the way to his right, “that the United States Navy is closely tracking the Russian vessel as it heads north along the east coa
st.”

  Brewer paused to take a breath as Meg spoke up, along with forty-eight of her peers, trying to get a follow-up question in front of the press secretary. Brewer turned to his left, his eyes connecting with Meg’s before shifting to the reporter seated behind her. “Yeah, Bob,” he said to the Tribune man. “Go ahead.”

  “This is the second time in a month that the Viktor Leonov has been spotted near the US coastline. Both times, the ship made a port call in Cuba. This is becoming a common occurrence. What are we doing to—”

  “The vessel remained in international waters,” replied the press secretary tersely.

  “Now wait a minute, Jeff,” interrupted the Tribune man. “Thirty miles out isn’t international waters.”

  “Bob, as I said,” continued Brewer, “the Navy is keeping a careful eye on the vessel. It poses no imminent threat to us. In fact, it already turned east and is heading out to sea. It’s just an intimidation ploy by the—”

  “But that’s not the point, Jeff. Three weeks ago, the ship was spotted thirty miles off the coast of Connecticut, the farthest north a Russian vessel has ever traveled along our coast. Now I’m sure I’m not the only one here to have done his or her homework,” said the reporter, looking at Meg, who turned around to look at him. “It’s a Vishnya-class spy ship built by the Soviet Navy in the eighties, specifically for intelligence gathering. The thing’s outfitted with high-tech equipment designed specifically to intercept communications. The fact that this ship is coasting along the coast, gathering who the hell knows what kind of information, poses a very serious threat to our country. What is the president doing about this?”

  As Jeff Brewer fielded the question, Meg felt a vibration in her pocket and reached inside to grab her cell. It was a text message from her boss at the Times, Robert King. “Do it now,” the message read.

  Sliding the phone back into her pocket, Taylor focused on the press secretary as he droned on about the aging Viktor Leonov ship and its potential communications-interception abilities. Meg wasn’t focusing on the words the man was saying, but instead focused on the question that she knew she had to ask. When Brewer finished the last few words of his response to the Tribune guy, Meg saw her opening and took it.

  “There are reports,” she said loudly along with half of the other journalists sitting in attendance who also began speaking, and Meg held her hand up and smiled at the press secretary and caught his eye again.

  “Yes,” he said, gesturing to Meg. “Sorry, I’m not sure I know who you are,” he added, furrowing his brow.

  “Meg Taylor, New York Times, filling in for David O’Malley.”

  Brewer nodded and smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “Hope Dave’s resting up so he can come back and beat me up some more.” A handful of journalists laughed to themselves. “Please, your question, Meg.”

  Taylor took a quick, deep breath. She had rehearsed the question for what felt like a thousand times since last night. “There are reports claiming that the Viktor Leonov is involved in something more threatening.”

  Brewer raised an eyebrow and lowered his head. “More threatening, Miss Taylor? Care to elaborate?”

  Meg brought a closed fist to her mouth and cleared her throat as the rest of the press corps turned to her. “A newspaper in the United Kingdom published a story suggesting that…” Meg paused for a moment, not used to so many people staring at her. She took another breath. “Suggesting that Russia has been using the ship, not for intelligence gathering, but for seeding the US coastline with each pass the ship takes.”

  Brewer stood behind the podium, looking confused. He narrowed his eyes and looked at Taylor. “Seeding the coastline? I’m sorry,” the press secretary said, shaking his head slowly. “What does that even mean?”

  “The report says that a Russian military expert claimed that Moscow has been quietly seeding the east coast of the United States with nuclear bombs for some time now,” said Taylor and cleared her throat again. “It said that they dig themselves into the ground and sleep until given the command to detonate.”

  Brewer looked down at his notes and nodded his head as the rest of the journalists turned around to watch the press secretary field the question from the young blonde woman in her early to mid-twenties.

  “Miss Taylor,” he began, still staring at his notes resting on the podium and stacking them with his hands before looking up at her, “what newspaper did you say this was reported in? Was it a British paper?”

  “The Independent,” replied Meg.

  “Okay, an online newspaper,” said Brewer, looking at Taylor sideways. “The Independent. Sold to and now controlled by a wealthy Russian businessman just a few years ago, I believe. That newspaper, right?”

  Feeling her face turning a shade of red, Meg interrupted the man as he began to wrap up the meeting. “Jeff, I have it on good authority that the Independent was leaked this information from President Keller’s administration, just like every other leak Keller’s been dealing with since he took office.”

  Brewer’s expression shifted from amused to a state between annoyed and concerned.

