by Peter Murphy
I was so focused on our preparations that I’d forgotten about the outstanding question of the logistics of the meeting, and it wasn’t until Dave called late on Thursday afternoon that it registered with me that I had no idea where and when we were supposed to meet the next day. Remarkably, I would still be in the dark after we had spoken.
‘Hi, Kiah, how’s it going? I’m calling about the arrangements for tomorrow.’
‘Right, Dave, good. What time do you guys want?’
‘How would ten o’clock be?’
‘That would be fine. Your offices at ten?’
He didn’t reply immediately.
‘Kiah, a car will pick you up in front of your building at nine,’ he said hesitantly. It was Dave’s indecisive voice; I’d heard it before. ‘Just you and Sam.’
‘A car?’ I replied as soon as I could; it took a few seconds for what he had said to compute. ‘What car? What are you talking about? We don’t need a car. We can find our way to the Justice Department.’
‘I know you can, Kiah. But tomorrow, we would like to offer you a car. Your driver’s name will be Alfred, and it has to be nine sharp outside the front entrance of your building.’
I shook my head. It had been a long day, and I was getting irritated.
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘No. I’m not kidding.’
‘Look, Dave, I don’t know whether this is a joke, or some feeble attempt to patronise us, or whether it’s some screwed up way you guys think you have of messing with our minds, but Sam and I are both big girls, and we can get ourselves to the damn Justice Department without the government providing transportation.’
I heard him sigh into the phone.
‘It’s not a joke, Kiah, and this is not coming from me. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m out of the picture at this point unless and until the case needs a lawyer again. I’m just the messenger now. Whatever is happening with the settlement is happening way up the food chain from me.’
‘OK, but I still don’t understand,’ I replied. ‘What are you saying? Are you saying there’s no meeting unless we get picked up by, what’s his name, Alfred?’
‘That’s the deal.’ He paused. ‘Hey, how bad can it be? It will be great car, I promise. I wish they’d take me to work that way. Alfred will probably have coffee and donuts –’
‘Dave, knock it off, for goodness’ sake –’
‘Kiah, don’t fight me on this, OK?’ His mood had changed. His usual voice had returned. ‘I can’t tell you any more. If I could, I would, but I can’t. Just be there, please. Nine o’clock outside your building.’
He hung up.
I called an impromptu team meeting and told everyone what Dave had said.
‘They’re just trying to butter us up,’ Sam weighed in at once. ‘They’re going to treat us nice and hope we’ll be nice to them. They think they can buy us off with coffee and donuts? They’re pathetic.’
‘If y’all ask me,’ Arlene said, ‘this ain’t got a damn thing to do with being nice. These guys are about as nice as a copperhead with a headache and the bayou drying up. They’re fixin’ to kidnap y’all’s asses and dump y’all in some field in West Virginia, where they ain’t never gonna find y’all. Lord have mercy.’
Powalski laughed.
‘I don’t think so, Arlene. If that was the plan, they wouldn’t call ahead of time to warn us about it.’
‘So, what do you think?’ I asked.
‘I’d take it at face value,’ he offered. ‘It’s coming from someone high up. For some reason, they want to give you the VIP treatment. That’s the way they do things when you get up to a certain level in government. It’s your tax dollars at work. It’s got nothing to do with you guys specifically. It’s just how things are done.’
‘So we should go with it?’
‘Yeah, go with it.’
I must still have been looking doubtful. He smiled.
‘Look, just to be on the safe side, I’ll be outside the building from eight thirty onwards. I’ll be watching, and I’ll have my car nearby. If anything seems off to me, I’ll follow you. But I wouldn’t worry about it. Focus on the meeting. That’s what matters. And enjoy the coffee and donuts on the way.’
65
Sam and I met at the office, dressed in our most conservative business suits, at seven thirty. We had arrived early deliberately, just to see if there was anything suspicious going on. There was no sign of a limo, or of anyone looking like he might be Alfred. The area outside the building looked the same as it did at that hour every morning, the odd office worker coming in, the odd cleaner going home, the rush hour going on all around, nothing to mention in dispatches. Mistrusting Dave’s promise of in-drive service we had brought some good coffee and bagels to fortify us for the work ahead. After we had done justice to them, for the most part in a nervous silence, I grabbed a collection of random documents from my desk, and stuffed them into my briefcase, enough to make an imposing pile if later emptied out on to a table. It’s not something I would have done in any routine negotiation with Dave, or any other lawyer for that matter. They wouldn’t serve any real purpose, and looking back, I probably clung to them in the hope that looking prepared would boost my self-confidence. The only indispensable items would be my pen, yellow pad and calculator, and my phone in case I needed Arlene to check information for me.
‘I’ve never been to one of these things,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t know what to expect. I won’t say anything unless you want me to.’
‘There’s no way to know what to expect,’ I replied. ‘I’m not even sure who we will be dealing with. If they’re really sending a limo for us, it may be Henry Shilling.’
