Oak and Dagger

by Dorothy St. James

  From digging the holes to dropping the root balls into the ground, President Bradley had insisted on doing it all. Well, not exactly all of it. I’d ordered the trees from our preapproved nursery and had selected the planting site. But when it came to the grunt work, he had insisted on taking over.

  The President’s large, farm-bred hands wrapped around the red handle of the slightly rusty shovel he’d personally selected from the gardener’s shed. No golden commemorative shovel would be used today.

  “In honor of dedicated fathers across the country, I plant a pair of little-leaf lindens. I plant these trees in thanksgiving for my twin sons.” President Bradley’s voice boomed across the South Lawn while a small army of photographers snapped pictures from behind a roped-off partition line.

  “Speaking of Thanksgiving, Casey,” Gordon Sims, the silver-haired White House chief horticulturist, standing beside me, whispered as if nothing odd were happening on the lawn in front of us, “Deloris and I would love for you to join us at our Thanksgiving feast this year.”

  “Hm? Thanksgiving?” I whispered back, unable to tear my gaze off the President. “Oh, you know I’d love to, Gordon, but I need to go home to Rosebrook. My grandmother and aunts have been calling daily about it.”

  The early morning sun was rising above the White House’s iconic round South Portico. With the grand home’s stately columns in the background reflecting a soft pearly white, and President Bradley dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the photos would probably become a defining picture of his presidency . . . as long as President Bradley managed to dig the pair of holes without any trouble.

  A prickle of unease worried the back of my neck.

  “I should have predug the holes,” I whispered to Gordon.

  “If you had, Bradley would have noticed. The press would have noticed,” Gordon whispered back.

  I don’t know how Gordon could stand there looking so calm. So many things could go wrong. The President could hit a root. He could pull a muscle. It could start raining.

  I studied a particularly worrisome line of dark clouds on the horizon. The weather reports had called for an afternoon storm. A chilly fall breeze swirled around us, signaling a cold front was threatening to move through the area several hours earlier than predicted.

  “He should have at least let you serve as his right-hand man. It’s tradition,” I pointed out.

  Gordon put a steadying hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Casey. President Bradley wants to plant his children’s trees, not just throw a shovel of dirt at them. It’s our job to give him what he wants.”

  “Even so . . .” I dug my teeth into my bottom lip as the President removed his first chunk of soil.

  “He needs to do this,” Gordon said. “The poor man.”

  A month and a half ago, First Lady Margaret Bradley had given birth to a pair of tiny baby boys. Neither the pregnancy nor the birth had been very easy on her or the babies. Whispers on the backstairs continued to warn that the three of them were still frightfully weak.

  And the new father, President Bradley . . .

  His troubles were more numerous than ever. The economy was still struggling. Clashes in foreign lands had the military strained to the point of breaking. And gas prices were heading up again.

  Bradley’s advisors, all wearing black suits today, had lined up in the same way the starlings had on the branches in the tree. They tilted their heads in just about the same way, too, as they checked their cell phones. Only his press secretary, who was a new father himself, appeared content to watch the leader of the free world spend the morning digging a couple of holes in the South Lawn.

  The President’s strong features strained with each thrust of the shovel. An odd tightness squeezed my chest as I witnessed the grief of a man who clearly loved his wife and his children. Here was one of the most powerful of men, and he couldn’t make his wife strong again. He couldn’t make his newborn sons healthy. All he could do was dig that blasted hole.

  Gordon was right. Who was I to take that away from him?

  Even the press seemed to sense they were watching something extraordinary and remained unusually subdued.

  “If anything goes wrong, Casey”—Lorenzo Parisi, Gordon’s assistant for the past nine years, sent a sly look in my direction—“you’ll get the blame for not talking Bradley out of this.”

  “I know. I know.” I clutched my sweaty hands behind my back and bounced anxiously on the balls of my feet, praying for clear skies and easy digging.

