Bullseye (Michael Bennett 9)

I was still laughing when Brian tapped me on the shoulder.

“Dad, look—it’s him,” my son said.

“Who?” I said.

“With Marvin. Down there,” Brian said, pointing at the gym entrance. “That scary guy I was telling you about.”

I looked over. There was a tall, older guy in an expensive goose down jacket talking to Marvin. The guy looked formidable both in size and attitude, and Marvin looked afraid of him.

I decided to take a walk down out of the stands to see what was going on. But by the time I got to the entrance, the guy was gone.

“Hey, Marvin. There you are. You made it,” I said as I stepped up. “We were getting worried. How did your, um, after-school history project go?”

“Oh, hey, Mr. Bennett,” Marvin said. “Yeah, it went great.”

I noticed that Marvin smelled like weed. Make that reeked. He didn’t seem high, though. If anything, he looked relieved to see me.

“Marvin, who is that guy? The guy you were just talking to.”

“Nobody. An old friend from my neighborhood.”

“You sure? He didn’t look too friendly.”

“I’m all right. Really, Mr. Bennett,” Marvin said as he passed me, heading for the stands.

I decided to let it go.

For now.

Chapter 42

The private study down the hall from the Oval Office, where President Buckland held many of his more under-the-radar meetings, had a pale palette of cream walls and pastel high-backed chairs and yellow chintz sofas.

When the president walked in at 6:30 a.m. with his personal secretary, Maddy Holzer, his first thought was that Ellen Huxley-Laffer, his pale, Waspy national security adviser sitting on one of the yellow couches, fit right in with the decor.

“Good morning, Mr. President,” Ellen said, tucking away her smartphone as she stood.

“Morning, Ellen. Hope that wasn’t a Snapchat,” the president joked as he sat on the couch across from her.

The president liked Ellen. Wearing an immaculate Saxon-gray blazer and skirt, the sandy-blond former captain of the Harvard Law debate team looked like a middle-aged Ralph Lauren model. But her stock soap actress looks aside, the fifty-four-year-old was about as well-rounded as one got in DC intelligence and Department of Defense circles. She was a National War College graduate and a former air attaché to the French embassy, as well as a CIA case officer.

“Can I get you anything? A bagel or a muffin?”

“No, I’m fine. So what’s up, sir?” Huxley-Laffer said.

The president took a deep breath.

“Okay, Ellen. I heard from the others last night about the Ukrainian economic collapse. Are you up to speed on that?”

“The hryvnia, their currency, is collapsing in value, right?” Huxley-Laffer said. She had read about it on Bloomberg on her way in.

“Yes, it’s completely tanking. Down twenty-four percent in the last three days. We have a friendly high up in their department of finance, as you well know. They’ve tapped us for a loan to stop the bleeding. I’d love to go forward with that, or anything else that will help the Ukraine stand up to the Russians after their annexation of Crimea. What’s your take?”

Huxley-Laffer looked up in the air to her left and pursed her lips as she thought.

“I think, truthfully, that we need to back off a little, Mr. President. You know, calling them out on the false flag attempt last week was a really good move. It was very effective and needed to be done, but I think a loan or any other direct backing and involvement in the Ukraine on the heels of it is really going to be seen seriously as a threat to some of the hard-line higher-ups in Russia.”

“You think so?” the president said.