Unimpressed by Bradshaw's badge, and angered at being ordered about in her own house, Amanda looked Bradshaw in the eye. "Young man, I am sure you have your duty and your orders. But this is my house. And if you want to walk out of here under your own power, I suggest you let me by."
Taken aback by the defiance shown by this five-foot-four, 120-pound woman in a bathrobe, Bradshaw was about to call for his supervisor when Amanda pushed by him and headed into the kitchen to make coffee. Not easily put off, he followed her, asking her to go back upstairs. Bradshaw's persistence only served to irritate Amanda. Stopping just short of the kitchen, she turned on Bradshaw. With an angry look on her face and her finger pointed at his nose, Amanda Lewis shouted so that everyone in the house could hear. "Look, Mr. Special Agent whoever, if you or your friends here dare threaten me one more time, I'll run the whole lot of you out into the snow. Now back off." Without another word and before Bradshaw could respond, Amanda pivoted on her heels and marched into the kitchen, where two other Secret Service men gave her a wide berth when they saw her coming.
Frustrated, his face red from embarrassment, Bradshaw turned around just in time to see Jan come through the front door at the other end of the hall. Without so much as a pause, Jan headed straight for the door of the study where she knew she would find Lewis. Recovering from his brush with the congressman's wife, Bradshaw hurried down the hall to head Jan off. Shoving his arm in front of Jan's face just as she was about to open the door, Bradshaw yelled in Jan's ear, "Hey, you can't go in there."
Already charged up from having to deal with the Secret Service men at the front door, Jan backed off half a step, turned to face Bradshaw, and thrust her finger up at his face. "Look, mister, I'm in no mood to play cowboys and Indians with a troop of overgrown boy scouts. Either move it or lose it."
Tiring of being abused by pushy women, Bradshaw was about to grab Jan's arms to push her away from the door when Jan lifted her right foot and brought the heel of her boot crashing down on the toe of Bradshaw's shoe. Shocked by her sudden attack, caught in midstride, and overcome by immense pain, Bradshaw lost his balance. While he was trying to grab his injured foot with one hand while flailing the other one about in an effort to find something to grab to keep from falling, Jan pulled the sliding door of the study open and popped in.
Though she knew that the President was there, it still came as a surprise when Jan saw Wilson seated among the haphazard stack of books, files, and stray papers that Lewis found comforting. Lewis, seated at his desk with his feet propped up, looked over to Jan. "Welcome, Jan. We were just talking about you when we heard your rather vocal introduction to the President's bodyguard."
Jan blushed slightly, looking over at Wilson and then at Lewis. "I apologize for intruding like this, Ed, Madam President, but I was on my way into the office and thought you might not have heard the latest news from Germany yet. And then when I saw all the people running about your house, I was worried that something had happened to Amanda or you."
With a smile, Lewis invited her to take a seat, if she could find one. Wilson, surprised by Jan's appearance, glanced over at Lewis after he made the offer to Jan to join them. Noticing Wilson's look of concern, Lewis took his feet off the desk and leaned toward Wilson while Jan searched for a clear place on the floor to dump a stack of books she had removed from the least cluttered chair. Without waiting for Jan to finish, Lewis started in on the President. "See, that's just the kind of thing you are going to have to stop doing. Geez, Madam President, the whole world knows we've screwed the pooch on this one. So why hide it? It's time you came out, just like you did with me, with hat in hand and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
Though her predecessor had warned her that Lewis could be a dangerous political adversary, not to mention brash and downright disrespectful on occasion, Wilson appreciated that Lewis had much going for him. Everyone in Washington agreed that he was one of the few people in Washington she could trust in a pinch. The former President himself, despite his warnings to Wilson, had used Lewis during a particularly sensitive crisis with Mexico. Through this and other such coups, Lewis had earned a reputation for being one of the most politically astute and respected authorities on international affairs in Washington. There had even been serious discussion about asking Lewis to serve as Wilson's Secretary of State instead of Soares.
Suspecting that Chancellor Ruff wasn't in a mood to listen to either her or Soares, a man many Europeans had difficulty dealing with, Wilson decided that she would take the former President's advice. Of course, she also remembered his warning: "Lewis has a tendency to come on like a down-home good old boy, so don't be offended by his manner." Taking Lewis's comments in stride, Wilson was about to respond, when her comments were pre-empted by another interruption at the study door. This time it was the appearance of Agent Bradshaw.
Barreling in, Bradshaw looked at Jan, now seated across from Wilson, then at Wilson, before he began to apologize for letting Jan in. Wilson, however, was tired of being interrupted, first by Jan, now by Bradshaw. Already uneasy about coming to Lewis like this and the manner in which he was treating her, Wilson, in a momentary flaring of her temper, cut Bradshaw short. "Look, Bradley, or Banden, or whoever you are, get out of here and close the door."
Totally frustrated and in pain, Bradshaw closed the door, catching a glimpse of Jan just as she canted her head, smiled, and waved 'bye to him.
Pausing a moment to pick up her train of thought, Wilson continued where she had left off. "In principle, I agree with you, Ed. But…" Wilson hesitated as she glanced at Jan. "Even you understand that there are things, military matters and ongoing delicate diplomatic discussions, that we cannot go public with."
Lewis rolled his eyes as he settled back into his chair. "Oh, please, Abby. You don't need to remind me of that. Even Jan here, one of the foremost correspondents in the world, understands the necessity of keeping secrets, real secrets, a secret. But don't, if you hope to salvage any shred of credibility and trust, hide everything, big mistakes and small, behind the cloak of operations security. The American people are a lot more sophisticated than your advisors give them credit for. Yes, the operation, aptly named Desperate Fumble, succeeded in disarming the Ukrainian nuclear arsenal, as you intended. No one is arguing that point. But it was not the most successful military operation in American military history as Rothenberg keeps telling the media. We succeeded, not in the manner in which we had hoped, and at a much higher cost than expected, but we succeeded. That, Madam President, is what your Secretary of Defense should have said."
"All right, you have made your point. That was, I agree, poorly handled. Expressing regrets concerning that matter, however, does nothing to solve our, excuse me, my current problem. I was hoping, Ed, to use you in much the same way that my predecessor used you to resolve the Mexican problem."