THE LATE AFTERNOON LIGHT STREAMS THROUGH THE CHIEF OF Staff’s three floor-to-ceiling windows.
Unlike his boss, Reuben was born into the Washington elite. His father was intelligent, driven and idealistic. His mother was intelligent, driven, idealistic and rich – a winning combination if you want to get things done here; and Reuben’s parents, old-school Democrats, wanted to get plenty done.
By the time Reuben joined the Air Force, his father was already a state senator. Within a couple of terms, he had become the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Then, in his early sixties, he dropped dead from an aneurism. Shortly afterward, Reuben left the Air Force to start his own political career. And with his mother’s financial backing, and a little political influence, it didn’t take him long to make an impact.
Reuben’s first boss was Tod Abnarth, who recruited him for advice on military and security policy after the second Gulf War.
Abnarth was a friend of his parents, the senior Democratic Senator from Wisconsin and the most influential member of the House Intelligence Committee – unusual, given that he’s a prominent Catholic. But D.C. has, for once, looked beyond its prejudice to embrace him as a doyen of the establishment. Reuben brought enough precision and discipline to his office for Abnarth to bequeath him to a young Texan senator who had his eye on the White House.
As I sip my coffee in front of Reuben’s large, mahogany L-shaped desk, I look at a picture of him and Thompson flanking Abnarth in the senator’s office, all three of them smiling broadly.
Abnarth is a big, rotund man in his mid-eighties, with a foxlike gleam in his eye; the most skillful negotiator on the Hill. I suspect he filled a hole in Reuben’s life after his dad died.
I glance right, to a picture of Reuben and his wife, Heather, at a ceremony to commemorate her doctorate; his two daughters; shots of his mother and father; and several of his political heroes: King, Mandela, JFK.
There’s also one of his old unit. Him and his men, assault weapons on their hips, beside a sand-colored HH-60G.
It’s an odd thing to put on display, given what happened over there. I guess it must be because, as a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, it’s what’s expected of him, and it signals to Thompson’s enemies that the man on whom he relies is no stranger to the sharp end of conflict.
‘Hey, Josh …’
I turn. I don’t know how long he’s been standing there. He apologizes for being late, closes the door and flicks off the TV. I sit opposite him, in an armchair by the fireplace.
Reuben leans forward and runs a hand along his jaw. ‘Give me your no-holds-barred, professional opinion on Hart.’ He pauses. ‘It’s relevant, I promise.’
I tell him she’s capable, methodical and focused, which may be down to superior autobiographical memory. The signs are subtle, but one of them is a link to obsessive-compulsive disorder, and she certainly exhibits some signature traits: reaching for her crucifix when she’s stressed; placing the paperclip very precisely in my penholder.
‘How do you rate her investigative skills?’
‘She’s smart. And she doesn’t let go.’
He nods. ‘That is starting to become a problem.’
‘Why?’
‘She may be using this investigation to manipulate an agenda.’
‘Whose?’
‘Her own.’
He reaches into the liquor cabinet beside the chair, takes out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses, looks at me, remembers, and puts one of the glasses back. He pours himself a good, strong measure.
‘Just before you arrived, the President went to Seattle to address an engineering convention. Hart was part of the PPD team that deployed ahead of us. A couple of days before we got there they decided to kick back a little.’ He holds up his glass. ‘There was a lot of this stuff. And things became … rowdy.
‘Two of the agents swung by her room and asked if she wanted to join the party. She took exception to some of the suggestions they made and got creative with the butt of her pistol. One of the guys lost most of his teeth; the other had to have his right ear sewn back on. Cabot got to hear about it, pulled everyone in, delivered a smack on the wrist to the shift-leader and kicked her sideways. Out of Presidential Protection and into threat analysis. He said it was locker-room stuff and she overreacted.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘No.’ He pulls a face. ‘It isn’t.’
‘Then maybe I’m missing the point.’
‘Cabot was looking to avoid another scandal. Lefortz is bound by his sense of fair play – he demanded he give Hart her job back. But Cabot refused. And now it looks like Hart is tearing up the city to make a point.’
