Choppy Water

18

Holly had spent a week in New York with Stone when they were dining with the Bacchettis at Rotisserie Georgette, an East Side restaurant specializing in roasted fowl.

“I’ve got to stop living as if I’m on the lam,” Holly said, broaching a new subject.

“Is that how you feel at my house?” Stone asked.

“It’s nothing to do with you or your house,” she replied. “When I’ve taken office I’ll be surrounded by all the security my government can manage. But right now I’m a president-in-waiting, and I don’t want to make presidential demands. Also, from now until my inauguration, I don’t want to be seen as hiding from the public. It would seem cowardly somehow, and that is just not in my nature. I’m my father’s daughter.”

Holly had been raised as an Army brat by a mostly single parent, a rawhide-tough master sergeant whose wife had died young, moving every few years and attending a dozen schools. She had never allowed anybody to bully her, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Dino spoke up. “How are those two Secret Service agents at the table behind you going to take that?”

“I don’t mind them two at a time,” Holly replied, “but the other six scattered around the restaurant and in the vehicles outside are just too much. I’ve already gotten six of them killed, and I don’t want their replacements living in danger because of me.”

“All right,” Stone said. “If that’s how you’re going to handle this, there are some things you need to do.”

“Tell me,” she replied.

“The Secret Service will take care of that. They’ll explain why they are necessary to your continued survival.”

“I’m not really that vulnerable,” she said.

“What would have happened if you and I had not been out sailing when the attack on Islesboro occurred?”

“We would have shot it out with them.”

“I remind you that two of the dead were guarding the front and rear doors of my house. A couple of armor-piercing rounds would have taken us out as we stood by the living room fireplace, warming our hands. Fortunately, they didn’t know how hardened the house was.”

“What else? And don’t dump it on the Secret Service.”

“I don’t want you moving out of my house,” Stone said. “I know that’s greedy of me, but where you’re concerned I don’t have any trouble being greedy. But sooner rather than later, someone in the media is going to figure out that we’re shacking up, and seconds after they do, the world will know. I don’t want that news competing with the reportage on your transition, and I don’t want that information coloring your character.”

“Then where should I live? I have an apartment in New York, but it’s rented. I can’t go back to Washington, because my transition office is here, and here is where I need to be.”

“Move back into the Carlyle. I’ll surreptitiously pay for the suite, if your transition budget can’t handle it. And there are lots of ways for both of us to sneak into or out of the hotel.”

“My budget can handle it,” she said. “But I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re sweet,” Stone replied, “but we’ll manage.”

“What about after the inauguration?”

“I’m going to let you handle those arrangements,” Stone said, “since you will have all the strings to pull. I can always be across the street at the Hay-Adams Hotel. I’ve already arranged for a long-term suite there.”

Holly smiled. “I like good planning,” she said. “What name is it in?”

“Well, I was going to put it in Dino’s name, so if anybody found out, then he, not I, would be saddled with the attention of the media.”

“Thanks a bunch,” Dino said.

“From me, too,” Viv added, “though it pisses me off that you would even consider that.”

“It’s registered to a Delaware corporation. That’s the most security I can get without being appointed New York City’s police commissioner or elected president.”

“Are you going to have a tunnel dug to the White House?” Holly asked.

“That, too, would require presidential powers. The government has all the shovels.”

“I’ll look into whether I’ll have the authority to call in the Army Corps of Engineers.”

“We’ve still got Maine and Key West,” Stone said, “when you can get a weekend off — as long as you don’t make the trip in Air Force One. At least you don’t play golf. I read somewhere that it costs three million dollars every time a president has to travel to a golf course.”

“At least,” Holly said. “That’s why Will and Kate stopped playing. Kate told me that Will is turning a big chunk of the family farm in Georgia into a nine-hole course. He’s been seen down there, driving a bulldozer.”

“That’s about as much fun as a boy can have,” Viv said.

They were back in Stone’s Bentley, driving home, when Bill, in the front passenger seat, started speaking into his fist.

“Uh-oh,” Holly said.

Bill turned around. “Stone, your security system started squawking a minute ago, so we’re going to take the scenic route home,” he said.

The SUV in front of them started making turns, and a moment later, they were driving into Central Park.

“Central Park is closed to automobile traffic,” Stone said to Bill.

“They’re making an exception for us,” Bill replied. “Fred, pull over here, and we’ll wait for the all clear.”

“Bill?” Holly asked. “Do you think it would be safe for us to take a moonlight walk in the park?”

“I don’t see why not,” Bill replied, “as long as you have an armed guard ahead of and behind you.”

They got out of the car. “Let’s go see who’s awake at the zoo,” Holly said. She led the way to the cages, with an occasional grunt or snort coming from somewhere.

“Isn’t this lovely?” she asked.

“Not really,” Stone replied. “Zoos depress me.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re prisons for animals,” he replied. “And far from their natural homes.”

“And I was going to suggest we take a bench and neck for a while.”

“That works better for me if there’s no scent of elephant dung in the air,” Stone said.

Bill approached from behind them. “We’ve got the all clear at your house, Stone,” he said. “Some sort of electronic glitch.”

They trudged slowly back to the waiting car.