Deception Point Page 58

I have an emergency The operator was breathless. phone promise for the professorship.tench looked incredulous. Not at a time, you dontIts from Rachel sacristan. She says its urgent.The scowl that darkened Tenchs face appe bed to be more one of puzzlement than anger. Tench eyed the cordless phone. Thats a house line. Thats not secure.No, maam. But the incoming call is open anyway. Shes on a radiophone. She needs to speak to the chairperson right away.Live in ninety secondsTenchs cold eye stared, and she held out a spider-like hand. Give me the phone.The operators heart was pounding now. Ms. Sexton wants to speak to President Herney directly. She told me to come outpone the shrink conference until shed talked to him. I experienced-Tench stepped toward the operator now, her role a seeaffair whisper. Let me tell you how this works. You do not take orders from the daughter of the Presidents opponent, you take them from me. I can assure you, this is as close as you are getting to the President until I find out what the hell is going on.The operator looked toward the President, who was now surrounded by microphone technicians, stylists, and several staff members talking him through final revisions of his speech.Sixty seconds the goggle box supervisor yelled.Onboard the Charlotte, Rachel Sexton was pacing wildly in the tight space when she finally perceive a click on the telephone line.A raspy voice came on. Hello?President Herney? Rachel blurted.Marjorie Tench, the voice corrected. I am the Presidents senior adviser. Whoever this is, I must warn you that prank calls against the White family unit are in violation of-For Christs sake This is not a prank This is Rachel Sexton. Im your NRO liaison and-I am aware of who Rachel Sexton is, maam. And I am doubtful that you are she. Youve called the White House on an unsecured line notification me to interrupt a major presidential broadcast. That is hardly proper MO for someone with-Listen, Rachel fumed, I briefed your all told staff a couple of hours ago on a meteorite. You sat in the front row. You watched my instruct on a television sitting on the Presidents desk Any questions?Tench fell silent a moment. Ms. Sexton, what is the meaning of this?The meaning is that you have to stop the President His meteorite data is all wrong Weve just conditioned the meteorite was inserted from beneath the ice shelf. I dont know by whom, and I dont know why But things are not what they seem up here The President is about to endorse some seriously fallible data, and I strongly advise-Wait one goddamned minute Tench lowered her voice. Do you elucidate what you are saying?Yes I suspect the NASA administrator has orchestrated some loving of large-scale fraud, and President Herney is about to get caught in the middle. Youve at least got to postpone ten minutes so I can explain to him whats been going on up here. Someone tried to kill me, for Gods sakeTenchs voice turned to ice. Ms. Sexton, let me let out you a word of warning. If you are having second thoughts about your role in helping the White House in this campaign, you should have thought of that long before you personally endorsed that meteorite data for the President.What Is she even listening?Im revolted by your display. Using an unsecured line is a cheap stunt. Implying the meteorite data has been faked? What kind of intelligence official uses a radiophone to call the White House and talk about classify information? Obviously you are hoping someone intercepts this message.Norah Mangor was killed over this Dr. Ming is also dead. Youve got to warn-Stop right there I dont know what youre playing at, merely I will remind you-and anyone else who happens to be intercepting this phone call-that the White House possesses videotaped depositions from NASAs top scientists, several renowned civilian scientists, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all endorsing the meteorite data as accurate. Why you are on the spur of the moment changing your story, I can only imagine. Whatever the reason, consider yourself relieved of your White House post as of this instant, and if you try to taint this discovery with any more absurd allegations of foul play, I assure you the White House and NASA will sue you for defamation so fast you wont have a demote to pack a suitcase before you go to jail.Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but no spoken communication came.Zach Herney has been generous to you, Tench snapped, and frankly this smacks of a cheap Sexton publicity stunt. Drop it right now, or well press charges. I swear it.The line went dead.Rachels mouth was still hanging open when the captain knocked on the door.Ms. Sexton? the captain said, peering in. Were picking up a faint signal from Canadian National Radio. President Zach Herney has just begun his press conference.68Standing at the podium in the White House apprize Room, Zach Herney mat the heat of the media lights and knew the world was watching. The targeted blitz perform ed by the White House Press Office had created a contagion of media buzz. Those who did not hear about the address via television, radio, or on-line news invariably heard about it from neighbors, coworkers, and family. By 800 P.M., anyone not living in a cave was speculating about the upshot of the Presidents address. In bars and living rooms over the globe, millions leaned toward their televisions in apprehensive wonder.It was during moments like these-facing the world-that Zach Herney truly felt the weight of his office. Anyone who said power was not addictive had never really experienced it. As he began his address, however, Herney sensed something was amiss. He was not a man prone to stage fright, and so the tingle of hitch now tightening in his core startled him.Its the magnitude of the audience, he told himself. And yet he knew something else. Instinct. Something he had seen.It had been such a little thing, and yetHe told himself to forget it. It was nothing. And yet it stuc k.Tench.Moments ago, as Herney was preparing to take the stage, he had seen Marjorie Tench in the yellow hallway, talking on a cordless phone. This was strange in itself, but it was made more so by the White House operator standing beside her, her face tweed with apprehension. Herney could not hear Tenchs phone conversation, but he could see it was contentious. Tench was arguing with a extravagance and anger the President had seldom seen-even from Tench. He paused a moment and caught her eye, inquisitive.Tench gave him the thumbs-up. Herney had never seen Tench give anyone the thumbs-up. It was the last image in Herneys mind as he was cued onto the stage.On the blue rug in the press area inside the NASA habisphere on Ellesmere Island, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was seated at the center of the long symposium table, flanked by top NASA officials and scientists. On a large monitor facing them the Presidents opening statement was being piped in live. The remainder of the NASA crew was huddled around other monitors, teeming with excitement as their commander-in-chief launched into his press conference. earnest evening, Herney was saying, sounding uncharacteristically stiff. To my fellow countrymen, and to our friends around the world Ekstrom gazed at the huge charred mass of rock displayed conspicuously in front of him. His eyes moved to a standby monitor, where he watched himself, flanked by his most grim personnel, against a backdrop of a huge American flag and NASA logo. The dramatic lighting made the fit look like some kind of neomodern painting-the twelve apostles at the last supper. Zach Herney had turned this whole thing into a political sideshow. Herney had no choice. Ekstrom still felt like a televangelist, packaging God for the masses.