'That's the oval-shaped room down there on the right, isn't it?'
Davy nodded.
'Yeah, after lunch they then move to the Blue Room.
That's the same shape and directly above on the first floor. Then, at one o'clock, they walk out onto the lawn and get blasted by the heavenly choir.' He screwed up his face again at the thought of 200 kids out of tune.
Josh came over and joined us.
'Hey, guys, I think we'd better move on.'
We got the hint. The Secret Service guys didn't want us around so near coffee time.
We started down the corridor to the right, following the cables. Davy sparked up, pointing at a large white double door at the end of the corridor.
'That leads to the west wing, where the briefing area is.' The cable went through a door on the left of the corridor. We turned right and entered one of the admin areas. The smell came back to me. To the left was another elevator.
'That's the service elevator for the State Dining Room.'
Davy was clearly enjoying his role as tour guide.
'It's directly above us on the first floor.' To the right of the elevator was a spiral staircase.
We stopped by the elevator. Davy had a huge grin on his face.
'I gotta show you folks the burn marks you Brits made last time you made an unannounced visit!'
A trolley headed toward us, pushed by an efficient-looking, mid-fifties black guy in black trousers, waistcoat, tie and a very crisply laundered white shirt. It was laden with coffee pots, cups and saucers, biscuits of all sorts. The guy said, 'Excuse me, gentlemen,' then saw Sarah and added, 'and lady,' in a very courteous manner as he cruised past, the cups rattling on the metal trolley. Basically, of course, he was just telling us to get the fuck out of the way. He was a man with a mission.
We climbed down the spiral staircase as Davy continued his running commentary.
'We have two other elevators, one hundred and thirty-two rooms and thirty-three bathrooms.'
Josh chipped in.
'And seven staircases.'
I tried to raise a smile of acknowledgment. At any other time this would be interesting, but not now.
At the bottom we stopped by a pair of fire doors with thick wooden panels inset with two rectangular strips of wired, fire-resistant glass and covered with dirty hand marks where they got continuously pushed. Above them sat a large slab of stone supporting the archway. Black scorch marks were clearly visible.
'We've kept them there just as a little reminder of the sort of thing that happens when you guys come to town. Not that you stayed that long; we'd had more than enough of you by then.'
There was more laughter. I saw Sarah check her watch.
Davy said, 'You know, people think that it was called the White House after you Brits burned it down. Not so, it only got its name in 1901, under ...' He turned to Josh for the answer.
'Roosevelt.' Josh looked at us sheepishly.
'Hey, if you work here you have to know these things.'
There wasn't much we could say, and there was only so much burned stone we could look at. After a minute or so, Davy said, 'OK, let's go bowl a few.'
As we pushed our way through the fire doors, I could see maybe twenty-five or thirty meters of white painted corridor in front of me, each side of which had white wooden doors slightly inset into the walls. The whole area had a functional feel. It was lit by strip lighting, with secondary lighting boxes positioned at key points in case of power failure or fire. The same cook house-and-polish smell hung in the air. There was no activity down here at all. Our footsteps squeaked on the tiles and echoed along the corridor.
We came to a pile of cardboard boxes and bulging bin liners stacked against the wall.
'It's just like any other house,' Davy said.
'All the junk goes into the basement.'
We passed several of the white doors and came to a gray metal one with a slowly flashing red bulb above it. Davy pointed up.
'Let's see who's in.'
He swiped his ID card through a security lock and said, 'Welcome to Crisis Four.'
He opened the door and gestured us in. I followed Sarah into a darkened room that contained a bank of at least twenty CCTV screens set into the wall in banks of three. Each carried a different picture, with a time code bar at the bottom ticking away the milliseconds. The colored views were of large, richly decorated rooms, and hundreds of meters of corridors and colonnades. On a desktop that ran the whole length of the console, illuminated by small down lighters were banks of telephones, microphones and clipboards.
I went in and moved to one side so that Josh could follow. The temperature was cooler in here; I could hear the air conditioning humming gently
above me. Lined up in front of the bank of screens were four office chairs on castors. The sole occupant of the room was sitting on one of them, dressed inERT black, his baseball cap illuminated by the screens as he mumbled into one of the phones.
I looked at Sarah. Her eyes were glued to the screens; I could see the light from them reflecting off her face.
The phone went down and Josh called out, 'Yo, Top Cat! How goes it?'
TO spun around in his chair and raised both arms.
'Heyyya, fella! I'm good. It's been a while.' He was white and looked in his mid-thirties, with a very smart, well-trimmed mustache.
They shook hands and Josh introduced us.
'This is Nick, and this is Sarah, they're from the U.K. Friends of mine. This is TO.' We both walked over to him, and he stood up to shake hands. His chin already had shadow and he looked as if he needed five or six shaves a day; either that, or he'd been on duty all night. He was maybe about five foot six, with short dark brown hair under his black cap.
TC's firm grip contrasted with his very soft Southern accent, but both oozed confidence.
'What have you seen so far?'
'Josh has been showing us what happened the last time the Brits were down here.'
Sarah had a question to ask Davy.
'Do you think it would be possible to see the State Dining Room? It's just that I'm a big fan of Jackie 0 and...'
Davy looked at TO, who shrugged apologetically.
'I'm sorry to have to tell you folks that no one can go upstairs today.'
Josh felt that he had to explain.
'Access depends on what is going on.
Just about any other day would have been fine. Hey, thousands of people visit most days; it's one of Washington's biggest attractions.'
Sarah and I both started waffling variations on the theme of, 'It's no problem, it's great just being here. We're really enjoying it.'
Davy sounded like he had a good idea.
'I tell you what, from here you can see it all anyway.' He pointed at the screens, and then proceeded to give us a quick rundown.
'As I said, this room is Crisis Four. It's one of the control centers from where any incident in the White House or grounds can be monitored and controlled. Which control center is used depends on where the incident occurs.'
Sarah and I were all eyes and ears as we looked at the screens, especially the one that showed the press briefing room. Not much had changed in there. I kept my eye on it, though.
TO took over the brief as he went back to his chair.
'Crisis Four could be used, say, if anything happened upstairs--the president and first lady would be moved down here to the secure area. It also doubles as the bomb shelter. There's a kinda neat room beyond this for the VIPs.' He pointed at a screen.
