MONDAY, APRIL 10
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Distilled to a few words, Karen Ray’s job description was: protect the president’s family with your life. The family consisted of Ellen Hilliard, aka FLOTUS, the first lady of the United States, and Cameron Hilliard, the first family’s sixteen-year-old son and only child. She had done this particular job for six and a half years now. When she started, Karen had towered over Cam, but these days, standing only five foot four in heels, she was considerably shorter than everyone she protected.
Ellen thought Karen looked like Sandra Bullock with shoulder-length auburn hair. Karen could not see the resemblance herself, but as a woman approaching fifty, she took the comparison as a compliment.
Karen was a special agent, not a “suit guard,” a term popular with members of the Uniformed Division. The differences in the divisions of the Secret Service were not subtle. Uniformed guards interacted with the public, wore mostly white shirts and black slacks, and intentionally did not blend. Karen wore tailored Ralph Lauren suits to work, and her domain consisted of anywhere members of the first family happened to be.
At the moment, Cam Hilliard was still in his bedroom on the second floor of the White House. If he stayed there much longer, he would be late for school. Again. The first lady had instructed Karen to make sure that did not happen.
Ellen was busy with a television interview, and her order had sent Karen off in a hurry. She took the same elevator President Geoffrey Hilliard used when his bum hip made it difficult to take the stairs. The elevator could make eight stops, from the subbasement up to the third floor. Karen exited on the second floor.
She marched down the Center Hall, an airy seventeen-foot-wide corridor adorned with landscape paintings and comfortable sitting areas arranged by the first lady. Compared with the ornate décor of the previous administration, Ellen Hilliard’s style was more understated, in keeping with her middle-class upbringing.
The president embraced Ellen’s choices wholeheartedly. He had a measured approach to just about everything, and cared more about public perception than aesthetics. Anything that did not create controversy (think: expensive remodeling) he supported fully. There was good reason that Ellen Hilliard’s favorability rating seldom dipped under 80 percent.
The two floors the president and his family occupied comprised thirty-six rooms and fifteen bathrooms, but these days Cam confined himself mostly to his bedroom. It seemed just yesterday he’d been bouncing around the third-floor game room, or building with Legos in the spectacular solarium that the Clintons had constructed. But Cam had been a nine-year-old boy back then, sweet-faced and innocent, unsure of his family’s newfound prestige and privilege. Now Cam was entering a new phase, carried forth on a raging river of teenage hormones. Perhaps when his father’s second term in office ended, Cam would emerge from this period of seclusion like a bear waking from hibernation.
Bigger kids, bigger problems. That was how Ellen summarized her recent challenges with Cam—a saying that applied to most parents, regardless of stature. Karen could relate. Her twenty-five-year-old son, Josh, knew perfectly well how to use a phone but rarely bothered to call.
From a distance, Karen could hear the steady beat of electronic music coming from Cam’s bedroom, directly across from the Yellow Oval Room where Ellen frequently entertained. Aside from pulsating music, the floor was library quiet. Secret Service agents seldom patrolled the upper levels, and the White House staff were busy elsewhere. Karen and Cam were alone.
She knocked on his door—softly at first, then again with a bit more force—but Cam did not answer. Karen thought she knew why.
Chess.
She peeked inside and saw Cam, his back to her, intently staring at a digital chessboard on his computer. She figured Cam was winning, because he always won.
Cam was serious about chess, supremely talented, and committed to playing tournaments, each functioning as a rigorous exam, so he could become one of a handful of young players to earn the title Grandmaster, the highest level of chess mastery. Karen did not know how close Cam was to obtaining his lofty goal, but if she had money to bet, hers would go on Cam.
She spoke from the doorway.
“Cam, it’s Karen.”
She did not have to identify herself. Karen was Cam’s shadow; he knew her voice perfectly well.
“Your mom sent me to get you.”
Cam held up a finger—a give-me-a-minute gesture.
Karen checked her watch. A minute was all they had.
“You’re going to be late for school if we don’t leave now.”
At first glance, it would be hard to tell a teenager lived in this tidy room. The only giveaway was a mini-mountain of PlayStation games scattered on the carpeted floor in front of the television Cam had fought so hard to have in his bedroom. When it came to winning arguments, Cam’s persistence and tenacity could rival some of the president’s toughest adversaries. But that was the Cam from before—the kid with spunk and spirit, not the boy who had become withdrawn. For a kid accustomed to the limelight, always quick with a smile, lately Cam had trouble making eye contact.
“Knight c3,” Cam mumbled to himself. “Why didn’t I see that?”
