CHAPTER 28

   If there was one thing that David Kent was glad to discover about this job, it was the fact that he really did not need to know anything about it. David had often wondered why it was that Bill Devon would pick someone who was  as obscure as a small time college professor to hold such a prestigious position. There were some people around the Department of the Interior that did nothing to hide the fact they did not take him seriously. There were even more, around DC in general, that were outright scornful. David figured that last crew had thought they would get the job and resented an outsider getting in the way of their career plans. David actually felt sorry for some of them and not because he really empathized, it was mostly because he agreed with their argument, he did not belong here.
Even if David had professionals to handle the national parks, the national forests, and all that it entailed, he still felt he should have at least some interest. As much as he made himself try, he did not. David was the kind of guy who could buy a plastic plant and accidentally kill it in a month. He always considered himself more of a people person and, in that respect, the older that David got the more he discovered he did not even like them. Now he had to worry about more than just people and it was not a job he was qualified for either. David had told the President that, way back when, and the guy did not listen. That was why David was spending most of his time reading files, digesting the materials, and trying to really become an expert on inter species relations. Unfortunately, the more David learned, the more he realized the truth. Producing an expert in this field might be impossible.
As David closed one more elf file, he looked at his watch and stood up from behind his desk. As he grabbed for his coat, one of his many staffers came bouncing in with a huge smile on his face. The guy was pointing at some papers in his hand and saying, “we just got this in. It's really good news.”
David stopped in front of the mirror and began looking himself over. He was supposed to have assistants for this but, it was a Washington habit he did not intend to take up. David had been dressing himself, just fine, since he was six. He figured he could manage without a fashion consultant on the pay roll.
After one more look at his tie, he told his staffer, “well we can always use more of that around here, these days.” The guy just stood there smiling like an idiot. David had to bark, “well what is it? I have a meeting at the White House.”
“Oh,” the man shook his head and then said, “we got the quarterly report back from the forest service. They're reporting an almost fifty percent growth rate increase across several thousand acres of national forest.”
David thought about it and asked suspiciously, “is that good?”
“It's unprecedented,” the man replied. “I only bring this up because we should schedule a press conference and there are the ecological...”
“You do that,” David said before he walked out the door. His parting thought was, “send my congratulations to the trees.”
Ten minutes later, David was in the halls of the west wing and, even if his meeting was with the big guy, he found himself intercepted by someone else, first. That was no real surprise and, neither was the person who did it. Mary Moore pulled him in and empty office and crossed her arms, “ok David, what's this about?” David was a bit confused so Mary just spit it out, “you're about to have a meeting in the Oval Office and, I don't know why. Start talking Mister Secretary.”
“It's complicated,” David replied. He had not put any specific summary on the request he had sent the Chief Of Staff. David had no idea Mary would become involved and, David figured it was all a formality anyway. As he understood it, he didn't have to actually request the face time. He was on a very short list of people that had access to the President whenever he wanted it.
Mary seemed to have other ideas, “Bill doesn't have time for complicated these days. In case you haven't noticed David, we're in the middle of a crisis.”
“Well it is my sincere belief,” David told her, “that he needs to get a few more complications or, this crisis is going to be bigger than any of us ever imagined.”
There was silence that Mary finally had to fill with, “I'm listening.”
David huffed in frustration and then closed the office door. He sat down and waited for Mary to do so as well. When it was clear Mary would not, David started with, “before you even ask, no I don't have any new information.”
“Ok David,” Mary tried to sound apologetic. It was, after all, one of her unofficial duties to educate this man in the ways of the beltway. He just did not seem to want to get it, even if it was clear he did. Mary told him, “today is a really bad day for a heart to heart, if that is what this is about. Unless you turned up something that...”
“Don't you get it Mary,” David said as his eyes narrowed and he jerked forward in a very serious way, “this isn't about what we've turned up. It's about what we haven't.”
Mary almost gulped and then wondered if David was the leak. She picked her words carefully and then, finally she just dropped one, “flatbed.”
Kent blinked, “what?” Mary waived it off as if it were not important and then invited him to continue. David composed his thoughts and then said, “why are there humans in two different universes? We now know one came here and found humans already on Earth. Why are we so close in biology to the elves? Why were  no exotic diseases found in Feyland?”
Mary just rolled her eyes, “David, these are all questions we are familiar with. I think that we have more im...”
“No,” David was quite adamant, “that's what you're not getting. I've not seen one of our experts ask the right questions or postulate a real theory on any of this, and I'm convinced it's all interconnected.”
Mary crossed her arms, sighed, and then said, “I'm not following you David.”
“I know,” David replied. “Don't you see? The only way any of this could be true is if this little microcosm we're looking at isn't even a fraction of the big picture.” That did peak Mary's interest but, probably not for the reasons that David thought. She nodded for him to continue and he did, “Mary, what I'm getting a glimpse of, from all these reports, is that what we have here is a very complex series of migrations, that span millions of years. The story we've been looking at, even with the Camelonians thrown in, is just what's been happening since breakfast this morning.”
