Greg Rucka - Patriot acts

No blowback at all. Not even a hint of it.

Not that it would have been that much easier if we hadn't much cared how it looked from the outside. While the White House chief of staff did not enjoy the same Secret Service protection as did the President, Vice President, and their families, he was a hard target all the same. Striking at him in the White House wasn't only out of the question, it was patently impossible. Even if it had been, by some insane confluence of coincidences, chance, and luck, viable, I don't think any one of us would have gone for it, anyway, including Alena. It was the White House. It wasn't just off the table; it wasn't even in the same room where the rest of the game was being played.

Panno and Trent had prepared a bundle of intelligence for Alena and me to start with, and for the first six days, that's what we focused on. Trent had a wireless connection in the house, and between the documents in the milk crate and Alena's MacBook, we must have reviewed several thousand pages of data on Earle, his life, his relationships, his family, and his work with GSI and Gorman-North. "Target immersion" was what Alena called it; learning everything so you can forget most of it later; learning everything because you didn't know what might prove important.

"Video," Alena told Panno after we'd been at it a week. "There's little by way of photographs, and there's no video."

"Earle doesn't like the spotlight."

"We don't care," she told him. "We need both. Get it." Three days later, Panno handed us a CD of compressed video footage and various photographs of Jason Earle. The photographs weren't so much to assist in a visual confirmation-we knew what Earle looked like, and unlike us, he wasn't going to any lengths to conceal his features. As far as that went, there was still heat on Danielle and Christopher Morse, meaning there was still a manhunt ongoing for both Alena and me, but in the media, at least, the story had begun to play out. The world, being the world, had moved on, and once the Pentagon had thrown a spanner into Earle's smear campaign, confusion had dampened the media enthusiasm for selling that flavor of fear.

That didn't mean we were taking anything for granted. Alena bleached her hair, killing the glorious copper in it, then replaced it with something from a bottle that said it was "Superstar Blonde" but which came out looking like melted yellow crayon. She did her eyebrows, as well, which must have hurt like hell, but she didn't complain.

"Cuffs and collar," she told me, and I laughed at that.

For my part, I was letting the beard grow in while refusing to let the hair on my head do the same. The itching was finally beginning to pass, which made it bearable. The last time I'd done a beard, it had been a tiny and almost fashionable thing on my chin. This one wasn't. This one was full, and combined with my cue-ball pate, remarkably unflattering.

I didn't even like looking at myself. With his place of work off-limits, we turned our attention to his place of residence, and rapidly discovered we didn't much care for that, either. He maintained a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and while it was by no means a fortress, it was alarmed and patrolled, and had to have been checked on a regular basis by White House Security, at the least.

It was also occupied by his wife, and she didn't like to be alone. While both Jason and Victoria Earle, it seemed, were entirely faithful to one another, she was the social butterfly he was not. She had a wide number of friends who came to visit, she enjoyed entertaining, and she was active in several groups and societies. The house was heavily trafficked, and that meant while it might be easier to slip in or out with a crowd, the possibility of collateral damage was enormous. We didn't want to set the trap for Earle and end up killing his wife by mistake.

So hitting him at home was out, too. "Schedule," I said to Trent. "Can you get us his schedule for the next few months?"

"How many months are we talking about?"

"I don't know. If you can get it out to three, great. Six, even better."

"It's going to take you six months to do this?"

"It's going to take as long as it's going to take, Elliot, and rushing it isn't the way to see this done right."

Trent told me he would see what he could do. The White House chief of staff is one of those jobs that everyone has heard about, and most people have no idea what it entails. Considering that the person holding the position has often been called "The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington," that's a little disconcerting.

The chief of staff is the highest-ranking member in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. He is responsible for controlling access to the President-a duty that has oftentimes earned him the nickname of "the Gatekeeper"-because there are always people who want the President's time. The chief of staff vets these requests, turning away those that, for one reason or another, do not meet either his own, or, more importantly, the President's requirements.

He oversees the work of the White House staff. This means everyone-the maids, the butlers, the gardeners, the staffers in the West Wing, and the caterers in the galley. He makes the White House run, each and every day, and he deals with preparations for all state visits and the like.

He often is one of the President's closest advisors, which goes a long way to explaining why he is considered to be such a powerful figure. Given that he oftentimes has a front-row seat for and even participates in major policy decisions, he needs to be reliable, smart, and frank. He must be willing to offer his own opinions, while ultimately abiding by the President's final decision.

These things being said, not every administration has had a chief of staff. In some instances it has been deemed unnecessary; in others, the position has been simply unfillable. Where there is a strong and actively involved President, the chief of staff can find himself with little to do, especially with regard to formulation of policy and issues of governance. By the same token, there have been Presidents who had demonstrated very little interest in the day-to-day minutiae of governing, and as a result the chief of staff becomes very powerful indeed, sometimes even referred to as a "quasi-prime minister."

Most of them don't last in the job very long, the average time of service being two and a half years. There's high burnout due to stress. Jason Earle had the distinction of being the longest-serving chief of staff, at seven years, beating out the previous record-holder, John Steelman, who served under Harry Truman for six.

Panno found that as ironic as I did.

Then there are the unofficial duties. A good chief of staff maintains strong relationships with both the first lady, the Vice President, and the wife of the Vice President. He is trusted by all, and endeavors to facilitate communication between each of their staffs. In many cases, he adopts some of their projects and preferences as his own. A bad relationship with any of them can undermine his key relationship with the President, and therefore, a good chief of staff-or, at least, a chief of staff who wants to remain in the position-makes it a point to work with, and to make himself available to, the other three. "He was hospitalized for chest pains last spring," Alena told me. "He complained of shortness of breath and a sharp pain in the side while in the office last April, and was taken to Bethesda for examination and observation."

"And?"

"There was no complication, and it was attributed to stress on the job."

"You think they're covering up a heart attack?"

She shook her head. "There is no shame in it, so why bother concealing it?"

"Still."

She gnawed on her lower lip. "Worth considering." Trent, via Panno, via whoever, got us a copy of his schedule. We were in the beginning of the third week, now, and Panno was spending more and more time away from the house, presumably running between us and whoever he was messengering for in Washington. I hoped whoever it was he was reporting to-if he was reporting at all-was discreet. The last thing we wanted was for our location to be blown.