To Karen’s ears, Cam sounded distraught. He was out of his pajamas and dressed in his school uniform—a good sign she could still get him there on time.
“Cam, let’s go. You’re going to be late.”
“Please, Karen, can you give me another second,” Cam said. “It’s super important.”
His pleading tone won out.
“My queen’s got the high ground,” Cam said under his breath. “Try to castle, Taylor, go ahead and try it.”
Taylor.
Now Karen understood Cam’s intensity. Taylor Gleason, a high school classmate of Cam’s, was the son of the chief White House physician, Dr. Frederick Gleason, and the second-best junior chess player in D.C. To Karen’s knowledge, Cam had never lost a match to Taylor, and he did not intend to start losing now.
Cam adjusted the volume on his computer speakers and a mechanized voice rose above the din of electronic music.
“Rook takes e5.”
Cam smacked his hand hard on his desk, and Karen could not help but think gunshot. Her whole body tensed.
The computer voice spoke rapidly as the next sequence of moves occurred in quick succession. “Queen takes e5. Queen takes d7. Rook a8 to d8. Queen takes b7. Queen e3, check.”
“Got you now, Taylor.”
Karen was pleased. Cam sounded animated, when lately talk of chess seemed to bring him down.
The match went on a bit, until the computer announced Taylor’s last move: “Bishop b6, checkmate.”
Cam clutched the sides of his head as if experiencing an intense migraine. He lowered his hands and took a drink of water from a glass on his desk. After a swallow, he swiveled in his chair, cocked back his arm, and hurled the glass with force at the wall near his bed. The glass shattered on impact.
Karen rushed to him. “Cam! What’s going on? Are you all right?”
Cam rose from his chair and began to pace. He was a tall boy, slim like his mother, with short, sandy-colored hair. Beneath his wire-rimmed glasses, Cam’s eyes were cornflower blue, also like his mom’s, and a jawline was starting to emerge as the cute boy transformed into a handsome man.
“Cam, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering, Cam muttered incoherently while he continued to pace.
“I’m going to call Dr. Gleason,” Karen said.
“No!”
Cam barked the word with force. Karen had not expected such a protest, but then again it did mean seeing the father of his rival so soon after a painful defeat.
“Not him. Don’t call him.”
Cam’s shoulders were slumped as he got into bed. He pulled the covers over his head. Karen sat on the edge of his bed. She was his protector, and over the years a bond had formed that went well beyond anything written on an employment contract.
“Talk to me, Cam. Tell me what’s going on.”
Cam poked his head out from beneath the covers, his eyes reddened as he fought back tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said. “I don’t get it. He beat me. He never beats me, and I’m losing to him now.”
Karen was glad to hear him acknowledge that something was wrong.
“Is it the pressure, Cam?” she asked. “It’s got to get pretty intense at times. There’s no stigma in needing help for—well, your mental health.”
Cam bristled. “You sound like Dr. Gleason. He thinks it’s all in my head. He’s run all sorts of tests and whatnot, but he doesn’t get it and now he has my parents convinced I need a shrink.”
Karen and Ellen were close, confidants even, but for whatever reason Ellen had kept these developments a secret.
“They’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong with my head. I’m just—off.”
“Have you tried talking to your parents about it?”
“Yeah. A bunch of times, but you know how much influence Dr. Gleason has over my dad.”
The answer there was “plenty.” Dr. Gleason, a navy doc, had come to the president’s attention through the True Potential Institute, a unique educational center dedicated to helping D.C.’s most gifted children develop mastery in a variety of disciplines. It was where Cam and Taylor both studied chess. A friendship blossomed between Dr. Gleason and the president when they discovered a shared passion for sports, golf and tennis especially, though Gleason was by far the more competitive of the two. Their camaraderie led to Gleason getting the plum appointment to head up the White House Medical Unit. Cam had made a valid point. The president had complete confidence in Dr. Gleason.
“They won’t listen to me,” Cam said. “They only listen to him. Maybe if those stupid tests showed something, they might change their minds.”
Karen mulled this over. She believed Cam. The way he had been acting could support Gleason’s theory, but perhaps something else was amiss, something undetected. The president might not be open to outside consults when it came to his family’s health, but the first lady was a different story.
Karen said, “Let’s get you to school and I’ll work on this from my end. It’s possible I can convince your parents to consider the opinion of somebody other than Dr. Gleason. Do you trust me?”
Cam might have caught the mischievous glint in Karen’s eyes. He returned a small smile as he climbed out of bed, the blue sport coat of his school uniform now a bit wrinkled.
“With my life,” he said with a wink.