Jack raised a brow as the instant DNA analysis was repeated with Niles, who seemed distant as he placed his thumb on the pad. Collins nodded at his two security men, who would not be allowed inside. The two men followed the six-man security team to the rooftop elevator. With their escort Jack counted no less than sixteen pairs of eyes on them coming from hidden locations on the rooftop. He assumed they all had automatic weapons. The protection for the man they had come to see had quadrupled since the war that had cost the world so much. A war that ended fifty-two days before. The country and the planet had lost too much to lose any more.
The pace was slow as everyone, including the Secret Service detail, knew that Niles Compton was just learning how to handle his infirmities. His walking was slow and awkward and Jack was instantly aware that Niles felt self-deprecating for those new infirmities. That coupled with the Group’s losses from the war were weighing heavily on the director’s mind. Jack knew that as a battlefield commander, Niles had to face certain things all by himself, just as he himself had to learn how to go on living after losing men and women whose lives he had been responsible for.
Collins became curious as they were escorted past the private suite of rooms and the large outside security team guarding it, and instead were guided through the cordon and brought to what looked like a closed hospital kitchen. The large double swinging doors closed behind Niles and Jack and they found themselves in a semidark stainless steel kitchen. The old smells of hospital meals hauntingly teased the air. Collins saw only two Secret Service men. One was standing in a far, very dark corner and the other was sitting by the opposite exit that entered the cafeteria-style seating area beyond. Other than that there was only one other man in the kitchen and he was half a torso deep in the large double-door refrigerator. Niles shook his head when he saw the robed man wiggle his butt as he leaned into the frigid space as he rummaged around, cursing as he did so.
“Not one shred of cheese other than this in the whole damn place!” came the muffled voice from deep inside the refrigerator. The hand dropped a small container of cottage cheese on the table behind him.
“Perhaps if you held strictly to the diet your doctor’s set for you that infection in your leg would finally go away and you can stop hiding out in children’s hospitals.”
The ass in the doorway quit wiggling and the tall man straightened and turned to face the men who had just entered the hospital kitchen.
“Let’s see how you would do eating that”—the president pointed to the container of low-fat cottage cheese—“and see how quickly you recover.” The president looked at his oldest friend in the world and knew Niles had just gone through a very hard rehab just like himself. He became self-conscious looking at the man who had served as his best man a million years before the nightmares of the recent past.
Niles placed his briefcase upon the stainless steel countertop and then opened it. He brought out a large box and gestured for the president to see what was inside as he cut the string holding the box closed.
“The chefs at Group wanted you to have this… well, Alice Hamilton did anyway. I said you probably didn’t deserve it, but I was overruled.”
The president raised his right brow and spun awkwardly on his casted right leg and looked from Niles to Jack, who nodded that the box was indeed real. The president used a crutch and walked-slipped to stand by Niles’s side. He looked from his friend’s face to the contents of the box. The president smiled and suspiciously looked from the largest corned beef sandwich he had ever seen to the two Secret Service agents watching the proceedings. The two quickly looked away. The president nodded and before he reached to get Alice Hamilton’s reward, he looked at Niles and then Jack. He shook his head and gestured for the protection detail to bring over two tall stools, which were placed before Jack and Niles.
“It feels better if I stand,” the president said, tapping his cast as he leaned the crutch against the table as he closely watched his agents while they were close to his sandwich, as if he feared they would steal his precious bundle of cholesterol. When they moved off, Collins and Compton sat. “I’m not going to ask how either of you are, I can see without asking.” The president picked the large sandwich up and smelled the meat and the hot mustard inside. His eyes rolled as he put it back in the box. With another suspicious look at his security detail he closed it. “I’ll eat this later. Right now we have to talk before they knock me out with all of these new antibiotics they plan to feed me.”
Jack watched on, aware of the uncomfortable silence coming from Niles as he waited for the president to continue. Gone was the small talk and playful banter he had always seen between the two men. Now there seemed to be a steeliness between them that wasn’t there the previous years. The president waved over one of the Secret Service men who placed two stacks of papers on the tabletop and then moved off for another pile that was placed beside the first two. Three distinct sets of papers.
The president slapped the smallest pile on Jack’s left. “Death notifications from the Department of the National Archives, specifically, a secret section of said archives, Department 5656. Spanning the years 1918 to the year 2005, there were 317 deaths attributed to personnel lost on assignment.” He looked at both Jack and then Niles. Gone was the friendliness of the man as he looked on. “And those casualties do not include the 1864 raid into Turkey nor the loss of personnel during World War II, which were substantial I may add.” His hand moved to the next largest pile and it sat there. “Casualties from 2005 to present, same department. Four hundred eighty-two Event Group deaths.” His eyes went from the pile to the neutral face of Jack Collins.
“If this is an indictment or a veiled suggestion that there were any gross failures on the part of security to safeguard those lives—” Niles started to say, but the president acted as though Niles had not spoken as his hand went to the third pile of paperwork.
“The number of official Event code submissions to my and my predecessor’s office.” The pile was almost as large as the casualty notifications.
All three men knew that by law Department 5656 had twenty-four hours to inform the President of the United States, to whom they reported directly, that an Event action had been called. At that time full disclosure on the historical Event and why it was called had to be given to the commander-in-chief. At that time the president could either declare the Event a valid one, rather it be historical or military by the department, or to veto the action altogether.
“As it stands, I vetoed thirty-two actions that may have had a direct historical bearing on the war we just suffered through. The evidence that was needed to convince the world of the dangers we faced from outside our solar system could have possibly been overlooked in the actions of this and my predecessor’s office. Every president from Woodrow Wilson to date may have been directly or indirectly responsible for the disaster we just barely survived.”
Jack saw Niles lower his one good eye as if he was feeling relief from some hidden dosage of pain medication. It seemed the two men he was sitting with had discussed whatever this was before, and possibly at angered length if he knew the two old friends well enough.
“How many more historical secrets or outright cover-ups are out there that we cannot simply let lie?” the president said as he halfheartedly pushed the box containing his precious sandwich away. The president nodded once more and one of the Secret Service men removed the piles of papers.
An uncomfortable silence filled the kitchen.
“Colonel, the Event Group was faced with an unprecedented war, and you and your teams performed magnificently. I brought those papers for two reasons, you saved lives. A lot of them. Also for the reasons I have explained. There is far too much time wasted waiting for this busy office to ratify an Event action. That is why I am hereby, with the approval of the general accounting office and certain members of judicial and military establishment, expanding the powers of Department 5656. You now have one hundred hours to report an Event action to the president. This should speed up your response time to any Event.”