Page 8 of Air Force One
Meg settled in for a nap across her toes in the footwell.
6
Sarah Feldman had been in the Oval Office many times, but none of them helped her now.
She’d been here for meetings as the UN Ambassador, then as the National Security Advisor, and eventually as the Vice President. Now she stood here as the President-elect.
But this was the first time since the election that President Cole was out of the country. In two weeks, this would be her office. That chair behind the Roosevelt Desk would be her chair.
For now? She remained paralyzed two steps into the Oval. One of the secretaries had the decency to quietly close the door and leave her to face her fears in private.
“What am I doing here?”
She had no answer and, as she was the only one in the room, she was left with that lack. Having had terrible taste in men, twice, she was alone on that front as well. Which was a pity, she could really use a strong shoulder other than her own at the moment.
Over the last eight weeks since the election, she’d made every effort to form a coherent government as well as formulate an action plan. Bless Roy Cole all the way down to his shoes. He’d gladly answered her endless questions, walked her through the hidden ramifications of every security briefing, and helped stave off any incipient panic attacks by the simple expedient of assuring her they were perfectly normal.
He'd also refused to answer any policy questions. Need to ask those of yourself and your team, Sarah, not some old gaffer twenty years your senior. In his mid-sixties, he still boasted one of the sharpest minds in the business. She’d half-circumvented his stance by asking the reasoning behind his various past decisions; the ones he’d included her in and especially the ones he hadn’t. He’d permitted the workaround with one of his annoying-as-hell all-knowing half smiles. Though she figured that he’d earned it fair and square. After eight years in the chair, he was the most all-knowing person alive about the duties and challenges of the US presidency.
She had every intention of keeping his post-presidency phone number on speed dial.
For the next five days, she’d be pinch-hitting from the front lines while he traveled.
Pinch-hitting, hell! She could hear the military snap that Roy Cole had never quite left behind—at least when the cameras weren’t directed his way. He’d made sure that she’d been in on every decision since the day of her election, especially the hard ones. And for the next five days he’d said that he wanted to travel and do the Final Farewell Tour—and not worry about anything else. As if. But she’d try to at least keep the worst of the nonsense off his plate.
She’d stood this side of the Roosevelt Desk so many times over the years. But today she would sit in the President’s chair if it killed her. Per her schedule, she should have a quiet hour to perform one of her favorite tricks.
Sarah liked to sit in the Other Chair. When she couldn’t do it physically, she did it mentally. Before any key meeting, she would do her best to sit in the other person’s chair, even when it was the chair in front of her own desk. She would imagine she was the French ambassador, the Secretary General of the UN, or even General Drake Nason having a meeting with her. Then she’d start asking herself questions.
What was their view of this meeting?
What was their most likely agenda?
Biggest fears?
Greatest hopes?
This was her first chance to sit in the President’s chair uninterrupted and think about how the nation and the world looked from the highest seat. It encompassed both a view of the thirty-five feet of the Oval Office and of the entire world beyond.
What was their view, the ubiquitous they, of the first female President? The first Jewish one as well. What would they think of a forty-six-year-old woman who had ridden into office on Roy Cole’s strengths, the women-and-youth vote, and a shortsightedly fear-based campaign by her opponent that her people had managed to deflect until it fed on itself instead of the voting populace?
After several deep breaths, she’d managed two of the six steps toward the chair—which just might be glowering at her presumption—when all four doors of the Oval Office burst open at once.
“What did I—” Thankfully she didn’t have a chance to complete the daft question of her possible guilt for daring approach the hallowed seat before two agents took her arms and ninety percent of her weight. The others encircled her with their weapons drawn.
She knew a White House crash when she saw one. Except usually it was about staying in place, well back from the bulletproof windows, until whatever suicidal fence jumper had been apprehended and read his rights while lying face down in the South Lawn. Because the Oval Office faced the South Lawn, they almost always came in over the far wider expanse, leaving plenty of time to stop them.
Not this time.
Her protection detail formed a phalanx with her at the center. The head of her detail, Kali Singh, took the point position as they raced left down the corridor outside the Oval. At the Chief of Staff’s office, they took a sharp right. Felicia Cowell stuck her head out to see what was going on.
“Grab her,” Sarah shouted at one of the agents.
The squeak of surprise and the sudden clatter of heels told her that her right-hand woman was now in tow.
They slammed into the lift and plummeted down into the relatively new PEOC—Presidential Emergency Operations Center—that a prior administration had built beneath the West Wing’s Situation Room.
Five stories down, through the first bank-vault-thick door, a twenty-second hold while the air was flushed by a high velocity fan. It would strip away most contaminants. The airlock was also a kill zone. It, as easily, could have been evacuated of all air if someone managed to get this far.
