“Brooke, I don’t mean to pry, but as the head of the team, I’d like to know if you have expressed your plans to Joey?”
“No, these feelings are very recent and I wasn’t really sure till just now.”
“Do you want to tell him or would you like me to?”
“No, I owe it to him to hear it from me.” Brooke sat silent as the circumstances sunk in.
Bill broke the silence, “So when do you want to resign?”
Brooke had a reflexive and reflective moment. “Wow. Just hearing the word ‘resign’ makes this suddenly so real.”
“I didn’t mean to rush you; take your time. Think it all over, twice if you have to. You’ve earned carte blanche with me and I am sure I speak for Joey as well when I say, we care about you and your happiness foremost.”
As hard as she tried not to, the waterworks started. Bill handed her a tissue and just sat in silence with her for a few minutes more.
Later that afternoon, Bill had a moment to reflect on Brooke and her tremendous accomplishments, and as a self-check once again affirmed to himself that she had earned her right to do whatever she wanted with her career. However, the whole notion of his team changing brought a long simmering issue up to the front burner. Cheryl. He buzzed for her.
Cheryl entered the office in her usually cheerful demeanor. “Yes, boss!”
“Sit a minute, will ya.”
“Okay, sure, what’s up?”
“A while back, you correctly asked for some kind of game plan for continuity of our department. I am sorry it took me so long to focus on it, but I have decided to make you my deputy, or second in command or whatever term is governmentally appropriate.”
To her credit, Cheryl didn’t react personally but as a team member, “Thank you. I think this decision will insure uninterrupted flow of command and control during any kind of situation, and I am honored that you put your faith in me.”
“You’ve earned my trust and my respect.”
Cheryl allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. “Shall I draw up the contingency protocol?”
“Actually, I thought you’d have it ready and in your top drawer.”
“Actually it is; I just need to fill in the blank of who you appoint.” This time, a broadside smile found freedom.
“So how’d I do?” Bill asked returning the smile.
“You did real good, boss!”
“Thanks, it means a lot to me.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, hold this tight till it’s announced, but Brooke will be leaving us.”
Cheryl recoiled at the news. “That genuinely shocks me, sir.”
“I must say I didn’t expect it either, but as I told her, she’s earned the right to do what she wants.”
“Oh, God, Joey’s going to freak out, unless he already knows?”
“Brooke wants to tell him, so until then it’s just us. Soon after though, I want you to coordinate with Joey to find a replacement for her… er, strike that, for her position.”
That simple catch reaffirmed to Cheryl why she liked working with Bill. He understood the difference between the rare individual Brooke was and the slot she filled in his Quarterback group. “Will do.” Cheryl got up and left. Besides the two surprise announcements from Bill, she also understood how losing Brooke had forced him to decide about her.
Brooke walked the streets of Washington, aimless and with no sense of urgency, a totally alien state for her. Her head spun with ideas, plans, uncertainties and certitudes. She stopped at the little breakfast joint where she and Mush had eaten. She opened her phone and dialed Mush’s cell.
“Hi, Bret here, I’m going to be out of reach for a while, you can leave a message, but I probably won’t get right back to you,” his voice-mail greeting said.
As the phone beeped, Brooke’s eyes shut. She knew the vague message was Bret’s way of not compromising national security, yet letting all those who had his number know that the Gold crew had gone deep for the next seventy to ninety days. She ended the call, satisfied to just hear his voice.
Suddenly she felt cold. Then her own voice-mail beeped with a new message alert.
“Brooke, it’s Mush, I tried to reach you but your phone wasn’t connecting. Our patrol got moved up and we are shoving off in four hours. I hope we get a chance to talk before we go. If not, I just wanted you to know that you’ve become a part of me. And I can’t even imagine what my life was like before you came flailing onboard my boat. I love you, Brooke, and I am going to do a lot of thinking on this patrol. Well, that’s it. I hope you get this. See ya soon, baby.”
It was turning out to be a bang-up day for Brooke’s tear ducts; they were getting more of a workout today than they had in years.
XIX. SWISS ROULETTE
Raffey was managing the stress by drinking tons of tea. He had become convinced that chamomile tea had near nuclear powers in settling his nerves arising from the unfathomable dilemma he was in. As psychosomatic as his remedy may have been, it served him and allowed him to do his job without his jittery nerves raising suspicions, save for the frequent trips to the loo. On one trip, he passed a secretary who was playing a game of online roulette. Ten minutes later he was searching for an older program which he co-wrote as a member of the development team. He found it; Roulette Demo X-5.3/v2.2. Suddenly, he no longer needed tea. He recompiled the source code and copied the original onto a flash drive. He also took a copy of the older systems folder. He had everything he needed to do this at home tonight.
Joey had taken an overnight flight from Paris to D.C. to catch Bill in the morning. He had rehearsed his speech many times at thirty-five thousand feet above the pitch-black Atlantic. In many ways, this would be the most important conversation he’d ever had with his lifelong friend, and although he was about to put himself on thin ice, he was ready for the risk.
He arrived at the White House at 7:20 a.m. Bill and his driver would be pulling into the portico in five minutes. Joey went straight to his office and printed out the pages he had e-mailed himself from France.
Cheryl caught sight of him first. “Joey? This is a surprise! Does Bill know you are in this morning?”
“No Cheryl, I kind of jumped on a plane last night. Phyllis doesn’t even know yet.”
“Wow. Have you spoken with Brooke yet?”
“No, no I haven’t; what’s up?”
“I’ll let her fill you in.”
“Look can you give me a half hour with Bill, first thing?”
“Yeah, I think so. He’s got a light morning till eleven.”
“Thanks, buzz me when he’s in?”
“You got it.”
Joey pulled the pages from the printer and arranged them in the order he wanted them. A few minutes later, he was entering Bill’s office.
“Hey buddy, when did you get in?” Bill said, surprised in mid-sip of his coffee.
“About an hour ago.”
“How come you didn’t tell me you were coming? I mean, Paris is still important.”
“I’m going right back.”
“Okay, this is confusing. You could have been here yesterday for Brooke’s ceremony.”
“I had leads to follow. Then I decided at the last minute to hop a seat back because, Bill, I needed to talk to you, man to man.”
“Okay, shoot!”
“Are you sure about this God Particle thing?”
“What do you mean, sure? It’s a theory, so no, I am not.”
“I mean are you sure we aren’t playing with the end of everything here?”
“Joey, what’s gotten into you?”
“This ain’t about me, Bill, it’s about everyone, everything, everywhere.”
“You turning into a black-holer?”
“No, but how much risk is there?”