~ 30 ~
Agent Silla spent twenty minutes writing emails before deciding that she was too tired to keep working. But it was only 3 a.m., and she still had four hours to get through before she could hand things off to Agent Liu. The thought of going to the Willard for a few hours of sleep crossed her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. She wasn’t the kind of person—and this wasn’t the time—to break the rules.
She stood up from the armchair and stretched, hoping it would wake her up. It did not. She moved to the couch, removed her heels, and curled up against the corner. Her mind got the hint—the workday has ended—and it started to relax, allowing her thoughts to wander. She thought about her best friend, who now lived in Georgia and knew nothing about what was happening. What a gulf existed between those in the loop and those who were still just going about their daily lives. It didn’t seem fair that her friends weren’t even allowed to know about the threat their families faced at that very moment. Then again, it wasn’t fair that those in the loop had to carry such a heavy burden. Maybe the two injustices balanced each other out. Maybe. She was too tired to calculate which was worse. And she felt drained… almost sad. Why?
At first, Silla thought it was because she had been thinking about her friend. But that wasn’t it. Maybe the anxiety of the last few days was turning into despondency, or a sort of malaise was setting in? No, not that either.
She felt as though she had lost something—except she hadn’t. At least, not anything she could think of.
She went over the events of the preceding day to see if she could figure out what was bothering her. When she arrived at Kilmer, the mystery seemed to unravel. For the last hour or two, she had only caught a glimpse of her feelings toward him, but now, with her guard down, they were more discernable. Agent Lane might have been joking, but he had stumbled upon something substantive.
The professor was supposed to have been a nice elderly gentleman who needed help walking down the stairs. A wise old man with interesting ideas. He was supposed to have fallen off his chair and begged for a flight back to Boston after he found out what was going on. He had turned out to be none of those things.
The problem, Silla realized, was that she wasn’t going to be seeing him again—probably ever. By the time he woke up, she would be gone. And events were unlikely to conspire to bring them together again.
So what? This is nothing real.
Silla knew what it took for there to be something real. She had been engaged once, when she was thirty-two, to a smart, attractive, kind, and successful man whom she had dated for almost two years. But try as she might—and Silla tried for longer than was fair to either of them—she could never imagine him being devoted to any cause far greater than himself. He supported Silla and her aspirations, but he never understood what drove her. She would have been willing to overlook that, Silla finally realized, but what she could not do was spend the rest of her life with someone who could never inspire her.
That, it turned out, was not a small problem to have. Many of the men Silla met were impressive. Almost none were inspiring.
Then there was Kilmer. Silla had dated enough to know that she was incapable of falling for someone so quickly. But there was a catch. On one crucial dimension, Silla had already known Kilmer for a long time. It wasn’t often that you got to know someone’s mind before actually meeting them, but in this case, that foundation had already been established. Even before he managed not to tumble down the stairs at the airfield, she’d felt a genuine intellectual attraction toward Kilmer—and it was allowing her to think about him in ways that would normally take much longer.
Silla reminded herself that she barely knew him as a person, and that what she was feeling, however genuine, could be completely undone in a moment. She might learn one unflattering thing about him, and the spell would be broken. He might say or do something unkind or bizarre or stupid, and it would be a deal-breaker for her.
The only problem: Kilmer kept saying and doing everything right.
Damn it.
It was all she could do to keep from walking out of the Treaty Room, heading straight into the Lincoln Bedroom, and—
And what? Confront him? Chat about the alien threat? Make small talk? Climb into bed with him? A part of her was convinced that it didn’t much matter which of those things she did, as long as it offered her an opportunity to see him again—if only to find out whether he could live up to what she was making him out to be in her mind. The other part of her—the rational part, which she always trusted more—could list a dozen reasons why leaving the Treaty Room was a terrible idea.
Silla decided to stay put. She wouldn’t even leave the couch for a stroll around the room. It was too risky; she might get tempted. She closed her eyes, still thinking of Kilmer. Thinking of the words he had said.
I think if different circumstances had prevailed, we might never have met. So maybe the alien threat isn’t all bad.
Kilmer had gotten it wrong. Never having met was sounding a lot better than what she was feeling at the moment. Maybe he wasn’t so smart after all. That would certainly make it a lot easier to cast him aside.
Or maybe the world would end. Either way, problem solved.
Silla could tell by the dwindling quality of her logic that she was starting to drift off. She tried a little harder to find reasons to be upset with Kilmer, but she couldn’t figure out how to make that work. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that she wasn’t upset at all. She was glad they had met. Kilmer was a good guy. Good for him.
~ 31 ~
The sound of the door startled Silla awake. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and another moment before she started to panic about having fallen asleep in the Treaty Room. What time was it? And who had just opened the door?
“Agent Silla, I’m sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to check in to see how you were doing. If you were sleeping, by all means, please get some rest.”
Was she dreaming? That sounded a lot like—
President Whitman stood at the door.
“Madam President! I apologize. I must have dozed off. This is really embarrassing. If you need the room, I can find somewhere else to sit.”
