Q Clearance

by Peter Benchley

  As the President returned to Burnham, his face seemed different, softer somehow, and when he held out his hand, he said simply, "I'm sure glad we understand each other, Tim."

  "Sir?" Burnham hopped to his feet, thinking: I don't understand a thing.

  "We're both doing the best we can, and that's all any of the bastards can ask." The President handed Bumham his papers and led him toward a door. "You do your job, I'll do my job, and we'll try to coordinate 'em better. Right, Tim?"

  "Right. Sir."

  "You bet, Tim. That's great. Thanks for coming by."

  Before Burnham could reply, he found himself in the corridor between the two Secret Service men, the door closed behind him, the President gone. He felt that the Secret Service men were eyeing him quizzically, as if he had been spewed out of the office like a chaw of tobacco from an angry pitcher, so he cleared his throat gravely, checked his watch blindly, tucked his Important Papers under his arm and walked down the corridor.

  He hadn't gone twenty feet when he felt the meltdown begin. It was like the sequential failure of the elements of a computer: first the sweats, pouring down his neck, under his arms, off his fingers; then tachycardia, the heart hammering faster and faster, from eighty to a hundred to a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty beats a minute, bringing with it the short, panting breath of hyperventilation; then—as the brain began to hunker down in defense against malnourishment —tunnel vision, everything blurred but the tiny object at the absolute center of vision, and that so clear that he could read the address on an envelope being typed by a secretary in an office thirty feet away; now the next-to-last stage—he had had this before, but never in the White House; my God! what would happen if he passed out right on the floor of the West Wing of the White House?—the accumulating panic and the onset of unconsciousness, all vision pulsing in and out, a tingling in the hands and arms.

  He stopped walking and leaned headfirst against the wall and took long, deep breaths.

  A passing secretary stopped and said, "Are you okay?" and he nodded and said thickly, "Thinking. Gotta work something out."

  His head cleared. He knew where he had to go, but he didn't know if he could make it. He turned and aimed for the railing at the top of the staircase that led to the basement.

  He made it in four steps, gripped the railing and took three deep breaths.

  He went down the first few steps, stopped at the landing and targeted the short staircase leading into the Mess.

  He made that crossing without stopping, and now he knew he would make it, and as soon as he knew that, the panic began to subside.

  It was still early in the morning, but the waiters would be in the Mess, setting up for lunch, and he didn't care if they were there or not because what he wanted—what he had to have —would be on every table in a bowl decorated with the Great Seal of the President of the United States.

  Burnham focused on the table nearest the door, took two steps and flopped into a chair. His fingers felt for the sugar bowl, flipped the top off it, and raised the bowl to his lips. He stuck his tongue into the bowl and curled it like a dog taking water and lapped sugar into his mouth. The granules dissolved and slid down his throat, and he lapped again and again.

  In a few seconds, he felt the tingling leave his arms, and his hands were steady enough so he could put the bowl on the table and spoon the sugar into his mouth. He swore to himself—as he had sworn the time before and the time before that—that he would carry a Milky Way or a Snickers bar in his pocket every minute of his life from now on. If he had pumped some sugar into himself before he saw the President, this never would have happened. He could prevent the hypoglycemic-shock reaction by overdosing sugar before the onset of stress. Or so Dr. Arunian had assured him.

  Free-floating anxiety, Arunian had called it, caused by hypoglycemic shock, caused by the body's natural reaction to acute stress, which is to gobble up all the sugar in the system.

  Carry a Snickers bar, and you'll be fine.

  But how was he supposed to know the President was going to do a number on him?

  Besides, have you ever carried a Snickers bar in your jacket pocket in Washington, D.C., in the summer?

  All these thoughts ran through his mind, and he was feeling much better, almost functional, when he sensed someone standing next to him and looked up into the limpid black eyes that resided in the round brown face of L. Reyes, Chief Steward of the White House Mess, who had been observing Burnham with fascination and some alarm. ' "May I help you, sir?"

  Burnham swallowed another spoonful of sugar and shook his head. "I'm fine, thanks," he said, and by now he was.

  "We're not open yet," L. Reyes said.

  "I know." Burnham nodded. "I'm just having a coffee break."

  "But you're not having any coffee."

  "Of course not." Burnham popped one last dose of sugar into his mouth and daubed at his lips with a napkin. "That's because you're not open." He stood, and smiled at L. Reyes, and left the Mess.

