CHAPTER 53

“Sit,” Alicia snapped her fingers as she pointed to the couch.

Her father completely ignored her as he walked by, glasses on, and papers in hand. Bill Devon didn’t stop till he reached his desk and, even then, he didn’t sit. He did, however, promise her, “I will take a nap some time this afternoon, all right? I’ve got too much to do here.”

Alicia snarled and put her hands on her hips as she told her father, “it won’t be here for much longer Dad. The movers are going to be here this afternoon at four.”

Bill was going through stacks of paper and did not even look up as he said, “call them and tell them to put it off for one more day.”

“I can’t do that!” Alicia stomped over to his desk, “these are the classified movers, you know the guys that actually have security clearance to be up here? They’re back logged dad, election year, remember? Half of town is leaving right now.”

Bill stopped, took off his glasses, and thought about that. Then he looked at his daughter and seriously asked, “you mean I got elected to President of the United States and I can’t even find a moving company to hire? There has to be some kind ironic statement in there somewhere, I just can’t see it right now.”

Alicia crossed her arms and pouted, “that’s because you haven’t slept in three days.”

“I slept,” Bill always liked this part of his relationship with his child, “I’m just so tired I forgot when it was.” His daughter growled and stomped out of the office to go do even more. Bill laughed at her but, he also knew she probably needed more help than he did right now. The White House had already sent some people over to start with that but, Alicia was definitely a type A personality. She never delegated anything that she could put on her back log. Bill just shook his head, laughed, and then answered the ringing phone.

This was a call that Bill had to take. It came in on one of his direct lines and very few people had that number. Now Bill just wished some wiz kid would figure out how to make caller ID work with secure lines, “Mary, I was going to call you in a bit. You at Langley?”

“Yes I am Bill,” Mary replied as she tried to drown out the pandemonium in her own office, “We just got the first of the reports from out of Feyland. I assume they got to you first.”

Bill took a deep breath, took his glasses off again, and this time he sat down behind his desk. This might be involved, “they are here Mary. I have some of my people looking them over but, to be honest with you, I had to take some time to get some of this junk out of here, you know the stuff I can’t just let anybody look at. Do me a favor and summarize that for me, will ya?”

“Bill,” Mary was very quick, “we got a confirmation. Bob was approached by one of our Knights of the Round Table.” She gave him a quick run down and even after she was finished, Bill said nothing. She decided to fill the silence, “he wasn’t on my original board. This guy, Ian Balfour, he’s practically a ghost. There’s not much of a paper trail on him.”

“Course not,” Bill replied, “he’s a smuggler. He’s dealing with the NSA right now, I did manage to see that file. He’s probably kept most of his finances on the other side of the Dell, for years, before we knew it even existed. I’m not that concerned about him at the moment. What do you make of this claim he made? These people are claiming they’re a legitimate country? Am I hearing that right? How can they justify that?”

Mary sighed and replied, “it’s not without precedence Bill. Take Italy for example, you have some countries there that are so small they have street addresses. A lot of them are, well, I guess, kind of like these guys. They started out as military orders, conquered some country, lost it, and the Vatican took care of them when it was over.”

“All right Mary, fine,” Bill replied, “ the point is this, nobody knows who these clowns are. They’re not recognized as a sovereign and they’re trying to play in that ball park. In my book that registers them as, at the least, an uppity NGO, at worst, an international terrorist organization.”

“One country recognizes them Bill,” Mary replied, “the Feyland Empire. Still comes down to this, we’re going to have to deal with these guys sooner or later and, given the marching orders you gave me, I’d say sooner.”

“Speaking of which,” Bill asked, “have you made contact with this Somerset woman, yet?”

Mary actually sputtered, “um, no. We can’t find her.”

Bill blinked, “how the hell did that happen?

“We’re the CIA, Bill,” Mary replied, “we’re not in the habit of keeping tabs on Madison Avenue add agencies, ok? We’re looking for her now.”

“Whatever,” Bill waived that off, “if we can’t find her, and I mean soon, who else can we deal with? What have we got on these other guys? What about this Cavendish character?”

