Part 3 (1/2)

It didn't make sense. I knew he was there. The man was always in his office at five. He was proverbially punctual. The joke on the Hill was that the Naval Observatory set their atomic clocks by him.

Three a.m. After an hour of failed attempts to reach Ingraham, I called Christina. As I waited for her to pick up I could see her in my mind's eye frantically pulling on clothes and shoes while juggling the phone and working her way to the front door of her apartment.

Frantic. It's the only mode Christina knows. Here is a woman who was born mult.i.tasking. She places phone calls between bites of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She doesn't sleep, she catnaps. And if rapid eye movement beneath closed lids is any clue, even then she's planning, arranging, prioritizing.

On the fourth ring Christina's answering service kicked in. I left a message.

At 3:10 a.m. I initiated a second round of calls with identical results. Ingraham, no answer. Christina, left message. This cycle continued every ten minutes.

At four a.m. I decided it was time for the big gun. Reaching into the inside pocket of my suit coat, which was draped over the back of the pa.s.senger seat, I located the number the president gave me at Camp David. He told me it was his family cell phone number. Fewer than a dozen people in the world had it. I was the only nonrelative.

How does one store the personal cell phone number of the president of the United States? I didn't want to risk keying it into my cell phone directory. Cell phones get lost and misplaced. I had visions of an insurance salesman finding my phone on an airplane and trying to sell the president a whole life policy. Neither did I feel comfortable recording his name and number in my scheduler, at least not under his own name. I resorted to using a code name.

My first thought was HH, for Head Honcho, but I settled on Doogie. It had been the president's nickname in elementary school. There weren't many people who knew that.

I punched the digits into my phone. My thumb paused over the send b.u.t.ton.

What was I going to say when he answered?

I gave it a practice run.

Ummm . . . Mr. President? Grant Austin here. Sorry to bother you, but I'm out in California and I was chatting with a former high school buddy . . . well, he's not exactly a buddy, more like a rival . . . but anyway, he happened to mention that there was going to be an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate you and . . . well . . . sir . . . he says you know about it. Do you?

For several indecisive moments I stared at the send b.u.t.ton trying desperately to think of nonlunatic phrases.

A moment of clarity dawned. This wasn't about me. Whether or not I came across as a lunatic wasn't the issue. The issue was national security. The issue was alerting the president regarding a threat to his life.

Immersed in a wave of patriotism, I pressed the send b.u.t.ton. The connection was made. I heard ringing at the other end of the line without knowing where the other end of the line was. The residence? The Oval Office? Air Force One? Poolside for the president's morning swim?

Keep it simple and straightforward, I told myself. Alert the president to the facts. Save the details-the unbelievable details-for the Secret Service to laugh at.

Three sharp tones sounded. A recorded message kicked in informing me that the number I'd dialed had been disconnected or was no longer in service.

I was certain I'd dialed correctly. I checked the display against the number in my scheduler. They were identical.

Myles Shepherd's voice haunted me. ”And that cell phone number the president gave you at Camp David? Disconnected.”

How had he known?

Seven a.m. The first students began arriving at the high school. Through tired eyes I watched as they drove into the senior parking lot. I recognized their kind. Overachievers. I could see it in their stride. School couldn't start early enough for them. A new day was another chance to s.h.i.+ne, another day to add more flowery kudos to their already burgeoning bouquet. They were the student government leaders, the newspaper editors, the club presidents. The elite.

I never counted myself among them, though I a.s.sociated with them. Even now I continue to work with them. Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., is populated by a national roll call of valedictorians, every one of them determined to prove themselves.

Christina is one of them. Graduated top of her cla.s.s at Midland High in Odessa, Texas, with a repeat performance at the University of Texas as a political science major.

Why hadn't she returned my calls?

I dialed again, having lost track of the number of messages I'd left on her answering machines, both cell and office.

”You've reached the desk of Christina Kraft, aide to Chief of Staff Ingraham. Leave a brief message and a number where you can be reached. I'll return your call at the earliest opportunity.”

Straining to keep the frustration from my voice I left another message. ”Christina . . . Grant. What's going on? I can't stress how urgent it is I talk to you. This isn't a personal call. Call me back . . . please.”

A motorcycle blasted past me with an earsplitting roar, drowning out the last of my message. I repeated it.

As the sun broke over the mountains, I squinted against its glare. The flow of arriving students was increasing. I watched as broods of them-looking like Eloi marching blandly to their doom-filtered between rows of cars heading for their homerooms. That is, if they still had homerooms like we did in my day.

A breeze swept through the car. It didn't stink. I was acclimating to the odor of this world. In exchange, the memory of my brush with glory was dimming.

What hadn't dimmed yet was the terror I felt when I was curled up on the floor.

I am Semyaza. Tremble before me.

Reaching for the door latch, I got out of the car. Like it or not, I had to face the fear. I had to go back to that cla.s.sroom. I had to know if what I'd experienced was real.

I waited ten minutes after the buzzer for the hallways to clear, wanting to avoid the stir of odors of so many bodies, some of them pungent under normal circ.u.mstances. The reason for my delay was more than just personal comfort. I didn't want to risk retching in front of the entire student body. The run-in with the pole yesterday was enough embarra.s.sment for one visit.

Pa.s.sing open cla.s.sroom doors, I heard the familiar sounds of another school day-attendance-taking, calls for reports and homework a.s.signments to be pa.s.sed to the front of the room, chatter across the aisles.

The door to Myles Shepherd's cla.s.sroom was closed. I risked peeking inside the window.

At the front of the cla.s.s a middle-aged woman with premature streaks of gray clutched her hands and attempted to get the students' attention. She looked like someone's mother. ”Cla.s.s? Cla.s.s?” Her voice had a cartoon quality to it, not quite Marge Simpson, but similar. It was obvious she didn't make her living teaching high school students.

”Cla.s.s? If I could have your attention, please . . . please, your attention . . . your teacher, Mr. Shepherd, has been delayed. Due to an accident on the freeway, traffic is backed up. Many teachers have called in. They'll get here as soon as they can. In the meantime, I've been instructed to tell you that you are to read the next chapter in your . . .”

None of the students was listening to her. As soon as they heard Shepherd was delayed, the room exploded with conversation.

High school cla.s.srooms are jungles. Survival depends on strength, cunning, speed, and wit. This poor woman had none of these qualities. They were eating her alive.

Leaving her to her fate, I made my way toward the administration building. The backed-up line out the door resembled a morning commute. Most of the kids clutched blue slips of paper, but not all of them.

”You don't have a blue slip?” I heard one of them say as I pa.s.sed. ”You have to have a blue slip to get back into cla.s.s, dude. They won't let you back into cla.s.s without a blue slip.”

Cutting through the line, I stepped inside.

A squat man in gray slacks, a white short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, and with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair spied an unauthorized movement out of the corner of his eye. His head snapped up to challenge me.

I remembered him from yesterday. Vice Princ.i.p.al Benton, or Benson. It took him a moment to recognize me. When he did, his scowl transformed into a public relations grin. ”Austin! Didn't expect to see you again so soon! To what do we owe the honor of this encore appearance?”

”Actually, I was just in Myles Shepherd's room and-”

”Ah yes! Come in! Come in!”

He took me by the arm and led me through a swinging gate into the restricted area of administration central, presumably so the students in line wouldn't overhear our conversation.

My long-dormant student senses tingled wildly. I'd seen students taken by the arm by the vice princ.i.p.al into the administration inner sanctum. Some of them were never heard from again.