National Burden (7 page)

The bar manager had relented and left the ornery customer alone. It wasn’t unusual to have federal employees flash their badges around, demanding special attention. It was all in a day’s work for pub employees, but it didn’t keep them from thinking of those badge flashers as arrogant pricks.

Stricklin sat nursing his club soda, counting down the seconds until leaving. His guest was over an hour late, and the former FBI agent’s patience was paper thin. A moment later, there was a commotion at the door. Stricklin looked up. It was just a group of new girls in matching pink tank tops squealing after finding their friends. His gaze lingered a moment on one particular cute co-ed, a blonde with extremely large breasts.

“You like the blonde or the brunette?”

Stricklin jumped, spilling some of his soda in the process. He turned to his right. The man who’d made the comment stood an arm’s distance away, a ball cap casting a shadow on his face.
How did he do that?
Stricklin thought, unnerved by the silent entrance. “Huh? Oh, neither.”

The guest motioned for Stricklin to scoot over, taking his spot. “What are you drinking?”

“Club soda,” Stricklin answered.

“Teetotaler?”

“No. Just wanted to keep a clear head.”

A waitress had seen the new addition and stepped up to an order. The man in the ball cap looked up. One eyebrow rose as the waitress made eye contact. Congressman Antonio McKnight put a finger to his lips, motioning toward the rest of the bar. The waitress smiled, nodding. “What can I get for you, sir?”

“I’ll have a scotch, neat.”

“And your friend?”

“He’ll have a cranberry juice.”

McKnight winked at the girl, who left promptly to fill their order.

The Florida congressman turned to Stricklin. “We need to talk about the timeline.”

Stricklin sat up straighter. “What? I thought you said--”

McKnight held up a hand. “The situation has changed.”

Stricklin huffed. “I’ve been working on this for months, and now you want me to push it back. Maybe I should--”

McKnight cut Stricklin off with an icy glare. “I didn’t say anything about pushing it back.”

“But you said--”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Stricklin’s mouth closed. He’d stepped over the line.

“That’s better.” A smile returned to the congressman’s face. “Now, like I was saying, the timeline has changed. We need to speed things up.”

Stricklin seemed mollified, and waited to see if he could ask a question. McKnight nodded. “Ask your question, Steve.”

“Why the change?” Stricklin’s tone mellowed, now taking on a subservient hint.

“It looks like they just made things a lot easier for us.”

“Who? How?”

McKnight grinned. “I just found out your old pal Stokes got in town this morning, and he’s been hanging out with the President.”

A wide smile, the likes of which he hadn’t had in months, spread on Stricklin’s face. The pieces were fitting into place, the most important of them being enemy number one, Cal Stokes. If he could only take Stokes down with the President…well, that would be Karma finally on his side.

+++

The White House

Travis Haden yawned into his hand. It had been a long day. First the early flight from Nashville, and then a full day of meetings. Travis knew he’d have to get used to it. Being the President’s Chief of Staff was a twenty-four hour job. Nights and weekends included.

He’d met so many people that he couldn’t imagine keeping everyone’s name straight. Ellen, the President’s secretary, said she’d have a handful of prospective aides in the next day for interviews. “You’ll need someone to help you, Mr. Haden.”

Travis didn’t doubt it. At SSI he’d managed his daily tasks mostly on his own. At the White House, he could have a small army of staffers at his beck and call.
One step at a time
, he told himself. 

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The door creaked open. Cal stepped in the near barren office, save the quickly growing stack of files on the desk, followed by Daniel Briggs.

“What are you guys still doing here?” Travis asked, having assumed that his cousin would have caught the first plane back to Nashville, or at least to SSI’s second headquarters in Charlottesville.

“The President’s secretary called and said Brandon wanted to see me. I thought I’d stop by before going in.”

“Something I should know about?”

“I thought you would know that’s why I came here first.”

“He didn’t say anything to me,” Travis said. “What time is the meeting?”

“Seven.”

Travis looked at his watch. “You want me to come with you?”

“You don’t have to. I see you’ve got enough to do.” Cal pointed to the stack of paper on Travis’s desk. “You still sure you want the job?”

Travis exhaled. “Yeah. It’s no SEAL Team Six, but probably more stressful.”

“We’ll stop by on our way out.”

President Zimmer was hunched over, working at the coffee table, his suit coat and tie laying on a side chair. He looked up when Cal and Daniel walked in, his eyes slightly sunken from the strain of the day. “Hey, guys. I was just gonna get a cup of coffee. Want anything?”

“This place got any beer?” Cal asked, followed by an elbow from Daniel.

Zimmer laughed. “That sounds better than coffee. Do me favor, press the button that says butler on my phone and tell them what we want.”

Cal picked up the phone sitting on the side table and put in their order. Not two minutes later, Lester Miles walked in balancing two Sweetwater 420s and a bottle of water. “I should’ve known you were the one ordering the beer,” Lester offered with a grin.

“What can I say, Top? You can take the Marine out of the Corps, but you can’t take the Corps out of the Marine.”

The butler handed out the perfectly chilled beverages and excused himself. President Zimmer was the first to take a healthy swig of his beer. “That’s good. I didn’t know we had it.”

Cal swallowed, savoring the hoppy taste. “It’s a brewery down in Atlanta. We get it all the time in Nashville.”

Daniel sipped his water, remaining silent as usual.

“Why don’t you two have a seat. I had something I wanted to ask you,” said Zimmer.

