It was a short dash up the path to the Oval Office, which faced the South Lawn, and they moved to it with urgent speed. It was the longest short dash Vince Capezzi ever experienced.
"Daddy, Daddy," called the First Daughter, coming running, the First Cat bounding along on its snow white paws.
Jack Murtha dropped to one knee, trained his shaking Delta Elite automatic on the First Cat and shouted, "Get that cat out of the way!"
The President's daughter went bone white. She gathered up the cat, shrinking back from the angry finger pointing at her.
"Daddy, what's going on?" she moaned.
"What are you doing?" the President demanded, pulling Murtha to his feet.
"Sir," Murtha said flatly. "We can take nothing on face value."
"That's my daughter, you clown!"
"Ask her a question only you and she know the answer to," Murtha said, not taking his eyes or his gun off the First Daughter.
"Where's your mother?" the President asked his daughter.
"Up-upstairs."
"Go to her. I'll be up shortly," the President urged.
"Daddy, I'm scared."
"I know," said the President, who wanted to reach out and give his daughter a hug but dared not move out of the box.
They escorted him to the latticed doors to the Oval Office, and only then did the human box of shaken agents dissolve to take take up their posts outside the doors.
The President got behind his desk and put in a call to the director of the Secret Service.
"I am glad you are all right, Mr. President," said the director.
"I am not all right," returned the President. "I just landed on the South Lawn, and a contingent of the White House detail were shooting all over the place."
"Shooting at what, sir?"
"It looked like they were shooting at me."
The director of the Secret Service was speechless. The President could almost hear him gulping for air on the other end of the line, not two blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.
"But they claim they were trying to shoot the First Cat," the President added.
"My agents?"
"Except the cat they were shooting at wasn't the First Cat, but an exact double."
The director of the Secret Service seemed to be having trouble breathing now.
"You know what this means?" the President continued. "A conspiracy. Maybe with roots in the Presidential protective service."
"I-I'm on my way, Mr. President," said the director of the Secret Service.
"Plan on a long stay," said the President before hanging up.
The First Lady burst into Oval Office a moment later, her blond hair bouncing, her face so white her cheeks looked like smoldering coals.
"Tell me what's going on!" she hissed. "I had to practically kick those agents in the balls before they'd let me in to see you."
"I want you to take Chelsea to Camp David. It may not be safe here."
"I'll do nothing of the kind."
The President looked at his wife, saw the sparks in her blue eyes and knew that all of Congress hitched together like a team of horses could not drag the First Lady to Camp David.
"I want you to do something for me," the President said.
"What's that?"
"Go through the incoming White House E-mail. Look for a message from Smith."
"Not that Smith?"
"Yes, that Smith. If you find one, bring it right here."
"First I want to know who Smith is."
"Sorry. National-security secret. You have no need to know."
"My foot! I'm the-"
"-wife of the President. Nobody elected you. Now get going. Unless you yearn to be the Jackie Kennedy of the nineties."
The First Lady turned even more pale, then turned on her heel and stormed out of the Oval Office.
After she was gone, the President went to the somber privacy of the Lincoln Bedroom and opened a drawer in an antique rosewood bed stand.
The red telephone without a dial sat where it had since the days of the President who had inspired him to run for high office a generation ago. He picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear. There was no dial tone. But as the outgoing President had explained to him, there never was a dial tone. It was a dedicated line to a faceless man named Dr. Harold W. Smith at
CURE, the supersecret branch of government only the Chief Executive knew about.
The President waited for the phone at the other end to ring. But there was only a dead, gravelike silence on the line.
It had been like this for three months. In those three months the Chief Executive had heard nothing from Smith. He had no idea where CURE was located. There was no other way to reach Smith, and since the last crisis in which Smith had gotten word to the White House by E-mail, there had been no further communication. But then there had been no further crises, either.
The President replaced the red receiver. It had been a wild stab in the dark to contact Smith this way. He wondered if the man had died.