State of Affairs

by Marie Force

  “It looks that way,” Terry said.

  Nick hung up the phone. “This is kind of crazy, right? Who puts the president of the United States on hold?”

  “Apparently, the president of Iran does,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said.

  “Call him back,” Nick said. “Tell him he’s down to ten minutes if he wishes to avoid military action. Enough dicking around. He needs to let Ruskin and the others leave, or we’re going in after them.”

  It took a few minutes, but they got President Rajavi back on the phone with the message that President Cappuano was running short on patience.

  “My apologies for the interruption, Mr. President.” Rajavi spoke in perfect British English. Before their call, Nick had read briefing documents about the president that had included information about his tenure at Oxford as a graduate student. “One of my aides had additional information that I wanted to gather before we continued.”

  “I want to know when my secretary of State will be permitted to leave Tehran. Any other information you might have is irrelevant.”

  “I understand your concerns, Mr. President.”

  “Do you? I’ve just been briefed by my military leaders on the staggering array of options available to the United States should you fail to immediately release Secretary Ruskin and his security detail.”

  “I assure you that the secretary and his detail are being well cared for at a five-star hotel with deluxe accommodations.”

  “I don’t care about where they’re staying! They came to meet with you in the hope that we might de-escalate the tensions between our two countries and convince you to cease the testing of your nuclear arsenal. Instead, you’ve only made things worse by detaining him without even telling us the purpose of the detention. And let me assure you, he’s there against his will despite your five-star accommodations. You have until midnight Eastern Time to release him and allow his plane to depart, or we’ll take action.”

  “After our meetings, we invited the secretary to extend his stay so we could demonstrate that our hospitality is second to none. Your secretary was more than happy to avail himself of our resort and spa. I believe you’ll find the photographs we sent quite illuminating.”

  Nick looked to Teresa, his brow raised.

  She got busy on her laptop, turning it a minute later to show photographs of a smiling Ruskin in a swimsuit and sitting by a pool, drink in hand, surrounded by attractive, topless women.

  Nick pressed the mute button. “What the hell am I seeing?”

  The question was met with shocked silence.

  He pressed the button to unmute the call. “I’d like to speak to the secretary.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. He’s currently having a massage.”

  Nick was quite certain his head was going to explode. “Get him out of the massage and put him on the phone. Now.”

  “Please hold.”

  “He put me on fucking hold again. What is this? A test to see if the new American president is trigger happy?”

  The secretary of Defense stared at the images on the laptop, his mouth partially open in stunned disbelief. “I… I don’t know, sir.”

  Nick waited impatiently for the secretary of State to come on the line, which took ten excruciating minutes.

  “Mr. President.”

  “Secretary Ruskin, what’s the meaning of these photos we’re seeing?”

  “Staged.”

  Nick had no idea what to believe. “Are you free to leave the country?”

  “I believe I am now, but I wasn’t previously.”

  “Get on the plane and get out of there right now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’d like to speak to the president again.”

  “Hold on, sir.”

  Nick listened as the phone was transferred from one man to the other.

  “Mr. President.”

  “I have no idea what kind of game you’re playing, but hear this. I’m not playing. Unless you want to face new sanctions and potential military action, you’ll immediately allow the secretary of State and the others to leave Iran and you’ll stop your nuclear testing. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Abundantly. However, you should know that the secretary was always free to leave. It was his choice to stay.”

  Nick would deal with that possibility when Ruskin and the others were safely on their way home. “I’ll be waiting to hear that their plane is in the air.” He pressed the button to end the call. “What the fuck is this?”

  “I have no idea, sir,” the Defense secretary said.

  “We’re working intelligence channels to get more of a handle on what took place,” Teresa said. “I’ve also reached out to the Secret Service director about debriefing the secretary’s security detail upon their return.”

  “I want to know exactly what happened,” Nick said. If this was some sort of lapse on Ruskin’s part, Nick would see to it that he was prosecuted.

  “Yes, sir,” the others said.

  They’d come to the brink of war while the secretary of State was cavorting with topless women? He wasn’t sure he believed the man when he’d said the photos were staged. Ruskin wouldn’t have been Nick’s first, or even his hundredth, choice to be secretary of State. Ruskin had a swagger to him that was off-putting to Nick. His ego was as big as the ten-gallon hat he wore every chance he got. In Nick’s opinion, Ruskin lacked the gravitas to properly represent the United States as its top diplomat.

  They waited another tense hour before they received word that the secretary’s plane was in the air.

  “I prepared a statement for you to make to the media,” Trevor said, handing it to Nick, who quickly skimmed it.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Trevor made a call and asked someone to put the statement on the teleprompter.

  Nick walked with his team to the press briefing room, where the White House press corps awaited an update, even though it was after two on a Sunday morning during a holiday weekend. The tensions in Iran, the sudden death of a president and adjusting to a new administration had all hands on deck.