  “They verified the claim,” continued Meg, “with a former colonel and defense ministry spokesman for the Kremlin. Any response?”

  “That’s all for today. We’ll pick back up on Monday,” said Brewer, closing his notebook. “Thank you.”

  The other White House correspondents surrounding Meg stood as Jeff Brewer turned and disappeared through a door. The reporters all walked together into the press corps offices as Meg thought about the conversation she had just had and felt her phone vibrating again inside a pocket and answered the call.

  “Taylor, you missed your chance,” a voice boomed, coming from Robert King, the Washington bureau chief for the Times and Meg Taylor’s boss. “You had him up against the ropes and let him off easy.”

  “Mr. King, the press secretary wasn’t budging. I had nothing else to throw at the guy and he knew it.”

  “I brought you on, Taylor, because you showed promise. But what I just saw was an embarrassment.”

  “Mr. King, please—”

  “Taylor,” boomed King, prompting Meg to hold her cell an inch farther away from her ear, “listen carefully because I’m only going to say this once. You have twenty-four hours to find some serious dirt on President Keller, and none of this Russia nonsense. Find something substantial and I’ll keep you on until O’Malley returns. And if you can’t do that, I’ll find someone who can, and you’ll be back home watching them on the TV. Got it?” Meg tried to speak, but King interrupted her. “Twenty-four hours,” he repeated and hung up.

  After standing alone for several minutes, Meg finally placed a call. “It’s me,” she said. “I need your help.”

  FIVE

  AFTER LEAVING THE White House following my late breakfast with the president, I took a cab back to my apartment down in Alexandria. Traffic wasn’t bad for a late Friday morning in DC before a holiday weekend. Normally, I’d head over to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where I had a small office, but I decided to take the day off since the rest of Keller’s team had left Washington early to enjoy the long weekend with their families. I didn’t have a family to go home to. I was one of the few who stayed behind.

  Listening to the drone of the car engine, I rested my head against the backseat window as my thoughts drifted back to Keller and our conversation over breakfast about his late wife, Margaret. I stared out the window, watching the city streets pass by in a blur as memories of Mrs. Keller from the last twenty years began to wash over me. I thought about how alone the president must have felt returning to the White House after the funeral. I felt bad for my longtime friend as I remembered how alone I had felt returning to an empty home when my wife, Maria, had been murdered years ago on the cold city streets of Chicago.

  “Which one’s yours, buddy?” the cabbie asked, and I lifted my head and became fully present again.

  “This is good,” I said when we approached t
he intersection of Madison and Washington. “I’ll get out here.”

  The driver looked over his shoulder and tapped his brakes, letting me out in front of a small building close to where I lived. A habit I had, never liking to be dropped too close to my building. I handed the man some cash and stepped out of the cab and onto the sidewalk. As the driver pulled away, I waited a second before I started heading east toward the Kingsley, where I had called home for the last few months.

  Seeing a familiar face up ahead, I smiled and turned to my right, where I noticed a bookstore that I didn’t remember seeing before. Knowing that the man down the street wasn’t going anywhere, I stepped inside.

  I walked past the display area near the entrance, circled around the rows of nonfiction books, and stopped when I got to the section I was looking for. I ran my finger across the books on the shelf until I got to the one that I was searching for. I thumbed through it for a few minutes before I closed it and headed to the back of the bookstore, found the café, and purchased a sandwich, two cups of coffee, and the novel.

  I left, headed in the same direction as before my quick detour, and stopped a block farther down the street. “Sammy, how’ve you been, man?” I asked the older man I stopped to visit with whenever I saw him.

  “Frank,” he said, referring to me by the name that I had decided to give him once, “I appreciate it, man.” He stretched out his weathered hands and accepted the coffee and set it down before realizing that the sandwich in the bag was for him, too. Keeping the novel tucked under my arm, I stood in front of Sam and turned to look back west as I heard a car approaching from behind as it sped up and passed us.

  “How’ve you been?” I asked again as Sammy took a cautious sip of his coffee and shrugged.

  “Could be better, I guess,” he replied, and I took a sip of my coffee, becoming concerned with his response.

  I took a step closer and saw that his lip looked a little swollen. “What happened?”

  Sammy looked down the street past me, then looked over his left shoulder for a moment before he replied, “Couple of nights ago, these two punks came at me in the middle of the night, man. Thought they were going to try to take my stuff. Instead, they just stood here about ten minutes asking me questions. Wouldn’t leave me alone, man. Said they’d give me money, but gave me a whole mess of trouble instead.”