  Lorenzo was a tall man with dark Mediterranean looks. For the event he’d worn a modern-cut black Italian suit. Not real sensible if he was called on to help with the tree planting. But that was Lorenzo. He rarely wore anything sensible. Gordon and I looked like gardeners with our khaki pants, pullover shirts, and dark blue windbreakers with the White House logo stitched in white thread on the front.

  Lorenzo pointed to the same ominous clouds I’d spotted earlier. “He could get struck by lightning.”

  Gordon shushed us.

  “Should I tell Deloris you’ll be joining us for Thanksgiving again this year?” Gordon asked Lorenzo. Lorenzo’s family lived in California, and he rarely visited them. “She’s baking your favorite sweet potato pie.”

  “Of course I’ll be there,” Lorenzo said. “I would never miss a family gathering.”

  While Lorenzo preened about how he’d attended many, many family events with Gordon, a movement at the far end of the East Wing caught Gordon’s attention. “What is the Wicked Witch of the East doing out here?” Gordon grumbled.

  “Who?” I squinted into the sunlight but only spotted bushes, trees, and a few staffers.

  “Frida.” Lorenzo nodded toward the squat woman lumbering in a crooked line toward us.

  “The curator?” Frida Collinsworth was the White House’s curator and seemed to keep to herself in the curator’s office. She had a keen eye and a sharp mind for finding historical treasures in the White House storehouses. What she didn’t have was sharp vision. The thick glasses perched at the edge of her nose seemed to tilt the plum-shaped woman slightly forward.

  “She stopped by the grounds office this morning when you were out preparing for the planting,” Lorenzo explained while Gordon continued to grumble underneath his breath. “Words were exchanged.”

  “Really? Gordon gets along with everyone,” I said.

  “I’ve never known Frida to get along with anyone,” Lorenzo said. “But in the nine years I’ve worked here, I’ve never seen her as angry as I did this morning.”

  Gordon bared his teeth as Frida moved closer. The two had been working together on a Historic Plants of the White House exhibition with the National Arboretum. It was one of the First Lady’s pet projects.

  I’d been helping by researching the varieties of vegetable plants grown in the White House kitchen gardens during the office’s early years so we could plant a founding fathers’ kitchen garden in the spring.

  “Frida accused Gordon of theft,” Lorenzo whispered.

  “Theft? Gordon? When?”

  “She came in ranting and raving I’d stolen her research and notes she’d been compiling on Dolley Madison. Like I’d be able to find anything in that office of hers. The place is as disorganized as your desk,” Gordon said.

  “My desk isn’t that bad,” I protested. Both Gordon and Lorenzo laughed, acting as if that were the funniest thing they’d ever heard.

  I shushed them.

  We were standing far enough away from the press and the President that there was no danger any of the reporters might accidentally overhear our conversation. Or might accidentally snap our picture. The first rule for White House staff was to keep out of the photos.

  The second rule was to always act in a dignified manner.

  While Gordon and Lorenzo wiped their goofy grins off their faces, Frida spotted the three of us. She wagged her finger at Gordon and then pointed to her watch.

  “Look, t
he bat’s trying to hex us,” Gordon said.

  “She’s scheduled a meeting with the chief usher to discuss the so-called theft,” Lorenzo clarified.

  “Discuss, my foot.” Gordon narrowed his gaze as he turned back to watch the President thrust the shovel into the ground again. “She wants to ruin me.”

  “Ambrose will put her in her place,” I said. The chief usher had a firm rule against drama of any sort from the household staff.

  “I don’t know what will happen. This battle has been brewing for a long time,” was all Gordon would say about it. After a few moments he added, “But if the Wicked Witch of the East thinks she can scare me, she can get on her broom and fly it up her—”

  “Gordon!” I gasped.

  He smiled.

  It wasn’t a friendly smile, and it seemed to warn even half-blind Frida to keep her distance.

