The Night Stalkers White House - Books 1-3

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

One of the things Daniel had learned during his year as the White House Chief-of-Staff was that any concept of what he’d thought it meant to be busy was impossibly naïve. And in the week following the visit to the island house, it only got crazier. Seven days since his one-day trip across the country and back. He must have slept and eaten at some point, but right now he was far too tired to recall.

He slumped in his office chair.

Janet had somehow made room for a tiny Christmas tree, more of a Christmas bush, at the corner of this desk. A pine bough trim had been woven around the edges of the “Death Board”; a whiteboard covered with the strategy to defeat a couple of exceptionally short-sighted bills put forth by the opposition party. A small tintype print of a dollhouse that he’d grown rather fond of had been replaced by a triptych of original Currier and Ives lithographs on loan from the Smithsonian.

Daniel closed his eyes and tried to catch up with the last week’s events.

The island house had been toured, reviewed, and approved in under ten minutes. They’d ducked back across the border, thanked Captain Smith, and parted ways.

The Black Hawk crew departed to place their equipment and practice for the upcoming assignment. Daniel and Alice had found a small charter to take them to SeaTac airport. At D.C. they’d gone their separate ways and found even less time to be together over this week than the prior one, if that was even possible.

The inner circle on this operation was impossibly small which meant that practically everything had to be done by Daniel himself. That was above and beyond all of the work that came from the tail end of the pre-Holiday session in Congress.

In the last forty-eight hours he’d brokered peace and an acceptable approval margin on bills in education and farming. He’d failed on border and immigration controls, but the President had wrangled that one to the ground by a three-vote squeak in the House and two in the Senate. A win was a win, no matter how close, but it had left both of them strung out and exhausted.

Meanwhile, preparation for the upcoming North Korean operation continued. Beale and Henderson had moved their two Black Hawks into position.

Alice managed to push a message back up the chain to let their mystery guest know the plan once the Majors had finished formulating and rehearsing it.

The head of the PPD, the Secret Service’s Presidential Protection Detail, Agent Frank Adams, had been brought into the inner circle.

Frank had headed the detail since the President had first polled in the double digits, long before he was nominated. Frank had ridden herd on three Presidents and dozens of VIPs in his twenty-plus years in the service.

He had protested vehemently when not allowed to add another agent, or preferably an entire division. And when the head of the PPD protested, in that gravelly deep voice of his, and all six-two of him looming over Daniel, instant death in an immaculate black business suit, he paid attention.

Daniel had thought Adams would lock the President in the Oval Office. And maybe just shoot Daniel for good measure. Then the President had mentioned that Major Emily Beale was involved. In that instant the tone of the meeting changed entirely and Frank Adams was on board.

Daniel was left to puzzle over that abrupt change. As far as he knew the only time they’d met was when the First Lady had been killed and the animosity between them at the time had been unmistakable. Daniel tried to get Frank aside on the subject, but he was as mute as the Secret Service always was about security matters.

The one person Daniel never saw outside of strategy meetings was Dr. Alice Thompson. And that was killing him. She’d taken to texting him after the third time he’d fallen asleep with the phone to his ear, while they were talking.

“What’s in the calendar tonight?” she asked one night.

“Cinnamon Bears. Spicy!”

“Drink milk.”

And milk had worked to soothe the burning heat that had been boring a hole through his tongue.

“Spice drops tonight.”

“Christmas wish,” she’d texted whatever that night was. “I want to be there to kiss you.”

“Sour ones.”

“I take back my Christmas wish. Well, not really.”

Back and forth by phone and text as the entire middle page of the Advent calendar was emptied door by tiny door.

December 17th. Daniel slumped in his chair, ragged with exhaustion. It took concerted effort to reach out his arm and pull the Advent Calendar off the top of a mountain of vetting folders for a new Supreme Court justice. Arnold Johnson had let them know he’d be announcing his retirement on the first of the year and the scramble was on to choose President Matthews’ first replacement on the high court.

Daniel’s phone buzzed as he pulled the calendar into his lap. He dragged it out and had to blink several times before his eyes would focus on the message.

“What’s the third picture?”

Of course Alice would notice and keep track. Three page spreads, twenty-four days, hence eight days per page. December 17th, the start of page three of the Advent calendar.

He untied the red ribbon and carefully unfolded the book to inspect the interior.

Page one, loading the sleigh.

Page two, the Christmas Hamster leaving the gifts under the tree in such bounty they spilled across the floor.

Page three. He had to stop a moment and catch his breath. It was simply that beautiful.

“What is it?” Alice’s text buzzed his phone again.

“It’s us.” Daniel hit send before he quite realized what he’d done. He looked desperately for an “untext” option, but there wasn’t one. Besides, it was true. It was an image that had been forming slowly in his head. Building in quiet layers without his noticing until he saw the image of it spread before him. An image of his life as he couldn’t quite see it yet. Or rather hadn’t until he opened the page. It was how “home” was meant to be.

“Show me.”

“Wish I could,” he sent back. But he had hours of work before he’d have a chance of going to bed, never mind time to see Alice.

“Show me.”

Daniel hit reply on the phone, but something didn’t look right. That’s when it registered that he’d heard the last comment, not read it.

He looked up and there she sat across from him, slouched in his chair, red-and-green checked sneakers propped on the edge of his desk. A bountifully soft-looking sweater in palest gold wrapped her like a warm embrace.

When he looked into her eyes, her soft, hazeled, smiling eyes, his phone buzzed sharply.

Habit, he couldn’t help himself, he glanced down.

“Show me.”

When he looked back up, she raised her hand from below his line of sight and revealed her phone.

He handed across the calendar.

She took it and set it across her lap without sitting up.

Daniel slumped back in his chair and watched Alice as she viewed the final picture on the calendar.

Her bangs had slid down over her eyes but he could see the softness enter her body in the rounding of the shoulders, the cool hand placed against a cheek perhaps suddenly too warm, and finally the palm of her hand rested over her heart.

She looked at it for a long, long time. Then she closed it slowly, as if it were delicate and precious and held it to her chest wrapped in both arms for a moment. She stood and placed it on top of the most stable stack on his desk and circled around to him.

Alice didn’t speak. She didn’t kiss him. She simply held out a hand. When he took it, she pulled him inexorably to his feet.

In silence, she led him through the twisting passages of the West Wing and the White House. Only when they arrived in his bedroom on the third floor of the Residence, did she speak.

“Show me.”