It was cold and late-well past two in the morning-as Dr. Palmiotti stared at the drop phone that sat on his nightstand.
But as he lay there, wrapped in his down comforter, he knew he wasn’t even close to sleep.
For a while, he tried his usual tricks: visualizing a walk in the wide green stretch of grass in the arboretum behind his college dorm. He didn’t particularly like the outdoors. But he liked the idea of it. And he liked college. And usually, that was enough to do the trick.
Not tonight.
“Baby, you’re gonna be exhausted tomorrow,” Lydia said, rolling toward him as she faded back into her own slumber. “Stop worrying about him. If he needs you, he’ll call.”
He was still amazed to see her do things like that-to read him so clearly… to feel him being awake. He was lucky to have her. She understood him better in six months than his ex-wife did in nearly twenty years. And for a while, he thought about just that-in particular, about their night at the Four Seasons and the thing with the fishnet stockings she had done for his birthday-hoping it would be the key to his sleep.
But once again, the doctor’s thoughts wandered back to his friend, and the message the President had written, and to this nightmare at the Archives-which of course took Palmiotti right back to his nightstand, to the phone with the gold presidential seal on the receiver.
If he needs you, he’ll call.
It was good advice. But the one thing it failed to take into account was just how complex a President’s needs were. In fact, it was those particular needs that caused the Ring to be created in the first place. Both Rings. And while it was bad enough that someone accidentally found the book, if the rest was true, if there was now a third party involved and the original Culper Ring was closing in… In med school, they used to call it CD. It had the same acronym in politics. Certain Death.
Palmiotti stuck his leg out from the comforter, trying to break his sweat. The drop phone would be ringing any minute.
But for the next hour and a half, nothing happened.
Palmiotti was tempted to call the medical unit. From there, the on-duty nurse could confirm that Wallace was upstairs. But Palmiotti knew he was upstairs. At this hour, where else would the President be?
By 4 a.m., the doctor was still tossing and twisting, eyeing the phone and waiting for it to ring. He knew his friend. He knew what had to be going through his head. He knew everything that was now at stake.
The phone had to ring.
But it never did. Not tonight.
And as Dr. Palmiotti stared up at his ceiling, both legs sticking out of his comforter, one hand holding Lydia, it was that merciless silence that worried him most of all.