“But they still had all the fluid so…” Bill said.
“Maguambi channels it to the pirates and they use it as a propulsion system for some kind of weapon.”
Bill decided he didn’t need to inform Parnell of the whale, so he continued. “Thank you. I am sorry it had to come down to all this just for me to get the answers. I’ll get Dupré to release you.”
As Bill got up, Parnell blurted out, “The Architect.”
Bill turned, “Excuse me?”
“It’s not over. They abandoned the approach, not the plot.”
Bill slowly sat back in the chair and cautiously said, “Go on…”
XXI. WASHINGTON BY DAY
Joey’s second day on leave started with a leisurely breakfast and husband and wife banter about all the things in their life that needed attention. From the gutters in the back of the house to the new recycling rules that meant they needed to buy a blue garbage can. An hour later, Joey was on his computer trying to track Parnell Sicard through Interpol when the phone rang.
Phyl came into the room and saw Joey hanging up the phone. “Who called?”
“It was the personnel department of the Executive Branch.”
“What did they want?”
“Phyl, I have to go to the office for a while.”
“Are you coming home for dinner?”
“I’ll be home by four!”
She walked out of the den with him as he stood in the front doorway; she kissed his cheek. “Okay…”
“Want me to pick up something on the way home?”
“Would you like fresh corn?”
“Whatcha makin’?”
“London broil.”
“Sounds good. And I’ll get some mushrooms too.”
“Great, I’ll call you if I think of anything else.”
“Sure thing.”
Joey was amazed that his White House ‘A’ I.D. hadn’t been restricted. Since he was technically still attached to the FBI, he needed to retrieve some of his interagency papers, then go see the HR department.
As he left his office, he was surprised to see the president walking down the hall. He stepped aside out of deference but the Commander-in-Chief stopped to say hello.
“Joey. I thought you were in Paris.”
“Got in yesterday morning, sir.”
“Really, then why did Bill fly there overnight?”
“He did?”
“Why don’t you know that, son?”
“To be honest sir, Bill and I have a difference of opinion.”
“Let’s go to my office.”
“Sir, with all respect, thank you, but you have other things to do. This is not important.”
“You don’t get to tell the president what is and what isn’t important, Joey.”
“You know sir, when you put it that way…”
The president laughed and turned to his aide, “Tell Ray to push the Secretary of the Interior for ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
A minute later, it was Joey and the president in the Oval Office. A Secret Service agent was peering through the peephole in the door that led to the secretary’s office.
“Joey, Bill works for me and you work for Bill, so you work for me. He’s there; you’re here. What happened?”
“Can we just say we’ve reached an ideological impasse?”
“I am not Oprah, and you aren’t on the couch, so forget the posturing and tell me what’s gotten between the two of you,” the president said as he reached for a sour ball and unwrapped it. He tilted the candy dish toward Joey, who demurred.
“No thanks, but what I want you to know, sir, is that I am not comfortable disclosing this to you.”
“Duly noted. Joey, the first time I met you, you were risking your career to go up against your boss, the director of the FBI, in defense of Bill. If you didn’t do that, Bill would have been sidelined and this country would have suffered millions of dead, under a technical tyranny that would have enslaved us all. So I am damn interested in what you’ve got to say. So speak, I’ve got a Cabinet member cooling his jets outside.”
Joey enlightened the president as to the disagreement. He tried hard not to cross the constitutional line of accusing the president of a ‘high crime or misdemeanor’ allowing research on the God Particle to continue.
When he was done, the president sucked on the candy in his mouth a little and then spoke. “You aren’t wrong with your concerns; you are, however, wrong about Bill.”
“I am afraid that Quarterback has become cheerleader for the research, sir.”
“No he hasn’t. I asked him to give me the go ahead to support this research. Hell, I sent Professor Landau to his death so that Bill could have every chance to give me the right opinion.”
The president opened his desk drawer, pulled out a folder stamped “Eyes Only” and handed it across the desk to Joey. “Read this, then return it to Mrs. Grayson when you are done.”
“Thank you, I will sir.”
As Joey got up to leave, the president added, “Joey, I had coffee with Agent Burrell the other day.”
“Yes, I know sir. That was an extraordinary honor.”
“Well, I have to tell you I was surprised, but she’s earned her way!”
“Yes, sir.” Joey left having no idea what President Mitchell was talking about.
Brooke had left messages for Joey in the office as well as on his cell phone, but Joey didn’t get around to them until he sat at his desk. He knew she was on a few days leave, so her call couldn’t have been work-related. He sat and read the classified “Report of the Science Advisor to the President on the Safety Issue Concerning Advanced Nuclear Research.” The six-page report impacted Joey to his core. In it Bill advised the president that there were not enough safeguards and not enough preventive science known to recommend furthering the experiments at this time. That, added to the fact that the president had told Joey he personally sent Professor Landau to meet Bill at Camp David in one last-ditch effort for him to convince Bill. Even still, Landau failed to change Bill’s negative report to the president.
All Joey could say when he finished the report was, “Son of a bitch!” He sat fingering the edges of the top-secret folder, wondering what in the world he would now say to his boss, his friend, his benefactor. His phone rang and interrupted the ‘mea culpa’ that was forming. “Palumbo, here. Brooke! Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Sure, come in now.”
Brooke walked the fifty feet from Cheryl’s office, where she had been archiving her files, into Joey’s office. “Hi.”
“First off, I can’t tell you how great it was to watch you get your medal. I am only sorry I couldn’t be here to shake your hand, so let’s remedy that right now.” Joey stood and extended his hand.
Brooke self-consciously took his hand and shook it. “Well, thank you for your faith in me, and for allowing me to serve you, Bill, and my country.”
“You get a salary for the service, but you got the medal for exemplary action in the face of overwhelming odds. You should save that statement of humility for the future, when they give you the gold watch.”
“Well…”
Joey caught the different look in Brooke’s eyes. Then the words of Cheryl and the president echoed in his head. He changed his demeanor and casually said, “Hey, you know me and the president, we were just kicking back and chewing the fat, you know just like we always do, and he mentioned something, and you know, my mother having not raised no dummy, I knew that the key to longevity in the White House was not to say to the leader of the free world, ‘Hey pal, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.’ So why don’t you tell me the good news that the president and everyone else around here seems to know already.”