‘The Attorney General?’
‘Yes, but don’t let that worry you. Even if Shilling is present, he’s going to rely on his trial lawyers to advise him, so it will be my job to deal with the legal issues. But there’s nothing formal about a settlement meeting, and it’s your case. If there’s something you want to say, go ahead and say it.’
‘But will you let me know if you want me to?’
‘Sure. I’ll nod at you.’
‘OK.’
‘But you don’t have to wait for the nod. Say whatever you want.’ I paused. ‘However, there is one exception to that rule; only one, but it’s a big one.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘If they make an offer, try not to react to it, and don’t give any indication of what you think about it. That applies whether the offer seems good or bad. Don’t give anything away. You and I will step outside the room to talk before we give them an answer. Is that OK?’
‘Sure. Got it.’
I nodded, and looked at my watch. Five minutes to nine.
‘Good. Let’s go do this.’
A sleek black limo was waiting outside the building. Standing quietly at the side of the car was a handsome African American man I judged to be in his fifties, with silver hair and a matching moustache, dressed in a pristine dark grey suit with a red tie and black peaked cap. He opened the rear door for us.
‘Miss van Eyck, Miss Harmon? Good morning. I’m Alfred, and I’ll be your driver this morning. Please make yourselves comfortable. You’ll find some coffee and donuts in that little compartment between your seats. Feel free to help yourselves.’
I looked around. There was nothing unusual going on as far as I could see. I spotted Powalski to my right, leaning against the corner of the glass wall of the building. He was dressed in an open-necked shirt and blue jeans, and was wearing shades. He had the Post’s sports section under his arm, and he appeared to be in casual conversation with one of our security guards, who was on a smoking break. But he was facing our way, and I could see no sign of concern. We got in.
As we pulled away into the traffic, Sam opened the compartment and sure enough, as advertised, there was cof
fee and there were donuts – and from a decent coffee shop too, one I knew from my forays into Washington on business in times past.
‘Want some?’ Sam asked.
I shook my head. I wanted to concentrate on the journey.
‘Are you sure? This could be all we ever get out of the government. Might as well grab it while we can.’
She was smiling, and I returned the smile.
‘No, I’m fine. But you go ahead.’
The traffic seemed pretty moderate, and Alfred was soon pulling smoothly on to the Parkway and heading for downtown. I checked my watch.
‘Were you expecting some congestion this morning?’ I called out to the front of the car.
‘No, ma’am,’ Alfred replied. ‘This is pretty average for this time of the morning. The worst of the rush hour is over. You never can tell, though. Sometimes the traffic downtown gets snarled up for no reason at all that anyone can see, and once in a while it can stretch all the way back here to the Parkway, but nothing like that today, fortunately.’
‘I was just wondering why we needed to leave at nine for a ten o’clock meeting,’ I said after a pause. ‘Seems a bit like overkill.’
I saw Alfred smile back at me in his mirror.
‘Just making sure,’ he replied. ‘And they always like to build in some time for security. You know how that goes.’
I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that I’d never known security at Justice to take more than a minute or two. They took it seriously, but they had their routine down, and they had a pretty brisk rhythm going on. But something told me to keep quiet. Dave’s enigmatic comments from the previous afternoon came back to me. He was the just the messenger now. Settlement was being dealt with higher up the food chain. He was telling me, in his own way, that I didn’t yet understand what I was dealing with. I sat back in my seat. We were driving to somewhere higher up the food chain. Less than fifteen minutes later, we were on Pennsylvania Avenue, and by then I wasn’t even surprised when we drove straight past Justice without even slowing down. Sam was still enjoying her coffee, and I don’t think she even noticed. We must be going to Treasury, I concluded. Well, that would make sense. Henry Shilling would want to play with home field advantage if he could. I couldn’t blame him for that. I was ready to assume that security might be a bit more intense at Treasury. So that was why we’d had to leave at nine o’clock. It all started to make sense. Until we drove past the Treasury building.
So we weren’t going to Treasury either, and then it slowly dawned on me that that could mean only one thing. There was only one more building on Pennsylvania Avenue: number 1600. We were moving up the food chain with a vengeance. In fact, we were going straight to the top. A minute or two later, Alfred was pulling up at a checkpoint and explaining to the guard who we were. The guard looked at us suspiciously before waving us through, but he did wave us through and Alfred dropped us off at an entrance just beyond the checkpoint. A young-looking man in a light grey suit was waiting for us.
‘This is where I leave you, ladies,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Enjoy your day.’
‘Thank you, Alfred,’ I replied.
Sam touched my arm. ‘Kiah, am I imagining things, or is this…?’
The man in the light grey suit had reached us. He was smiling, and offered his hand.
‘Good morning, ladies. I’m Ben Silber. I’m the President’s Deputy Chief of Staff, and I’ll be looking after you this morning. Miss van Eyck?’
Sam took his hand.
‘Yes, I’m Sam van Eyck. I’m sorry, Mr… Silber? Did you say the President?’
