Julie Hyzy - Hail to the Chef

What would an assassin do? He’d have to be better than clever. He’d have to be brilliant. Anything out of place would be noticed by our eagle-eyed Secret Service personnel. So if, say, a terrorist wanted to plant a bomb in the room, he’d have to ensure that it looked like something that belonged here. Up-front and obvious. Something so plain-as-day that every eye in the place would glaze over it without a second glance.

I stood in the fourth row of seats and I made a slow circle-a complete 360-degree turn-taking everything in at a pace that would make slugs weep.

“We’re not here for the tourist show,” he said. “You’re supposed to be finding a security breach, not studying the symmetry.”

I ignored him. Closed my eyes. Silently reasoned with myself.

Let’s assume Gav planted one of those IEDs in here. He’d warned us that shapes and configurations of the deadly devices changed almost daily. So the one thing I knew I wasn’t looking for was an opaque, bottlelike item.

Where would it do the most damage?

I opened my eyes. Right here, in the middle of the room, during a crowded press conference, a bomb would guarantee the greatest loss of life. But would that be an assassin’s goal? Take out the innocent media folks, just like terrorists took out civilians on 9/11? Maybe, but if a fanatic killer was able to get this far-past White House security-then he’d be aiming for a bigger target.

I scooched out of the row and made my way up to the dais. “Excuse me,” I said to Gavin.

With reluctance, he stepped away from the lectern, and I took a moment to stand behind it myself. The “blue goose” was tall, as speaking stands go, but I could still see over it with ease.

Running my hands along the sides, I felt the power, too. Twisting around, I cast a glance at the large medallion hanging on a curtained wall behind me. This wide blue oval, with an image of the White House at its center, was seen behind the president whenever he addressed the press from this room.

Gavin was watching me, his face expressionless.

I turned back toward the empty seats. Gav was setting me up to fail, I was sure of that. Maybe I should just give up and let him have his fun.

No. My personal pride rebelled. Not without a fight. Or at least, in this case, my best effort. But after the past few days, I didn’t know how much effort I really had in me for Gavin’s games.

I blew out a breath.

He sidled up. “Are you expecting the answer via ESP?” he asked. “When we held this exercise in the cafeteria yesterday, your colleagues at least searched the room before they gave up.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “I’m giving you another minute. Then I’ll explain what you should have been doing.”

I could practically hear the clock tick as I gripped the lectern with both hands. Closing my eyes again, I thought about how I would wreak havoc on the White House if I had to do it in this room.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, wasting another two ticks to answer him.

This room was new. Why was that popping to the forefront of my thoughts just now? What was significant about its relative newness? Everything here had been changed. The place was practically sterile-and the housekeeping staff worked to keep it that way.

New. Changed.

A thought tickled my brain, just a breath out of reach.

“Fifteen seconds.”

I opened my eyes. Turned to face the wall behind me. Stared at it.

“Ten.”

The curtains were… wrong. This wasn’t the right backdrop.

As I argued with myself-realizing that nothing prevented the president from switching backdrops from time to time-my hands searched the royal blue curtains. Last time I’d seen President Campbell speak, the background had been flat-as though made of drywall-and the medallion’s suspension wires were visible.

This time, the medallion’s method of suspension was invisible-a means of support I couldn’t detect.

“What are you doing, Ms. Paras?”

I didn’t bother answering. My fingers groped the medallion’s edge-looking for what, I didn’t know.

“Three… two…”

“Got it!” I shouted. I yanked at a fist-sized piece of plastic that had been duct-taped to the back of the medallion. Pulling it forward, I held it up for Gav to see.

“What exactly do you think you have?” he asked.

“This!” I said, feeling my face flush with pride.

He arched an eyebrow.

“This is what I was supposed to find, isn’t it?”

Gav tilted his head, approaching me slowly. Taking the device from my hands, he said, “First of all, let me congratulate you, Ms. Paras. You’re the first person to find one of our planted IEDs.” He fingered two wires that reached out from the bottom of the plastic, playing with them so they bounced at his touch. “And guess what else you did that no one else did.”

I shrugged.

“You just set off the bomb,” he said.

“But-”

He stopped me with a withering gaze. How could anyone stay as cold and detached as this guy? He played with the two wires, pointing them at me.

“Know what this means, Ms. Paras?”

I shook my head.

“Kaboom!” he shouted into my face.

My shoulders dropped.

“It isn’t enough that you’re able to spot things out of place,” he said, stepping back, again the picture of calm. “You need to learn what to do when faced with an emergency.”

I opened my mouth to argue. I’d been in my fair share of emergency situations and I’d handled things nicely, thank you very much-but I realized he was right. When it came to explosive devices, I had no idea what to do. I closed my mouth without saying a word.

“Very good,” he said with a tone that made me want to kaboom him myself. “Now that we’ve tested your powers of observation, let’s work on reaction protocols.”

Forty-five minutes later, he finally released me for the day. “Not a bad start,” he said. From him, I supposed that rated as high praise.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, pushing bangs off my damp forehead. He’d really kept me moving-in the hour we’d worked together, we hadn’t had two minutes of downtime. Truth was, though, I’d learned more than I’d expected to and certainly more than I ever hoped to need to know. Throughout my tutorial, Gavin constantly prefaced his demonstrations with, “We didn’t get a chance to do this with the big group…” so I got the definite impression that I’d received more in-depth instruction than had my colleagues. He really warmed to the subject matter when he taught one-on-one. Maybe I could even skip the next class.

We walked back toward the residence, through the Palm Room, in silence. When he and I were about to part company at the kitchen, I stopped him. “Special Agent Gavin?”

He turned. “Call me Gav.”

Little did he know I’d already been doing that under my breath.

With a shrug, he added, “That is, use the nickname when we’re working together. If we’re out here, then use Special Agent Gavin.”

“Sure,” I said. But I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t be working one-on-one again, ever.

“What were you going to say,” he asked, “when you stopped me?”

Despite the fact that he was an arrogant jerk, and dismissive of my role as executive chef, I realized I was better prepared for emergencies even after today’s short session. “Just wanted to say thanks,” I said. “I learned a lot.”

He frowned. “I’ll be tougher on you next time.” With a quick turn on his heel, he walked away.

Peculiar man.

I’d just about gotten into the kitchen when I ran into Bindy coming out. What was she doing here?

“Ollie!” she said, startling us both. “Where have you been?”