“Agent Silla, not at all. Please relax. My secretary told me you’d be here, and I saw the light on, so I thought I’d just check in on you. I was heading to bed myself.”
Silla looked at her watch. 3:30. She had only been asleep for about fifteen minutes.
“Thank you, Madam President. That’s very kind of you. Agent Lane and I had expected Professor Kilmer to stay at the Willard, so we had to improvise when plans changed.”
Whitman walked into the room, making sense of the situation. “I see. I guess we didn’t consider that. You and Agent Lane had orders to stay with Professor Kilmer even after his meeting with Zack?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s our protocol to accompany outsiders who are newly brought into the loop for at least the first few hours. To help them acclimate. And for security reasons.”
“Is that to make sure he doesn’t go to the press, or turn out to be a Russian spy, or lose his mind and start calling everyone he knows?”
“Something like that. But if you saw the full list of things the agency worries about in situations like this, you would really wonder who’s lost their minds.”
Whitman laughed. “Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.
“Madam President, of course. It’s your room. Your house. I wouldn’t dream of saying no even if it weren’t.”
“Agent Silla, I like you. Most people just assume that I’m not really asking for permission when I say such things. But I think it’s right to ask.”
“And if I had said that I do mind? That I prefer for you to stand?” Silla asked in a moment of unfiltered curiosity.
“I would have sat down anyway. But I wouldn’t like you nearly as much.”
They both laughed. Whitman took the armchair closest
to the side of the couch where Silla was sitting. Silla slid her feet off the couch and placed them on the floor.
“Agent Silla, you probably already know this, but Art speaks very highly of you. That’s why I remembered your name. I hate to admit it, but with the number of people I end up meeting, it’s hard to keep track of the ones I’ve only met once or twice. Anyway, I’m fully aware that you’ve been leading the international collaborations on communicating with the aliens. It’s a lot to figure out, but it’s some of the most important work that’s taking place right now. And you’re doing a great job.”
Silla smiled. If only she could wake up to such praise every day. “Thank you. But I’m fortunate to have excellent colleagues. If you don’t mind, I’d like to convey your sentiment to my team. It will mean a lot to them.”
“Please do. Now, as to your more immediate concerns—having just spent some time with Professor Kilmer, I am confident that he is none of those things the agency worries about. In fact, I was deeply impressed.”
Silla felt a pit in her stomach. The last thing she needed to hear right now was how great Kilmer was.
“You thought he was that smart?”
“I wouldn’t say smart, exactly—although yes, he’s obviously very smart. But it’s more about how he puts things together. It’s how he sees things. Quite remarkable. And his ability to convey it. You can’t imagine how many bright people, even people much smarter than Professor Kilmer, will simply lose their ability to speak when the president of the United States is in the room. We didn’t have that problem tonight.”
“He wasn’t nervous?"
“He was at first. But then it was like he flipped a switch. After that, no sign of it. Quite frankly, I’m a little annoyed that I didn’t instill more fear in him.” Whitman chuckled. “You know, I’ve read one of his books. Heirs of Herodotus. If you ever get a chance, it’s worth reading. But he’s even better in person.”
Yeah, tell me about it.
“Actually, Madam President, I’ve read all of Professor Kilmer’s books,” Silla confessed.
“Is that right? Had you met him before?”
“No, ma’am. The first time was tonight.”
“And what did you think of him?”
“I’m not sure how you mean.”
“Well, I had always pictured him as being much older. I’m not sure whether Zack ever mentioned how old he was, but I certainly didn’t expect someone close to my son’s age!”
“I know what you mean.” Silla told Whitman about the incident at the airfield—when they mistook Kilmer for a young porter—and it gave the president a good laugh. The scene in the Treaty Room seemed unreal to Silla; she was sitting with the president and chatting like they were childhood friends.
Maybe it was that feeling of unreality, or her lack of sleep, or the sense that Whitman would understand—or maybe it was just how badly Silla wanted to get her thoughts out of her own head—but for some reason, she decided to take a chance.
“Agent Lane was giving me a hard time about Professor Kilmer after that episode,” Silla confessed.
“How so?” Whitman looked at Silla like a mother might—curious about what’s going on in her daughter’s life.
“Agent Lane and I happen to be related—so it wasn’t out of line or anything. But he was just pointing out how Professor Kilmer is smart, funny, young…”
“Handsome?”
Silla looked away. “I don’t think… I’m not sure I looked at him in that way, Madam President.”
Whitman laughed. “Agent Silla, we can’t have people with visual acuity problems working at the CIA.”
Silla blushed. “I don’t know what to say about that. Sure, he’s handsome. But lots of people are handsome.”
“That’s true.”
“Although, it’s not always the case that you find so many qualities you like all in one place.” Silla stopped herself, realizing she’d said a little too much. Everything up to this point had still been abstract, not personal. This had crossed that line. She wasn’t sure how comfortable she felt having this conversation with herself, much less with the president of the United States.
