“Very,” Anastasia admitted. “I can attend a formal function with ease. But put me on the street of even a small town, much less a city, totally on my own and I am at a loss. I am to do shopping while we are here. The Kildar has given me a credit card with… too much money available on it. What I did not wish to tell him is… I have never used a credit card except online. I can barely haggle with the merchants in the small town near where we live. It is all very confusing. A new world. One I want to enter, to enjoy, to understand, but, yes, it is hard. Even frightening.”
“When were you planning on going shopping?” the First Lady said.
“I’d hoped to do so this afternoon,” Anastasia said. “I had hoped that Michael would be back but he has another appointment this afternoon, after his meeting. We are definitely committed to spending the night, but given the urgency with which he was summoned, I doubt we will have more time. So I think I’ll need to go out on my own.”
“Not to be born,” the First Lady said, firmly. “Amelia Weston.”
“Pardon me?” Anastasia said.
“Even if Michael was available, men rarely enjoy shopping,” the First Lady said. “And they’re never good at it unless they are gay. So. Amelia Weston is the wife of General Weston, commander of the Military District of Washington. Which should mean, frankly, that she is the compleate bitch. But she’s not, she’s a very gracious lady of the old Southern school. Hard as nails, mind you, but very gracious as long as no one is trying to stick a knife in her or General Weston’s back. I will call her, we’ve become friends, and ask her to take another friend shopping. She knows just where to go.”
“Thank you, ma… Amanda,” Anastasia said, blinking.
“You are most welcome, Stasia.”
Chapter Nine
“Mr. Jenkins?” the major said as Mike got out. He was carrying the only the briefcase he’d ever owned. He kept it just for such occasions. The calf-leather case had come from the same haberdasher’s as the suit and said: “I’m a rich and powerful asshole” in full operatic splendor.
“What day is it?” Mike asked, pulling out his passports, checking them to find the right one and handing it to the MP.
The MP smiled slightly as he checked the name against his roster and nodded as he checked it off.
“You’re cleared, Mr. ‘Jenkins’,” the MP said handing over a visitor badge with his name and a very bad picture already on it.
“Major Pauley,” the officer said, sticking out his hand.
“I read it on your nametag,” Mike said, shaking his hand. “Sorry I’m so grumpy; I hate visiting this place.”
“You ought to try working here,” the major said. “You don’t know what hate is until you’ve been stuck here for a couple of years. But we’ll try to make you feel at home. This way, sir.”
One of the reasons Mike hated the Pentagon was that it was one of the few buildings that could cause him to lose his spatial awareness. It was like the place was some sort of intentional puzzle, designed to get people lost. And it happened to him again; they’d only been walking the corridors — which were literally infinite if you considered they were concentric pentagons — for five minutes and he was totally lost.
Finally, though, they arrived at another MP post, the fourth they’d had to clear, beyond which was a small door marked “Office of Special Operations Liaison.”
Mike had never actually visited the office that “controlled” him, to the extent that he was controlled at all. He’d spoken to various officers besides Pierson over the years, but he’d only ever met Pierson, and that only when Mike was shot up in the hospital.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. The main room was filled with cubicles, most of them overflowing with papers, most of which had “Top Secret” cover sheets and all manned by officers. With the exception of the MPs outside and a couple of very senior NCOs who appeared to be pushing even more paper than the officers, the place was staffed with nothing but O types, and Major was the lowest rank Mike saw. There also wasn’t anything along the lines of a receptionist; apparently if you made it past the MPs you were supposed to know where you were going.
To a former Petty Officer it was a wonder the place worked at all.
Pauley led him past the ranks of cubicles to the far end of the room where there were three offices and a small conference room. Mike wondered how they had staff meetings; there was no way to fit eveyrone in this room. He also wondered how secure the damned area was; there were none of the trappings of secure rooms about either the office or this conference room. It appeared to be very standard construction. He’d seen more secure rooms in a battalion headquarters.
Mike sat down at the conference table and cooled his heels for a couple of minutes, internally grousing. Right about now… he’d probably be taking one of the girls to bed come to think of it. Depending on what time it was in… Yep.
“Sorry to make you wait, Mike,” Pierson said, opening the door and sticking his head in. “Wander with me?”
“Sure,” Mike said, getting up and following Pierson back down the line of cubicles.
“I’d have met you outside but it’s the usual cluster fuck,” Pierson said. “We just got tasked with briefing the OMB on SOCOM budgeting and procurement. Since that’s as far out of our usual line as you can get, we’re all hopping around like fleas on a skillet. And then we got this dropped in our laps.”
“I guess I get to wait to find out what this is?” Mike said.
“Yep,” Pierson said, grinning as he turned into the main corridor.
They walked down the corridor a short distance and turned inward, as far as Mike could tell.
“The deal around here used to be ‘who’s closer to the E ring’?” Pierson said, making another couple of turns. “These days, being on the E-ring makes you important. But after that it’s ‘how deep are you?’ Which means how close are you to the Tank and the other really secure rooms?”
“So, how deep are we?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.
“In just a second,” Pierson said as they made their way through another checkpoint and entered a stairwell, “we’re going to be about as deep as you can get. Of course, it’s in bullshit. But even deep enough bullshit has an allure.”
“I can tell I’m going to love the fuck out of this,” Mike said. “Aren’t I?”
“Absolutely,” Pierson said, grinning evilly.
The stairs opened onto a very short corridor and another damned checkpoint at which Mike had to fish out his, totally false, passport in addition to his visitor’s pass. But on the other side of the checkpoint they entered a shield room. It was the real deal, full Faraday cage, soundproofed, no electronics in or out with hard-eyed guards with wands to ensure same.
Three men were already waiting in the room and Mike could tell that, yes, he was going to love the fuck out of this mission. All three were in suits, but unlike Mike they wore theirs as if they were daily clothing. Including the guy who looked like a tennis pro that Mike pegged as Agency. And not the covert-ops side, this guy was “old agency”, the group that gave the OSS the moniker “Oh, So Social.” Northeastern Liberal WASP, one each. Bred with a silver spoon in his mouth which was why he had to keep his teeth clamped all the time. The other two were pure “GS”: civil servants. They could have been anything from Agency to NSA to… Office of Management and Budget. A bureaucrat was a bureaucrat was a bureaucrat.