by Malcom James
“My answer hasn’t changed, Perry. I come out here every day and do the best I can to bring you and the American people the truth, and my personal feelings are not the issue,” Stevens replied.
“Oh Christ, here we go again,” whispered the woman at Eli’s side. He looked at her, surprised she had spoken at all in the middle of a press conference.
“More dissembling and disambiguation, like a rabbit down a fucking hole.” She whispered so softly only Eli could have possibly heard. He looked at her, but she was still staring straight ahead at the podium.
“Now he’ll play the pity card, chew up three more minutes, and the whole point of the original question will be lost.”
She was right. Stevens went into another time-eating monologue of an answer, explaining how reporters asking questions about other stories from unnamed sources was just another example of the biased press taking a combative position and piling onto the narrative before the truth was even known, in search of ever-more ratings and clicks; and how could they expect the White House to play along with that, when everyone in the country wanted them to get on with the nation’s business, and playing these “gotcha games” of who said what to whom and when was irrelevant to the struggling single mom in Nebraska who was trying to make a better life for her family, and voted for Franks to “drain the swamp.” Nobody cared if the national security adviser had said Merry Christmas or discussed the daily news or the weather with the Russians or anyone else; that was his job, after all, wasn’t it?
“But he wasn’t the national security adviser at the time of the call,” the reporter responded, and they went another round, before Stevens insisted he had answered the question, cut him off, and moved on to a more friendly softball from a reporter for a conservative newspaper in Kentucky, which had never had White House pool access before this week, and whose readers were apparently begging to know about beefing up military spending to defeat the terrorist threat in the Middle East.
When the press conference finally ended and the crowd began to disperse, the woman turned and offered her hand to Eli.
“Sherry Andrews, New York Times,” she said, and he shook her hand as she studied his ID badge.
“Eli Green, chief data scientist, although you wouldn’t know it from this,” he chuckled, showing her the badge she seemed so keenly interested in.
‘I didn’t know the Franks Administration cared about data or science,” she replied.
“Well, I’m proof that we do.” She looked him up and down for a long beat. He suddenly felt very aware of the age difference between them, yet didn’t care. She was some telegenic combination of polished and slightly rough, gorgeous but with all the external cues of a serious journalist who probably didn’t get much sleep and had a TV commentating gig on the side; and yet, something was also vulnerable in her. Whatever it was, the contrast was intoxicating. And that’s when he realized where he had seen her.
“CNN, right?” he asked. She feigned blushing.
“Once in a while. I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell,” she said, and she leaned in close, creating a little bubble of privacy around them.
“Print is prestigious, but TV pays a hell of a lot better,” she whispered. She reached into her hand bag, pulled out a business card and handed it to him. He read it, and it only validated who she was.
“I’ll be down at the Franks Hotel bar around ten with some of my crew, you should join us,” she said as she put her audio recorder in her bag and buttoned her jacket over her blouse, preparing to head outside.
“The press is the enemy these days, I’m not sure that would be sanctioned,” he said, deadpan.
“Oh please, we all do it, where do you think we get our sources?” she asked, then turned and walked out, leaving him standing there with her card in his hand.
***
Eli stayed late, watching the Dearborn fallout unfold, then finally decided to head out just before 10 p.m. He had his laptop bag and $30,000 in the envelope, which he counted twice in the privacy of a bathroom stall.
There was a light snowfall outside the windows. But he had his overcoat, and the new Franks International Hotel was only a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. It was practically on the way home. And even though he had no intention of becoming a source for Sherry Andrews, he had a feeling making her acquaintance might be beneficial down the line, perhaps in more ways than one. Why not grab a quick drink?
He exited the White House complex and trotted across 15th St. NW to the sidewalk, admiring how the street lights gave a faint yellow glow to the snow flakes falling on the street. He had his headphones on, playing the upbeat electronica tracks he liked to run to, walking to the beat in his ears, the stone government buildings on one side and the slick street on the other, occasionally dodging a splash of brown ice from a passing taxi or limousine.
When he reached the Franks Hotel, he marveled at the “GREEDY PIG” projection on the facade of the building, then ran up the steps and inside, and crossed the lobby toward the main bar where he had met with Walter for his interview.
The bar was busy, including one customer who, from behind, appeared to be Sherry Andrews. He headed over and saw he was right. She was sitting at the bar with two other men on one side of her, both in suits, laughing about something on TV. Eli walked up next to her and she immediately sensed him and turned around.
“Hey, you made it!” she said loudly with a broad smile.
“I did, thanks for the invite, mind if pull up?” he asked as he slid out the stool.
“Please!” She proceeded to introduce him to her co-worker from the New York Times, Andy Modanelli, another political reporter, and Gary Sonnen, an attorney from New York that she knew from college who happened to be in town. They were all polite and interested to hear about how they met at the press conference, and had lots of questions about Eli’s job in the new Franks Administration, the wild campaign, the unexpected victory, how they pulled it off, jokingly asking if the Russians had helped them, and then moved on to the news about Dearborn lying to the VP, and the rest of the hot topics around town.