‘She may have a point, Reuben. There are aspects to the church incident that are really quite troubling.’
‘Case closed, Josh, trust me. The police have their man and they’ve ID’ed the shooter. Cabot hates me and he’d love to get his teeth into Lefortz and Hart. There’s unfinished business there. He knows he’s using her for off-the-books stuff.’
‘Off the books?’
‘Things he needs to do that won’t attract attention.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. The tower couldn’t have been more high profile.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Lefortz is the most seasoned professional I know. I can’t understand why he assigned Hart to me, when there were other agents on duty that night who’re better qualified to protect me from some crazed guy in a church.’
Irritation flashes across Reuben’s face. ‘I still don’t get it.’
‘It’s about trust.’
‘What?’
‘He told me he trusted Hart. That she was the only person he really trusted.’
‘So?’
‘Paranoia isn’t something I’d ever have associated with him.’
‘All Lefortz wants to do is go home and fish off a levee,’ Reuben says. ‘Or whatever the hell it is they fish off down south.’
He knocks back his drink. ‘The point is, Josh, Cabot senses something’s going on. He knows there’s more to you than meets the eye. It was all over his face in the Crisis Center.’
He sets the glass on the table and gets to his feet.
‘We need to cool this thing down. Please. Just focus on Thompson.’
George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan kept potted plants behind the Resolute desk. Eisenhower’s drapes were blue; Nixon’s yellow. Kennedy liked to sit in a rocking chair and, after 9/11, Tony Blair loaned George W. Bush a bronze bust of Churchill. Thompson’s personal touch in the Oval Office is modest but poignant: a photo taken by satellite of Earth from space. It hangs on the northwest wall alongside the portraits of Washington and Lincoln, and it is beneath them that I conduct my examination of him.
I sit next to the President. Reuben sits on the other side of the coffee table.
Thompson’s pulse and heartbeat have returned to normal and his systolic blood pressure remains slightly elevated at around 130.
‘I would like to prescribe you an anti-hypertensive, Mr President. Prazosin. It’s non-addictive and has no side effects. Its primary purpose is to lower blood pressure; it’s also highly effective against nightmares. A nightmare is an energetic stream of thought. Remove the energy and the nightmares should go. The medication will help until we find out what’s causing them. It will be most effective alongside psychotherapy.’
‘Psychotherapy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I don’t know, Josh …’
‘You and me talking. That’s all.’
I look to Reuben for some support, but he keeps his eyes locked on his phone.
Thompson rests his chin on his steepled fingertips. Then he goes and sits behind his desk. He opens a drawer, pulls out a ring-file, walks back and drops it on the table in front of me.
The words Daily Brief are prominent, as is the presidential seal and a Top Secret stamp.
I open it.
An account of a public execution two days ago in a Yemeni town close to the Saudi border. The executioners were Salafists, extreme proponents of Wahhabism – a Sunni sub-sect. The people they rounded up were Shi’ites, Christians and Jews, and they were given a choice: convert to their particular brand of radical Islam or face execution.
Photographs show a pile of bodies in a mass grave. Men, women and children. Some have had their throats cut. Others have been decapitated.
Thompson taps the file.
‘Those bastards started to cut off the heads of those kids in the certainty that their parents would beg them to stop the killing. And, you know what? Not one did. Not a single one. Better to join their children in that mass grave than denounce their religion.
‘My parents were Southern Baptists and religion was the single most important thing in their lives. It nourished them until the day they died. But twist faith and it can be utterly destructive. It’s the destructive impact of faith that I, we –’ he turns to his Chief of Staff, ‘– that this administration is finally going to do something about.’
I glance between Reuben and the President. ‘Wait a second …’
Thompson’s eyes narrow. Reuben lifts his. I hold his gaze.
‘When you told me what this administration wanted to achieve, you never said anything about taking on faith leaders.’
‘Why does that bother you?’ Thompson asks softly.
