CIA operations officer Colleen Vance dug a thumbnail into the palm of her hand in an attempt to stave off her growing panic. Director Canfield’s limo pulled past the North Portico toward another door near the Press Briefing Room.
This was really happening.
A uniformed Secret Service officer at a podium inside the entrance greeted Director Canfield with a smile, but looked at Glazier, Canterbury, and Vance like they owed her money until she found their names on her list. She issued A visitor badges and then, with a nod to Canfield, said, “They’re expecting you.”
Vance shuffled along the narrow hallways, at once overwhelmed by the grandeur of actually being in the White House and struck by how small the building seemed inside.
The furnishings were plush and ornate, but the ceilings hung much lower than they appeared on television or in movies. Historic paintings of the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower adorned the walls, along with large photographs of military helicopters and fighter jets. There was a bend toward the Marine Corps—which made sense considering the President’s past service. What Vance did not see were numerous hero shots of President Ryan.
A twenty-by-twenty-four photograph of Ryan approaching Marine One on the South Lawn struck her in particular. The President was not the focus of the photo. That honor went to the straight-backed young Marine crew chief braced at attention in front of his gleaming white-top helicopter. The fact that President Ryan didn’t have to be the center of the universe made Vance like the man all the more.
And made her exponentially more nervous to meet him.
Canfield led the way down the steps past the nondescript door marked W-16—the Secret Service offices directly underneath the Oval. He hung a right and then a left to take them down another set of steps past the Navy Mess to the Situation Room. Here, another Secret Service agent checked yet another list before keying them inside.
If Vance had been overwhelmed before, setting foot in the rarified air of the CEMENT MIXER made it hard to breathe. Everyone who was anyone in the executive branch of the United States government sat at the long oval table under an array of video monitors and world clocks. The vice president; Director Foley; Secretaries Adler and Burgess; the national security adviser; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Vogel; the attorney general; the director of the FBI . . .
Director Canfield took a seat at the table.
Chief Glazier nodded to the chairs along the wall behind Canfield. “We’re in the number two seats,” she said.
“That puts me in the number four or five seat,” Vance said, working hard to keep her face from twitching.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Canterbury said.
Her nerves turned to dread. “Wait,” she whispered. “I thought we were going to brief . . . I mean . . . Is this entire meeting just for my information?”
Chief Glazier put a hand on Vance’s forearm. “No,” she said. “We’ve been summoned to an already scheduled meeting, but you’re definitely on the agenda.”
“When the President calls on you,” Canterbury said, “speak clearly and give your honest assessment. Don’t be afraid to stick to your guns. Our job is to give him intelligence, so he can make informed decisions.”
Vance heard “When the President calls on you . . .” After that, it was nothing but the whoosh of blood in her ears. She’d just sat down, when a commotion drew her attention toward the door. Everyone stood as President Ryan came in and took his spot at the head of the table.
He was tall and slender with an easy walk that said he was comfortable in his own skin. There was a surety about him that said, I know what I’m doing. Follow me.
It would have been calming had Vance not been so terrified.
“Be seated,” Ryan said. Then, to Canfield, “Jay, I understand you have some new information.”
“We do, Mr. President,” the director said. “Colleen Vance, one of our newer ops officers, attended a year of university in Colombia. She’s—”
“Is she here?” Ryan craned his head around the room.
“She is, sir,” Canfield said.
“Let’s hear it from her, then,” Ryan said.
A prodding elbow in the ribs from Glazier and Vance got to her feet.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” she said.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, hands folded together at his chest as he listened intently to the beginning of her brief, like a father hearing about a good report card or a school project gone well.
“So I understand,” Ryan said at length, “you’ve met this Blanca Pakulova?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And she mentioned a ‘crazy’ sister named Sabine?”
“I only heard her use the name once,” Vance said. “When she was intoxicated.”
“But you’ve not been able to find any official records stating Blanca has a sister?”
“Yes, sir,” Vance said. “I mean, no, sir. I mean, there aren’t any records to that effect.”
“So your hypothesis hinges on . . . erasures?”
“Yes.” Vance swallowed hard. “A Cyrillic G looks like an upside-down L, which is easy enough to turn into a P, which looks like a pi symbol.”
Ryan nodded. “Vy gavareete pa russki?”
“What?” Vance stammered. “I mean, no, I don’t speak Russian. I had to look up the Cyrillic online.”
“I see,” Ryan said, nodding again. “Please continue.”
Vance felt every eye in the room boring holes in her, laughing silently at her foolish grasping at straws, not to mention her 1980s mom-blouse.
She dug the thumbnail into her palm again.
“An online search revealed the o and r in Gorshkova are more difficult to change into the a and k of Pakulova. My counterpart at Bogotá Station got me a trove of scanned university records, some of them from when Blanca was first admitted to the school, two years before I met her. I found a rental receipt for racquetball gear at the university gym that shows an erasure that I believe is a Cyrillic G that was overwritten as a roman P. An application for a parking pass that same year shows an instance where Blanca apparently started to write what looks like another surname beginning with Cyrillic G-o and then overwrote it with her pen to read P-a-kulova in roman letters.”
Ryan tapped his fingers on the table while he scanned the report in front of him.
“So that’s it?” he asked.
“Yes,” Vance said. “But it’s—”
Canterbury cleared his throat behind her.
“Yes,” she said again. “That’s it.”
Ryan looked up suddenly and turned to Director Canfield. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of Officer Vance’s work in the future.” Then to Vance, smiling broadly. “Excellent work, Colleen . . .”
He said other things, too, but none of it registered.
The President of the United States had complimented her effort, called her by her first name in front of a Situation Room crammed with political notables, and hadn’t said a word about her ludicrous blouse.