  By the time he arrived at Cobb's door, he was feeling, if not euphoric, at least like (whose simile was it?) the very button on Fortune's cap. He rapped lightly on the door and, hearing no voice within, opened the door and entered.

  Cobb was waiting for him, hands folded on his desk, head cocked like a puppy who senses something exciting in the wind but doesn't know what it is.

  "Come in, my boy," he said, gesturing grandly at the chair opposite his desk, "and give me a word of wisdom."

  "Jesus Christ!" Burnham said, the fires within stoked high by glucose. "I was done, fired, out on my can, and then ..."

  Cobb held up a hand. "I know all about it."

  "You do?"

  "Well, not all," Cobb said. "But two minutes ago, I hung up with Himself" He pointed to the POTUS phone. "He chewed me out for not telling him what a great job you were doing, then he said—and I do not know what the hell this is all about—'No, no, I guess you didn't know either.' Then before he slammed down the phone he said I was to be sure to involve you more—involve you in what?—because you're too valuable to waste on petty shit. Period." Cobb smiled. "Whatever you did, share it with your old buddy. You slip something in his coffee?"

  "Nothing! I don't know. I know he called me in there to fire me—why, I don't know, but. ..."

  "I do."

  "Why?"

  Cobb reached for the "play" button on his cassette recorder. "It wasn't your fault, but you were as good as gone. Listen."

  It was the Signal Corps tape of the President's address to the dinner for Mary O'Leary. It began with an unfamiliar voice saying, "I have a special message here for Mary, from a very special person, and ... no, by golly, I'll be ding-donged but that special person has decided to deliver his message in person. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present to you the President of the United States!"

  Loud applause, whistles, cheers, and then the President's voice saying, "Thank you, thank you," in a way that urged the audience to stop clapping and sit down.

  When the crowd sounds had died, there was the soft crinkle of two sheets of twenty-pound, Kokle Finish, Berkshire Parchment Bond being unfolded and smoothed on the podium by the presidential hand, then the last-minute heavy hush that always precedes a presidential speech. And, at last, the voice that had been described myriad times by myriad scribes as having true presidential timbre beginning to read the words typed on the presidential speech typewriter that produced quarter-inch-high letters:

  JUDGE THOMPSON. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND ESPECIALLY MARY.

  I WANTED TO COME TONIGHT. BECAUSE THIS IS A SPECIAL NIGHT. AND YOU ARE A SPECIAL PERSON AND .1 ASSURE YOU . . . THAT IS NOT SOMETHING I SAY TO ALL THE GIRLS.

  (Polite laughter from the audience. Burnham said to Cobb, "Nothing there to get pissed about," and Cobb shook his head and said, "Wait.")

  AFTER SUPPER TONIGHT. I PUT ON MY JACKET AGAIN. AND HELEN SAID TO ME. "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" AND I SAID. "THERE'S A DINNER FOR MY FRIEND MARY O'LEARY. I THINK I'LL GO HAVE
A CUP OF COFFEE WITH HER."

  WELL, HELEN LOOKED KIND OF SAD. AND I SAID. "WHAT'S THE MATTER?" SHE SNIFFLED AND SAID "I KNEW YOU DIDN'T LIKE MY COFFEE!"

  (More polite laughter. Burnham said to Cobb, "I'm not proud of that, but it's not an indictable offense." The President continued.)

  EVERY PRESIDENT DOES THE BEST HE CAN IN HIS JOB. HE CAN DO NO BETTER. AND WHEN HIS TIME IS DONE, THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS HE CAN LOOK ON WITH PARTICULAR PRIDE.

  WHEN MY TIME IS DONE, ONE THING OF WHICH I WILL BE PROUDEST IS OUR RECORD IN HELPING WOMEN ACHIEVE THE FULL AND COMPLETE EQUALITY IN AMERICAN SOCIETY THAT IS THEIR BIRTHRIGHT.

  (Long, sustained applause. Burnham said to Cobb. "That must've given him a high," and Cobb replied, "Oh yeah, by now he was on a roll.")

  WE HAVE APPOINTED MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED WOMEN TO IMPORTANT POSITIONS OF GREAT RESPONSIBILITY IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE JUDICIARY. I HAVE NAMED, AND SEEN CONFIRMED BY THE CONGRESS, TWO WOMEN ADMIRALS AND THREE GENERALS. AND THERE WILL BE MORE. I PROMISE YOU.