  I was still wondering about Frida’s out-of-character behavior when President Bradley stopped digging. He leaned on his shovel. “The planting of commemorative trees has a long history,” he said, “dating back to the 1830s when Andrew Jackson planted a pair of Southern magnolias in honor of his late wife, who tragically didn’t survive long enough to see him take office.”

  “I know for a fact Andrew Jackson didn’t personally plant those trees,” I whispered to Gordon. Extra shovels were tucked discreetly behind some nearby boxwoods. Gordon, Lorenzo, and I were ready to lend a helping hand at a moment’s notice.

  When Gordon had suggested I take the lead in planning today’s event, which had included picking out the planting site and coordinating with the Secret Service and the press secretary, I’d eagerly agreed and had pictured turning the event into a “teaching moment” for instructing the public on the correct way to plant a tree. So many people did it wrong.

  Doing as much prep work as the President would allow, I’d removed the thick carpet of tall fescue grass and had marked how wide the two holes needed to be dug. I’d explained to him the holes needed to be deep enough to just cover the root ball.

  To save President Bradley’s back, we’d selected tree specimens that were barely six feet tall. Even so, the proper size of the holes for the trees was as deep as the root balls, and at least twice their width. A wider hole would have been better, but since the President was personally doing the digging, I went for the minimum recommended size.

  It was the depth of the hole that was critical.

  If the holes were too shallow, the roots would dry out and die. If the holes were too deep, the roots would be smothered.

  Digging the holes was a task the gardening staff should have been allowed to perform. It was, after all, our job. If the trees died, we would be the ones to take the blame.

  “I suppose I could sneak in at night and replant the trees if I need to,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Margaret carried my sons at no small cost to her health,” President Bradley stopped digging to tell the reporters. “I told her and everyone else, ‘I’m going to plant these trees.’” He drew a ragged breath. “It’s the least I can do.”

  His gaze traveled over to me as he added, “And we’re going to care for these trees without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.”

  I nodded. The First Lady had personally hired me last year to implement the White House’s first all-organic gardening program. She’d been pregnant at the time and had been looking to make the White House as safe a place for her new babies as possible.

  President Bradley thrust the shovel into the ground again. “If you get bored, feel free to leave at any time. This might take a while.”

  “It will if he continues to give a speech between each shovelful of dirt removed,” Lorenzo whispered in my ear.

  I’d started to bat Lorenzo and his unhelpful comments away when the President’s shovel hit something that clanked.

  Frowning, I took a step forward. Gordon and Lorenzo followed.

  “Nothing should clank there,” I said. I’d studied the plans for the grounds well enough to know that.

  Gordon took another step forward as he grimaced. “Mr. President,” he called, “John, don’t—”

  With a determined look, President Bradley thrust his shovel back into the hole with greater force than before.

  A low rumble shook the ground.

  The three of us started to run toward the hole just as it exploded in the President’s face.

  Chapter Two

  Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

  —ABIGAIL ADAMS, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1797–1801)

  MUD and water shot at least ten feet into the air from the hole. I hooked my arm with President Bradley’s and pulled him away from the gushing geyser. Bradley’s Secret Service detail grabbed for him as well. One burly agent knocked me to the ground and stepped on my hand as the protective team converged like a tight cocoon around the President. Moving as one undulating mass, they ushered him into a sleek black van and sped away.

  Taking their cue from the President, Bradley’s staffers herded the soaked press back up the hill toward the White House.

  Nearly everybody who’d come out to watch the show was slowly returning to their duties, but not Frida. She stood at the edge of the lawn and squinted at us from behind her thick glasses. Her lips were pulled into a grin that took up most of her round face. She looked happier than a puppy with two tails.

  Gordon had noticed her, too. His fingers curled into a pair of tight fists. He ground his jaw as he glared at her.

  Her behavior was intolerable.

  Every member of the White House staff was on the same team. We were supposed to do our jobs with pride and help one another. I had a mind to march over and wipe that oversized smirk off Frida’s thin lips.

