“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Just before he reached the door, the President called out, “Robert?”
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“What is it with you and Victoria?” he asked. “You know she doesn’t like being called ‘Vicki’ but you do it anyway, and it just creates tension. You two seem to be butting heads constantly, and I’m starting to feel more like a referee than the chief executive. What’s up with that?”
“I don’t like it when folks slam ideas before they’ve had a chance to study them, that’s all, sir—especially my ideas,” Chamberlain replied. “Victoria Collins is a political animal. She’s not interested in real solutions, just political expediency.”
“Maybe she’s just giving advice. That’s what she gets paid for.”
“She gets paid to run the White House staff,” Chamberlain said. “She acts as an adviser, yes, but her primary job is to get things done. When I get a directive from the President of the United States, it’s an order, not a suggestion. You directed the White House staff to lay the groundwork for you to ask for a congressional declaration of war on terrorism. It didn’t mean list all the ways it can’t or shouldn’t be done, but to do it.”
“Is that the way you did things at TransGlobal Energy, Robert?”
“Actually, sir, that’s what I learned at TGE—unfortunately, I learned it too late,” Chamberlain admitted. “I learned there are those who lead, those who follow, and those who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. I thought Harold Chester Kingman was a leader, and I was happy and proud to be his lieutenant. I found out soon enough that he is a morally bankrupt, totally corrupt, completely uncaring, and utterly emotionless bag of shit. I became his fall guy and was disgraced simply because I made the mistake of following him when I should have been voicing my opinions and standing up for what I believed to be right.”
“You’re referring to the Russian oil deal?”
“Yes, sir. Kingman had an opportunity to unite TGE with one of the world’s largest oil producers and build an alliance that would span half the globe. I believe he could have been instrumental in uniting Russia and the U.S. politically and economically too, similar to the alliance between the U.S. and Japan, for which we would have been recognized for decades. Instead, he turned the deal upside down. He fired the entire Russian board and top officers of the company, then dared to threaten the Russian government by withholding their own oil and natural gas if they didn’t cooperate with the takeover. When I stepped out of line and argued against the move, I was fired as well.”
“That was years ago. You still sound upset.”
“It was a harsh lesson, sir,” Chamberlain said stonily. “Harold Kingman just doesn’t fire someone—he destroys them, just to make sure they don’t rise up against him some time in the future. I lost millions in stock options. I paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight off corruption, embezzlement, fraud, and conspiracy charges that were all frivolous and unproven, and now I’m having to pay thousands more to keep my countersuits alive against TGE’s constant delays, countersuits, and slanderous attacks in the media. In the meantime, my wife left me—amid allegations of adultery, all of which were not true and completely baseless—my kids disowned me, and I became a pariah in the eyes of every corporation in the world.”
“I know the story, Robert—but what does it have to do with Victoria Collins?”
Chamberlain paused, then averted his eyes before replying: “Maybe…maybe I see some of the ‘play it safe’ attitude that I had at TGE in her sometimes, the attitude that ruined my corporate career. Maybe I’m still angry at myself for my indecisiveness and lack of courage, and I take it out on others that I perceive as being the same.”
“You have nothing to prove here, Robert,” the President said, getting to his feet, walking around the desk, and putting a hand on his National Security Adviser’s shoulder. “You have been a tough, courageous, no-nonsense, and dedicated adviser and confidant to me and this administration since the first day you set foot in the White House. TransGlobal Energy’s and the corporate world’s loss is my gain.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. That means a lot.”
The President stepped back and seated himself at his desk again, signaling the end of the brotherly role and the resumption of the chief executive role. “You have nothing to prove, Robert—which means take the damned chip off your shoulder and start being a member of the team rather than the ideological taskmaster,” he said sternly. “You are an important man in my personal and professional life, but you are just one of many important persons around here. Start thinking of ways to build bridges instead of walls; stop torpedoing the other staff members in this office. I expect you to share your ideas with the others before you present them to me and get as much of the conflicts ironed out so we don’t waste a lot of time in bickering and confusion when you walk in here looking for a decision. Are we clear on this?”
“Yes, sir,” Chamberlain responded. The President looked down at the edited speech, signaling an end to their conversation. “Thank you, Mr. President,” Chamberlain muttered, and walked out.
I serve at the pleasure of the President, Chamberlain reminded himself as he headed back to his office to get ready for the visit to Andrews Air Force Base—and right now, the President wasn’t too pleased with him.
Facility H-18, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland
A short time later
“With all due respect to the Brazilians, I think they should get their heads out of their asses and try a little harder,” Special Agent Kelsey D. DeLaine said into her secure cell phone. She kept an eye on the partially open warehouse door for any sign of activity, but so far nothing was happening. Inside the empty building there were only a few Air Force Security Forces guards and one lone guy in camouflage battle dress uniform standing near a high-tech-looking Humvee. His hair was a little long, he was skinny and white-skinned, and he had horn-rimmed glasses strapped to his head with a black elastic band. If he was a military guy, he was definitely the geekiest-looking one she had ever seen. “There’s an attack on a TransGlobal facility in Brazil on the same day, almost the same hour, as the attack in Houston, and no one sees a connection?”
“Kel, there have been a total of nineteen attacks against TransGlobal or affiliated companies in South America in the past year,” her associate, Special Agent Ramiro “Rudy” Cortez, Federal Bureau of Investigation, said on the other end of the connection. “All of them involved small dams and power-generating plants, and all used only homemade explosives. Strictly small-time. I’m not sure there’s a connection.”
“Rudy, we can’t start to piece it together until we get more information from our ‘friends’ in the Policia Militar do Estado, but they seem to be dragging their feet on our requests,” DeLaine said impatiently. She had long brown hair, but it was put up now off her collar, which irritated and aggravated her to no end—she hated the feel of cold air on the back of her neck. Her black Reebok power-walking shoes were in her bureau car outside, and after standing in heels for the past twenty minutes she wished she’d brought them along. She shifted the Glock 29 pistol on her right hip for the umpteenth time, trying to find a comfortable position for the compact weapon, and wished that the bureau would reinstate the option for agents to carry their weapon in a purse in nonhostile environments.
“They’re doing the best they can, Kel,” Cortez said. “Their country is as big as ours but nowhere near as connected. We only made the request yesterday. My, we’re cranky this morning, aren’t we?”
“The eight A.M. meeting hasn’t happened yet, the place is empty, no one but some grungy-looking army gopher is here, and my feet are killing me. What do we know about this Brazilian group, GAMMA?”