Amanda hadn’t been wrong about that, and he’d hurt her, if unintentionally. He still regretted that he couldn’t give the woman what she needed emotionally, and the physical side, however rewarding, hadn’t been enough. In recent weeks, though, there’d been many times he wondered if he should call Amanda and try again. He’d never quite done that. And now — now she was gone.
On the nightstand, his cell chirped. So few people had the number — and once he’d paid dearly for ignoring a call — that he’d made a point of answering, or at least checking out, every one. When it rang the second time, he eyeballed the caller ID — UNKNOWN.
With a sigh, he put Rex Stout down and picked up the phone. “Reeder.”
A female voice on the other end said, “Please hold for the President of the United States.”
There was a time when Reeder might have clicked off, chalking this up to a crank call. But in the past several years, the President was someone he’d actually spoken to on occasion — and one of those few people who had this number.
“Joe? Dev Harrison.” The casualness of that liquid, self-assured voice coming over the line was at once disarming and intimidating.
President Devlin Harrison, the second African American leader to be elected in the country’s history, was no crank-caller.
“Good evening, Mr. President.”
“Apologies for the late hour, Joe.”
“Not necessary, sir. I’m pretty much open for presidential calls any time.”
A soft chuckle preceded a change in tone: “Obviously you’ve seen the news.”
The President wasn’t much for small talk. No president was.
“The Russian invasion, sir? Of course.”
The surprise of receiving a phone call from the President was amplified by the apparent subject. The moment felt surreal.
The President’s voice was deceptively casual. “What strikes you about our role in this incident?”
“The four missing US citizens.”
Obviously.
“I’d like to talk to you about them, Joe. Tomorrow morning, my office...”
Right. That oval one.
“... six a.m. Can you make that, Joe?”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
“Our, uh, people weren’t just regular citizens.”
That was more than Reeder expected to hear over an open phone line. But he risked, “I didn’t think so, sir. I can come now, sir, if...?”
“No. I have things to do. Six a.m. Thanks, Joe.”
A click in his ear signaled the end of the call. Good-byes were unnecessary.
He settled back in bed, trading the phone for the Nero Wolfe. So the President wanted to talk to him about missing citizens overseas, caught up in a Russian invasion, and who “weren’t just regular citizens.” CIA agents, clearly, as he’d assumed — not a big leap, as CNN and the other outlets had raised the same possibility, or anyway their talking heads had.
Reeder tried to get back to the book but instead fell asleep wondering how the hell he fit into this scenario. He dreamed a variation on the Situation Room scene in Dr. Strangelove, and woke up sweating, finding nothing funny about it at all.
The next morning, a few minutes before six a.m., Joe Reeder — wearing the dark gray Savile Row suit he saved for the special clients of ABC Security (and who was more special than his friend “Dev”?) — sat in a comfortable chair outside the Oval Office, warmed by the smile of the President’s head secretary, Emily Curtis. The gray-haired woman, who might have been your maiden aunt, had been the gatekeeper for three presidents, and was as much a fixture here as the Marine guard at the West Wing entrance or the floating presence of Secret Service agents. She had, in fact, met Reeder during his own SS tenure here.
“The President should be with you shortly,” she said, in her cheery yet businesslike way. “He’s been up all night, so do take it easy on him.”
“See what I can do,” he said, and barely got it out before the Oval Office door opened and the President’s chief of staff, Timothy Vinson, strode out, his mustache twitching like a caterpillar trying to crawl off his face, his stocky frame lumbering past Reeder without hello. The bureaucrat, in his fifties and balding, as cold as Emily Curtis was warm, seemed a man on a mission.
Vinson was already well down the corridor when half a dozen others, some in uniform, came out quickly, with President Harrison next, as if he’d shooed them out. Maybe he had.
Pausing to give Reeder a quick handshake and a tight smile, the President said, “Joe, good to see you. Walk with me, will you?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Reeder said, falling into step next to Harrison.
Typically, the tall, slender African American — whose physical resemblance to former President Obama had not hurt him with a majority of voters — was impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit with lighter gray pinstripes, his tie with muted red and blue stripes perfectly knotted. Yet somehow something seemed slightly off — maybe it was just the puffy dark circles hugging Harrison’s eyes. The presidential gatekeeper had not been exaggerating: the man hadn’t slept in some while.
On the march down the hall, Reeder found himself needing to slow, so as not to pull away from Harrison. He knew the President to be a fast mover, but today the man seemed a half-step behind. Exhaustion or worry? Could be either — could be both.
They reached the elevator near the offices of the Chief of Staff and Vice President. Vinson, already there, revealed his mission to be holding the elevator door for the President and his contingent. Reeder knew almost certainly where they were heading — the Situation Room.
With Russia invading Azbekistan, that destination would seem inevitable... if it weren’t for Reeder’s presence. Even when he’d been assigned to protect various presidents, he had not set foot within that space when it was actively in use. Reeder had been in there before, on security sweeps mostly, but never during an actual situation.
As the doors closed, Vinson — who obviously hadn’t noticed Reeder on his way out of the Oval Office — asked the President, “What’s he doing here?” The disdain in his voice — the nasty emphasis on “he” — undisguised.
Icily, Harrison said, “I invited him.”
Vinson’s mouth opened as if it had decided on its own to speak, but its owner fed it no words. The Chief of Staff’s lips pressed back together and he swallowed, but his eyes remained narrowed on Reeder, with whom he’d had a run-in or two.
The rest of the ride passed in brief if uncomfortable silence. The doors slid open and the President was the first one out, Reeder falling in behind him, an old Secret Service habit. Vinson got held back by the other exiting staffers, and by the time the Chief of Staff caught up, the President and Reeder were approaching the two Marine guards stationed at the Situation Room entry.
Both Marines snapped to attention and saluted.
Harrison returned the salute, then one of the guards opened the door and held it for them.
They entered to find most of the seats at the vast conference table already filled. The faces had changed over the years, but the room itself stayed the same, a fairly nondescript, rather narrow conference room distinguished only by its many wall-mounted video screens. Certainly the art direction on Strangelove had been more impressive.
Seven chairs lined each side of the long dark oak table. They were now filled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor, the Director of the CIA, and — at the far end on the right side (both literally and figuratively) — Senator Wilson Blount of Tennessee.
Everyone had risen, of course, upon the President’s entry. In the chair immediately to the right of him was a slender bespectacled brunette, Vice President Erin Mitchell, a progressive added to the ticket to court the women’s vote. Chairs for staffers and assistants lined the two long walls, each graced with a pair of monitors that were only slightly smaller than the one opposite the President’s end of the table.