He took his time heating milk to two hundred degrees, rinsing his favorite mug under the boiling-water tap to bring it up to temperature, and then mixing in his homemade cocoa powder. He sipped it, but it wasn’t quite right. Christmas was recently gone—the holiday madness that wracked the White House kitchens every year had subsided—but it was too abrupt. He fished a whole nutmeg out of the pantry and used a rasp to grate a little over his mug. A pinch of allspice and a quick stir. He let it steep for a minute or two to blend properly, then tasted it again.
Yes, just a little nostalgia after the holidays to soften the blow of descent from the madness of the holidays into the bland, unending stretch of January. Nothing ever happened in January…except for mesmerizing dog trainers.
He sat at the marble counter with his cocoa and his notepad, finally allowing himself to flip to the sketch he’d made yesterday while out at the James J. Rowley facility. He studied it carefully. It was pretty enough—a white chocolate, half eggshell with jagged edges, filled with a bourbon mousse and crowned with fanciful dark chocolate work.
Something wasn’t right there. At least not yet. Perhaps because the crane also looked like a stork and neither the President nor the Vice President had reproduced yet. That created a mixed message that he wasn’t wholly comfortable with. A bluebird perhaps? Did Southeast Asians believe in the bluebird of happiness?
Something more bothered him, but he was having trouble pinning it down.
Vietnam, Japan, and the Philippines. The only thing their flags had in common was the color red. Hard to play off that.
Using Marou chocolate from Lam Dong province might please the Vietnamese delegation, but might well insult the others for perceived favoritism. While the Philippine chocolatiers were doing well, only Kablon and Malagos came close to the same standard. And Japan didn’t make chocolate at all. Regrettably, to avoid offense, he’d have to go South American or African. But that still didn’t solve the lack of a Japanese element.
The dessert felt almost old hat—three different grades of chocolate to make…
No. He wanted something…
The words were eluding him. He knew from experience that only when he found the right words could he then design the confection.
He studied the sketch again. It was pretty enough, but it was lacking in meaning.
He crumpled up the page and tossed it away. Yesterday it would have been good enough, but not today.
Clive doodled on the corner of the next page while he contemplated what had changed. It wasn’t merely enough to achieve, he wanted to excel. Something had shifted in his understanding of what he did.
Life was like that, perceptions growing and changing in fits and starts, and he’d come to anticipate their arrival. By the time he understood that he was a chocolatier, he had already graduated from the CIA—the Culinary Institute of America—and slaved for four years under the eagle eye of two different masters, one in Chicago and another in LA before finally going to work for the great Jacques Torres in Manhattan. He sipped his hot cocoa again after raising it in a toast to the signed photograph of Torres and himself on the wall.
The invitation to the White House had shocked Clive until he had looked back at his steady climb up the ranks of the nation’s dessert kitchens post-Torres: the Beverly Wilshire in LA, The Plaza in New York, The Greenbriar…
Only in retrospect did his life ever make sense.
He was less certain about what had changed last night, though something definitely had. He was no longer content with a design that just yesterday he would have happily created and he knew would have been well received.
Whatever the seed of the change, he could see more clearly now. It was not enough for his dessert to be pretty and a topic of conversation. It had to have meaning. It had to have…purpose.
There! That was the problem. He knew almost nothing about the purpose of the dinner he was designing for.
He tapped his pen on the page. Who to ask? The kitchen team wouldn’t know any more than he did. Chef Klaus was not exactly an elevated thinker. An elevated chef? Absolutely. But thinking wasn’t an ingredient he used very often.
Clive sipped at his cocoa for inspiration, but only found an unpleasantly lukewarm concoction that had a little too much allspice in it.
Miss Watson would know, but he couldn’t imagine bothering her with anything as trivial as a chocolate design.
What was it Miss Watson had said about Linda? That she saw no boundaries.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he now saw a boundary that was behind him. One that had limited his vision. The problem was that every time he turned around, he saw Linda Hamlin’s face.