  (More applause. Burnham said, "Damn right there will. Evelyn Witt, for one.")

  THE APPOINTMENT OF MARY TO THE FEDERAL BENCH GIVES ME PARTICULAR PLEASURE ... IT IS RARE FOR A PRESIDENT TO HND AN OLD AND DEAR FRIEND SO HIGHLY QUALIHED FOR SUCH A VITAL JOB.

  AND SO. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN . . .

  ("Listen now," said Cobb.)

  I ASK YOU TO JOIN ME IN A TOAST TO A GREAT FRIEND, A GREAT WOMAN, A GREAT AMERICAN . . . WHO WILL SOON BECOME A GREAT JURIST. . . . LEARY O'MARY!

  (The silence was so total that Burnham thought the tape had ripped. But then he heard a few isolated laughs, a few coughs, the tinkle of glassware, the scrape of chairs shifted nervously on the floor, the thud of a hand covering the microphone.)

  The President's voice, frantic:

  MARY OLEARY! MARY O'LEARY!

  There was laughter, and applause, and the tape stopped.

  Burnham said, "He blamed me?"

  Cobb nodded. "It got worse. The Signal Corps guy who brought me the tape said Mary O'Leary got up to reply, and everybody was feeling fine—except the President, and he was covering himself pretty well—and O'Leary, the dizzy dame, thanked the President and asked everybody to join her in a toast to—you won't believe this—to her great friend, President Winslow T. Benjamin."

  "Oh my."

  "And that's not all. She got a huge laugh, a real ballbuster, the place went nuts, and the President had to sit there and smile like he thought the whole thing was hilarious and play the good sport while all the time he felt like a complete asshole."

  "So how's that my fault?"

  "You know as well as I do, around here fault is in the eye

  of the fault-finder. He couldn't do what he would've liked to do, fire everybody involved—the driver who drove him there, the dude who introduced him, the secretary who typed the speech, O'Leary herself. So he had to blame the poor schmuck who wrote it. He told the Signal Corps guy that that's what had been on the page he read from."

  "That's bullshit!"

  "Who cares? The point is, your tits were the ones in the wringer. And the question is, why didn't he squeeze?"

  "Warner, on the grave of my sainted mother ..."

  "Your mother lives in Scarsdale."

  "Yeah, but she can't live forever. On the blood of my children, then, I do not know. I was in there, he was yelling at me, I almost had a convulsion in the Oval Office, and the next thing I know, Pow! I'm his bosom buddy."

  "Congratulations," said Cobb. "I guess."

  "No. No congratulations. I don't like it."

  "Please. Spare me the 'umble-man act. Ninety-nine percent of the human race would sell their souls to have the President say 'howdy' to them, let alone say how valuable they are."

  Burnham raised a finger in what Cobb, like Sarah, recognized as his Johnsonian posture, and asked ponderously, "Why should he flatter me? I can do nothing for him. Let him carry his praise to a better market."

  Cobb did not smile. He nicked at a pencil eraser with a thumbnail, then said, "What is it with you and Doctor J.? You keep him on your bench, like a ready reserve. He's your favorite pinch hitter."

  "Yep." Burnham felt himself reddening. He begged Johnson to help him now, but the good doctor declined; he had scorned self-puffery. How could Burnham explain his implausible adoration of a man who had been dead for two hundred years, a man with cosmic perceptions and timeless intuitions, a man who had answers for questions that would not be asked for centuries?

  He said to Cobb, "Do you like yourself?"

  "What? What's that got to do with anything?"

  "I don't like myself a lot. I'm okay, I guess, but I don't see a hell of a lot that's special. I'm average, a reactor, not an actor. I go along. Johnson was everything I'm not, so when I'm cornered, I turn to him and he always helps me out. He's ... my friend."

  Now Cobb was embarrassed: He had anticipated an offhand explanation and had received a confession. "Well, I know one person who disagrees with you," he said, "at least about yourself.''

  "Who's that?"

  "The President of the United States."

  Dyanna would love it. She wouldn't understand it any better than he did, but she would love it because it meant there would be more contact with the White House and with the Oval Office directly. She might even get to speak to the President himself on the phone, and for certain she'd have to carry stuff at least as far as Evelyn Witt's office, which meant walking through those charged corridors peopled with the men who ran the world, an occasional one of whom would likely cast an appreciative eye on the Dixie dream.

