Page 16 of An Impossible Love
Chapter Six
“You saidwhat?”
Moxie grinned at her old friend as they sat together in Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin at Camp David. She had just told him what she and Emmy Sati had talked about, and now Orin looked bemused and a little horrified. Moxie chuckled. “I just told her that there areways.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Mox.” He stood up and paced, then turned to her. “What did she say?”
Moxie’s smile was victorious. “She’s said she’d see you after Trig, behind the bleachers.”
“Oh, very funny. I agree that all of this is a little ninth grade though.” Orin sat down and shook his head, smiling. “I just don’t want things to be awkward between me and Emmy next time she’s assigned to protect me.”
“If it’s any consolation… she likes you, too.”
“Nothing’s changed though, Mox. It still can’t happen.”
Moxie sighed, a little frustrated. “Dude, JFK stepped out on Jackie the whole time. These things can be arranged. You know about the tunnels underneath, the unmarked cars… Come on. Live a little.”
“You’re my chief of staff, Mox.”
“Not off duty. Off duty, I’m your friend first, and I can see how… solitary you’re becoming.”
“Screwing my Secret Service protection isn’t going to cure that.” He winced as he said it and Moxie saw it.
“Having a romantic relationship with a powerful woman would do you—and the Presidency—a world of good. Come on now. You both have everything to lose by being together. Doesn’t that alone make you equals?”
“Emmy volunteered for a job which might mean taking a bullet for me. She’s way, way above my level already.”
Mox smiled fondly at him. “Big old romantic.”
“Shut up.”
“Well,” she got up, “I’m turning in. Listen, Orin, think about it. That’s all I’m saying. We can make it work.”
When Moxie had gone, and Orin was alone, he sat with his head in his hands. The thought was so tempting, but really, he couldn’t be distracted at the moment, even by something as pleasant as spending alone time with Emerson Sati.
Earlier, his closest advisors briefed him on the investigation into former President Ellis, and after what he learned, he knew he would have to make a decision on Ellis’s pardon, and that his decision would not make his enemies happy. Brookes Ellis was up to his privileged ass in corruption—and worse, he was undoubtedly involved in human trafficking.
Orin shook his head. He would never understand the mind of someone whose ego was so out of control that he sought to control others to that hideous extent. Brookes Ellis had shown during his three-year presidency that he cared little for his public or the responsibilities of his office. Scandal after scandal broke in the press, but the President seemed to be made out of Teflon and merely dismissed the scandals as ‘ephemera.’
Next, his chief of staff, Lester Dweck, had been taped by a journalist from The Washington Post during a drunken rant in a private club, talking about the ‘girls’ he could get for all his drinking buddies. Dweck was an alcoholic, despondent about not getting the ‘top job’ himself, and despised, not only by those on the other side of the aisle, but by his own party leadership. He was lucky, or smart enough, to make sure he had ‘collateral’ on Brookes Ellis, who reluctantly appointed Dweck his chief of staff.
Ellis would keenly regret that decision. Dweck turned on his boss in exchange for a lesser sentence. Ellis denied all knowledge but by then it was too late. The Non-Stick President had finally gotten stuck.
So, Orin knew he could never pardon Ellis—hell, he didn’twantto pardon him. The former administration filled him with disgust, and he wanted them all put away for a long time. He had directed his investigators to make sure the case was watertight before he would announce that a pardon would not be forthcoming.
So, as much as he would like to entertain the possibility of a relationship with anyone, let alone Emmy, Orin knew the country had to come first. He did hope that Moxie’s good intentions wouldn’t ruin the back-and-forth he and Emmy had—which alone would have to satisfy him.
He went to bed, and his subconscious tortured him some more with images of Emmy Sati naked and gasping as he made love to her.
A few miles away from Camp David, at a small-town high school, a group of men worked quietly in the basement directly under the school gymnasium. All around the school were posters for the next day’s basketball game, a local championship against the school’s greatest rivals.
The men worked silently and quickly, then as each one finished his particular task, the leader nodded, and they left the area. The leader went to check that the caretaker’s body was well hidden, and then, just as quietly, they left the area. Tomorrow, the blast would be heard for miles, certainly at Camp David, and they would have handed President Bennett his first big crisis.
It was only the beginning of the horror they would unleash on the new president…