‘Yes. I work for the President. And you would be Miss Harmon?’
‘Kiah Harmon,’ I replied, taking his hand in turn.
‘Good. Follow me please. There’ll be a bit more security up ahead. Hopefully it won’t take too long. Do you have some ID with you, driver’s license, whatever? They’re supposed to ask everyone who visits to bring ID with them, but they don’t always remember. It drives security nuts, but that’s government for you.’
He turned away and beckoned us to follow. He led us at a good pace along two or three corridors. We came to a flight of stairs where we walked up one floor. We were led through double doors into a small hallway, where there was an airport-style security check. We put our coats and bags though the metal detector, and even took off our shoes out of habit, without being asked. On the other side, a uniformed officer carefully inspected our driver’s licenses before allowing Ben to lead us deeper into the inner recesses of the White House.
During the walk, I glanced at Sam and saw that she was still looking thunderstruck. I felt the same way, and I was desperately trying to force my brain into gear, to work out what was going on. Home field advantage was one thing, but this was ridiculous. What did they hope to gain by bringing us here? Were they appealing to our sense of patriotism, our sense of being good Americans, relying on us to talk some sense into these van Eyck plaintiffs who were threatening to ruin the economy? Or had they simply chosen the most imposing venue available to them in which to warn us off? Was it possible that they had no sense of humor about the Rhode Island thing, and had concluded that we represented a threat to national security? These and other thoughts were roaming unchecked through my mind, and they were all disturbing. In the end, I forced myself to calm down and let all the thoughts pass unhindered and go on their way, and as I calmed down, it occurred to me that there was no reason why this had to be bad. It might even be good news. It didn’t necessarily mean that they would make an offer we could accept, but if they had brought us to the White House they certainly weren’t treating the case as a joke. If they’d thought it was a joke, I reasoned, they would have told Dave to take us for lunch at Benny’s. I looked at my watch. It was almost ten o’clock.
We stopped at the door of a large conference room. Ben opened the door for us.
‘I think you know everyone here,’ he said as he ushered us inside, ‘except perhaps for the Attorney General?’
Henry Shilling was standing near the door, arm outstretched, waiting to greet us. Beyond him I saw Dave, wearing an absurdly sheepish grin that made me want to slap him. He’d known all about this the afternoon before and he hadn’t even dropped me a hint, hadn’t even asked me to make sure we brought our driver’s licenses with us. I thought briefly about ratting him out to Ben Silber for that gross dereliction of governmental duty. Beyond Dave I saw Ellen, Harry Welsh, and Maggie Watts, all standing in a line.
‘So,’ Shilling said, shaking hands with both us in turn, ‘you’re the two ladies who’ve been tilting at windmills on behalf of Jacob van Eyck?’
‘That would be us,’ Sam replied.
‘Please take your seats,’ Ben said. ‘Kiah, we’ve put the government on this side of the table and you guys on the other side, if that’s all right?’
‘That’s fine.’
I duly emptied my useless documents into a pile on to the table and looked around the room. The room was impressive, with a high ceiling and dark wooden panelling. It was a conference room from days gone by, and I couldn’t help wondering what weighty conferences it had borne witness to in times past. But we had access to modern conference tools too, an overhead projector, and a white board with markers of several colours and an eraser. I almost wished I had some use for them. Perhaps when we got round to talking numbers, I could scribble a few calculations on the board, just for effect. Each place setting came with a White House pen and note pad. There was coffee and iced water for all. Henry Shilling sat at the top of his side of the table, with his staff in order of seniority arrayed at his side. He had no papers with him. He left that to the staff, in this case Dave and Ellen. They had brought papers with them too, and I wondered whether they were any more relevant than mine, or whether there were nerves on both sides. Had to be.
A smartly dressed young man came in briefly and whispered in B
en’s ear. Ben nodded.
‘Would you all stand, please?’
And then he made his entrance.
66
I didn’t vote for Greg Gascoine, and I don’t care for him all that much. On the other hand, I don’t especially dislike him either. I suppose I have no strong feelings about him either way, and maybe that explains why I didn’t vote for him. But it’s one thing not to vote for a president, and it’s another thing to find yourself in a White House conference room with one when you never expected to be anywhere near the White House in the first place, and you realise you’re there because he wants to talk to you. Gascoine greeted Henry Shilling like an old friend, and shook hands with his staff before coming over to our side of the room.
‘Welcome to the White House,’ he said, extending his hand to us in turn. ‘First time?’
‘For me, Mr President,’ I replied.
‘I took the tour once when I was in high school, Mr President,’ Sam said, ‘but nothing like this. This is… fantastic.’
Gascoine smiled.
‘Well, we must arrange for you to take the real tour once we’re finished here, if you’d like to. We can do that Ben, can’t we?’
‘We sure can, Mr President.’
‘Good. Well I hope you’ll stay and see the House from the inside. It’s quite impressive, even to me, and I work here every day.’