Page 92 of State of Alert

“You drive me to it.”

Vernon grunted with laughter. “You should listen to your grasshopper, Sam. He’s wiser than you give him credit for being.”

“Thank you, Vernon,” Freddie said.

“I appreciate your support, as always, but can you guys understand why it feels wrong, as a commander, to be behind the front lines, safely locked away while the people you supervise are putting their lives on the line?”

“I’d feel the same way,” Vernon said, “but I also agree with Freddie that the only people whose opinions matter are the ones under your command. If you ask me, they’d rather have you in the trailer than anyone else leading them.”

Freddie pointed to Vernon. “What he said.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Vernon.”

“I’m not trying to be nice. It’s the truth.”

“Yes, it is,” Freddie said. “We have an amazing team, led by an inspirational commander who we’re all honored to work with and for. You’re looking for problems where there are none.”

“Inspirational, huh?”

“I said what I said.”

“Excellent sucking up.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Nope. I appreciate what you said, and I’ll take it to heart. When we first got the call about Nelson passing away, one of my first thoughts was about how I’d manage to keep my job while Nick was president. I figured not much would change for me between him being VP and POTUS. I was wrong about that, and it weighs on me that my higher profile could put you guys in danger.”

“That’s fair, but we all know who and what you are on and off the job, and we have a choice about whether we want to continue to work with you. No one is heading for the door.”

Sam hadn’t really considered the fact that they had a choice about whether to stay or go. Any one of them could requestreassignment at any time. Those requests were often taken seriously by the department. “That’s true.”

“Our eyes are wide open. Don’t worry about us.”

That was like telling her not to breathe, but she kept that thought to herself. “It helped me to talk about this, so thanks.”

“Any time,” Freddie said. “You might want to also consider how cool our friends and family think we are because we get to work with you.”

“I am a treat.”

He snorted. “You sure are.”

“So Faith was kind of weird just now.”

“How so?”

“She asked me to mention to Nick that the woman he’s planning to nominate as the new USA could be a nightmare for us.”

“Oh damn. Will you do that?”

“I think I should probably stay out of that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, for sure.”

“Except I keep thinking that if she does turn out to be a nightmare, I might’ve been able to prevent that. If I asked him to, he might reconsider the nomination.”

“That’s a very slippery slope. What if it got out that you were involved in picking the new USA?”

Everything in her recoiled from that potential scandal. “Yeah, that’d be a disaster.”

---