‘Because it’s a battle you can’t win.’
‘You think?’
‘Yes, sir. I do. And it may explain something else.’
‘Something else?’
‘What happened last night.’
‘Last night was an aberration.’ He looks away.
‘Which makes four aberrations, so far, on my watch.’ He’d had nine assassination dreams before my tenure as White House Medical Director, which made last night’s the thirteenth.
‘You remember what I said, sir, about the brain being a survival mechanism. Well, I—’
‘This is not a discussion we should be having here,’ Reuben says.
‘Agreed.’ Thompson attempts a brave face. ‘And besides, there is work to be done.’ He stands up and returns the file to the drawer.
Fear has its own smell. Someone once told me it was somewhere between shit and spinach. I haven’t yet been able to put a name to the scent of denial, but it’s coming off him in waves.
Reuben speaks as he scrolls down his phone. ‘“Pre-emptive Response”, that’s what we’re calling this. We spend money on the problem before it degenerates into conflict. No more pork-barreling on weapons the military doesn’t need.
‘We spend instead on technologies that make a difference: robotics, predictive analytics, surveillance. And we plow the dividend into attacking the root causes of conflict: climate change, drought, famine, disease, mass migration, overcrowded cities, terrorism …’
I turn back to the President. ‘And this is what you’re going to announce in the State of the Union in two weeks’ time?’
‘Thirteen days’ time. Alongside a roadmap to a lasting Middle East peace settlement.’
I don’t know whether this is genius or insanity, but I can see that his call for a peace conference to which the world will be invited, where religious leaders will have seats around the table, will threaten the trillion-dollar revenue streams of our military-industrial-intelligence complex as well as the power base of local, state and federal politicians.
When I stand, the blood rushes from my head to my feet. The walls of the Oval Office close in on me. Did I give up a career in clinical practice for this? Reuben and I have a lot of history. Maybe I should have left it there.
‘Mr President?’
He’s scanning a memo Reuben just passed him. He lifts his head. The light glints on his reading glasses.
‘In the dream, you were standing at a lectern. You said you could recall every last detail of it, down to the condensation on the glass.’
Thompson twists in his chair, suddenly wary. Reuben flashes me a warning glance.
‘Can you describe what else was on the lectern, sir?’
He regards me over the top of his eyeglasses. ‘The usual things.’
‘I’d like you to describe them, please.’
His expression is somewhere between quizzical and irritated. ‘Aside from the glass, a pen. A remote for the projector. And an ink blotter.’ He thinks for a moment longer. ‘Nothing else. That was it.’
‘The blotter, Mr President. Please describe it to me exactly.’
‘It was leather-framed. Dark green.’
‘A presentational, ceremonial kind of thing, to commemorate your speech?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Was the name of the hotel on it?’
‘The logo was clear. It was a hotel conference center.’
‘A conference center in Jerusalem, Mr President?’
I don’t wait for his answer. I just know.
Back in my office, I ask Molly what appointments I have tomorrow that cannot be postponed, switched or canceled.
We work on my schedule for fifteen minutes and finally iron it out. One of the things I love about her is that she never once asks why.
I tell her that I’m going on a trip, it will take a day, and I’ll be on my cellphone. If I’m out of signal, I’ll let her know. I’ll call in on a landline when I can.
‘Doctor Cain?’ She stops me as I turn back to my screen. ‘Special Agent Hart came by twice during your meeting with the President and the Chief of Staff. She wanted to see you. I said that wasn’t possible, but she was most insistent. She …’
Molly searches for the right words, and for once they elude her. She passes me an envelope that’s been lying on top of her out-tray. The handwriting, in black felt pen, is pure Hetta: precise, neat, economical.
‘She said that I should tell you: “Opsec”. Does that make sense?’
I nod. Operational Security. I sit down at my desk and open it.
Been through CCTV with Marty. The break-in wasn’t physical. Believe we have evidence of a second cyber breach. Need to speak with you. Need to speak with Lefortz. Don’t call or text. H.