In the Weeds Page 15

  He wanted to hold on and run away both.

  He felt her go back to sleep. He considered waking her, because maybe it was time they had a talk. Tried to figure out what was—

  The phone by his bed rang so loudly that he felt as if he’d been plugged into an electric socket. He was—normally—a very deep sleeper, so he kept it loud.

  By the second ring, several things had happened.

  Rex leapt to his feet on the bed.

  Only by quickly scooting sideways was Colby able to avoid being castrated by one of Rex’s massive paws.

  Ivy jolted awake.

  Having learned a thing or two, he managed to get a hand between her and his solar plexus to block any random incoming elbows. He even managed to get his face out of her hair and turned to the side so that he didn’t get headbutted as she too jolted to life.

  His balance tipped precariously at the edge of the mattress, but he held on.

  Until Ivy dove for the phone on the nightstand, placing a breast squarely in his face.

  That did it.

  All balance and control gone, he tumbled down onto the carpet, where Rex and Ivy both looked down at him in surprise.

  “Hello?” Ivy answered his phone. At least she said something like that, her voice was still thoroughly sleep-fuzzed.

  “It’s for you,” she handed it down to him.

  “It is my phone.”

  She blinked her eyes hard a couple of times, looking around the room as if uncertain quite where she was. It was Saturday morning. The only person who called him on Saturday morning was his mother. They usually checked in with each other about whether they could fit in a family meal over the weekend.

  And Ivy had answered the phone. This was bad in so many ways.

  “Hi, Mom.” There had to be some way to avoid explaining the woman in his bed. No, that wasn’t the problem—Mom was used to that. There had to be some way to avoid explaining quite which woman was in his bed.

  “Not your mom, Thompson,” General Arnson snarled into the phone. “Was that my best officer who answered?”

  “Um, yes, sir.” This was even worse than Mom.

  “And what did I say about you messing up my best officer?”

  “You didn’t say anything about mussing her up though.” Not his best comeback, but he was lying naked on the floor with an equally naked Ivy looking down at him quizzically and that was a very distracting vision. Her hair was loose and tangled, making a charming golden halo about her face. It was a vision he wouldn’t soon forget.

  There was a stony silence on the phone.

  For lack of anything else to offer to keep him out of the future job of dogshit cleaner, he kept his own silence.

  “Why aren’t you at the White House?”

  “Because we—” should have said I “—got in at four a.m. And perhaps I should mention that it’s Saturday.”

  “You don’t understand the trouble you’re in, Thompson. Neither does Major Hanson.”

  “Trouble, sir?” We’re both in trouble? Colby mouthed the question to Ivy.

  She furrowed her brow for a moment, then shrugged. Which set off some very nice secondary effects down her body that he did his best to ignore. At least until he got off the phone.

  “Harvey Lieber is unwilling to place the President’s life in my helicopters until we have a solution. HMX-1’s next mission is supposed to be Ottawa. That’s Monday morning. You and Major Hanson have forty-eight hours to solve this. I expect you to arrive in the White House Military Office in twenty minutes and not move your asses a single inch until you get this done.”

  “I live thirty minutes door-to-door from the White House.”

  “Make it in twenty-five,” he snarled, leaving no doubt that it was the limits of his patience.

  “We aren’t even dressed,” some idiot part of himself just couldn’t resist. But the instant he said it, he knew he was a dead man.

  “Twenty-four!” And the line went dead—thankfully before he could think to point out that Rex needed a morning walk as well.

  Ivy’s attempt to detour to the Navy Mess to get coffee and something breakfasty was blocked when General Arnson spotted her coming through the West Wing lobby.

  “Where are your dress blues?”

  “Still water-logged from my swim in the Potomac.” All she’d had in her go-bag were battledress uniforms. And her spare blues were in her apartment on the other side of town from Colby’s apartment. It was embarrassing to come to the White House dressed so casually, but she hadn’t had any other option. The general was immaculate in his uniform.

  “Where’s Thompson?” The general looked ready to commit murder.

  “Taking Rex for a quick walk,” she nodded toward the West Wing’s entrance. “He thought it might be better if his dog didn’t pee on the lobby security desk.” They’d split tasks to save time—he’d walk Rex and she’d get breakfast—but her part of the job wasn’t working very well. She tried leading the general over to the mess, but he didn’t appear to be in the mood to move so she was stuck.

  “Thompson.” He said it completely deadpan. “You have a history?”

  “Not the way you mean. We grew up next door to each other.”

  “Assessment? And don’t give me any happy smile crap. I can see that part of it all over you already.”

  Ivy had been sure that her best deadpan was firmly in place. “I—” she tried to start, but Arnson’s scowl stopped her and she had to try again. Happy smile crap all over her? He was right, that couldn’t be what was happening. Except she could feel that it was.

  “Colby Thompson. If ever there was an unambitious man, he’s it. Always was. However, he has risen to his current position through skill and hard work. It would never enter his mind to maneuver or be a political animal.”

  “A top soldier, but no officer.”

  “A natural leader, but no cutthroat attitude to match.”

  “How many throats did you cut before you came to my attention at HMX-1, Hanson?”

