The Threat

The Chadian had come in the night before, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom, and now was accompanying De Bari to meet with other heads of state and representatives from central Africa. The Post had run a piece that morning about the deteriorating security and ecological situation there, the drought, the growing famine.

The winter-stripped woods below slowly grew into the Catoctin Mountains. Dan couldn’t help remembering Bosnia. He shifted, recalling the antiaircraft guns, the shoulder-launched missiles. An SA-7 would make short work of them at this altitude. Wouldn’t that be a great way to assassinate the president. You could armor a helicopter all you wanted, but if a fragment hit the blades, everybody would die.

Somehow, watching the blue mountains slide closer, he couldn’t bring himself to care.

* * *

Naval Support Facility Thurmont, the official name for Camp David, consisted of rolling hills, pebbled trails, and cabins with shake roofs scattered under chestnut oaks and pitch pines. Dan and Jazak cooled their heels outside the largest, perched on a rude log bench on a flagstone terrace, looking out over the valley in the fresh cold air.

The opening meeting broke around four. The Secret Service and the Africans’ bodyguards emerged onto the terrace. Dan caught McKoy’s eye, and the baby-faced agent nodded. Other teams fanned out through the wooded trails, scuffing through frozen leaves.

With heads together, the participants straggled out. A photographer hovered, trying to work in the view. Dan watched as the now-familiar photo op took shape, the leaders stepping up one by one for the grip and grin. De Bari beamed, obviously enjoying himself. The others looked stiff, even tormented. Or maybe they were just cold. A few yards away a tall woman, shawled against the chill, was sitting in a golf cart with another woman. After a moment Dan recognized the first lady.

Jazak saw her too. “This might be a good time to meet the missus.”

“Sure. Uh … how do we address her? ‘Madame President’?”

“No, that would be for a woman president, if we ever got one. It sounds informal, but just ‘Mrs. De Bari’ or ‘Ma’am.’”

The winter sunlight dappled the ground as they strolled over. Jazak was careful, Dan noticed, to keep the president in view between the oaks.

Mrs. De Bari looked vacantly past them as they reached the cart. She was facing in the general direction of the president, but it didn’t seem as if she was watching someone she loved or even had much interest in. Her eyes were dark and her chin was firm. Her hair was covered with a green silk Hermès kerchief. Her profile was elegant, with the nose of an Italian aristocrat. But up close she looked older than her husband, even haggard, with rouged cheeks and a fold at the edge of her mouth that suggested constant pain. Raising his voice above the wind in the treetops, Jazak said, “Ma’am? I’d like to introduce Commander Dan Lenson. The new naval aide. Dan, Mrs. De Bari.”

Dan bowed slightly, but didn’t put out his hand until she extended hers. Her fingers were icy cold.

So he and this woman had a secret bond. What if he should mention it to her? Tell her about her husband and his wife?

It probably wouldn’t surprise her. Everyone knew De Bari’s weakness. She must have given permission at some point, overtly or tacitly. Or at least decided to look away. Thinking this, he must have held her hand a moment longer than necessary, because she frowned and withdrew it, the thin fingers slipping his grasp.

“Notice anything?” Jazak murmured as they strolled back toward the president, who was laughing heartily and miming a golf swing. The Africans looked as if they wished they were somewhere warmer.

“She looked tired.”

“It’s the big C. But you never heard it from me.”

Dan glanced back. When he followed her gaze, he saw the group was dispersing, the golden moment under the trees at an end.

* * *

As Chick Gunning had said, the rings of staffers and social aides that orbited the first family fell away out here. He and Jazak helped Nosler carry the luggage into the presidential cabin, a rustic sprawler of pine logs and split shakes. Inside, its pine floors, knotted rugs, and hand-laid stone fireplaces, stoked and roaring with oak splits, were no more pretentious than a luxurious bed-and-breakfast, though Jazak showed him a discreet door that revealed an elevator to regions beneath. Dan fetched dinner for Snorrie, the first dachshund, then decided to check out the mess arrangements under his naval aide hat.

The chief was eager to show him around, as Dan would be writing her evaluation. She took him through noisy steamy kitchens, detailing the food-preparation precautions. Everybody down to the guys who unloaded the food trucks was Yankee White cleared. Everything was spotless. He was telling her to pass his “bravo zulu” on when one of the female agents, smooth and detached as a positronic robot, looked in. “He wants to go for a run. We need another runner.”