Straight ahead was the towering 1869 portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hadn't impressed Alexander. It was the only painting in the dining room. Directly across from him, inscribed on the mantel, was a passage written by John Adams to his wife Abigail before they moved into the newly completed executive mansion. Franklin Roosevelt had read the lines and liked them so much that they became the official White House prayer. The inscription read:
I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it.
May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof- Sorry, Mr. Adams, Hood thought. We managed to blow that one.
One of the senior attendants walked over. Dressed in white trousers and a white waistcoat with gold braid, he politely but insistently shut the door. Hood stepped back into the Red Room. It had grown noisier and more crowded as people began filing in from the Blue Room.
He couldn't imagine what it was like in here before air-conditioning.
Hood happened to be facing the door to the Blue Room as Mala Chatterjee entered. She was on the arm of the president, who was followed by the First Lady and two delegates. The vice president and Mrs. Cotten came in next followed by California Senator Barbara Fox. Hood knew Fox well. She looked uncharacteristically confused. Hood didn't get to ask why. At almost exactly that moment, the door to the State Dining Room opened. There was no more rushing around inside the hall. The twenty members of the wait staff were lined up along the northwest wall, while attendants stood in a row by the door to show guests to their tables.
Hood made no effort to link up with Chatterjee. She was an intense woman, and she seemed caught up in her conversation with the president. He turned and went back into the dining hall.
Hood watched as the glitterati entered beneath the golden light of the chandelier. There was something almost ghostly about the procession: people moving slowly, stiffly dignified, and without much expression;
voices low and hollow in the echoing chamber, with only occasional polite laughter; chairs soundlessly lifted and moved by attendants so they didn't drag on the hardwood floor; and a sense that this scene had been repeated over and over throughout the years, throughout the centuries, with the same people: those who had power, those who wanted it, and people like Hood who were the buffers between them.
Hood took a sip of water. He wondered if divorce turned all men into cynics.
Chatterjee had left the president's side and was being shown to the table. Hood rose as the New Delhi native neared. The attendant pulled out her chair. The secretary-general thanked him and sat down. Without obviously ignoring Hood, the forty-three-year-old woman managed not to look at him. Hood had no patience for that.
'Good evening. Madam Secretary-General,' Hood said.
'Good evening, Mr. Hood,' she replied, still without looking at him.
Other people began arriving at the table. Chatterjee turned and smiled at Agriculture Secretary Richard Ortiz and his wife. That left Hood staring at the back of the secretary-general's head. He exited the awkward moment by reaching for his napkin, putting it on his lap, and looking the other way.
Hood tried to put himself in Chatterjee's position. The attorney-turned-diplomat had only been on the job for a short while when the terrorists struck. She had joined the United Nations as an avowed peacekeeper, and here were terrorists executing diplomats and threatening to shoot children. Chatterjee's negotiating tactics had failed, and Hood had embarrassed her publicly by infiltrating the Security Council and ending the crisis with quick, violent action. Chatterjee was further humiliated by the way many member nations loudly applauded Hood's attack.
But Hood and Secretary-General Chatterjee were supposed to be putting that ill will behind them, not nurturing it. She was an avowed advocate of first move detente, in which one party demonstrated trust by being the first to lay down arms or surrender land.
Or maybe she only believes in that when she advocates others to make the first move. Hood thought.
Suddenly, someone appeared behind Hood and spoke his name. He turned and looked up. It was the First Lady.
'Good evening, Paul.'
Hood rose.
'Mrs. Lawrence. It's good to see you.'
'It's been too long,' she said, taking his hand in hers and holding it tight.
'I miss those Los Angeles fund raisers
'We had fun,' Hood said.
'We made some history, and hopefully we did some good, too.'
'I like to think so,' the First Lady said.
'How is Harleigh?'
'She took a very hard hit, and is having a rough time,' Hood admitted.
'I can't even imagine,' the First Lady said.
'Who's working with her?'
'Right now, it's just Liz Gordon, our staff psych at Op-Center,' Hood said.
'Liz is getting a little trust going.
Hopefully, in a week or two, we can bring in some specialists.'
Megan Lawrence smiled warmly.
'Paul, maybe there's something we can do to help each other. Are you free for lunch tomorrow?'
'Sure,' he said.