  “As few as possible,” she risked a smile.

  The general returned it readily enough before continuing in a softer voice. “Being a Marine officer means that you toed the line—and you toed it hard. You know and I know that anyone who waivered from the standard of the Corps was meant to be left in the dust.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think you and your unambitious lover can get my helos back on the job?”

  She wasn’t comfortable with the word lover, but that wasn’t something to point out to a pissed-off general.

  “If we fail, it won’t be for lack of killing ourselves, sir.”

  His grim nod said she’d better come back dead if she failed.

  “Any assets you need, any, get them. Call my cell at any hour if some dead man tries to stonewall you. And Hanson…”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You cut any throats you have to. Even dog boy’s. I want my birds back in the air.”

  “Got any throats I can slit?” Ivy lay her head down on the desk, not even bothering to shove aside any of the paperwork.

  “How about mine?” Colby was too exhausted to slouch and barely managed a slump in his own chair. Three shifts had cycled through the WHMO without making them much wiser.

  The organization chart of who was informed of flight operational frequencies hung on one wall. They’d managed to reduce the list by a third—General Arnson’s approval for that had arrived less than six minutes after they’d sent him the proposal.

  Three different radio experts had reviewed the operations frequency selection methodology—the White House Communications Agency was a part of the WHMO, so they didn’t have to go far to find the top people in the field. Between them, they generated an entirely new set of protocols that required half as many frequencies and actually improved operations and crisis communication efficiency. Because that one was more convoluted and had broader ramifications to HMX procedures, it required Arnson nine minutes to approve it. Harvey L
ieber’s approval—as the Presidential Protection Detail was also involved—arrived six minutes later with the note: Good work. But it’s not enough yet. That had sapped what little energy had sustained them through the round-the-clock shift.

  “Twenty-four hours down,” Colby rubbed at the back of his neck, but that didn’t help either. “Twenty-four more to go before the President is on the move again. You know, if you’d gone to space, neither of us would be in this pickle.”

  “Next time he goes into the Oval Office, let’s sneak upstairs and padlock all the doors shut from the outside.”

  “Nah,” Colby forced himself not to lay his head down on the table right next to Ivy’s. “Then Harvey Lieber, as head of the protection detail, would have to shoot us. And that would lead to all sorts of awkward problems.”

  “Like the general not being able to kill us himself for not fixing this problem.”

  “Right. Besides, being killed twice doesn’t sound like much fun from our end of it either.”

  “I’m hungry,” Ivy told the diagram of the F-14 model’s flight path and attack line that her head lay on.

  “I’m too tired to be hungry,” Colby agreed. The only one who’d eaten regularly had been Rex. Colby looked at his watch. “It’s 0600. Sunday, I think. The Navy Mess won’t open for a while.”

  “The White House has a kitchen. I know because my brother works there.”

  And the chances of running into Reggie at this hour on a Sunday were thankfully very low. “We’ll circle out across the South Lawn for Rex to do his thing.”

  It still took them a couple of minutes to generate enough enthusiasm to stand and another to get moving. Once he was outside, Colby felt as if he could breathe again. This is what he and Rex were used to. Walking the lawn, out in whatever the weather was. This inside desk work just wasn’t right for a man and his dog. But that was a problem for another time.

  “I love this time of day.” The dawn had painted the entire sky in roses and pinks. Blues were still several minutes away and for the moment there was a hush on DC. Too early for the traffic or the protestors, even the birds seemed to be holding their breath.

  Rex piddled on a couple of rose bushes on their way to enter below the South Portico. The ground level entrance passed through the Diplomatic Reception Room.

  “Are we even supposed to be in here?”

  “Sure. I’m Lead Dog. Clearance to go anywhere, even the Residence if I could justify the need.” Though he’d only been through this entrance a few times over the years.

  “I thought you weren’t Lead Dog anymore.”

  Colby felt the gut punch. Ivy rested her hand on his arm in immediate sympathy.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got to get used to it.”

  “I feel like I’m making the room dirty just by breathing in here.” She tucked her hand around his elbow as they stepped further into the room. After that, he didn’t care if they were supposed to be here or not.

  It was one of the four oval rooms in the White House, all roughly the same size. Predating the one in the West Wing were the three in the Residence. Stacked up, one per floor, the Green, Blue, and Yellow Ovals formed the grand curve of the South Portico giving the White House its distinctive shape.

  The Green was a pristine space. Its elegance so extreme that Colby had always felt it was stark. The rug was a vast terrain of pale blue and gold with the emblems of the fifty states worked into its perimeter. White doors, white walls, white ceiling, crystal chandelier.

  “It feels chilly,” Ivy’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Elsie, uh, this woman I knew, would have liked this room.” Several of his former girlfriends would have. The high-end furnishings, the obvious history of it all. He liked that Ivy would be more comfortable in a room with a battered but comfortable couch and a coffee table you could prop your feet on rather than one you’d be afraid to brush against.

  “Did you dump her or she you?” Ivy missed nothing, of course.

