It was now 8:40 a.m. and the television lights had been switched on, turning the fake gold leaf on the ceiling into an intense white. The TelePrompTer had been readied, and the Secret Service detail was making last-minute checks around the room as unobtrusively as conditions would permit. Correspondents, for their own part, were poring over an advance copy of the text that Caroline's aide had just passed out, making notes for the brief question period scheduled to follow.
The time was 8:41 when she walked up behind him and laid down a large gray envelope marked Top Secret. It was, she whispered, a couple of pages fresh off the secure fax that had been installed in the room just down the hall.
What was it? he wondered. Some eleventh-hour revisions by Jordan McCormick, a young new speechwriter from Harvard who liked to tinker till the very last minute? Puzzled, he ripped open the envelope. The first page was a covering memo from his personal secretary, Alicia Winston. Miss Winston, as she insisted on being called, was a spinster, fifty- eight, who guarded access to Johan Hansen with the ferocity of a pit bull. Get past her, junior members of Congress often declared, and you're home free. It was, however, more often a dream than a realization. Seduction was frequently discussed.
Alicia's note was brief and pointed. The second page, it said, was a copy of a fax that had just arrived on her desk from Ed Briggs, head of the Joint Chiefs. Hansen's chief of staff, Morton Davies, had asked her to fax it on to New York immediately. They both knew Morton was not a man to squander time.
Hansen glanced over to see a white phone, complete with scrambler, being nestled next to the official text of his speech. When he scanned the second sheet, he knew why.
"He's on the line," Caroline said.
He nodded and checked his watch. Eight forty-three. Shit. "Caroline, tell them there's been a five-minute hold. And see if you can have them kill those damned lights."
"You've got it." She signaled to the pool producer, pointed to the lights, and made a slashing motion across her throat. With a puzzled nod, he immediately complied, barking an order to his lighting director.
Hansen picked up the phone. "Ed, what the hell is this about? I'm looking at the fax. You say this happened over six hours ago?"
"Mr. President, that came in about ten minutes ago from naval intel. They've been trying to get the story straight. The BBC was carrying a rumor, but it was soft. We wanted to get all the facts before—"