It took him a moment to understand the he really was seeing her face.
“You came!”
Linda could only blink in surprise.
She hadn’t actually come looking for Clive, but he seemed so happy about her arrival that she didn’t want to gainsay him either.
Finally, in self-defense, she held aloft the map she’d been following. Rather than sending her and Thor to the fence line—the standard location for floppy-eared dogs to patrol—Captain Baxter had given her a map. Actually a book of maps—who knew the White House was such a vast complex.
“President Zachary Thomas and the First Lady are traveling—three days in Tennessee at her family’s ranch,” Baxter had rattled off his instructions so fast that only her military experience let her keep up with them. “Vice President Daniel Darlington is up on the Hill for the day. Go learn the White House. I want you and Thor familiar with every square inch.” She was beginning to discover quite how tall an order that was.
Not wanting to bother anybody until she felt a little more sure of herself, she’d chosen to first explore everything below the Ground Floor. The West Wing was generally acknowledged to have three floors: the Ground Floor she’d entered on that included the USSS office and the Situation Room, the State Floor with the Oval and other key offices, and some more office space on the Second Floor. She’d discovered a labyrinth of two more stories below that, including several places where a Marine guard waited, so she decided to tackle those later. This included a massive new complex under the north lawn that had been built between 2010 and 2014 that she somehow doubted even her full-access pass would allow her into.
On second thought, rather than waving the book of maps aloft, with its bold “Secret” label on the cover, she tucked it in her vest pocket. She had no idea if Clive was authorized to even know that some of the areas existed.
“I’m so glad that you’re here.”
“You are?” She’d barely met him yesterday.
“I am,” his big voice boomed about the tiny kitchen. “Welcome to my kingdom.”
“Um, I don’t want to appear rude, but isn’t it a little small for a kingdom?” The room was perhaps twenty feet square, and that was only if it was stripped to the walls. Instead, every single nook and cranny was packed solid. White marble work surfaces, massive doors to walk-in refrigerators, and lots of fancy kitchen machinery. The center six-by-six-foot work table left barely enough room around it for two people to squeeze by each other.
On the few uncovered wall surfaces were pictures of too astonishing a variety to quite take in: peacock feathers, cobblestone streets in the rain, a postcard of modernist art. They all blurred together. Only the area around a portrait of a smiling man shaking Clive’s hand seemed to rise out of the general noise.
“Nonsense!” Clive bounced to his feet. “It’s a splendid kingdom! Come. I’ll give you the grand tour, then I will ply you with tasty treats because you must come to my aid.”
Linda tried to keep up, but three separate agendas in a single sentence seemed a bit much. “Maybe I should just…” She made the mistake of turning her head for a moment to wave down the hall that supposedly led to the Flower Shop. It was her next destination and then the three unlabeled rooms merely marked Storage beyond that. She’d found many interesting things that were marked that way on the map,
none of them having to do with storing anything.
Her ill-timed distraction allowed Clive time to scoop up something from the counter and cross two of the four steps that defined the breadth of his kingdom to squat in front of Thor.
“He can’t eat chocolate,” she warned him off. “It’s poisonous to dogs.”
“I know that. How about a little bacon? I’ve been testing a savory treat, baked maple-glazed bacon with a chocolate drizzle that I haven’t applied yet. Is this okay?” He held aloft the piece of bacon.
Thor was nearly shivering with anticipation.
“Ja,” she whispered to the dog, who practically snatched it from Clive’s fingers the moment she gave him permission. Clive clearly knew to keep his fingers out of the way when dogs and bacon were involved. Technically, it was bad form to let anyone feed a Secret Service dog other than its handler, but Clive seemed okay.
Okay?
He was on his knees by her dog, thumping him lightly on the ribs as Thor made quick work of the treat.
“Now,” in a deceptively smooth and light motion for a man of his size, Clive was on his feet once more looking down at her.
