Oath Of Honor

Chapter Seven

“Here you go,” Evyn said, lifting Wes’s overnight bag out of the trunk.

“Thanks.” Wes took it from her and slung the strap over her right shoulder. The T-Bird idled in the turnaround of the Marriott. The marquee lights over the entrance had been dimmed, leaving them in fractured shadow. The sliding glass doors behind them whooshed open, and a voice called, “Need help with bags?”

“I’ve got it, thanks,” Wes said without turning around. Evyn stood a foot away, one hand resting on the edge of the open trunk lid. Wes searched for something more to say, but she didn’t know where to start. The last few hours had been different than any time she’d ever spent with anyone. She’d had hundreds of meals with colleagues, in the hospital, on board ship, in the field. When those conversations ended, she moved on, rarely giving the oft-times pleasant but superficial encounters another thought. But she didn’t want this evening to end. Her reaction was so foreign she couldn’t sort out wishes from reality. How could she be uncomfortable and feel so energized at the same time?

She wasn’t a spontaneous person—she was a planner, always prepared for any contingency, always following the most efficient path. She’d always known what she needed to do to achieve her goals. She’d learned from watching her mother deal with challenges head-on, working hard, never bowing before adversity or buckling under seemingly insurmountable odds. As long as she could remember, she’d looked forward, she’d worked toward the future. She didn’t have a lot of practice living in the moment. “Thanks for the ride. And the…dinner.”

“No problem.” No subtle suggestion as to what came next resonated in Evyn’s tone, but her gaze never strayed from Wes’s.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Wes said, still not moving. Evyn hadn’t moved either. Wes’s skin tingled as if charged with current ready to snap. There was more—a next move she couldn’t grasp, words just out of reach. Her nerves vibrated at the sensation of a bubble closing down around them, isolating them, a fragile gossamer barrier that held them suspended in their own world. She wondered if she turned and walked away if the bubble would burst and they would never again share an unguarded moment. She didn’t want that to happen. She didn’t have any choice. Tomorrow, everything would change. She had no choice but to fall back on what had always worked, on the one thing she could depend upon. Doing her duty, fulfilling her obligations. “I’ll report to you after my interview.”

“Unless POTUS goes off schedule, I’ll be in the command center. Text me. I’ll find you.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.” Wes backed up and the shimmering enclosure shattered. Evyn slammed the trunk closed. They were agent and doctor again. “Good night.”

“’Night,” Evyn called, walking around to the driver’s door. She slid in without another glance.

Wes turned and walked toward the waiting bellman.

“You have that, Captain?” the bellman said, pointing to her bag.

“Yes,” Wes replied as the sound of the T-Bird’s powerful engine faded behind her. “Everything’s under control.”

*

Evyn made quick time through the nearly empty streets to I-495 and down to her condo in Alexandria, VA. She pulled into her slot in the residents’ parking garage, grabbed her go bag, and took the stairs up to her third-floor, one-bedroom unit. When she let herself in, she was greeted with a plaintive and highly offended cry. “I haven’t been gone that long, and I know you’re not starving, so you might as well forget the theatrics.”

A sinuous gray shadow eased around the counter that separated the big living room from the galley-style kitchen. Ricochet jumped up onto the back of the sofa and proceeded to ignore her. She dropped her bag by the closet holding the stacked washer-dryer, passed behind the couch on her way to the kitchen, and scooped up the cat. He didn’t like it when she was away, but he liked attention too much to feign indifference and immediately began to rumble, a rollicking purr that vibrated into her chest. Absently, she rubbed her cheek against the top of his head and pulled the refrigerator door open. She extracted a bottle of Turbo Dog, popped the top on an old-style Coke bottle opener screwed to the wall underneath the adjacent cabinet, and took a long swallow. She checked the floor—his water and food bowls were full. She poked his lean belly. “Definitely not starving.”

He kneaded her shoulder through her shirt as she ambled back into the living area and flopped on the couch. She didn’t bother with the lights—she knew her way around the place in the semi-darkness. Propping her feet on the scarred and scraped oak coffee table she’d been carting around since college, she stared out the glass balcony doors and sipped her beer. Usually she watched a little aimless TV until she unwound enough to fall asleep, but tonight she had something else to occupy her—Wes Masters lingered in her mind.

“So,” she said to Ricochet, “I met the new chief medical officer today. Very spit-and-polish shiny. Ought to be interesting to see how she fits in at the House.” Ricochet curled up in a ball on her lap and proceeded to lick his paws. She traced a finger around the back of each ear and he continued to purr. “I’m supposed to bring her up to speed on protocol.”

Ricochet paused in his washings, one paw elevated, and blinked at her.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Not what I want to be doing.” Evyn set the bottle on the wooden arm of the sofa and turned it slowly. Dinner had probably been a mistake. She’d gone on impulse because she didn’t have anything better to do, and after a long day of travel and intermittent boredom, broken by moments of intense alertness, she’d still had energy to burn. And Wes Masters was intriguing. Why was she here, who was she really? Understandable curiosity there, and she never could pass up a good mystery. But the going out to dinner with her? What was that all about? She hadn’t shared a meal with anyone other than fellow PPD agents in two years. She hadn’t had a dinner date, or a movie date, or any other kind of date in a long time. She’d had encounters, conversations in bars, a little bit of sex—enough to keep her from thinking about the fact that she didn’t really have a personal life—until tonight. Probably not the smartest thing to do, sharing personal stuff before she’d had a chance to assess her professionally. She should’ve said no.

