Triggers

Vance nodded. He picked up the phone on the desk and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Get me the Russian president right away,” he said, “and if he’s not awake, wake him!” He slammed the phone down, and, in what the scriptwriters had doubtless written as “off the president’s determined expression,” the shot came to an end.

“Perfect,” said the woman’s voice. “All right, everyone, that’s lunch!”

“Is it okay if we go onto the set now?” Darryl asked Megan.

Bessie, who looked more excited than Darryl had ever seen her, said, “And can I meet Mr. Vance?”

Megan smiled. “Of course.” Vance was just getting out from behind the desk. “Come with me.”

Bessie looked like she was going to burst. Darryl followed her.

“Courtney,” said Megan, after they’d closed the distance, “this is Mrs. Stilwell and Mr. Hudkins—Mr. Hudkins is a real Secret Service agent.”

Vance was gallant. He took Bessie’s hand gently in his, and said, “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Darryl smiled: two handshakes from African-Americans in one day; it probably was a record for Bessie. Vance then took Darryl’s hand and shook it much more firmly. “Agent Hudkins, what an honor, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Darryl.

“Are you here consulting on the show?” Vance asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy your visit.”

Megan must have heard a cue in that. “Mr. Vance has only a short time for lunch, and he has to do a wardrobe change before he comes back, so if you’ll forgive him…”

Vance smiled and moved off. Having an African-American president had become a cliché in movies and TV before Barack Obama had ever come to office. Darryl had enjoyed the joke that had been everywhere when Obama had been elected: “A black president? Crap, that means the Earth is about to be hit by an asteroid!” But he could tell that Bessie had been genuinely thrilled to meet Vance; then again, blacks as entertainers had always been welcomed, even by bigots.

Although he’d shown it to her repeatedly before, Darryl again fished out the picture he’d been carrying of Leon Hexley, the director of the Secret Service. The print was a still frame from security-camera footage taken on the day in question; Hexley had on a dark blue suit and a tie much more colorful than any he would have let his subordinates wear.

Bessie squinted as she studied it, then she nodded, and started to explore the set. There were cameras they had to walk around, but the rest of it was uncannily like the real thing. The lighting wasn’t quite right, though—it was brighter than the real Oval. And the translight visible through the window was not exactly the view one got from the president’s window—which, of course, made sense: the photographer who had taken the image probably had done so from out on the Ellipse.

Darryl was fond of the movie Working Girl, and particularly liked the ending, because he loved Carly Simon singing “Let the River Run.” When he was young, you could count on seeing that movie every few months on TV, but nobody showed it anymore; Melanie Griffith’s character had worked in the World Trade Center, and the movie ended with a pullout of her in her office fading into a loving long shot of the Twin Towers—it was just unbearably sad to watch now.

He wondered how the writers for Inside the Beltway were going to deal with the loss of the White House; would it continue to exist in their series? That, too, would probably be unbearably sad to see.

Darryl watched as Bessie slowly circumnavigated the room, looking at things that might jog her memory: the portrait of George Washington over the mantel at the north end flanked by potted Swedish ivy (a tradition that went back to the Kennedy administration), the bronze horse sculptures, the grandfather clock, the Norman Rockwell painting of the Statue of Liberty, the two high-back chairs in front of the fireplace, the coffee table, and the presidential seal in the carpet.

But Bessie kept shaking her head. Darryl was tired—it had been a long day already—and so he decided to sit in the one place he’d never been able to in the real Oval: the president’s red leather chair behind the Resolute desk.

“Anything?” said Darryl. “Ignore the cameras; ignore the cables.”

“Not yet.”

Darryl looked around the room, and—

And of course he spotted it at once, although a casual visitor—or viewer!—would miss it altogether: the plain panel that was the door to the president’s private study, just east of the Oval Office.

Darryl walked over to it. It had no handle, and it popped open when one pressed against it, just like the real thing had.

“Jerrison was here,” Darryl said. “He came through this door into the Oval Office from his study.”

Bessie shuffled over to be next to Darryl. He motioned for her to go into the study, and he sidled along the curving wall of the Oval Office so she could look back through the hidden doorway without having him, an extraneous element, as part of her view.