‘The Cabinet Wives’ Good-works Committee, more accurately known as the Cabinet Wives’ Gossip Club. It’s really a lunch club, but you wouldn’t believe what we learn…’
‘This is beginning to sound dangerous. How do you know you are not being recorded?’
‘Because Ari Kratos always has the restaurant swept for electronic bugs, or whatever, before we get there, and we always have a private room. Didn’t he tell you? Apparently, it’s a long-standing tradition since well before you became AG,’ Mary said.
‘There are a few women in Cabinet, are their husbands invited to your lunches?’
‘You must be joking. We are not that liberated. Anyway, they would stifle our non-business conversations, which is most of them.’
‘When did you last meet?’
‘Yesterday, and it was a particularly interesting lunch, as it happens, mainly because of the Paul Dias situation. I was sitting next to whispering June Nyckson…’
‘Whispering?’
‘Yeah, June is rather shy and never talks to the table, like most of us. If she has anything to say, she holds a napkin to her mouth and whispers to the person sitting next to her.’
‘I see,’ Adam said, slightly amused by the goings on at the wives' club. ‘And what did she whisper to you yesterday?’
‘She asked me if I had heard about Operation Olympus and wondered if it was connected to Paul Dias’s accident.’
‘She did what!’ Adam yelled, jumping up and spilling the coffee he was holding.
‘It’s all right, darling. I said I knew nothing about it, which I don’t really.’
‘No, neither should she. Did anyone else hear her?’
‘I don’t think so. Why are you so upset about it?’
‘Because we think that it wasn’t an accident that nearly killed Paul. Someone must have leaked the purpose of the Cabinet meeting and wanted to prevent him from making his presentation.’
‘Wow! It must be important,’
‘It certainly is. In fact, it's so important that only a few of us know about it.’
‘And those few obviously include Secretary of State Chuck Nyckson…’
‘No! That is very much the point; they don’t…’
‘Then how did whispering June know?’
‘Exactly! Did you see her talking to anyone else? Do you kind-a-mingle before taking your seats at the table?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yeah, we have a cocktail – or two in her case. Now let me see…Yep, now you mention it, I saw her talking to the Ploutonos woman…’
‘Would I be right is assuming that you don’t get on with Ina Ploutonos?’ he asked.
‘Damned right. It’s incredible that she can walk at all with the weight of all the jewels she always wears. I mean, to flaunt wealth like that…’
‘Thank you, that is most helpful,’ Adam said.
‘Is it?’
‘Oh, yes – I assume Ann Dias wasn’t there?’
‘No, she spends all day at the hospital, poor woman…’ she began but stopped when she heard a car crunching up the drive.
‘Ah! That reminds me. Ann did say that she couldn’t understand why Paul chose to walk from his office to the White House. He hadn’t told her that he was going to do that. And the driver who picked him up from their house was his usual driver. She knew that because Paul had left the laser pointer he was going to use in his presentation, and she raced after him and remembers speaking to Albert, Paul’s regular driver.’
**
In 1880, the English Queen Victoria had two desks made of oak timber from the British Arctic exploration ship HMSResolute that had been stuck in arctic ice until it was eventually recovered by American seamen. The Queen kept one desk for herself and gave the other to President Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States of America.
President Posey placed his elbows on the famous Resolute desk in the Oval Office, clutched his hands together and rested his chin on his fists, while he contemplated the two people standing in front of him.
‘I’m afraid it hasn’t helped us at all, Mr. President,’ Ari Kratos, the Director of the FBI, drawled in his Midwestern accent. ‘When we got the white van out of the river, the Tesla was inside it all right, but it was empty…’
‘Empty? What had you expected?’ Posey asked.
‘Perhaps the bodies of the missing security guards, sir.’
‘Then where the hell are they?’
‘We literally haven’t a clue yet, sir. And as for the perpetrators, there are a bunch of small airfields not far from Fort Washington but none of them had any unusual activity within forty-eight hours of the attack on Secretary Dias. Our guess…’
‘Your guess?’
‘Yes, Mr. President, I mean "guess". Our guess is that the perpetrators headed straight for Dulles International and are now long gone. We’re checking, but we don’t know what the perpetrators look like other than that two of them are big and of Mediterranean appearance – or at least one of them is from a description provided by the EnAg staff. If the perps have any sense, they wouldn’t be traveling together now.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Adam Themison agreed. ‘These people are well organized and ruthless. Paul Dias upset their plans by deciding to walk to the White House. Why he did that we may never know unless he remembers when he comes out of his coma.’
‘What is the basis for your “guess”?’ Posey suddenly asked Kratos.
Themison was surprised by Posey’s surly attitude towards the director of the FBI. It seemed to the AG that the president was so suspicious of Kratos that he, Posey, thought that the FBI man was making everything up, even though his knowledge was little enough. Themison had known Posey a long time and knew that he wasn’t the sort of man to shoot the messenger.
‘It’s based on what the old lady in the Diner, Emerald Elpis, mother of one of the victims, told us. For some reason, they didn’t think it was necessary to kill her,’ Kratos replied rather callously.
‘Okay, thank you, Mr. Director. Don’t stop looking,’ Posey said gruffly.
Ari Kratos took the hint and left the attorney general alone with the president.
The way Posey had addressed Ari Kratos further disturbed Themison who thought it was not only unfair but also uncharacteristic of the president.
‘Take a seat, Adam,’ Posey said, when they were alone. ‘I think our priority now should be to