“Why the hell did she even ask?” Evyn muttered. Ricochet didn’t answer. “It’s not like we have anything in common, and chances are we’re going to run into the old ‘whose responsibilities take precedence in event of emergency’ pretty fast. I can’t see her bending on much of anything.”

Ricochet rolled onto his back, reminding her of priorities.

“I can be flexible,” she said grumpily, rubbing his soft belly. “I’m just not, usually. Stick with what you know, right? Right?”

She didn’t make mistakes with women because she never varied her pattern. Now she had, and she ought to be sorry. She wasn’t, and that was worrisome.

*

Wes woke before the alarm she’d set for 0600 and lay awake, waiting for the backup wake-up call she’d requested from the hotel operator when she’d finally hit the rack at 0200. She hadn’t slept well, but she wasn’t tired. She was used to broken sleep and catching what she could at odd hours. She still covered the ER often enough to keep in shape for the demands of emergency medicine. Good thing, because it sounded like her schedule was going to be anything but regular from now on. A buzz of excitement shot through her. She loved teaching, but she was looking forward to having boots on the ground again. Actually practicing what she preached, although her number one goal where her new job was concerned was to be certain she didn’t have to. She couldn’t wait to get a look at the WHMU emergency protocols. Maybe she’d been tapped for this job because her specialty was triage and emergency management. Whatever the reason, she’d find out pretty soon.

The bedside phone rang and she picked it up. “Good morning,” a mechanical voice said, “this is your wake-up call…”

Wes set the phone back in the cradle and swung out of bed. Evyn’s face surfaced in her mind, and she wondered if Evyn was still sleeping or if she was on her way to the House. She wondered how she’d slept and if she’d thought about their evening. She didn’t stop to ask herself why she’d awakened thinking about a woman for the first time in her life. Instead, she resolutely put thoughts of Evyn aside and hit the shower.

Thirty minutes later, dressed in her regulation khakis, Wes grabbed a cup of Starbucks takeout coffee in the hotel lobby and took a cab to the White House. She walked around the Ellipse, familiarizing herself with the terrain. She’d never been inside the White House before but assumed the fastest way to wherever she needed to go would be via the West Wing, where the bulk of the offices were located. At 0730, she approached the northwest gate and gave her name to the officer on duty. “I have an appointment at zero eight hundred hours with Ms. Washburn.”

“One moment, please.” The White House Uniformed Division officer turned away and scanned a screen. A minute later he said, “You’re cleared to enter. You’ll want the elevator on your right. A staffer will meet you and take you up.”

“Thank you.”

Inside, Wes noted the sign for the emergency medical clinic in the Old Executive Office Building and walked past the hall to her new base until she found the elevators. She repeated her name and destination to the staffer in the elevator, and when she exited, another staffer escorted her to a waiting area. She sat and waited.

At 0805, a young intern approached. He looked to be about twenty-two, buttoned down, slightly frazzled, with a friendly smile. “Captain Masters?”

Wes stood. “That’s right.”

“Ms. Washburn sends her apologies for keeping you waiting. She’s ready to see you now.”

“Thank you.” She followed him through an archway, down a hall, and into another small waiting area. He tapped on the heavy, carved walnut door and responded to something that only he could hear. He pushed open the door, and Wes entered Lucinda Washburn’s office. The south lawn was visible opposite her through French doors framed by floor-to-ceiling white brocade drapes. The Oriental carpet under her feet looked expensive and old. A closed door on her left probably led into the Oval Office. Wes stood at parade rest in front of Ms. Washburn’s desk while the chief of staff signed off on a call.

Lucinda replaced the handset, stood, and held out her hand. “Good to see you again, Captain. Hang your coat up over there, and have a seat.”

Wes shrugged out of her topcoat and added it to several other winter coats on a wrought-iron coat tree just inside the door. She took one of the two leather chairs facing the desk and waited.

“Do you have any objections to taking a polygraph?”

“No, ma’am,” Wes said, seeing that they were about to get directly down to business.

“Good. That’s really the last of the formal security items.” She shrugged. “Protocol only. Your record has already been reviewed.”

Wes said nothing. She wouldn’t be sitting there if her service record and probably everything that came in her life before that hadn’t already been scrutinized in intimate detail. Pro forma.

“Have any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

Lucinda smiled. “I am not in the military, so you can dispense with the formalities. And feel free to speak. None of this is on the record.”

“May I ask how I came to be considered for the position?”

“Of course.” Lucinda gestured to a coffee urn and a row of plain white mugs sitting on a linen-draped sideboard. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

While Lucinda poured, she talked. “Obviously, Dr. O’Shaughnessy’s death was unexpected. The position is a critical one, and with POTUS about to embark on a series of national and international movements, we need the White House Medical Unit to be at full staff.”