Cal noted the hesitation in his friend’s tone, and took his seat slowly. “What’s up?”

Zimmer motioned to the mess on the coffee table. “Just playing a little catch-up, or, a lot of catch-up.” He sat back into the sofa cushion, taking another swig of his beer. “What did you guys think of our meeting earlier?”

Cal and Daniel looked at each other. “We were just talking to Trav about it,” said Cal. “General McMillan’s a good guy, use him.”

“I have. He’s a lot like you two. No bullshit.” The two Marines nodded. “What about Dryburgh and Southgate?”

Cal took a moment to respond. “Why don’t you let Daniel answer that question? I’m trying to be more PC while I’m here.”

“Daniel?”

“It’s like me and Cal talked about, Southgate is suspicious. We’re not sure it was the best idea introducing us.”

“Why not?”

Daniel looked to Cal, who nodded for him to continue. “Having Travis as your Chief of Staff is one thing. Inviting your friends, who happen to be in the line of work that we are, to meet two very senior politicians could make you look bad.”

“I don’t know if they’d look at it that way. Besides, they don’t even know what you guys do.”

Cal interrupted. “They will soon. We’ve already gotten word that right after our powwow two inquiries went out requesting information on me, Travis and Daniel.”

“And you know this how?”

Cal shrugged. “Neil. There’s not much the guy can’t do with a computer.”

President Zimmer sat quietly, digesting the information. On the one hand, he’d expected Southgate and Dryburgh to be suspicious. He would have been too if the roles were reversed. On the other hand, he was the President of the United States. Something about having others go behind his back, however necessary, sent early warning signals flashing in his mind.

Zimmer was no novice to the political game. He’d been around it since birth. The problem was, unlike before, when he’d fought tooth and nail for his seat in Congress, and built a team from the ground up, he was now in someone else’s position. It was like switching wives on a whim and being expected to be the same husband the other guy was. Impossible.

Cal felt for the young president. He knew it had come as a complete shock to Zimmer when his predecessor had handed off the keys to the kingdom. Hell, the whole world had seen Zimmer’s reaction on live television.

But Cal knew Zimmer was made of tougher stuff than others might think. He wasn’t just a pretty boy wanting to be famous. Since meeting the former congressman from Massachusetts, and truthfully not liking him at first, Cal had seen Zimmer grow in his views of the world and in his passion to affect change. He knew his flaws and wasn’t afraid to work hard. In short, Cal trusted the man with his life, and for the blunt Marine who trusted few, that was a very big thing.

“Look, we’ll be fine. We know how to watch our backs. It’s you I’m worried about. You look like someone just pissed in your beer.”

The comment snapped Zimmer out of his trance, his face registering surprise. “What?”

“I said, you need to buck up, Mr. President. They don’t call you the leader of the free world for nothing. I know the whole thing sucks, and you didn’t have a clue this would happen when you agreed to step in as vice president, but that’s all done. There’s no going back. You’ve got a job to do.”

President Brandon Zimmer looked at his friend for a long time and then nodded.

The rest of the conversation had gone well, Cal promising to help in any way he could, from the safe confines of SSI, of course, and the President’s attitude improved.

“He seemed a little more down than I would’ve thought, Cal. You think something else is going on that we don’t know about?”

Cal and Daniel made the final turn to Travis’s office. “I don’t know. I think he would have told us.”

“It just seems strange. The Brandon we know is so
not
down in the mouth.”

“Tell me about it. Maybe it’s just the job. I wouldn’t put that on any sane person, believe me.”

+++

The Russian Embassy, Washington, D.C.

Secretary of State Geoffrey Dryburgh sipped his vodka out of the hand-carved mug that was no bigger than a standard shot glass.

“Tell me what’s new in Mother Russia, Igor.”

Igor Bukov, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, refilled his guest’s glass with a vodka he’d said came from the most expensive distillery in his country. The two men had known each other for years, first meeting in the early nineties when Dryburgh had visited Russia on a business trip to seek out new sourcing partners for an American liquor distributor. Back then, Bukov had been CEO of one of Russia’s largest vodka brands, Bukov Vodka, a company founded by his grandfather. The businessmen turned politicians had hit it off instantly.

“It’s still very cold, my friend.” Bukov spoke with only the minuscule hint of a Russian accent, a testament to his European education.

Dryburgh pointed to the window. “And you don’t call this cold?”

“This feels like summer to me, Geoffrey.” Bukov raised his glass in a toast, downing it again.

“What about the political climate? Any thoughts on our new president?”

Bukov shrugged, noncommittal. “Not my place to say.”

“Come on. You’re best friends with the leader of Russia. Don’t give me that crap, Igor.” The jab came with a friendly smile.

“I would not call what I have with my country’s president a best friendship, more like a healthy working relationship.”

Bukov was downplaying his role in the Russian government and Dryburgh knew it. The wily Russian, while never having served a day in the Russian government prior to his appointment as ambassador to the U.S., was a seasoned veteran of his nation’s political process. Over more than a few shots of his family’s stock, Bukov had once admitted to a not-quite-so-inebriated Geoffrey Dryburgh that his family had bankrolled numerous politicians over the years. He’d even bragged about having a hand in the current president’s ascendance.

“Okay, then how might you
assume
your president feels about our new president?”

Another shrug, another shot of vodka. “I can only assume that our country’s leaders are still trying to understand President Brandon Zimmer, much as I assume you are? He is still young in your political process, is he not?”