She was required to come back several times, take things away, and give us things in return. During these exchanges the king barely looked at her. Clearly Camilla had been right—being a servant meant you were totally anonymous.
Some of the king’s retainers had been called, and my gigantic entourage was moved into a wing of the palace. This was one of the big things Raheem was helping us with—we would appear to be in Bahrain even when we weren’t, because not everyone in the entourage was expected to go to every event.
And he was indeed setting up events. Due to the nature of what was happening, it was a fairly easy thing to request that all the top people in the region meet up. Dubai was chosen as the city, and the Burj Khalifa was chosen as the meeting place.
Thanks to Gower’s influence with the religious leaders, they were now coming to Bahrain and would also be in the palace, though the religious leaders were put into a different wing than my team, and Raheem had many palace guards assigned to keep them in check. Also, the various Muslim leaders had managed to get their squabbling flocks to play nicely with each other, which I was willing to count as a miracle. Doubted we’d luck into a similar miracle back home, but a girl could dream.
Israel was also included in this regional meeting, which made it even more fraught with tension and excitement than normal. Raheem, however, had insisted, in part because there would be so much focus on the Israeli leaders and their people that it would give me more cover. Everyone had agreed that no hostilities would be allowed, and the U.S. in the form of my husband had shared that, should anyone be harmed or even jostled, the U.S. would interpret that to mean that the jostlers wanted to have the U.S. send shock troops over via gates. Raheem felt that this threat would support the clerics’ edicts. Really hoped he was right.
About two hours into this there was a knock. “Come,” Raheem called.
Vance opened the door. “Your Majesty, I apologize greatly for this interruption. However, I need to confer with the First Lady for a few minutes on a private matter of extreme importance. May I remove her from your presence for a short while?”
Raheem nodded. “Yes, you may.” Raheem helped me up and handed me off to Vance. Contemplated taking my purse with me then figured that would be rude.
“What’s up?” I asked as we were leaving the room.
Vance looked worried. “Madame First Lady, we have a situation.”
“What situation is that?” Tried not to worry. Failed.
Vance closed the door behind us. “The situation that you’re really not good at this,” he said in a very low voice. “Don’t speak.” He walked us quickly through the large room we’d arrived in and out into a wide hallway. Then he trotted us down that hallway quite some ways away. “We’re going to be speaking at a whisper in case there are bugs, which you should assume there are.”
“God, did Chuckie give you some kind of Paranoia Lecture?” Though I spoke softly as requested.
“No, I just understand how things work. At any rate, we’re in a part of the palace that Buchanan feels is not wired too well for sound, ergo, we’re going to stand here and speak very quietly to each other about ‘matters of state’ that require your immediate attention. To clarify, I’m going to impart classified information so that you’re not flying blind. Blinder than you normally fly, I mean.”
“Wow, you’re really reminding me of what I think of as The Old Vance.”
“And you’re reminding me of The Old Kitty. Stop acting like a ditz. We don’t have time for it.”
“Sorry, you just threw me with the situation thing.”
“Moving on because, much as I love bantering about things like this with you, I want you to know who’s where before we watch the show, because I expect all hell to break loose as soon as the Themnir are actually seen by everyone.”
“Makes sense, all of it, and works for me.”
“I feel so proud. All your things are in the nicest suite in our part of the palace. Francine is rooming with you, is in those rooms now though no one on the king’s staff knows this, and she won’t be seen again until you two do the switch.”
“What switch?” I asked as innocently as I could.
Which clearly wasn’t successfully innocent, because Vance shot me a really snide look. “There isn’t one person with us, other than the Chief Usher, who believes for one moment that what you plan to do is sit around shaking hands while speaking passionately on behalf of immigrants of all kinds. No one doubts that you’re capable of it, other than, again, the Chief Usher, but we all know you.”
“Who leaked the classified intel?”
Vance rolled his eyes at me. “Mona and Siler confirmed what the rest of us suspected when we were all alone in the gigantic suite you’ll be sleeping in and after Malcolm, Len, and Kyle searched that room for bugs and removed or neutralized them all.”
“Um. Wow. Okay. Nice to know the team knows me.”
“Once again, everyone but the Chief Usher, and she’s being indoctrinated in a very severe way by Malcolm, Siler, and Mona.”
“Mona? Really?”
“She’s representing as the person the Chief Usher has the most in common with out of our entire contingent. They’re bonding, which is good, because Antoinette is completely out of her element. I have no idea why your mother approved her coming along.”
Thought about it. “To get her indoctrinated fast, would be my guess.”
“I can buy that. Okay, back to housing. Colette is in the gigantic suite with you as well, and so are Camilla, Mahin, Abigail, Lorraine, and Claudia.”
“That seems like a lot of people in one room.”
He heaved the sigh of the long-suffering. “It’s a five-bedroom suite. And I wasn’t using hyperbole when I called it gigantic. You have your own bedroom with its own bathroom, Francine and Colette are sharing, so are Mahin and Abigail, same again with Claudia and Lorraine. Camilla has her own room. Again, all with their own bathrooms. The room is essentially circular and the gigantic sitting room is in the middle. This ensures that you’re surrounded by women and therefore nothing untoward can happen. This was arranged so that everyone, our host included, will not have any reason to complain about our impropriety.”
“Gotcha. Is everyone else in nice rooms, too?”
“Yes, actually. The king is definitely giving us the honored guest treatment. All rooms have had bugs removed or neutralized. If the king complains, I’m sure you can handle it.”
“I doubt he will. He’s on our side at this time.”
“Let’s hope that continues. Paul Gower is on-site. He’s staying with the other religious leaders, a wing away from us. He’s staying there in part to run herd on the rest of them and in other part so that no one can have hysterics about two men sleeping together in the same bed with intent to love each other.” Vance’s sarcasm meter was definitely at eleven.