“I understand.” Wes waited for the rest of the story. The White House medical staff usually came from the military, and there were plenty of military physicians available. But she’d been short-listed. Not just short-listed but fast-tracked.

Lucinda handed her a cup of coffee and angled the adjacent chair to face Wes. When she sat, their knees were a few inches apart. “As you can imagine,” Lucinda said calmly, “an election year is a volatile time for the nation and disruptive to both parties. Emotions run high.”

“If there’s something I need to know about the president’s health, I assume it will be in his records, but if not, then I need to know…off the record.”

Lucinda’s eyes glinted as if she was pleased with Wes’s statement. “This isn’t television. There’s nothing we’re hiding about the president’s health. He has some food allergies which you will note in his chart, an old ligamentous injury to his right knee, and some annoying, but I’m told not dangerous, floaters in his right eye. Other than that, he is remarkably fit and healthy.”

“Excellent. I will be reviewing his records today.”

“We have excellent security,” Lucinda went on, “and the president and I have total faith in his detail. In an election year, we always see an escalation in death threats.”

Wes nodded. “I’ll need to know the nature of the threats, the analysis of the threat level, and what the Secret Service containment policies are.”

“You see,” Lucinda said, smiling more broadly now, “you’ve just proved my point. We need someone in charge who knows how to approach these kinds of issues in a scientific fashion.”

“Any physician should be able—”

“But not with the facility of someone whose job it has been to set up treatment, triage, and interventional protocols under battlefield conditions. That is a fairly unique skill.”

“Do you expect an attack on POTUS?”

Lucinda sipped her coffee and finally said softly, “It isn’t a question of if the president will be attacked, but when. That is the presumption we all work under, Captain Masters. As long as we believe that, we will be prepared for anything.”

“I understand.” Wes decided to push her luck. “And the current staff? Isn’t it customary to advance members from within?”

Lucinda shrugged. “There is nothing customary in the White House, Captain. The guard changes every four to eight years, and many of the personnel change at the same time. The rules, if there are any, are almost totally dependent upon who occupies these rooms.” Lucinda regarded her for a long moment, and Wes sat under her dissecting gaze calmly. “The White House Military Office is your counterpart, and they felt no internal candidate was qualified for the unique demands of this position at this point in time.”

“I can assure you, Ms. Washburn,” Wes said, “I am prepared.”

“I’m very, very glad to hear that.” Lucinda set her cup aside, and her expression took on the kind of intense focus Wes recognized from the field when an engagement was imminent.

Lucinda Washburn was about to tell her the real reason she’d been hired. Everything else was reasonable, but that about-to-do-battle glint in Lucinda’s eyes said there was more.

“Need-to-know, Captain,” Lucinda said softly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We have a security breach, as yet unidentified, but we suspect the individual has intimate access to the president. You’ll be with those closest to him every day.”

“I’m not a security agent, I’m a doctor.”

Lucinda smiled. “And as such, a trained observer.”

Wes asked, “Who are the likely suspects?”

Lucinda drew a long breath and listed the limited pool of individuals with close, continuous access to the president. Evyn Daniels was one of them. Wes thought back to the hours they’d spent together the night before. If she’d had this information then, maybe she wouldn’t have suggested dinner, even though she couldn’t imagine Evyn betraying her country. But then, she didn’t really know her at all. All she had to go on were nebulous feelings, and feelings had no place in her job.

“I’ll be read in on any security updates?” Wes asked.

“Yes—need-to-know.” Lucinda stood, indicating the interview was over. “Questions?”

“No, ma’am. I do have a request.”

“Go ahead,” Lucinda said, a note of curiosity in her tone.

“I’d like to see the autopsy file on Dr. O’Shaughnessy.”

Lucinda’s jaw tightened. “You’ll have that today, Captain. As soon as the last of the paperwork is completed.”

“Thank you.”

Lucinda Washburn leaned across her desk and pushed a button on her phone. A voice came over the speaker. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Would you please let the agents know Captain Masters is ready?”

“Certainly.”

Lucinda turned. “We’ll get the polygraph out of the way, and that should be the end of the formalities.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Wes rose. “As I said, I’ll be reviewing the president’s chart today. I would like to examine him at his earliest convenience.”

“Really?” Lucinda studied her. “Why? Everything is in his records.”

“That may be, but if I’m going to be his doctor, I need to perform a baseline physical examination and make my own assessment.”

“You don’t trust your predecessor?”

“I don’t know him,” Wes said. “But in any case, I wouldn’t presume to take care of someone I had never examined. It’s not good medicine.” She hesitated, seeing the consternation in Lucinda Washburn’s eyes. She imagined the president was incredibly busy, and finding time to meet with her would probably be incredibly inconvenient. “In my experience, high-profile patients often get poor care. Physicians and everyone else involved are reluctant to inconvenience them. Things get overlooked. That’s not fair to any patient, but it certainly is not appropriate for the president of the United States. In light of everything you’ve told me, it’s imperative I judge his status for myself.”

“I understand. I’ll see that it’s scheduled as soon as possible.” Lucinda extended her hand and Wes took it. “Welcome to the House, Captain.”