“I brought you some clothes” she says, placing them on the bed.
While I’m pleased to see the shorts, t-shirt and red beanie cap, I ignore the change of clothes and sit up. The pain meds I’m on dull the lingering pain I feel, for the most part, but I’m still kind of a mess. I reach my hand out to Alessi. “Phone?”
She glances at Endo and he nods. Alessi hands me her phone. “This thing is secure, right?”
“What are you doing?” Collins asks.
I dial the number. “Calling backup.”
32
I toured the White House once, when I was a kid. Eighth grade. Worst few days of my young adult life. I had to sleep in the same room as my childhood bully. My wallet with $57 of birthday money I brought was stolen—I’m pretty sure by the same bully. And my girlfriend broke up with me in front of the Washington Monument. Our nation’s capital has left a sour taste in my mouth since, despite the fact that my childhood bully is in jail for stealing a tank and my girlfriend blimped out, which I discovered while honing my Facebook stalker skills.
That I’m about to start my fourth White House tour of the week has me feeling a little bit of nausea. Reservations are typically made six months to twenty-one days in advance, long enough for the Secret Service to find out what they can. Using his considerable computer skills and bending a few rules, Watson managed to get us in four days in a row. And by ‘us,’ I mean Endo and me. As much as I prefer Collins as a partner, Endo’s presence is necessary, and Collins is harder to forget. We’ve changed our identities each day, posing as tourists from different parts of the world, never directly communicating. Just observing. Waiting. When things go sideways, we need to have access to the President, and he’s been here all week. Starting tomorrow, he’ll be touring Europe, so I’m willing to bet Gordon knows this and will make his move sooner than later—and by sooner, I mean today.
This afternoon’s tour guide, Mindy, is a peppy young woman with a pony tail and a bright smile. She’s a real girl-next-door type, but in love with the history of her country and its capital, which I’m putting at great risk. It’s an acceptable risk, I try to tell myself. Making a stand in Washington is better than letting the nation get tromped into oblivion. Of course, there’s a real risk that my plan, formed without the support of our military, is going to fall apart like a roll of toilet paper strung beneath a waterfall.
“Can anyone tell me why the China room color theme is red?” Mindy asks.
A little girl raises her hand, eager. “Cause it’s pretty?”
“Good guess,” Mindy says.
Consumed by boredom, I open my mouth. “It matches First Lady Grace Coolidge’s dress. The one in her portrait.”
All heads turn toward me. Mindy looks impressed. Endo, who’s disguised as an aging college professor, complete with a tweed jacket, bland slacks and streaks of gray in his hair, stares at me indifferently. He’s trying not to show any kind of reaction to me at all, but his lack of outward reaction means he’s trying to hide his true reaction, which is probably annoyance. I shouldn’t have spoken at all.
“That’s...right,” Mindy says. “Not many people know that.”
Not many people have toured the White House four times this week, I think. I’m disguised as a middle-aged man with nothing better to do than tour Washington, D.C. solo. I’ve got a fake pot belly beneath my God-awful sweater. A thick gray mustache that looks eerily similar to Woodstock’s, matches my messy head of gray hair. I wasn’t sure I could stand a wig, but it fits like my beanie cap, so I’ve barely noticed it.
“And do you know who else is in that portrait?” Mindy asks. She’s got a slight edge to her voice, like I’ve challenged her historical authority and it’s now time for a trivia smackdown.
I know the answer. It’s Rob Roy, her dog. But getting into a mental showdown with Mindy isn’t going to help my cover. We’ve already been in this room a minute longer than usual, and the Secret Service tends to notice things like that. “Uhh, Roy Rogers. Her cat.”
Mindy snickers. “Close. It was her dog, Rob Roy.”
“Riiight,” I say. “I ate at Roy Rogers last night.”
Satisfied with her trivial dominance, Mindy waves the tour to follow her out of the room and into the hall, where we’ll turn into the Vermeil Room and learn all about the collection of silver-gilded boredom. As we enter the hallway, I notice that Endo is hanging back a bit, waiting for me, no doubt about to give me a whispered rebuke.
We come shoulder to shoulder, casually, looking in different directions. When we bump, we turn to each other, like we’re apologizing.
“I know,” I start, “I shouldn’t have—”
“We’ve been made,” he says.