But Whitman seemed unbothered. “Listen, sweetheart—you feel how you feel. No benefit in trying to deny it.”
Silla let out the breath she had been holding. “I’m not really sure how I feel. Or why. It’s probably nothing. I think I just need some sleep.”
“You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out,” Whitman said with a smile. “But I have to hand it to you, Agent Silla, you sure know how to pick the absolute worst time in history to start falling in love. Couldn’t you have tracked him down earlier? Maybe after the first time you read one of his books?”
Silla laughed, even as she tripped over the word Whitman had used. She was sure it wasn’t the right one. She didn’t have the ability to start falling in love with someone she just met, even if there was a connection already in place. But whatever it was, Whitman was right about two things. First, Silla felt how she felt, and it wasn’t worth denying it. And second, this truly was the absolute worst time in history to be feeling anything for anyone.
Whitman put her hand on Silla’s shoulder, as if she were about to say something more—but she remained silent.
“Madam President, is everything okay?”
“I was just remembering when Jack and I first met. You know, it’s amazing how little time it takes to tell someone how you feel, and how much time we spend agonizing over whether to say it.”
Then Whitman stood, and Silla followed her lead.
“Thank you, Madam President. I know I took a lot of your time—I’m sorry about that. And I hope I didn’t say anything that was out of line.”
“Not at all. Now get some rest. If you’re uncomfortable here, we can find you an extra bedroom.”
“No, ma’am. I’m perfectly comfortable here.”
“Well, if you fall asleep, don’t worry. No one else will bother you now.” Whitman procured a blanket from one of the cabinets and placed it on the couch. Then she turned out the lights and left the room.
Nothing had materially changed in the past few minutes, but Silla felt better about things; some of the fog had lifted. A thought came to her, and before she could second-guess herself, she took out her phone and typed out a message. Then she put her feet back on the couch, made herself more compact and comfortable, and pulled on the blanket. She had spent the last 15 minutes chatting it up with the president of the United States, but when she closed her eyes, it was once again Kilmer who was in her thoughts. She didn’t mind it so much this time.
It is what it is.
~ 32 ~
Kilmer looked at his watch. 3:50 a.m. Twenty minutes earlier, he had awakened to the sound of a door being shut, and sleep had eluded him ever since. There was too much on his mind. The White House. The president. The aliens. The crisis. The upcoming meeting. Agent Silla…
He knew he was unlikely to see her again, and it was not a pleasant thought. A few minutes ago, Kilmer had considered walking back to the Treaty Room to strike up a conversation. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well get some more information and be better prepared for the meeting. Even if they only made small talk, the idea of spending more time with Silla was undeniably appealing. He caught himself thinking about how exactly he would start a conversation with her if he decided to go for it—and was both horrified and embarrassed to realize he was acting like a teenager.
The worst thing that can happen is she doesn’t want to talk. That’s not so bad compared to the possibility that we’re all dead tomorrow.
Kilmer rolled off the bed, turned on the light, and put on his shoes. Then he looked himself in the mirror and moved some hair around. It would just have to do.
When he reached the door to the Treaty Room, he found it closed. He thought about knocking, but he didn’t want the noise to travel down the hall to the president’s room. Instead, he just opened the door as quietly as he could. The room was dark,
save for some streetlight coming through the windows overlooking the Treaty Table. His eyes were still adjusting, but Silla was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to him that she had probably left; that must have been the sound he heard earlier. Kilmer was more than a little disappointed.
He was just about to leave when he saw something on the floor. Shoes? He took a few steps into the room—and then he saw her. Agent Silla was snuggled up in one corner of the couch, her eyes closed, a slight smile on her face, and a lock of hair resting on her cheek. She looked stunning. But his delight at seeing her was only momentary. She was fast asleep. They wouldn’t be able to spend any time together after all.
Silla’s blanket had slid halfway to the floor and was now covering only her legs. Kilmer pulled it up to her shoulders, as gently as he could, knowing full well that it would make for a strange scene if she were to suddenly wake up. Then he backed away, slowly, and headed for the door.
“You don’t have to leave.”
Kilmer stopped—still facing the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. You should get some rest.”
“Well, you probably should have thought about that before you treated me like a damsel in distress and fixed my blanket for me.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Silla had been asleep when Kilmer entered the room, but some slight sound had awoken her. She had opened her eyes only for a moment, but it was long enough to see him standing by the door—and for her heart to skip a beat. She was still trying to work out why she didn’t just say hello when she sensed him moving closer to her. A moment later, he was lifting the blanket to cover her up.
Oh, no. A gentleman as well. She certainly couldn’t open her eyes at this point. It would be too awkward for him. For them both.
And then he walked away. By the time she summoned the courage to open her eyes, he was already at the door. It’s now or never, she thought. As in, truly never. That’s when she found the words that stopped him in his tracks.
Kilmer turned around and walked back to her, still keeping his distance. “I’m sorry, I was just trying to make sure you were comfortable. I tried not to disturb you.”
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