Mary was more hesitant, “he might be a problem. If we do, maybe it would be better if your people approached him. He might be more receptive.”

Of course, Mary meant State Department people and Bill pointed out, “I’m having Rose Atwater read in immediately. She starts her first brief in two days. That’ll take about a week and then I’m handing this zoo over to her. She’ll be acting in my name but, she’ll still be the one doing the acting. I’ve got a new administration to start putting in order.”

Mary was a bit hesitant when she asked, “is she cleared for… you know?”

Bill just said it without blinking, “Tideman? No she’s not but, that might come sooner as opposed to later. She’s going to have to know it Mary. She’s going to be handling our foreign policy and a little thing like that might be important, I don’t give a shit what Lasky thinks.”

“Fine Bill,” Mary blew it off, “not my problem anyway. Look, Bill, there’s one other matter and, it’s, well, not very conventional.”

Bill looked at the clock on his wall and said, “make it fast Mary. I still got a lot to do here.”

“I was trying to get a hold of Compton about our eggs. The truth is that they haven’t even been looked at yet. We’re calling in a few specialists to assist but…”

“Time Mary,” Bill told her.

Mary hesitated and then finally just blurted it out, “Compton’s been in Atlanta these past few weeks. You know the…”

Bill rubbed at his eyes and nodded as he told Mary, “yeah I know. She told me about it when I was down there. That’s somebody else’s problem, even if they think it came from Feyland.”

“It might not be,” Mary replied. “This is the unconventional part, do you know my daughter?”

No sooner had Mary said that when Alicia showed up in the door. The girl was jumping up and down like she had an ant problem. She kept pointing to the television and Bill waived her for her to wait, as he told Mary, “not sure I do Mary. Is there a point?”

“She’s a doctor Bill, she works at an ER in Baltimore,” Mary said. “She called me yesterday, crying, a doctor she worked with was stabbed by a patient. He’s not in good shape. I’d met this man Bill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bill could not muster much sympathy right now, “still not seeing the point.”

“This patient,” Mary was distracted for a moment and then she came back with, “he was one of a string they’ve had recently. He was showing signs of this disease that Compton is working on.” Bill was about to give her a polite good bye but, Mary jumped him before he could, “Bill, she told me that every last one of these disease victims, all showed signs of recent drug use. She even told me that when they first started getting them, they thought it was some new kind of drug on the street.”

Now Mary had his attention and Bill asked with some alarm, “why hasn’t the CDC said anything about this?”

“Bill,” Mary was almost pleading, “they’re not an ER. They only know what they’re looking at under a microscope. My daughter works in a metropolitan hospital, she knows drug related cases when she sees it.”

“Didi said this was a germ or bacteria or something,” Bill replied in an almost accusing tone.

“I just know what my daughter said, ok,” Mary’s words began to speed up, “and I believe her. Look, I have to go Bill, and so do you. If your TV isn’t on, turn it on.”

Bill quickly hung up and, in an exhausted tone, he told Alicia, “turn the damn thing on.”

Alicia was snappy, “about time!”

She picked up the remote and the image came right up to the cable news, which was about all that had ever played on this particular set. There were three more in the inner secretarial chambers where all of the cable news was monitored. Bill had his preference though and, right now, his preference was a reporter standing at the sign that said, “WELCOME TO COVEN HILL.” The reporter was in mid sentence when Bill picked up the report, “however local sources here at CHIEF are telling us that there is still traffic coming from building thirteen, that you can see behind me in the distance. What have you guys heard in Washington?”

The image switched back the anchor desk where a man and woman sat. The woman began speaking, “so far, our sources at the Pentagon and State Department are quiet. What we do have are some clips from about thirty minutes ago. White House Press Secretary, Joel Habersham, answered a few questions for us.”

Again, the image switched and this time it was of Joel standing at the podium, in front of the familiar blue curtain. He was obviously flustered and it made Bill wonder what was going on over at the White House right now. Joel had questions rapid fired at him and it did not appear to Bill as if he was ready with any real answers. Joel’s office was in a corridor opened to the press, right down the hall from the press room. They had obviously jumped him when this story broke and now he was on the firing line.