  Colby ignored the question and instead looked at the wallpaper mural. Zuber wallpaper, he’d been told, worth over sixty grand and put in place by Jackie Kennedy who had salvaged it from some mansion about to be demolished. He’d never really had time to look at it. Stylized scenes of nineteenth century America, back when there’d been much less of it. Boston Harbor, Niagara Falls, New York Bay—with a skyline that looked nothing like in the movies by about a hundred stories. It wrapped all the way around the room from waist height to eight or nine feet.

  He looked at Ivy and she was as wide-eyed as he felt.

  “Yeah, out.”

  She nodded quickly and they exited the far side of the room. The Central Hall had none of the pomp. Red carpeting, massive white arches supporting the upper three stories of the Residence that felt a little too low just because of the arches’ heft. It was immaculate, but far less scary.

  “Maybe I’ll avoid that entrance in the future.”

  “Good idea.”

  He dropped Rex off on the dog bed that was kept in the corner of the small Secret Service Ready Room before ducking down the hall to the kitchen. At this hour, there should only be one of the staff chefs manning the place. They could grab whatever was at hand and get right back to work. Stepping in the door, he was almost run over by Chef Klaus, the executive chef—who didn’t even bother to slow down, assuming the world would get out of his way.

  The kitchen was in full swing.

  Klaus strode up to a chef surrounded by massive crates of vegetables. He might be a Teutonic hardass, but he was also an amazing chef. He stopped beside the chef surrounded by crates of peas still in the pod, tiny brilliant green zucchini, and bright yellow, star-shaped pattypan squash.

  “It is not some hammer you are beating them with. It is a chef’s knife. It is a tool of art, not war. One extra ounce of pressure and we see it mar the flesh,” he watched the poor chef make another cut. “No! No! No! Do not slow down. Slow is as bad as too hard. Gentle and fast. Then you get smooth slice. Jawohl?”

  The chef nodded as Klaus continued to watch his every motion.

  Colby was glad that he hadn’t followed Reggie into being a chef. Reggie had tried to nudge him that way, but Colby had never had the deep passion about food that his best friend did. He was a better-than-average cook from all the meals they’d made together, but that was a long way from being a chef.

  Reggie was studying one of the massive soup kettles as if it was a set of nuclear launch codes.

  “Maybe if we step away quietly,” Colby whispered. “He won’t notice us. Then we can run for our lives.”

  Ivy looked at Colby in surprise.

  “You’re afraid of Reggie?” But they were best friends.

  “We’re in a kitchen filled with knives and cleavers. Consider it the better part of discretion.”

  “We’re armed too,” she patted her sidearm and dragged him the last step into the kitchen. “What’s that, Reg?”

  There was no reason for Colby to be worried, her brother didn’t even look up from his soup. There was no heat coming from it. In fact, the air felt cooler near it. Chilled pureed soup of some sort. Colby would probably know what it was just by looking at it, but she didn’t have a clue other than it looked creamy, smooth, and green. Maybe a space ooze that would leap out of the pot and turn them all into pod people.

  “Watch.” Reggie picked up a squeeze bulb attached to long rod. He squeezed the air out, dipped it in a bowl of an orange liquid, and sucked some of it up. Then he turned to his soup and, pressing the bulb once again, slowly formed a small orange globe that bobbed on the surface. He then stabbed it with a syringe of something dark green. Setting his implements aside, he picked up a soup spoon, scooped up the orange globe with some soup, and held it out for her to taste.

  She took it off the spoon. Bright mint was the first flavor to hit. She might not know how to cook oatmeal, but living with Dad and Reggie, she’d learned how to eat and taste. Waiti
ng past the initial surprise of mint, the smooth depth of fresh peas rolled over her tongue. But there was a citrus tease from the globe that had her biting down on it. In a minor explosion of flavor, bright orange sunshine flooded her mouth, finishing with just a hint of original mint and lemon that he’d injected into the center of the globe.

  “Oh. That’s wonderful. Spring in a spoonful. Make one for Colby.”

  “For Colby?” Reggie almost jumped out of his shoes when he looked around to realize that Colby was standing close beside her. Shocked out of his chef mode, his eyes immediately tracked down to where her hand was still looped around Colby’s elbow. It felt so natural there, she hadn’t thought anything about it. Well, to let go wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  Reggie slowly made another and held a spoon for Colby.

  She watched him as he tasted. It was as if she could see so much more of the dish just watching his face than tasting it herself. The balance of the salt and pepper. The choice of chicken rather than vegetable broth behind the primary pea flavor. And when he bit into it, the smile that touched his lips made her want to kiss him so that they could share that taste. They had been together for just two nights and again she was imagining intimate, sharing moments with him. And where might those moments lead? To equally connected and intimate sex. It wasn’t a question; it was a given with how it felt to lie against his body. How it felt to simply hold his arm.

  “A little more lemon in the mint center,” Colby suggested.

  “Then a little more pepper in the soup—no, just on the surface,” Reggie concluded. “The pepper will accent the lemon, bringing the final taste to life but I don’t want to unbalance the soup for today’s Rose Garden luncheon.” Which explained why the kitchen was so busy at such an early hour.

  They watched him in silence as he made another pair of globes. Scooping them onto fresh spoons, he ground the tiniest bit of pepper on each before handing them over.