  But I didn’t have time. Lorenzo had already set to work moving the young little-leaf linden trees out of the damaging water spray. Gordon and I scrambled toward the nearest shutoff valve for the irrigation system as water rained down on our heads, soaking us with icy cold spray.

  Gordon flipped the lid off the water box, but without the help of a wrench, neither of us could wrestle the corroded valve closed.

  “Move over.” A hard shoulder nudged me out of the way.

  I looked up to find a warrior with short-cropped hair looming over me. Dressed in a black military uniform, dark sunglasses, and a menacing P-90 submachine gun slung across his chest, he looked like an assassin on a mission.

  Good thing I knew he was one of the good guys. A member of the Secret Service’s elite military Counter Assault Team—or CAT, as they liked to call themselves—he was one of the best of the best.

  “Jack.” My heart raced at the sight of him. Special Agent Jack Turner was my . . . my . . . Hell, I didn’t know how to categorize our relationship. He made me nervous and happy and so very confused. I rarely knew what was going on in that head of his.

  He grimaced at the stuck valve and then grabbed his P-90 submachine gun as if he were at a firing range and the valve was his target.

  “W-What are you doing?” I demanded as I moved out of the way.

  “Helping,” he answered.

  “Don’t shoot it! That’s not going to help.”

  One corner of his lips turned up. He shook his head as he spun the submachine gun around and used the butt of the P-90 as a lever to turn the valve.

  The geyser sputtered and died.

  “Shoot it? Oh, Casey . . .” He chuckled and slung his gun’s strap over his shoulder again. His callused thumb gently brushed my cheek before he jogged back toward the rest of his team.

  Gordon sat back on his heels and scratched his mud-splattered head. “I don’t understand it. You checked for irrigation lines on the plans, didn’t you?”

  “Double-checked! Triple-checked!” I splashed through a puddle of water as I paced. “Out of all the things that could have gone wrong, this wasn’t one of them, and this shouldn’t have happened.”

  A few steps later, I tripped in
to a shallow hole and twisted my ankle. “Milo!” I cried. The President’s overgrown puppy had recently taken to digging up the lawn.

  Jack returned and watched me with a curious expression as I hopped on one foot and shook my throbbing ankle in frustration.

  The rest of the team had joined him. “What’s she doing?” Jack’s buddy asked. “A rain dance?”

  “I think so,” Jack answered.

  Jack and the other CAT agents offered to help us cordon off the President’s muddy hole to keep anyone from stumbling into it. While they worked, we returned the tools and the trees to the utility shed that was hidden behind a canopy of trees on the west side of the South Lawn.

  When we’d finished, I caught Jack’s arm as we both shivered in the chilly fall air. Water dripped from my sodden bangs onto my nose. “Thank you for helping with the valve. What a disaster.” I bit my lower lip and fitted my hand in his. “I’m glad you were here. I owe you.”

  An honest-to-God smile creased his lips. “Perhaps we can talk about payment later.”

  “Tonight?” I blushed like a schoolgirl. “What time?”

  “Did I say tonight?” Jack’s smile dropped as if it had never existed.

  “You implied it.” Although we saw each other several times a week at the White House, we’d only dated a handful of times since I’d kissed him at the Fourth of July fireworks show. And he’d canceled our last two dates . . . at the last minute . . . and without a good explanation, which probably explained why everything about our relationship still felt new and uncertain and, well, terrifying.

  “Casey?” Gordon called. “Are you coming? We need to figure out what happened here.”

  “Just a minute,” I said, and then turned back to Jack. “Well, what’s going on between us?”

  “Go on.” Jack gave me a little nudge with his shoulder. “We can talk about this later. I promise.”

  Since he always kept his promises, I relented. “Okay. Later.”

  Jack had played Watson to my Sherlock a couple of times this past year when I’d found myself in difficult situations. Although, if you were to ask him, he might say he was Ned Nickerson to my Nancy Drew, and then he’d make a remark about my perkiness just to get my blood boiling.