If our global spy networks, drone webs, electronic cloaks, military bases and diplomatic corps were the pulmonary and nervous systems, this was the brain.
Built originally in the 1960s after the Bay of Pigs fiasco revealed the need for a centralized Communications, Command and Control center within the White House itself, the Situation Room underwent a significant renovation in 2007. The cathode ray monitors and fax machines were ripped out and replaced with ceiling sensors to detect smartphones and other digital devices, with multiple tiers of computer terminals, customized with the latest technologies, and with flat panel displays for secure videoconferencing. It was one of the most wired, the most technologically advanced command centers in the world… which is exactly why they chose not to use it.
Instead, the President and his senior staff were huddled together in the President’s Emergency Operations Center, a reinforced bunker located several stories beneath the East Wing, originally constructed during World War II under President Roosevelt. While the Center included a handful of televisions, some phones and a rather rudimentary communications system through which to coordinate with other government agencies during an emergency, it was — at least compared to The Situation Room in the West Wing — positively Stone Age when it came to IP-based innovation. As a result, it had been far easier to insulate and sanitize from the prying eyes and ears of HAL2 and the Net.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Members of the National Security Council and their staff, such as Rory Woodcock and Hellard. National Security Advisor Tom Dolan. Homeland Security Director Gianetta Pignateli. NSA Director General Darius. National Security Director Jim Flapper. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lamb. And, of course, the President himself. They had already convened in the PEOC.
Lulu and Decker, on the other hand — plus Decker’s now ubiquitous guard, U.S. Marine Sergeant Swan — had been redirected to the Executive Briefing Room right next door by a burly, earpiece-sporting Secret Service agent as soon as they’d arrived at the White House.
Well, under it was more accurate. They’d never actually entered the White House itself, having traveled by government subway from NSA Headquarters at Fort Meade paralleling the Green line to Gallery Place and then switching to a much smaller driverless vehicle much like the cars of the Capitol Subway.
Upon arriving at the White House, they’d been searched once again, and all of their digital devices had been temporarily confiscated and placed in a large lead-lined “coffin” by the door. While Hellard went ahead into the PEOC — stepping through the heavy metal frame, like the door of a bank vault — Lulu, Decker and Sergeant Swan were shunted off to the Conference Room and told to stand by.
Decker hadn’t said a word to Lulu since their encounter at Fort Meade during the blackout. What was the point? But when they were finally alone — except for his stone-faced guard, Sergeant Swan — he found himself staring at her.
She had changed her outfit at the Fort and was wearing a smart black dress now, almost too formal, as if she’d been caught on the way to the ballet or opera before being summoned to the White House. Her hair had been wrangled with mousse, made more sensible. Even her shoes, a pair of conservative black flats, seemed designed to counterbalance the earring and stud holes, now vacant of jewelry and virtually invisible.
“What are you looking at?” she asked him.
“Nothing.”
“Then, stop staring at me.”
“I just want to know,” he began, and she sighed.
It was not subtle. “What?” She cocked her head to the side. “What, John? I told you I was sorry. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”
She was right, of course, Decker thought. He should have left it at that. That’s why it was even more inexcusable and pathetic when he found himself saying, “Was it all just an act, Lulu?” Like some sophomore in high school. Some sad, pandering fool. “For Uncle Sam. Every kiss, was it? Did any part of you care? What was that story you told me about your grandmother and her sayings? That she doesn’t care where they come from as long as they’re true.” He laughed tightly. “And I bought it — hook, line and sinker. I swallowed it whole. Do you even have a grandmother, Lulu?”
Lulu was reluctant to answer. “Why do men always feel the need to be validated?” she said after a moment. “I was just doing my job. I’m sorry it turned out the way that it did. I didn’t want to hurt you. That wasn’t part of the plan. But, as clichéd and old-fashioned as it may seem these days, I happen to love my country. She took us in, my whole family, when we needed her most. I will fight and I’ll die for her. And, yes, I will certainly lie for her. And I have, many times. Just as you have, I’m sure. Just as you do every day in the course of doing your job. That’s what we do, isn’t it, every time we step into the field? We’re professional liars, Special Agent Decker. Does that make a difference? Look at you.” She leaned in a little bit closer. “You’ve already condemned me. And yet, without me — you know it — you’d already be dead.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Isn’t it? It’s fundamental.” She laughed. “What did you expect? Did you really believe that someone who could somersault from a car onto an adjacent truck at high speed was just a college professor?”
“I knew you worked with the IC, special projects for the Fort and the like. Rex told me that. Plus, I looked you up. I knew you had security clearance. But so do a lot of part-time IC consultants, like mathematicians, cryptanalysts, IT experts.”
“And when I took out that Massachusetts State Trooper. Just another dojo rat, is that what you thought? Or did you expect I’d know martial arts because I’m Chinese? Was it just a racial assumption?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Then what? You ingrate. I keep you alive all this time just so I can hear you bitch and moan about—”
“You keep me alive? Who stopped you from falling off of your balcony when you tripped on your stupid Dino-Bot? Who flung you to that cabin floor in Vermont when your own Ford tried to kill you?”
“Fine, so you’ve come in handy a couple of times. Whoop-de-do. You’d be nowhere on this case without me. You know it and I know it.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Sergeant Swan started to chuckle.
“What are you laughing at?” Decker and Lulu said simultaneously.
“Nothing,” he answered, raising his hands. “You just remind me of me and the missus. You two married? You know you give a shit when you argue like that.”
Lulu and Decker looked at each other and, for the first time, he noticed her hair had a deep purple undercolor to it. It wasn’t plain black as he’d originally thought. Not really. It just appeared black until you looked at it at just the right angle. And, he thought, this was Lulu, exactly. Even when he had asked her to strip down to the essential core of her being, she hadn’t been able to resist adding that electric lavender tint. It wasn’t personal. Giving her finger to the world was just her way of saying, “I’m here!” An existential cry in the dark. I am who I am, unique and utterly different, the author of my own destiny, even as I ink my own skin.
“Just promise me one thing,” Lulu added. “If and when we get in there. Be careful of Woodcock.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
“I’ve had issues with him in the past,” she replied, shaking her head. “He’s the kind of guy who’s always complaining how he’s surrounded by assholes, folks who aren’t as smart or as visionary as he is. My grandmother always says, ‘If you run into more than three assholes in a day, one of them is probably you.’”