Eli played ball without giving away anything, which wasn’t hard, because the truth was, as far as the campaign went, they didn’t care much about the social media targeting that he did, or didn’t really understand how revolutionary it was, and he didn’t know anything about Dearborn, and wasn’t about to tell them what he did know.
He wasn’t there for her friends anyway. He was drinking beer, she was drinking gin and tonic, and over the next hour she had gone through three or maybe four, and was getting pretty loose. She was smart, and funny, and sexy. He understood why she was both a highly-respected reporter for one of the premier papers in the world, and yet also a talking head on TV.
By around eleven, Gary the attorney had taken off to prep for a deposition in the morning, and Andy was headed out as well. Suddenly it was the two of them, and she was sitting very close to him, and that’s when she asked:
“Are you hungry? ‘Cause I’m fucking starving,” she laughed.
He was too, so they closed out their tab, Eli refusing to allow her to pay for ethical reasons, and so they split it. There were three high-end restaurants in the Franks Hotel, but the Spanish tapas place was already closed, and the steak house was filled with Japanese government officials in town to pay their respects to Franks, and it just felt too cold for the sushi bar.
So they left, and wound up walking three blocks in the snow to a Southern-style barbecue joint, and found themselves alone in a booth. And without her compatriots, or the noise of the Franks Hotel, or the mad dash to find food to distract them, they were suddenly painfully aware that they were sitting there together, face to face, buzzed. A waiter appeared, took their drink order in a thick Southern accent, and disappeared.
“So what’s your real story, Eli Green?” she asked.
“My real story?”
“Yeah, what’s your deal
? What are you all about?” He thought for a moment.
“Disruption.”
She rolled it over in her mind, smiling slightly. It made sense to her in the context of Franks, and wasn’t exactly one she had heard before.
“And what’s your deal, Sherry Andrews?” he asked.
“Truth. As in, it objectively exists, and I’m always searching for it. And now we have a president who seems to be at war with it.”
“Proposing alternative facts is a rhetorical approach he does leverage frequently,” he responded.
“Alternative facts? Oh fuck, come on Eli, the guy is a professional liar!” she blurted out.
“We try not to use that word around the office, you understand,” he said smiling.
“Okay fine, so that aside, that’s why you work for him? Disruption?” Eli nodded yes. It was true during the campaign, and now it was still true, but the target of his disruption was something new, and he couldn’t explain that to her.
“In a way, you could say, I’m also on the hunt for the truth,” he added. She could sense something there, a story underneath. This guy somehow didn’t fit in with the Harold Franks crew of sharks and killers and thieves.
“So what do you want from me?” she asked, staring into him.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he replied.
She smirked, leaned back, rolled her eyes playfully, then refocused on him, her green eyes suddenly focusing, like her mind was overriding the blurriness of the state of her body.
“I’m always looking for a story. And you’re smart, and cute, and fresh and new, so…” she answered. “There, I said it.” She leaned back, as if it was a relief.
“So you’re using me!” he said playfully.
“Maybe, if you’ll let me,” she replied. There was a long silence as the thought travelled through his body.
“Sadly, I’m not sure I have anything you can use.” His guard was going up. He knew he needed to fight this urge, because he wanted to sleep with her, and he did know a ton of stuff, and he was making himself an easy mark by getting drunk with her. And that was not his plan when he walked to the bar. Actually, he had to admit he didn’t really have a plan, it was more of a hunch. A desire. And he needed to get control of it.
“We should test that assumption. That way, later, when one of us needs the other for something else, something more serious perhaps, we’ll have an established ‘value exchange mechanism.’”
What? My god, she was so transactional. But it was hard to argue with that logic.
“I see what you’re saying. I sure could use that water,” he mumbled, looking for the missing waiter as his throat dried.
“And I could use a cigarette,” she said, getting up. “Keep me company?”
“Sure.” He followed her outside, around the corner and into the alley. She tightened her coat and pulled a cigarette and lighter from her purse, her breath making clouds of steam in the dim light, snow flakes falling gently around her. She lit the cigarette, held the drag, then let it go, then offered it to him.
“No thanks,” he said, waving it away, steam coming from his breath as well. It was getting colder.
“Does it bother you?” she asked.
“Not at all, I used to smoke. I still miss it sometimes. But it killed my grandfather, so…”
She took another long drag, exhaled into the night air, then tossed the cigarette on the ground and put it out with her heel, Eli watching her the whole time. She stopped closer to him, staring directly into his eyes. He stared back, unflinching, silent.
She leaned in and kissed him intensely, and then pinned him against the brick wall, pressing her chest against him, and his hands began to run slowly over her body, and their eyes both closed, and within seconds they were consuming each other, a deep hunger, attacking — and then a bolt of lightening struck Eli — an image of the girl, crying blood on the edge of the bed — his eyes opened and he pulled back.