  That was another reason why the idea of running for president and holding the office hadn’t appealed to him. He wanted to be home with his family, not about to brief the media at the White House on the Sunday morning after Thanksgiving.

  When he walked in, everyone stood, and the room went quiet.

  “I have a statement I’d like to share, and then I’ll take a few questions. At just after one thirty a.m. Eastern Time, we received word that the plane carrying Secretary of State Ruskin and his entourage departed Tehran, and the plane has now cleared Iranian air space. I’ve been in touch with Iranian President Rajavi, who has characterized the incident as a ‘misunderstanding.’ Needless to say, we’re eager to debrief the secretary, as well as the others who were with him, about exactly what transpired. Until we’re able to do that, we’re not going to speculate on what occurred or make any statements about what, if any, consequences will be considered. At this moment, I’m relieved that our fellow Americans are safely on their way home, and I appreciate the cooperation of President Rajavi in bringing this incident to a safe, successful conclusion. I’ll take a few questions.”

  The room erupted into calls of “Mr. President.” He chose the longtime White House reporter from NBC News. “Peter.”

  “Mr. President, did President Rajavi give you any indication that the Iranians were attempting to provoke some sort of military or diplomatic response?”

  “Our main focus at this time is getting the secretary and the others safely home. As soon as we know more about what happened, we’ll brief you further.”

  He answered a number of similar questions from other network and newspaper reporters, who were looking for details he simply didn’t have. Then he called on a reporter he didn’t recognize, who was seated in the back of the room.

  “Mr. President, can you please tell us more about the party you attended earlier today in the midst
of this crisis with Iran?”

  “I’d be happy to tell you that I returned to my home for thirty minutes between meetings so I could see my six-year-old twins on their birthday.”

  “Do you think that was the right message to send to the American people who were worried about the situation in Iran?”

  “I wasn’t sending a message to the American people. I was sending a message to my children that their birthday is important to me. At no time was I out of touch with my advisers, and as we weren’t expecting an update from the Iranians until hours later, I took advantage of the break in the action to tend to my family.”

  “Isn’t it true that the children in question aren’t technically your children?”

  The question enraged him, as it had when it was raised in the past. “I think most Americans are able to understand that the concept of ‘family’ has many different meanings to many different people. That’s all for now. We’ll provide an update after Secretary Ruskin and the others are back in the country.”

  He left the podium and walked out of the room, his entire body vibrating with rage over the outrageous questions. “Let’s figure out who posted the photo. I’m going to enforce that NDA.”

  “Yes, sir,” Trevor said. “We’ll get right on that.”

  “Brant, I want to go home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nick had had more than enough of this day.

  On the way to Rhode Island Avenue, Sam caught Nick’s press conference, which had been carried live on the radio. While she was relieved to hear that the secretary and the other Americans were on their way home, she was furious with the questions he’d been asked about the twins. Why did people have to be so insensitive about what constituted a family?

  Families came in all shapes and sizes. Working to bring attention to the many issues involved with infertility, adoption, surrogacy, foster care and other associated subjects would be a focus for Sam as first lady. She hadn’t asked for the massive platform that came with her new role, but now that she had it, she would use it to call for sensitivity and empathy and to celebrate the American family in all its many forms.

  She would also continue to advocate for law enforcement concerns, including racial justice, as well as advocating for spinal cord injury research in honor of her father and learning disabilities related to her lifelong struggle with dyslexia. If there was anything good about Nick being president and her being first lady, it was the opportunity to shine a light on issues that mattered to them.

  On Rhode Island Avenue, she spotted the emergency vehicles, parked a block from them and jogged toward the scene, ducking under yellow crime scene tape that surrounded the body of a man on the sidewalk. Upon a quick glance, she noted the man was young, Black and lying in a pool of blood coming from a chest wound.

  “What do we know?” Sam asked the Patrol officers at the scene.

  “We received a 911 call about a body on the sidewalk, and when we got here a minute ago, this is what we found. We checked for a pulse but couldn’t find one.”

  Sam squatted for a better look at the young man and the wound that’d ended his life. “Have you gotten an ID?”

  “We only touched him to check for a pulse, but didn’t want to go any further until you arrived.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Not that we’ve found yet.”

  “You’ve called the medical examiner?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any sign of the weapon that caused the wound?”

  “Not, but we haven’t looked yet. We only got here two minutes before you did.”

  Sam pulled gloves from her coat pocket and checked for herself to make sure the man had no pulse. A faint sound in the alley to her left caught her attention. Sam moved quickly to investigate, withdrawing her weapon from the holster on her hip and holding it in front of her while signaling to the other officers to back her up as she crept toward the sound. “Flashlight?”

  One of them illuminated the alley, where a naked young Black woman watched them with big, haunted eyes. She had abrasions and cuts all over her and was bleeding from her face or neck. Sam rushed to her side, trying to determine where the blood was coming from. “Call for a bus and get me something to cover her with.”

