“Devious and dangerous,” Montvale said, smiling.
“Turning to the problem at hand,” Secretary Cohen said, “which is that Charley cannot be dissuaded from going out to Arlington with all his friends, how do we deal with that?”
“Where are those limousines you mentioned, Charley?” Montvale asked.
“In the hotel garage, waiting for me to call them. Which I am going to do in the next sixty seconds or so.”
“I think you’re right, Natalie,” Montvale said. “McCarthy-and/ or Mulligan-probably has people at the gate of Arlington to keep out people who might embarrass the President. But I think they’ll just wave our convoy through.”
“So we put Charley’s limousines in our convoy?” she asked. “That makes sense.”
Montvale walked to the bedroom door. He opened it and then looked around until he found Tom McGuire.
“Tom, may I see you for a moment?”
After the secretary of State had disappeared into the lobby elevator, nothing much happened in the next ten minutes.
Herb Kramer announced he was going to stretch his legs.
“I’ll go with you,” Bob Dabney said.
“Stay out of the bar,” Delores said. “You don’t want to go to the Ways and Means Committee smelling of alcohol.”
“I’m going to go outside and have a puff on a cigarette,” Herb said. “You can’t smoke in here.”
He pointed to a NO SMOKING sign to make his point, and then he and Bob walked down the lobby toward Connecticut Avenue.
They had just about reached the revolving door when two things happened almost at once. A burly man in a business suit stepped in front of the door to keep them from using it, and another burly man came out of one of the elevators and quickly walked down the lobby toward Connecticut Avenue.
He looked as if he were talking to his lapel.
“I’m going down there,” Delores said to Kate. “Something’s going on!”
The burly man who had been talking to his lapel went through the revolving door, but when Delores and Kate approached it, the burly man who had kept Herb and Bob from going outside stepped into their path.
He flashed some sort of credentials in their face. “United States Secret Service. Would you ladies please stand over there for just a minute?”
He pointed to where Herb and Bob were standing, looking through a window beside the revolving door onto the sidewalk. Kate and Delores moved beside them. After a moment, Kate tapped Herb on the shoulder, and he politely let her move in front of him so that she could get a better look.
There was a taxi stand on Connecticut Avenue with four cabs lined up in it. A uniformed policeman gestured impatiently for them to move. When they had done so, a Yukon with red and blue lights flashing behind its grille pulled up, not into the space just vacated, but into the lane-the street-just outside it.
Then another Yukon with flashing lights pulled into what had been the taxi lane, followed by two limousines, which also had flashing red and blue lights behind their grilles.
What had been the taxi lane was now filled.
Next came another limousine, this one a stretch limousine without flashing lights. It pulled into the space reserved for vehicles discharging or picking up passengers.
A burly man spoke into his lapel, and then opened the rear door of the limousine. A moment later, a line of men came through the revolving door and quickly entered the limousine.
“There’s ten of them,” Delores announced. “I counted them.”
“I wonder who they are,” Bob mused aloud.
The burly man closed the door and the stretch limousine pulled away from the curb.
What happened next occurred so quickly that no one but Delores could keep up with it. Limousines and Yukons kept pulling up to the curb, and then backing out of it-or going forward onto Connecticut Avenue and
“You know what that looks like, Herb?” Bob said. “That automated package-distribution machine FedEx showed us in Kansas City. Except this is for people.”
“You know, Bob, it does,” Herb said thoughtfully.
He then gestured with his hands, miming FedEx’s automated system, which had apparently impressed him with its ability to move a lot of things in different directions at the same time.
The Vice President came through one of the revolving doors and was hustled into one of the limousines with the flashing lights, and then the secretary of State came through the revolving door and was hustled into hers.
There was a wail of sirens and then it was suddenly all over. All the vehicles were gone, and so were all the Secret Service people.
“I will be damned,” Herb said. “That was something!”
“And you didn’t want to stay here,” Delores said. “You said it was too expensive.”
THREE
The President’s Study The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 1430 15 April 2007
“When the Vice President’s car reached where we were standing, Mr. President, just outside the main gate,” Secret Service Special Agent Mark Douglas reported, “it stopped and the rear window went down. Vice President Montvale said, ‘The four limousines are with me.’ So I let them pass.”
“Did you see who was in them?” President Clendennen asked.
“Yes, Mr. President. To double-check, so to speak, I stopped each one and opened the door and had a look.”
“And?” the President asked impatiently.
“There were eight men, mostly Caucasian-mostly Latinos, I judged-and some Afro-Americans, in each of the first two limousines. The third one had Mr. Danton-the reporter from
“And then what happened?”
“The convoy moved directly to the grave site, to the road near it. And everybody got out.”
“And?”
“The Vice President and the secretary of State got out and walked to where you and the other dignitaries were standing-where you were waiting for the whatchamacallit, the
“And the people in the limousines?”
“Mr. Danton followed the Vice President and Secretary Cohen.”
“And Mr. Parker?” the President asked softly.
“I didn’t see him there anymore. I guess he didn’t get out of the limousine. I did see him later-”
“Get to later, later,” the President interrupted him. “What about the people in the limousines?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. Well, they got out of the limos and arranged themselves in a line where they could watch what was going to happen at the grave. While they were doing that, a woman with a couple of kids walked up to them. They all knew her, and gathered around her.”
“And did you learn who this woman was?”