Sherry looked at him but said nothing — and then she came back at him and he tried again, kissing her back even harder and deeper, grabbing her ass, pushing into her as if trying to cleanse his mind, moving his hands onto her breasts, his arousal growing, his eyes closing again — but the girl re-appeared, and now she was crying out loud and struggling in his mind and there was a feeling of panic that mixed into his arousal and overtook him like some kind of PTSD flashback — his eyes re-opened and he pushed her back gently with his arms.
She stepped back, adjusted her skirt, never taking her eyes off him, studying him with surprised curiosity.
“Sorry. I can’t explain, it’s just…”
“I’ve been told I move too fast,” she said, cutting him off.
“It’s not that. It’s just, I don’t want to get —”
She put her fingers to his lips and stopped him.
“Come on, let’s eat, I’m still starving.” She fixed her hair in reflexive action, pulling herself back together, then turned to walk back inside and he followed.
They ate the barbecued pulled-pork sandwiches and had another drink, both feeling oddly sober. They chatted about perfunctory things like two people on a first date, and like nothing had just happened.
After the late-night dinner, they shared a car home, riding in silence, staring at the snow that laid an untouched blanket across the city. His place was closer, so they went there first, and as he got out, she squeezed his hand.
“You have my card,” she said softly, and it took some of the sting out of his failure to follow though on what he thought he wanted. She shut the door, and the driver whisked her away.
9
Domestic Identity Terrorists
Over the next three days, Eli worked from home, ordering the servers and tiny remote microphones and thread-thin optical cables required to build the Oval Office taping system. Using the cash, he purchased Visa and American Express gift cards, then had the hardware shipped overnight to a local mailbox store in a less than desirable part of town.
When he pretended he couldn’t find his license to identify himself as the receiver ‘Tom Sawyer’ — a copy of the order form with tracking numbers, plus a hundred dollar bill, convinced the old Vietnamese man who ran the place that it was all on the up and up. Eli wasn’t sure why this level of deniability was necessary if the taping system was legal, but those were Walter’s and Mack Martins’ requirements, and they were doing it at the direction of the president.
He had only used half the cash, and when he asked Walter what to do with the rest, Walter told him to hang onto it for possible future purchases. He said that was easier than trying to put it back where it came from, wherever that might have been.
Having that much cash lying around made him nervous. He didn’t want it in his apartment, and he couldn’t put it in the bank. He mentally cased the city, and the best location he could come up with was a storage locker in the Greyhound bus station north of Capitol Hill. There were thousands of storage lockers there, with people coming and going from all walks of life, most relatively poor, many transients living on the streets. People wouldn’t expect $15,000 to be stashed there.
He hid the money in socks, stuck them inside several pairs of old running shoes, wrapped those in a garbage bag, and found a locker on a high row in the back section, and locked it away. He committed the locker #6823 to memory, then scraped the number off the orange plastic label on the key, and attached the key to his keychain. Getting the money out of his immediate possession was a relief.
At night, Eli kept dreaming of the girl. It was always the same: she was sitting on the bed, with tears of blood, and a sense of dread that would wake him up. He finally turned to over-the-counter sleeping pills plus a heavy increase in drinking to knock himself out. That worked, but in the morning he had a headache and wasn’t as sharp. He would have to decide which was worse — seeing the girl, or being hungover. For now, he would choose the hangover.
He was stressed, wasn’t eat
ing as much, and his running became sporadic. He hadn’t reached out to Sherry. He was totally focused on building the system and preparing for deployment; he figured it was the only way he might get lucky and somehow find more information on the girl. He felt like he was slowly falling deeper down a tunnel, and wasn’t sure what was at the bottom, but there was no other direction to go.
When he finally had all the gear ready for installation and let Walter and Mack Martins know, Martins laid out the plan: in two days, the president would be traveling to a rally in Ohio to talk about border security and the “big, beautiful wall” he planned to build on the border with Mexico. There would be much less staff and Secret Service around the Oval Office. Someone would come to his apartment and help pick up the gear, someone with top level clearance and a car familiar to the White House guards; someone who could be waived through without an extensive search. They would still get the standard bomb-detection undercarriage treatment, but they were just carrying computers, so even if the guards checked the trunk, it would be fine.
New gold drapes and carpets were being installed in the Oval, hand-picked by the president, and there would be workers coming in and out all day, which would give them good cover for the boxes coming into the hallway. Eli would install the servers and the main access terminal in the president’s private study just off the Oval.
After the drapes and carpet were replaced, the Secret Service would do a sweep to make sure the workers hadn’t left anything nefarious. After the sweep, Mack and Eli and Ken Miller would set the hidden wireless microphones up around the desk and seating areas.
The president had signed a secret Executive Order directing the installation of the taping system, so if they got questioned, they were covered. Reemus had the signed original locked in his desk. They were doing nothing wrong, but the point of doing it this way was to limit the number of staff who knew to the original six: the president, Reemus, Martins, Walter, Ken Miller, and Eli. The date was set.
