“An unexpected pleasure, Madam Secretary,” DCI A. Franklin Lammelle said. “If I had known you were coming, there would have been a brass band.”
“Can we dispense with the clever repartee, Frank?” Natalie Cohen replied. “I’m really in no mood for it.”
“I tend to hide behind clever repartee when I have problems,” Lammelle said. “What’s yours?”
“Recording devices turned off?”
He nodded. “I usually turn them on only when the enemy is at the gates,” he replied, then realized that might qualify as clever repartee, and added, “Sorry.”
She nodded, accepting the apology.
“I just came from the Oval Office,” she said. “With the unnerving suspicion that there may be something to President Clendennen’s conspiracy theory.”
He raised his eyebrows, made a “give it to me” gesture with his hands, and said, now quite serious, “Tell me all about it.”
“Martinez didn’t buy that draft letter . . .” she began.
“. . . And after I had been dismissed,” she concluded, “McCarthy caught up with me as I was getting in my car in the portico, told me the President had sent him to tell me to keep my mouth shut, and then said, quote, ‘I appreciate your wisdom in not getting further into the business of what was and what was not in the letter you took to President Martinez,’ end quote. When I didn’t reply, he added, quote, None of us want him to go off the deep end just now, do we, Madam Secretary? Now would be a very bad time for something like that to happen, end quote.”
“So now you’re willing to buy in on the coup d’état theory?” Lammelle asked.
“I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far, but something very unsavory is going on here, Frank.”
“Would you say the situation is desperate?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far, either. But I—we—have to get to the bottom of it.”
“Time to get off the fence, Natalie.”
“What does that mean?”
“The situation is, or is not, desperate. This is not one of those times when you can put off making that decision.”
“Why am I getting the idea that you know something I don’t?”
“Maybe because I’m the DCI? We have a reputation for knowing things and doing things that other people don’t know about.”
“Or don’t want to know about,” Natalie said after a moment. “Where are you going with this, Frank?”
“You haven’t answered my question. Is this situation desperate? Desperate enough to require taking desperate action?”
She considered that for a long moment, and then said, “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“Not quite good enough, sorry.”
“What is it exactly you want from me, Frank?”
“Your word that after I offer my suggestion, and tell you what I know, that you won’t take any action of which I disapprove.”
“That’s too much to ask.”
“Then good luck with your problem, Natalie.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“I’m the secretary of State. You are required by law to provide me with any intelligence you have that I might find useful in the discharge of my duties.”