At six-four he seemed too large for the kitchen, and so close that she had to crane her neck slightly to look into his eyes. He was thinking hard about something, but she had no idea what. Then he had her arm in his grip and was tugging her over the threshold that only Thor had crossed.
In moments he was describing shining machines with words she’d never have applied to them or didn’t recognize at all.
A grinder was neither for coffee beans nor smoothing down the side of an M-ATV where a bullet had pierced the heavy armor.
Conching was something done for days on end though she didn’t understand what or why.
The tempering vat didn’t seem angry at all.
“In the past, the White House Chocolate Shop has always relied on the production of chocolate by others. Chefs took the finished product in bulk and worked it from there. Whenever I can, I step back earlier in the process. I don’t have room for a cocoa nib roaster, but I have control of the rest of the line after that point. Here, I’ll show you the difference.”
He pulled on a latex gloves before reaching into one of the coolers. On a tiny white plate, he placed three bite-size pieces of chocolate.
“Taste these. Start with that one,” he pointed.
Unable to pull back from the rushing vortex that was Clive Andrews in his element, she gave in and tasted the first one.
“Nice enough, right? Melts well. Smooth on the tongue. A little crunch when you bite it. Swallow and the flavor lingers for several moments.”
She tasted all of those things, none of which she’d ever noticed before.
“Now, a sip of plain seltzer to clear the palate,” he handed her a glass that he’d been pouring. “This should be lime sorbet, but I don’t have any handy at the moment.”
When she opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t have a palate, he popped a second piece in her mouth.
“Notice the sharper snap when you bite on it. There are hints of the terroir. A suggestion of vanilla, though I haven’t added any to this batch. The melt is slower, teasing at your senses as it unfolds. When you finish, it lasts, convincing you… Almost whispering in your ear,” he leaned in and did just that. “More. Eat a little more.”
She tried to pull back, but her body said to lean in. The two canceled each other out, but she wouldn’t soon forget the way his voice lowered and teased like the chocolate did.
“More seltzer now. And now the third piece.”
She didn’t even make a pretense of reaching for it, instead just opening her mouth and closing her eyes as he popped it into her mouth.
“Bite it,” he whispered.
She did. The snap was fresh and crisp. Behind it came a tidal wave of sensations. So smooth, it was almost like cream. Flavors wandered by, teasing, enticing, promising…and delivering. She breathed in through her nose and the flavor built and unfolded. It was just chocolate and vanilla, but it seemed to unravel and entice with so much more. She didn’t know what any of them were, but they were both magnificent and subtle in the same moment.
“Now notice—”
“Hush,” she reached out and clamped her hand over his mouth. “I’m having a moment here.”
His smile tickled against her palm.
Clive had long ago learned the power of good chocolate over women. But never in his life had he so enjoyed watching one eat it.
When Linda closed her eyes, her face softened. The fiercely focused Secret Service professional revealed an unexpected gentle side—transformed from brittle, sharp-edged sugar work to smooth chocolate sculpture. No longer bundled in her jacket against the January chill, her sleek athleticism still defined her, but it was no longer all of who she was.
Then she opened her eyes. Between one eyeblink and the next, Sergeant Hamlin returned. She pulled her hand away from his mouth as if she’d been electrocuted.
“Okay. That was tasty. I’ll admit that.”
He couldn’t help laughing. She might think she was all the tough dog handler, but now he knew better. He’d seen the woman behind the wall. And he wanted to see more.
“I have work to do. Thanks for the chocolate.” And that quickly, she almost slipped out of his reach.
“Wait!”
“For what?” Linda turned to look at him from halfway out the door. The woman moved as if attached to a teleporter.
“I have a problem.”
“The third item on your agenda.”
“I have an agenda?”
She rolled her eyes at him, but he still didn’t know what she was talking about. Under normal circumstances his next agenda might be how to get Linda Hamlin out to dinner, then into his bed, but in her Secret Service mode that wasn’t going to happen.
He thought about reaching for her, but that too had shifted.
