She stared at Brian Turner’s tan, firm body lying on top of the crisp Frette linens and tried to figure out a way to clear her schedule, but it was impossible. There were too many important things going on. She needed to see and be seen around town, especially as she moved to get her committee’s investigation of the al-Jazeera incident off the ground. “I can’t, Brian,” she said. “I’ve got way too much on my plate right now.”
“I understand,” replied Turner, and he did. In fact, he was glad she had turned him down. He had already extended the same invitation to a much younger and more attractive congressional staff assistant, also known in DC parlance as a “staff ass,” rumored to have an insatiable appetite for wild, marathon sex. Turner was just playing Carmichael. The senator never accepted any of his “romantic” getaway overtures anyway. The thought of spending an entire weekend having to play warm and cuddly was not really his idea of a good time. Not that he found her unattractive. She was okay, but he wasn’t with her for the sex, he was with her for what she could do for his career.
Carmichael was Turner’s ticket to the big time, his ticket out of the monotonous, post-9/11 slog at the CIA. Short of spending the weekend nailing the pretty little blond staff ass from South Dakota, there was nothing Brian Turner wanted more than to go to work for Senator, and hopefully soon to be Vice President, Helen Carmichael.
He was ruminating on the perversions the staffer was said to be fond of when Carmichael began nudging him about work again. “What’s going on at Langley?” she asked. “What are you hearing about the al-Jazeera footage?”
“Seeing is more like it,” said Turner, who, somewhat relieved that the intimacy portion of the evening had come to a close, slid his feet over the side of the bed and walked to his desk.
The senator watched him walk. His body was a testimony to youthful strength and vigor. She looked down at her own body and was proud of what she saw. She worked out regularly and had the body of a woman at least fifteen years younger. She especially liked the piercing Brian had talked her into getting. They both wore matching, stainless steel studs-the senator in her navel and Brian Turner through the head of his penis in what was known as a Prince Albert. It was a reminder to Carmichael of her secret indulgences, and she liked to discreetly finger the stud while surrounded by other important DC figures-people who would never even guess at the double life she led.
In a moment of concern, Turner had asked the senator what her husband might say if he ever saw her piercing, but Carmichael had set his mind right at ease by telling him that her husband hadn’t seen her naked in years.
Turner returned to bed carrying a file folder. He tucked a pencil behind his ear and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “I asked one of the DOD liaisons at the agency to review the footage.”
“And?” asked Carmichael.
“And same as you, the first thing he noticed was that the uniform the American soldier was wearing-”
“Didn’t have any insignias other than the U.S. flag,” said Carmichael, finishing the young man’s sentence for him.
“Exactly.”
“Which means the soldier was probably operating in some semi-covert capacity, maybe on one of the Special Operations Command’s direct action teams.”
“Right again,” said Turner.
“Do you know who he is?”
Turner smiled. “Nobody, it seems, wants to help hang this guy. I had to be very careful who I talked to and what information I pulled. He’s very highly thought of-kind of a hero in intelligence circles.”
“Quit dragging this out,” purred Carmichael as she grabbed the file folder away from him.
The young man watched as the senator pored over the pages, a smile curling the edges of her mouth.
“This is incredible,” she whispered as she continued to read. Toward the end of the dossier, she concluded, “This is beyond good, Brian. This guy is the president’s goddamn golden boy.”
Turner smiled again. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“I more than appreciate it. This is the find of the decade.”
“His résumé is pretty lengthy. For some reason, he doesn’t seem to stay in one place too long. He served on both Navy SEAL Teams Two and Six, before the Secret Service hired him to come work at the White House. While he was there, he knocked one out of the park by rescuing the president during that whole kidnapping thing in Park City, Utah. That’s the move that earned him all his cachet around town. Shortly after that, he linked up with the CIA and started doing occasional assignments with members of the Special Operations Group. One involved a hijacking and the dismantling of the Abu Nidal terrorist organization, and another involved the Russians and the suitcase nukes they were threatening to detonate here.”
“He seems to be behind a lot of the president’s successes.”
“He does,” agreed Turner, “but then all of a sudden he got dumped over at the Department of Homeland Security. He’s now working in some innocuous police and intelligence liaison unit called the Office of International Investigative Assistance.”
Carmichael closed the folder and tapped it against her chin for several moments. “Something tells me we’re going to find that the Office of International Investigative Assistance is anything but innocuous and that our new friend is up to a lot more than just liaising with police and intelligence people.”
“Where are you going?” asked Turner, as the senator slid out of bed and began getting dressed. “I thought we were going to spend the evening together.”
“I can’t. Not now. There’s much too much to be done. But I want you,” said Carmichael as she bent down and gave Brian a deep kiss, “to sleep like an angel tonight. You deserve it. I also want you well rested, because I’ll probably need you in the morning. Keep an eye on your hotmail account. If we need to talk, I’ll send you a message, and then we’ll use the Breast Cancer Forum chat room like before.”
Before Brian Turner could respond, the senator was out the apartment door and on her way down to the lobby.
The moment she stepped outside, Carmichael pulled out her cell phone and speed-dialed her assistant’s home number.
“Hello?” said an obviously tired voice on the other end of the line.
“Neal, it’s Helen. I want you in the office in twenty minutes. As soon as you get there, start pulling everything you can on an ex-Navy SEAL who used to work Secret Service at the White House and is now over at DHS named Scot Harvath. I want you to dig as deep as you can. Get my black Rolodex out of the safe and start calling in favors. We need to know everything about this guy, especially what he’s been involved with since he began working at the White House a couple years ago. Am I clear? Do you have all that?”
“Yes, Senator,” said the assistant, who was now wide awake.
“Good,” replied Carmichael. “You’ve now got eighteen minutes to get yourself into the office. Get moving. I want to make the morning news cycle.”