Джек Марс - Our Sacred Honor

Then there was the Susan situation. She was the President of the United States. She had her own family, and technically speaking, she was still married. Her husband, Pierre, knew about Luke, and apparently he was happy for them. But they were keeping this a secret from everyone else.

Who was he kidding? They weren’t keeping anything a secret.

Her close security team knew about him – it was their job to know. And that meant it was already a widespread and growing rumor within the Secret Service. He passed through security to get in here late at night, two, sometimes three nights a week. Or he signed in as a guest in the afternoon, but never signed out again. The people who monitored the video surveillance saw him entering and leaving the Residence, and took note of when he did so. The chef knew he was cooking for two, and the servers who brought the food out were two heavyset older ladies who smiled at him, and bantered with him, and called him “Mr. Luke.”

Susan’s chief-of-staff knew, which meant that Kurt Kimball also probably knew, and God only knew where it went from there.

Every single person who already knew about him had family, friends, and acquaintances. They had favorite early morning breakfast joints, or lunch counters, or bars where they regaled the regulars with tales of life inside the White House.

The reporter’s question yesterday suggested that the rumor had already broken out of the box. They were one leak, one disgruntled staffer’s call to the Washington Post or CNN, from a full-blown, twenty-four/seven media circus.

Luke didn’t want that. He didn’t want Gunner subjected to that glare. He didn’t want the boy in the custody of the Secret Service everywhere he went. He didn’t want the media following him or staking out his school.

Luke also didn’t want the attention for himself. It was better for his work if he could remain in obscurity. He needed the freedom to operate, both for himself and for his team.

And he didn’t want the attention for Susan. He didn’t want it for their relationship. Things were hot and heavy right now, but he couldn’t imagine this thing lasting under constant scrutiny from the media.

It was impossible to raise these issues with her. She was an irrepressible optimist, she was already under the glare of the media anyway, and she was riding high on endorphins. Her answer was always some variation of, “Oh, we’ll work it out.”

“What are you worried about, Mr. Luke?” Susan said now.

“I’m worried…” he began. He shook his head again. “I’m worried that I’m falling in love.”

Her thousand-watt smile lit up the room. “I know,” she said. “Isn’t it great?”

She kissed him deeply, then leapt out of bed like a teenager. He watched her as she padded across the room, nude, to her closet. She still had the body of a teenager.

Almost.

“I want you to meet my daughters,” she said. “They’re coming to town next week to spend Christmas.”

“Terrific,” he said. The thought of it made his stomach do a lazy barrel roll. “Who should we tell them I am?”

“They knew who you are. You’re that superhero. James Bond without the clean shave or the fancy suit. I mean, you rescued Michaela’s life just a few years ago.”

“We were never properly introduced.”

“Still. You’re like an uncle to them.”

Just then, the phone on the bedside table began to ring. It made a funny sound, not so much a ring as a buzz, or a hum. It sounded like a monk with a bad cold chanting in meditation. Also, it lit up in blue on each ring. Luke hated that phone.

“You want me to get it?” he said.

She smiled and shook her head. Now he watched her come back across the room, moving faster this time. For a brief moment, he imagined another world, one where they didn’t have their jobs. Hell, maybe even a world where they were both unemployed. In that world, she could climb right back into bed with him.

She picked up the phone. “Good morning.”

Her face changed as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. All of the fun went out of it. The light in her eyes faded, and her smile dropped away. She took a deep breath and let out a long exhale.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

She hung up.

“Trouble?” Luke said.

She looked at him, her eyes showing something – a vulnerability perhaps – that the masses never saw on TV.

“When isn’t there trouble?” she said.

7:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

The Situation Room

The White House, Washington, DC

The elevator opened and Luke stepped into the egg-shaped Situation Room.

Big Kurt Kimball stood at the far end of the room, his bald head gleaming, and he spotted Luke right away. Kurt usually ran these meetings with an iron hand. He had such a deep, effortless, and encyclopedic command of world affairs that people tended to follow his lead.

“Agent Stone,” he said. “Glad you could join us this early.”

Was there a hint of hidden meaning, even sarcasm, in that statement? Luke decided not to touch it.

He shrugged. “The President called me. I got here as soon as I could.”

He glanced around the room.

Ultra-modern, the place was much more than a conference room – it was set up for maximum use of the space, with large screens embedded in the walls every couple of feet, and a giant projection screen on the far wall at the end of the table. Tablet computers and slim microphones rose from slots out of the conference table – they could be dropped back into the table if the attendee wanted to use their own device.

Every plush leather chair at the table was occupied – a few military uniforms, several business suits. Most of the people were middle-aged and overweight – career government types who spent a lot of time sitting down in comfortable chairs and eating lunch. These chairs all looked like the captain’s chair on the command module of a spaceship crossing the galaxy. Big arms, deep leather, high backs, ergonomically correct with lumbar spine support.

The seats along the walls – smaller, red linen chairs with lower backs – were filled with young aides and even younger assistants, most of them slurping from Styrofoam coffee cups, tapping messages into tablets, or murmuring into telephones.

Susan sat in a leather chair at the closest end of the oblong table. She wore a blue pinstriped pantsuit. Her right leg was crossed over her left, and she leaned in close to hear what a young aide was telling her. Luke tried not to stare at her.

After a moment, she glanced up and nodded to him.

“Agent Stone,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”

Luke nodded. “Madam President. Of course.”

Kurt clapped his big hands, as if Luke entering was the cue he had been waiting for. The clap made a sound like a heavy book dropping to a stone floor. “Order, everybody! Come to order, please.”

The place went silent. Almost. A couple of military men at the conference table continued to talk with each other, heads leaned in close.

Kurt clapped his hands again.

CLAP. CLAP.

They both looked at him. He raised his hands as if to say, “Are you done?”

The room finally went dead quiet.

Kurt gestured to a young woman sitting in a chair to his left. Luke had seen her before, many times. She was Kurt’s indispensable aide, practically an extra appendage. She wore her auburn hair in a short bob cut like Susan’s – short bob cuts like Susan’s were all the rage with young women these days. Magazine editors and fluff news shows hadn’t exactly overlooked this fact. Critics called it the Hopkins Bob if they liked it, the Hopkins Helmet if they didn’t. They all seemed to be in agreement about what to call the women who styled their hair that way, however.