The Threat

The high immaculate rooms of the state floor echoed to the whispers of their unending stream of visitants. He paced slowly, hands behind him. The State Dining Room, with Healy’s quizzical Lincoln above the mantel. The Red Room, intimate in mauve and gold, with the portrait of Angelica Van Buren that Dan thought was the most human touch in the whole Residence. The Blue Room, its great gilt-and-blue oval looking out onto the Portico. Its shape reflected, one of the docents’ fluting voices echoed, President Washington’s first levees in New York, and was reflected in its turn by the Oval Office. He left her well-bred murmur for the exquisite, spare Federal furniture of the Green Room. And grandest of all, the parqueted perspective of the East Room, where Stuart’s Washington gazed out, hand outstretched in renunciation or blessing.

With De Bari back the corridors of the West Wing were filled again with bright-eyed youngsters. The contempt and distance of the political staff didn’t bother him now. Nor the shell games to cover up how much of the staff and budget were actually supplied from across the Potomac. Like so much else about this building, this government, about his country, he was beginning to suspect, it was blue smoke and mirrors.

Across West Executive, his shoes crunching in an inch of fresh snowfall. The corridors of the OEOB felt as chilly as the outdoors. The old heating system just wasn’t keeping up, and the cold radiated up off the stone flooring.

Sebold was standing at his window when Dan knocked. An electric heater whined. Music seeped from a CD player. Sweeping, melodic strains … a waltz. The senior director for defense was wearing what looked like the same gray suit and scuffed wingtips as when Dan had met him a year before. The white bristle cut was the same, but now he wore plastic-framed glasses. “Dan. Sit down. How’s it working out in the East Wing?”

Dan said all right. Sebold asked about his workload, whether he was getting any time off.

Finally he said, “I understand, hear, you’ve been having some … marital problems. Blair, by the way, is one of my closest friends. Since we worked together on the cheating scandal. That was a while back. But we’ve stayed in touch.”

Dan lifted his head. Despite everything, he wanted to see her again. It didn’t make sense, but there it was. “Has she asked you about me?”

“No. No. I just wanted to … see if there was anything I could do. Since I was the one who brought you here in the first place. And we hadn’t talked since you went over to the far side.” Sebold was up again and pacing, whirling the glasses between thumb and forefinger like a propeller.

“Well, sir, no, there isn’t.”

The general hesitated. “This is a tricky issue to bring up. And it might not be any of my business. I’m talking about rumors I’ve heard.”

Dan said tightly, “What rumors?”

“About your wife and the president.”

He couldn’t believe the man would call him in and say something like that. “I haven’t heard anything like that, sorry,” Dan told him.

“Well, I have. Not only that. I’ve heard an even nastier one. That you know about it, but put up with it.”

“Put up with it.” His voice rose. “Jesus Christ. Why would I put up with it?”

“Exactly; I spoke out at once that it was impossible, unthinkable.”

“What are they saying? I let him fuck her?”

“Clearly that’s not what was meant—”

Dan said, so furious his voice shook, “Clearly it is what was meant, and clearly it’s malevolent bullshit. Targeted at her. The assholes who never accepted a woman at Defense. As far as our marriage goes, that is our own damned business, General.”

“Of course it is. Only I—”

“It’s our business, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do. Or has any reason discussing.”

“I was afraid you’d take it that way. But I had to ask. Same as you’d feel if one of your men, on your ship, say, was having problems.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan told him, but he didn’t buy it. It wasn’t the son of a bitch’s place even to mention it. That was all.

Sebold paced, letting a pause establish distance from the last topic. Dan tried to compose himself.

“I heard some things about your naval service that were pretty impressive. Things I hadn’t realized before. I knew about the congressional, but I hadn’t heard about the rest. You strike me as a patriot.”

“A patriot, sir?” Where the hell was he going with that?

“In the old sense. You’ve put your butt on the line for this country. More than once.”

“I’ve tried to do the best I can.”

Sebold was looking out the window now, hands locked behind him. Talking to Dan, but at the same time, it seemed, to himself as well. “Somehow that flag means more to you once you’ve seen combat. Or sent good men out. Telling them to take an objective, knowing they won’t all come back. That’s the hardest thing.”

Dan nodded. He’d sent troops back as rear guard in a firefight in Iraq. Sent teams out onto a deck contaminated with radioactivity, down into a flooding, burning engine room.