Mary nodded. She did not desire to carry on this conversation any longer. She also told David, “I'll make sure you get your face time but, not today.” Before David could protest she cut him off with, “he has an emergency last minute meeting. Please bare with us?” Mary left David with that, even if she felt bad about it, and walked right into the Oval Office.
Bill Devon looked up from the paperwork on his desk and saw the look on her face. He then asked rhetorically, “went that well, did it?”
Mary looked back to the closed door and said with regret, “you were right about that guy, he is smart.”
“And obscure,” Bill said as he looked back down at the forms, “which makes him perfect for that job.”
“He's figuring it out Bill,” Mary said glumly. “In fact, after listening to him rattle on, I think the guy is figuring out more than we have.”
That stopped Bill and he struck a thoughtful pose as he considered what Mary told him. He then noted, “well that gives us some idea about what the academic community is thinking. We knew this wasn't going to stay a secret forever. Sooner or later, some professor, who is not on the payroll, is going to start pointing these things out.”
“Yeah,” Mary agreed only she added, “like Kent will do when he decides to resign, go back to Alabama, and write a tell all book.”
“He won't do that,” Devon said as he waived the notion off. “We have his curiosity peaked. He'll stick around long enough to satisfy it.” The phone buzzed not long after and it was the call Bill was expecting. After he put the phone down he told Mary, “well get ready for the real event.”
Lasky came strolling in the Oval Office with his usual cheerful demeanor. He exchanged greetings and as he got comfortable in a chair he told the President, “I can't really say I'm surprised you asked me here, Mister President.”
Bill acted amused as he replied in an equally pleasant tone, “you got my message, I take it.”
“Oh,” still pleasant, Lasky replied, “you mean like the one where you sent Isaacs out to poke around one of my grant recipients? Then again, maybe it was Garrets attack dog trying to pester a Tideman Vice President? Which one exactly?”
Bill remained passive and just shrugged as he easily replied, “take your pick.”
“You know,” Lasky chuckled, “you could have just sent me a text.”
“Funny you should say that Warren,” Bill replied, “cause I was thinking something similar. I remember the day when we all sat down in here with Frank. You were supposed to have told me everything, that day. You even said it was everything.”
Lasky was not rattled, “I told you everything we knew for certain.”
“But,” Bill countered with, “you didn't tell me everything that was important. I now know why you're blowing yourself with wind tunnels and storm chasers.”
Lasky just shrugged it off, “nothing illegal about any of that, is there?”
Bill almost rolled his eyes, “no but running private intelligence operations inside our own military is.”
“Ah,” Lasky raised a finger and was still smiling, “I thought you might bring that up. Your predecessor authorized those operations and the duties were contracted out. I can provide you with all of the paperwork.”
“And,” Bill easily replied, “naturally, Tideman just happened to own the security consultants who carried them out.”
Lasky leaned forward in his chair and became a bit more serious, “look Bill. My people were tasked with this job, long before we even knew about that damn hole in Britain. I witnessed it. Mister Tideman witnessed it. Like it or not, we're the only experts this country has.”
“Experts?” Bill said as if unconvinced. “You guys farted around with this shit for thirty years or more, and you didn't come up with squat. As near as I can tell, the stuff you're coming up with now is the crap you're stealing from other people. Your little Orc project hasn't turned out any useful information. I still have no clue what your spooks were doing in the Rangers but, I can only surmise, you didn't find out anything or else you'd be thumping your chest right now.” Bill let that hang and the silence gather before he added, “or maybe you have figured something out and you haven't bothered to share it.”
The one thing that seemed certain was, Lasky was no longer amused. He sat for a moment and thought. Then he said in a business like tone, “we suspect the Camelonians are using radar to control the Dell. They stumbled over it by accident in the nineteen twenties or thirties. It was after the first large scale radio networks went up. We even believe that was how radar came to be invented. It was an off shoot project of their attempts to control the Dell.”
Mary realized she was supposed to be silent but she had to ask, “and you think that was behind our incident back in the late seventies?”
Lasky was quite confident when he replied, “oh we are certain of that. What we don't know are the frequencies and my people tell me that they vary, depending on solar conditions.”
Bill quietly asked, “why solar conditions?”
Lasky became jovial again, “well, the sun is one giant radio transmitter, that's why. We know, so far, that the Dell is affected by two natural forces. One is obviously gravity. I mean it doesn't stay put forever but, it does remain relatively motionless over long periods of time. We think it got trapped in our gravity well, probably drifted in from space. The other force is being bombarded by photons of specific wave lengths. We don't know why it reacts like it does but, we're confident at this point, that it does react.”
Now Bill asked the obvious question, “and you didn't think this was important enough to mention?”
“Mister President,” Lasky waived it off, “when you had your initial brief, we didn't know any of this. In truth, we only suspect it right now. Once we were sure of our findings, you would be the first person we told.”
When Lasky was finally gone, Bill looked to Mary and glumly stated, “of course, you realize why he volunteered that bit of information, right?”
Mary was equally as glum, “cause he knew that we already knew that much.”
Bill looked at the glass half full, “well at least we know one more thing than we did before the meeting.”
Mary was confused, “what's that Bill?”
Bill put his reading glasses back on and went back to his paperwork. He almost mumbled as he replied to her, “we now know for certain that he's not telling us everything.”