The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,1
exactly one minute ahead of schedule, with Tammy behind him. Outside the room, standing calmly on the Oriental-style carpeted floor, Jackson Thiel, the lead agent on his PPD—personal protective detail— nods. “Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Good morning, Jackson,” he says.
His Secret Service agent—a tall, bulky African-American with short hair and the traditional curly Motorola radio wire running out of his ear—also says, “Morning, ma’am,” and the acknowledgment of Tammy pleases Harrison. He knows he has put the Secret Service in an awkward position with his relationship— he loves this woman and refuses to call it an affair. But he has spent his last four years building trust with his agents, listening to their security recommendations, remembering their birthdays, and ensuring they are treated well. In return, they have treated him with respect, affection, and … understanding.
Harrison falls in line behind the business-suited Jackson as he heads to the near bank of elevators. Jackson brings up his coat sleeve and murmurs into the microphone, “CANAL is on the move,” CANAL being the President’s Secret Service code name.
As they get to the elevator, the door slides open, revealing another Secret Service agent and a quiet military man dressed in civilian clothes, holding two very thick and bulky briefcases. The only time in his presidency Harrison ever felt unready was the day he was briefed on the horrible power and responsibility belonging to him in that briefcase, carrying the codes and communications devices to launch nuclear weapons.
Harrison goes in, followed by Jackson, and then Tammy. She smiles at all of them and lingers for a moment next to Harrison, and he knows it sounds like he’s reverted back to high school, but that bright smile just lifts him off his feet. Even the man holding the keys to nuclear Armageddon doesn’t seem as frightening.
It’s crowded in the small elevator, and Tammy is standing right next to him. He lowers his right hand, slips it into her left hand, gives it a squeeze. He knows deep inside he’s doing wrong, that he shouldn’t be having this relationship with Tammy, but she makes him happy. That’s all. Gives him love and affection and makes him happy, and for all the late nights, the compromises, the hard decisions, and the bone-weary responsibilities of being what the Secret Service calls “the Man” … well, doesn’t he deserve some happiness?
The elevator comes to a halt, and in seconds there’s a procession moving quickly through an underground tunnel. Atlanta is honeycombed with tunnels and steam pipelines and old passageways, and this one leads to the sub-basement of the hotel where he was supposedly spending the night alone.
Another elevator, another agent already pre-positioned. Into the elevator, and Tammy leans in and whispers, “All right. When we get out I’ll swing around out front, catch a cab. When will I see you again?”
He turns, kisses her ear through her thick hair, whispers back, “How about New Hampshire? In three days I’m speaking at Hart’s Location, one of the places where they cast the first votes in the nation.”
Tammy says, “Only for you. I hate that state. They think they’re God’s chosen in picking the next president.”
He moves his lips away from her. “They picked me, didn’t they?”
Tammy laughs. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
The elevator door opens up, other Secret Service agents are waiting for him, and he follows their lead as they go through a storage area with plastic shrink-wrapped goods on wooden pallets, past rolled-up metal doors, a loading dock next to a wide alleyway. It’s barely dawn, and Atlanta’s morning air feels refreshing and his arm is around Tammy’s shoulders.
When he turns to say good-bye to Tammy is when it happens.
The first thing he notices are the bright flashes of light, and he half-expects to hear gunshots follow, and there are people now, coming out of a doorway, coming at him, more flashes of light and it’s—
Camera flashes.
Spotlights on television cameras.
About a dozen of them, moving toward him, some charging, baying beast demanding to be fed, demanding to be answered, shouting at him, pushing ahead—
“Mr. President!”
“Mr. President!”
“Mr. President!”
CHAPTER 2
GRACE FULLER TUCKER, First Lady of the United States, takes her time walking through the offices of the East Wing, saying good morning and hello to her young staff members. Her Secret Service detail of two women and one man spread out behind her as she walks forward past her young charges, who are referred to by the news media as “the First Lady’s children.” She always smiles