  The fact that someone stood to benefit from that bizarre conversation with the President pleased Burnham, so he decided to recount it to her with enthusiasm rather than with the amorphous shadow of foreboding that he sensed was truer.

  He pushed open the door to his office and said, "Wait'll you hear—''

  "Sssshhh!" Dyanna sat at her desk, fingers to her lips, eyes wide, and pointed theatrically to his inner office. "He's come back!" she whispered.

  "Who?"

  "That Mr. Renfro. And he brought a box."

  Burnham peeked into his office and saw Preston T. Renfro looking out the window at the Ellipse. A cardboard crate, large enough to contain an electric typewriter, rested on the floor beside Burnham's desk.

  "Sorry to keep you waiting," Burnham said as he strode into the office. "I've been with the President." Carefully carelessly, he tossed his Important Papers on the couch.

  "So I understand," Renfro said. "My visit is timely indeed."

  "What'd you bring me? A box of secrets?"

  "Droll, Mr. Burnham," said Renfro's mouth, contradicting his eyes. "Very droll. Do you have a knife?"

  Burnham didn't have a knife, so he turned to call to Dyanna, but she was already passing through the doorway, a letter opener held like a dagger in her hand.

  Renfro slit the tape that sealed the crate, then popped the staples and lifted out a beige rectangular metal box, approximately twenty-four inches by eighteen inches by eight inches, with wide slots in the top and the bottom and a power cord gathered in a bow by a wire bag-tie.

  "Where's an outlet?" he asked, and he directed Dyanna to pick up a large square wastebasket and follow him.

  Dyanna set the wastebasket by the electrical outlet, and Renfro placed the rectangular box atop the wastebasket and plugged in its cord.

  "What is it?" asked Dyanna.

  "A document shredder."

  "Wow! Neat." Dyanna smiled at Burnham and said, "See? I told you."

  Told, me what? Burnham wondered, and then he realized that Dyanna was connecting the arrival of the shredder to his summons to the Oval Office. Well, let her; it'd brighten her day.

  "What do we shred?" Dyanna asked Renfro.

  "You, madam," Renfro replied frostily, "do not shred anything."

  "Well ceeyooze me!"

  "You have to be cleared to shred," said Burnham. "Can't let just anybody shred. It's a privilege you have to earn.
You start by tearing. Then you learn how to rip. Then you rend. Finally you master shredding."

  Renfro shot Burnham an acid glance and said to Dyanna, "That will be all."

  But before Dyanna could depart, Burnham said to Renfro, "Don't you think she ought to at least know what it is I'm shredding? So she can make sure I get it to shred."

  "You tell her nothing. She has no need to know."

  Burnham shrugged, and Dyanna tumed and left the office, pulling the door closed with just enough unnecessary force to punctuate her displeasure.

  Renfro activated the shredder, took a blank piece of typing paper from Burnham's desk and fed it into the slot in the top of the shredder. The machine gobbled it with a contented humming noise. When the paper was gone, Renfro lifted the

  shredder off the wastebasket and showed Burnham a small pile of white strips.

  "Fettuccine." Burnham said.

  Renfro sighed. "If you must."

  "A really top-top-top-secret document would be fettuccine atomico."

  "Everything in Category 7 is top-top-top-secret. Remember that."

  "An Iranian student could reassemble those secrets, y'know."

  “Nothing's perfect. We don't have to make it easy for them."

  "Who's 'them'?"

  "Whoever."

  "I don't see what good this does," said Burnham. "Everything in the joint is burned every night anyway."

  "But first it's collected by the janitorial staff, and the janitorial staff is not Q Cleared. Imagine"—Renfro lowered his voice—"what would happen if a member of the janitorial staff got hold of a Category 7 document."

  The man's serious, Burnham thought. All he could think to say was, "Staggering!"

  "DOE is not the United States Navy. A Walker scandal will never happen to us." Renfro put a hand on Burnham's arm. "Right, Mr. Burnham?"

  "Right, coach." Burnham recoiled. "Is that all I'm supposed to shred? Category 7 stuff?"

  "Not at all. Let's see." Renfro scanned Burnham's desk and saw, as a bookmark in his Bartlett's Quotations, an information stub from a recent paycheck. "Great Scott!" he said, and he yanked the stub from the book. "Never leave these around. Always shred them. Nobody needs to know you work for DOE, let alone as a GS-15 step 9. It's a giveaway that you have Q Clearance."