  A bloody knife was on the ground next to her.

  “Are you cut?”

  Wincing, she turned her head so Sam could see a wound in her neck.

  Sam immediately put pressure on it to stop the blood gushing from it. The other woman cried out in pain. “Sorry. I know it hurts. What’s your name?”

  “Shanice Williams.”

  “Hang in there for another minute, Shanice. Help is on the way.”

  “What’ve we got?” Freddie asked when he joined her with a sheet they used to cover the young woman.

  “Two vics, one probably DOA.” She nodded to the knife. “Bag that and then see if he’s got ID on him.”

  Freddie stored the knife in an evidence bag and then went back to the male victim to find his wallet. He opened it, found the man’s driver’s license and took a photo of it. “Eduardo Carter, age twenty-three.”

  “Such a waste.”

  EMTs arrived a minute later and worked feverishly to stabilize the woman and prepare her for transport.

  To Freddie and Gonzo, who’d also joined them, Sam said, “Let’s start a canvass of the area and see if anyone saw or heard anything. Find out if we’ve got cameras nearby, and get me that footage. Get Crime Scene here to do a full analysis.”

  They left the alley to see to her orders while Sam stayed with the young woman until she was loaded into the back of the ambulance.

  “Where’re you taking her?” Sam asked the EMTs.

  “GW Trauma.”

  “Is she going to make it?”

  “She’s stable even though she lost a lot of blood.”

  Since she was stable, Sam would talk to Shanice in the morning, after she’d been treated for her injuries. Sam joined Cruz and Gonzo to knock on neighborhood doors, looking for witnesses, but they couldn’t find anyone who’d admit to having seen anything. After an hour of working both sides of the avenue and putting up with shocked people who recognized her, she checked in with Lieutenant Haggerty, the Crime Scene Unit commander.

  “We’re not finding much of anything,” Haggerty said. “I sent the knife to the lab for analysis.”

  “Keep me posted on what the lab has to say.”

  “Will do.”

  They waited until Dr. Byron Tomlinson, one of the deputy medical examiners, arrived on the scene with his team.

  Byron squatted to take a closer look at Eduardo’s wound. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said to Sam.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Didn’t think we’d be seeing you out here anymore.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “I see that. No detail?” he asked, looking around for Secret Service agents.

  “Just do your job, Byron, so I can do mine, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me that.”

  He chuckled at her testy tone even as he moved forward with his exam of the victim. “Looks like one stab wound straight to the heart. No defensive wounds to his hands,” Byron said as he placed bags on them to preserve evidence. Byron and his colleagues transferred the young man’s body to a gurney and loaded it into the back of their truck. “I’ll shoot you a report the minute I have it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry to poke the bear.”

  “No worries.” It wouldn’t be the first or last time she’d have to deal with colleagues who had questions about her new role—and Nick’s. “Let’s go notify the family,” she said to Freddie and Gonzo.

  “We can do it if you want to go home,” Freddie said.

  “I’m not going home until the work is done.” Notifying the family members of murder victims was the worst part of the job, and she wasn’t about to delegate it to her subordinates so she could go home to f
ight with her husband.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sam, Freddie and Gonzo took her car to a Dupont Park address in the District’s Southeast quadrant.

  “One of you do a run on Carter,” Sam said.

  “I’m on it,” Gonzo said.

  “I heard they released the secretary of State,” Freddie said, glancing at her from the passenger seat.

  “I heard that too,” Sam said.

  “Nick sounded pissed in his press conference,” Gonzo said. “Have you talked to him about it?”

  “Not yet.” She wondered if he was still at the White House or had gone home. Anxiety chased through her when she thought about the reckoning she faced when she saw him.

  They arrived at the address listed on Carter’s license, a standalone single-family home off Minnesota Avenue.

  “I used to spend a lot of time in this neighborhood,” Gonzo said. “I played frisbee football in the park and hung out with some guys who lived a few blocks from here.”

  “This was a rough part of town when I was growing up, but it’s gotten really nice,” Sam said, her heart aching when she took in the well-kept two-story home. Was she going to have to tell parents their son was dead? Or had Carter lived in this house with a partner? Either way, it would suck.

  “Long list of priors for Carter—mostly misdemeanor drug stuff until recently, when he was charged with felony assault of his mother over a year ago.”

  “Where does that case stand?”

  “He was out on bail awaiting trial.”

  “Let’s get this over with. Cruz, come with me. Gonzo, wait on the sidewalk so we don’t overwhelm them.”

  “Got it,” Gonzo said.

  Ever since she and Freddie had been shot at through a closed door, Sam had been a lot more cautious about approaching doors on the job. She rang the doorbell, which she could hardly hear from outside. “Now that’s how a doorbell ought to sound.” They encountered far too many that sounded like air raid sirens that would scare the shit out of her if she had to live in those houses.