Directly across the table from the president, and therefore on Themison’s right, sat the vice president of the United States of America, the beautiful Peta Hopeit – she insisted that her name be pronounced “Hopyte” rather than “Hopit” to avoid any Peter Rabbit jokes. She appeared to be busily reading a file. In truth, she was too embarrassed to look the President in the eye, and Themison believed he knew why.
On the President’s right sat Secretary of State Chuck Nyckson, while Secretary of Defense Michael Pallaster was on the President’s left. Directly opposite Pallaster and thus on the vice president’s right, sat Secretary of the Treasury Haden Ploutonos. All other members of the Cabinet sat in the order of the date of creation of their department. Paul Dias’s department, Environment and Agriculture, was the last department created and so his chair was at the end of the oval table to the left of the President.
With ever deepening concern, Themison’s eyes wandered to Dias’s vacant chair.
Normally, various department advisers would be seated directly behind the Cabinet member they served. However, this was not a normal day, and the only adviser present was Jake Jefferson, sometimes called Jeff, the president’s chief of staff.
The room was strangely quiet. Some, like Peta Hopeit, studiously read the papers in front of them, or at least appeared to, while others gazed absentmindedly out of the Georgian style windows to the rose garden beyond.
Attorney General Adam Themison, regarded by many as the father figure of the Cabinet, felt rather than saw President Posey turn his dark-blue penetrating eyes on him.
‘What the hell is taking him so long?’ Posey snapped.
A sudden knock on the door saved Themison from having to answer.
A tall, severe looking man was ushered into the Cabinet room. Although he was well over six feet tall and smartly dressed in a dark gray suit, pink shirt and was sporting a Princeton Medallion tie, he still looked as if he would be more comfortable on a horse somewhere in the Midwest. His eyes were very dark rimmed.
‘Mr. President, may I introduce Ari Kratos, Director of the FBI…’ Themison began.
‘For Chris-sakes, I know who he is; I appointed him,’ Posey said.
Themison, and everyone else present for that matter, knew that that wasn’t strictly true. Ari Kratos had been appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a traditional 10-year term by Posey’s predecessor. Kratos had been appointed by apresident but not by the current president. The statement said a lot about Posey’s conception of the presidency. He fervently believed that the presidency was the continuation of an institution established for the benefit of the American people and encompassed the Constitution from its foundation to the present time; it was not, therefore, the sole preserve of the present incumbent but a continuous, non-family lineage.
‘It’s not good news, Mr. President,’ Kratos said quietly. ‘Dr. Dias has been badly injured in an accident…’
‘How badly?’ Peta Hopeit asked, trying unsuccessfully to stop her voice from breaking with emotion.
‘They think he might have a broken leg, and he is in a coma…’ Kratos began.
‘Has his wife been informed?’ asked the surprisingly compassionate Secretary of State Chuck Nyckson.
‘I had an agent pick up Mrs. Dias and take her to the hospital,’ Kratos replied.
‘Good,’ Posey said, nodding. ‘And the driver? How is he?’
‘The driver, sir?’ Kratos asked, clearly surprised by the question.
‘Yeah, the driver, if Paul Dias was sitting in the back and is in a coma; what the hell state is the driver in?’ Posey asked, not unreasonably.
‘Dr. Dias was not in the car, sir. He had elected to walk…’
‘Walk! And your agents let him?’ Posey shouted.
‘His guards are not provided by the FBI or the Secret Service, Mr. President. Only you and the vice president have daily Secret Service protection. Most of the secretaries of other departments provide their own protection unless the help of the Secret Service or the FBI is specifically requested,’ Ari Kratos replied quietly in his slow, Midwestern drawl.
‘But the FBI vetted those guards, did they not?’ asked Haden Ploutonos the aggressive secretary of the treasury. Themison knew he would never miss an opportunity to embarrass a colleague, particularly him.
Although Ari Kratos was not a member of the Cabinet, Attorney General Adam Themison was his executive boss, and it was well known that there was no love lost between Ploutonos and the more gentlemanly Themison.
‘We’re looking into it, sir,’ Kratos replied firmly, unconsciously jutting out his jaw as he was speaking.
‘So, what happened to the driver of the vehicle that hit Paul Dias?’ Posey asked.
‘The Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Agriculture was struck by his own vehicle, which then took off with the two bodyguards and hasn’t been seen since,’ Kratos replied.
The Cabinet room was suddenly deathly quiet. Everyone present realized that they were as vulnerable to attack as much as the unfortunate Honorable Paul Z. Dias clearly had been, and they didn’t like the feeling one little bit.
Behind the president, Jake Jefferson, the president’s chief of staff, hastily scribbled a note. Jake was a black American who preferred to be called “black” and not “African-American” because his ancestry was Caribbean, not African. His jacket was undone, and so, as he leant forward to place a note on the oval table in front of the president, Jake’s orange tie briefly flapped against the president’s cheek. Posey angrily flicked at the tie, and then grabbed the note, read it, and nodded.
‘Who will be heading the investigation?’ Posey asked.
‘Special Agent-in-Charge Carl Rutter, sir. He is very experienced and will report directly to me,’ Kratos replied. An SAC was the most senior field agent rank within the FBI.
‘Good. It seems you are going to be very busy Mr. Kratos. Don’t let me detain you any further – keep me posted,’ Posey said dismissively, knowing full-well that it would be the attorney general that Kratos would keep well informed.
As soon as the Director of the FBI had left the room, everyone started talking at once. No one voice could be heard above the babble. President Posey decided he had to take back control. Annoyed, he first drummed his fingers on the oval table, a gift to the nation from Richard Nixon in the nineteen-seventies. The drumming had no effect, and so he violently slammed the table with the palm of his hand. Silence was instantly restored, and everyone looked expectantly at the President.
Posey surveyed the room; his dark-blue, penetrating eyes individually eyeballing in turn everyone sitting around the table.
‘Is there anyone in this room who thinks for one goddamned nanosecond that Paul Dias’s so-called accident was nothing less than an attempt to kill him because someone didn’t want him to talk to us about Operation Olympus?’ Posey asked quietly.
No one spoke; a few shook their heads.
‘Outside the people in this room,’ Posey continued in the same aggressive tone, ‘nobody in the whole wide-world