He was trying to take the questions he could answer and, they were obviously fewer than those he could. Habersham did tell the reporters, “yes I can confirm at this time, that restrictions have been placed on travel too and from Coven Hill. Not all travel, just specific travel.”

A reporter from off camera asked, “um, there wasn’t that much travel to begin with, was their Joel? I mean, they haven’t opened up the Dell to full travel yet, right?”

Joel just shrugged at the guy, “was there a question in that?”

“Well yeah,” this time the camera showed the reporter and Bill recognized the man as Hal Hammond. He was a fat old fart with a buzz cut and had been on the White House press corps longer than anybody could remember. He knew how to needle Habersham and Bill kind of like the guy for it. This time was no different, “I mean how much could they restrict it if it was already restricted?”

Joel was caught and he squirmed, “I don’t know how to answer that at this time,” he pointed to another reporter, “yeah Monica.”

It appeared as if Joel was not going to get off too easy since the new reported picked up right where Hammond had left off, “I think what Hal was asking was, what specifically have the elves stopped?”

It appeared as if Joel was waffling again and Bill might actually enjoy watching it if he did not realize how big of a pain in the ass this was all going to become. The media smelled blood and they were on the scent. It was about to change the dynamics of this entire situation. As Bill fully realized, Frank was not going have to worry too much, as he only had a couple of months left. That, of course, meant that Bill was already having to pay the piper and he wasn’t even in office yet!

The image on the screen changed with Joel in mid squirm. Bill was sorry to see that image go but, he was even sorrier to hear the anchor say, “we have new information coming in at this time. Let us take you to our reporter at the Pentagon, Jamie Schumacher. Tell us Jamie, what have you just found out.”

This Schumacher turned out to be a guy and Bill was kind of surprised by that. It first appeared as if the reporter was reading from some paper in his hand but then, he held it up for all to see, “we have obtained a copy of a State Department information hand out.” Bill’s ears perked up now. What he couldn’t figure was, why was the reporter at the Pentagon and not down stairs in Bill’s press room. The Reporter continued, “this is a service provided by the State Department, to update relatives on their loved ones over seas or, in this case, in another dimension.”

Alicia mumbled, “can you believe he said that with a straight face?”

Bill would have told her to shut up but, he was too busy listening as the reporter said, “in this case, the person in question is, in fact, one of many US military personnel who was apart of the limited deployment to Feyland, just a few months ago. Her name is Specialist Four, Angela Sian Thompson, of Forest City, Florida which is a suburb of Orlando. According to the memo we have in hand, she is currently listed as missing.”

The lady at the anchor desk asked in voice only, “Jamie, is that like missing in action? Was she in combat?”

Schumacher replied, “well we don’t know. That’s why we’ve been asking around the Pentagon and so far…”

The image was now back to the female anchor and she had a finger in her ear, “wait one Jamie. We are now going to take you live to the Pentagon Press room where, I am told, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Willis will be making an… here he is now.”

Bill wanted to throw something at the television. He screamed instead, “those dumb ass idiots over there. They just got baited and went for it, hook, line and sinker!”

Willis was already into his announcement when Bill stopped screaming, “Sergeant Thompson was, and I say was, attached to Operation Golden Straw, in the Imperial Domain of Feyland. She is currently listed as on detached duty and was expected to be arriving back in the United States, in the next few days. Her disappearance was, in no way, connected with Operation Golden Straw. She was residing at the US Embassy and was believed to be attending to personal business when the Embassy was sealed off by paramilitary forces of the….”

The Press room erupted with reporters shouting at the colonel. Bill was doing the same thing only at the guys image on the television. His words were less than presidential and Alicia told him, “DAD! You’re about to be the President! You can’t talk like that!”

“What?” Bill snarled, “I can’t call a cocksucker a cocksucker! Do you know what that idiot just did!”

The many secure phone’s on Bill’s desk lit up all at once. Bill sighed and Alicia got nervous when she asked her Dad, “which one do you answer first?”

“Who do you think?” Bill sullenly walked over and picked up the phone in the middle, “yeah Frank, I just saw it.”