One moment she’d had her hand over his mouth—a teasingly gentle touch. So close that he could smell her. Unscented soap and shampoo left her own natural flavors to fill the air around him: the softness of honey and the warmth of fresh ground chili powder mixed with the freshness of new-fallen snow. She presented the most evocative sensations he’d ever encountered.
The next moment she was…herself. Half out the door and all about getting on with whatever business had led her past his shop.
“You said you needed my help.”
“I did?” He did? “I do.”
And he’d think of why in a minute, but if that was enough to hold her in place…
“Oh. Right,” he moved back to the stool at the counter in front of his notepad, hoping that would draw her back into the shop.
She waited at the threshold. Well, if that was the best he was going to get, it would have to do for now.
“I need to make a special dessert. Something…relevant.”
Again, the waiting silence that he was learning was Linda’s answer to so many questions.
“The leaders of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan will be here next week. Something about some islands. Do you know why?”
“Why would I know that? This is my first day in the White House.”
“Do you know what islands they’d care about?”
“For those three together? Probably the Spratlys. China has claimed them though they lie six hundred miles south of the People’s Republic. They’ve dredged the reefs to build islands, one of which is now a heavily equipped military base offering them a significant forward projection of air and naval power. They’ve done all this despite United Nations’ rulings that they didn’t have the right to do so.”
Clive could only blink in surprise. “Why would they do all that?”
“It extends their territorial control. For one thing, it places them at the center of a major oil tanker route reaching all of the way back to the Persian Gulf. They want to protect that supply chain as well as they can in future years. Possibly even preempting all three o
f those countries’ supplies for their own benefit. Taiwan’s and Korea’s as well, for that matter. Without massive oil imports, there is no China, no matter how fast they burn coal.”
She’d already completely shifted his understanding of the upcoming meal. A white chocolate egg with a bourbon mousse was completely irrelevant to the proceedings. New Birth had nothing whatsoever to do with this kind of problem. He needed to completely rethink it.
He could feel her watching him, but he didn’t know what to say. How many of his desserts had he delivered with such little understanding of what was actually occurring upstairs in the State Dining Room?
Between one eyeblink and the next, his doorway was emptied.
Linda and Thor were gone as if they’d never been. He rushed to the door and caught only the briefest view of the two of them moving silently down the hallway before they turned a corner and were gone. So he hadn’t imagined everything—she actually had been here.
He returned to his marble counter and looked down at his blank sketch pad trying to visualize what did belong there.
Except it wasn’t blank.
His earlier doodle was of a small dog and just a hint of a woman’s face no clearer than a ghost’s.
“Would your dog like a biscuit, my dear?”
Linda checked her map again. White House Residence, Subbasement Two, Room 043-Mechanical.
Then she looked back at the woman. She was tall, silver-haired, and had a pleasant smile. She waved a hand at a ceramic cookie jar in the shape of Snoopy’s red doghouse, complete with the dog himself lying on the ridgeline as a handle. It sat on a small walnut side table.
Room 043-Mechanical had a ceiling of tangled pipes mostly lost in overhead shadows. But the room itself was warmly lit by a gas fireplace set inside a white-and-gray marble mantel at the far end. An old, disused looking desk sat close by the door, with a lone stool in front of it. Beyond that, a long room led past several bookcases to a cozy sitting area. Deep, cheerfully floral armchairs sported lace doilies over the arms.
Linda hesitated and inspected the shadows more carefully. Weapons of war were collected along the tops of some of the bookcases closer by the desk. Not just war, but clandestine war. They were the weapons that might have been used by an assassin or a spy. The Arsenal knife, with a .22 six-shot revolver built into the handgrip. A Ruta Locura single shot .22 LR rifle that could break down into a pair of carbon-fiber tubes—stock and barrel—no bigger around than her thumb and each as long as her forearm. Add a scope and it still weighed under a pound and a half. Utterly lethal and very hard to detect. It made the sniper rifle from The Day of the Jackal movie look clumsy.
Off the Leash Page 4
