INS, IRS, TSA and a handful of others, suddenly had a new deputy director. Hiccock’s thickened wallet of new ID cards allowed him to have one-way conversations and intel exchanges with these federal agencies without having to explain anything that could expose the true top-secret nature of the QuOG.
When Bill returned to his office, he found Joey was on the phone with Janice. “I know; my wife was sick for nearly eight weeks with Joe Jr. … Eup, he just came in. Take care lady; see you soon.”
Joey handed the phone to Bill, got up, and let him sit behind his own desk.
“Hi babe, how are you feeling?”
“My stomach feels like I’m on a rollercoaster that never stops,” Janice said as she pushed a pile of papers to the edge of her desk and laid her head on her arm as she cradled the phone.
“Maybe you should have stayed home today.”
“I had these patient summaries that I already put off long enough. But I am just beat. How did your meeting go?”
“It went well. That’s all I can say right now. You understand.”
“Sure. Oh, Joey was just telling me how his wife used buttermilk to qwell the same Category 5 typhoon that I have going on inside me. Can you stop off…”
“No problem; I’ll pick it up on the way home.”
“Thanks, Billy. I think I need to go now.”
“Feel better.”
Bill hung up and looked at Joey. “Thanks for doing that.”
“What?”
“Not letting Janice think she’s the only woman who’s ever been through this.”
“Hey, Phyllis had her sister around when Joe Jr. was born, otherwise she would have been even more frazzled.”
“Well, I hope Janice can manage without you for the next couple of days.”
“Why, where is she going?”
“Not her. You, Kimosabe. You are on the next flight out to Forward Operating Base Delta Tango 1, wherever the hell that is, to personally give B amp;R their orders with the President’s executive decree of immunity for the ambassador affair.”
“So they went for this whole cockamamie idea of yours?”
“
“How about ‘Stork?’”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Thank God, Francoise, that he died up here in the street,” commented Pierre as the ambulance pulled up to the cobblestoned curb on the Saint Germain street. Many of the kitschy jazz and rock clubs went three or four stories below the street. In the past, they both had to lift deadweight up the old stone narrow and sometimes winding staircases. Those were mostly drug overdoses. Occasionally a knife fight or rare gunshot victim. Judging from the trail of blood on the sidewalk, this man had made it to the street. Unfortunately, he was apparently run over by a car as well. At 4:30 in the morning, the driver was probably drunk and didn’t stop. The Surete would handle the hit and run. Pierre’s job would have been to see if this poor soul was still alive and in need of immediate medical attention but his stethoscope remained in the large pocket of his uniform, especially made to hold it. He placed two fingers on the victim’s bloodied neck, not to find a pulse, but to check the temperature. The coldness of the body meant he had been lying there for some time.
The cop’s intuition of the Inspector who arrived on the scene, that this fellow was killed before the car crushed his skull, was confirmed when Pierre, pointed to the knife wound in the body’s chest. That being the case, Pierre and his partner would have to wait until the police collected any evidence. From experience, he knew this would take a while, so he opened his thermos and poured two cups for Francoise and himself.
Bill was entering the White House at 7:32 a.m. As he swiped his I.D., a man was waiting for him at the security post.
“Mr. Hiccock, please come with me.”
“Who are you?”
“Mr. Smith, Special Assistant to the President. Please come with me now.”
“Smith?”
They headed to the Situation Room. After the usual vetting and scanning, Bill was facing the President and an older man he did not know.
“Mr. President, what can I do for you, sir?”
“Bill, I am really sorry about this.”
“Mr. Hiccock, please surrender your White House I.D. and all other federal I.D. you may have on you.”
“What?”
“Please Bill; don’t make this any harder than it already is,” the President said.
Bill fished out the six I.D.s from the various agencies he was temporarily technically in charge of.
“May I ask why?”
“Bill, NSA intercepted you on a phone call. At that time you used a term on a non-secured phone that even the knowledge of is classified.”
“Sir, I certainly have the highest clearance,” Hiccock said, pointing to the pile of alphabet soup cards that started with FBI and went straight through OHS.
“Bill, only three people are cleared to know this — me, this man, and one other person who I designated. In fact, I really don’t know all of the specifics myself. But I know the code words and their intent.”
“Okay, so what did I say?”
“How did you come to hear the term, ‘Jesus Factor?’” the other man asked.
“Is that what this is about? You’ll have to revise your numbers. I got that from an old friend of mine, who learned it from a group of scientists. In fact, I have 10 people working on it now.”
“That’s incredible,” the President said. “You could be shot!”
“Sir, this cat is well out of the bag.”
For the next five minutes, Hiccock told the story of the scientists, Peter Remo, and What Would Jesus Do.
When it was over, the President sat dumbfounded. “But he didn’t tell you what it was?”
“It didn’t get that far. As soon as I said I never heard of it, he freaked… and now I understand why.”
“Bill, I want his name and address. We have to contain this. I also want the 10 people you say are working on it.”
“Mr. President, please don’t make that a direct order, because each of the 10 is very highly cleared on my SCIAD network, which is hyper-encrypted and random encoded. They are scientists and handle all kinds of sensitive material. Besides, most of them don’t believe in UFOs.”
“Bill, what do UFOs have to do with this?”
“Wait, what? You mean the Jesus Factor isn’t about UFOs?”
“No. Is that what your men are doing?”
“Yes. I guess I left that part out of Peter’s story. So this isn’t your Jesus Factor? This is just a coincidental name?”
The President looked at the man Bill didn’t know. “Bill, this was harrowing, to say the least. Look, save yourself more headaches. Forget you ever heard of Jesus Factor and just call this damn thing something else, okay?”
“Yes, sir, of course sir… Er… should I take these back?” Bill asked pointing at the pile of agency I.D.s.
