Charlotte Kramer: Madam President Part 23

Dale had often worried that Warren loved her too much. She shouldn't have. Warren had made clear over and over again that he was happy to be with her in whatever kind of relationship she was ready for. He told her that she was the one he'd been waiting for.

He didn't make it.

Dale noticed that the conversations had stopped, and everyone was looking at her. Had someone asked her a question? She looked at Peter for guidance. He placed an arm on her shoulders and leaned closer to her.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm OK."

"You know Violet, Charlotte's makeup artist?" Peter offered.

"Hiya, darlin', how are you doing?" Violet had a pleasant accent. It wasn't quite a Southern accent, but it definitely had a tw.a.n.g.

"I'm a mess," Dale acknowledged.

"We're gonna fix you up, sugar." Dale watched as Violet unpacked her makeup bag on the counter in the medical unit next to the bright orange box marked "biohazard."

"Sugar, can I put this cape on you so I don't get makeup on your pretty dress?"

Dale nodded. Violet worked methodically. First, she poured makeup remover onto a Q-tip and wiped it under Dale's eyes.

"We're gonna start with a clean slate," Violet said, more to herself than to Dale. She opened a bottle of clear liquid and poured a quarter-sized dollop onto her palm. "This serum is gonna calm your skin down so it looks nice again," she soothed.

Next, Dale watched Violet open three different tubes of undereye concealer and examine them closely. She sc.r.a.ped off a chunk from each stick and mixed the chunks together on the back of her hand. With an egg-shaped sponge, Violet started working the makeup onto Dale's face. When she was done with the concealer, she moved on to foundation. She poured dime-sized dollops from two bottles onto a small mirror and mixed them with a fresh sponge. Then she dabbed the beige lotion onto Dale's face until her entire face was one color. Violet lined Dale's eyes with black liquid eyeliner and covered her eyelids with four different shades of brown. She brushed mascara onto Dale's upper and lower lashes and then stood back to admire her work.

"You have eyes again, my dear."

Dale forced a smile. "Thanks, Violet."

"All you need now are cheeks and lips, and then you're good as new."

Dale sat quietly and watched Violet apply several different shades of pink to her cheeks. She used a different brush to sweep bronzer under her cheekbones and above her brows.

"Smile for me, sugar."

Dale forced the corners of her lips upward while Violet expertly applied lip liner.

She added a gooey drop of lip gloss in the center of her lower lip and ordered Dale to rub her lips together.

"You look gorgeous!" she exclaimed.

"Thank you, Violet," Peter said.

"Thank you," Dale said again.

"I'm just gonna blow out your hair a little bit, and then we're done."

Dale sat silently while Violet folded sections of her hair over a round brush and blew hot and then cold air over them until her strands yielded to Violet's will.

"Just a touch of shine, and you're set."

"Thank you," Dale repeated.

"My pleasure, sugar. Call me if you need a touch-up."

While Violet was packing up her supplies, the president's physician sat down in a chair next to Dale.

"Do you feel like you can go back to the press office, or would you rather rest here a little longer?"

"I think it will be helpful to get back to work," Dale said.

The doctor stared intently at Dale's now-made-up face. "I'd like to suggest that you make contact with your parents and ask them to come here if that's possible so that you have an around-the-clock support network as the news sinks in," he added.

Dale nodded. She had no plans to ask her parents to come stay with her. "If I start to feel like it's more than I can handle to be out there, I'll come back here."

The doctor's eyes took in her shaky hands. "I think it's possible that you're still in shock. And what I'm concerned about is that the stress of your job could expedite the process of the shock wearing off. When it does, it's likely that it will be replaced by the sort of grief that most of us like to experience in the privacy of our own homes, surrounded by loved ones."

He looked at Peter. Peter looked uncomfortable.

"I know what you're saying, but it's not like I'm going to be too far away from all of you. If I walk out there and start to lose it, you have my permission to remove me from the premises." She tried to joke.

Peter didn't smile.

Dale was trying to show them that fragments of her sense of humor were still intact. It was almost eight P.M., and the press would be crawling the walls of the briefing room by now. She was sure Marguerite was at her wits' end.

"Do his parents know?" Dale asked Peter.

"Charlotte was calling them right after the press briefing, so I a.s.sume they know by now."

Dale nodded.

"If you're up for it, I thought I'd invite Marguerite over, and she could bring you up to speed. The press has been told that you were tapped to work on a very small team to draft the president's speech for tonight," Peter explained.

"Whose idea was that?"

"I think it was Melanie's."

"Does Marguerite know about Warren?"

Peter nodded and dialed her number from the landline in the medical unit. "She'll be right over," he reported.

"Great." Dale tried to smile.

"Do you want something to eat?" Peter asked.

Dale made a face and shook her head.

"I'd like you to try to drink some water," the doctor urged.

Dale took a sip from the bottle he handed her and patted her pockets for her BlackBerry and iPhone.

"You were briefing, remember?" Peter reminded her.

"Right."

A minute later, Marguerite rushed in and handed Dale her BlackBerry and iPhone.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah. I'm OK."

"I'm so sorry."

"Let's not do this," Dale begged.

"Fine with me," Marguerite said, looking up at Peter and the White House doctor for guidance.

"Why don't you bring Dale up to speed here and then make your way back to the press office? Call us in an hour, and let us know how everything is going," the doctor suggested.

Marguerite nodded.

"Maybe we should plan to touch base when the news breaks in the press about Warren," Peter suggested.

Dale smiled weakly. "Yes," she agreed.

"Call me if you need anything before that," he offered.

"Marguerite, let's catch up in my office," Dale proposed.

She stood for the first time in what felt like hours and felt so light-headed that she had to grab Marguerite for balance.

"Do you want to sit back down?" Peter asked.

"No. I just felt dizzy for a second. I think I need some fresh air."

Dale held on to Marguerite as they moved slowly toward the press office.

"Marguerite, fill me in. Are our guys driving you crazy?"

"Evan wrote a nasty hit piece on his blog about the homeland security secretary being clueless after the briefing. She sat in my office crying for half an hour."

"Jesus, I'm so sorry you had to deal with them by yourself."

Marguerite spoke without stopping to breathe as they walked back toward their offices. Dale felt rea.s.sured about her decision to return to work. The sheer volume of requests for information and interviews would help numb her from her own pain for a while.

It wasn't until she was settled at her desk, catching up on the latest news articles, that she realized she hadn't thanked Peter for breaking the news to her and taking care of her afterward.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.

Charlotte Madam President, we need to reach a consensus in here about how we manage the news about the Chicago and LAX bombers being U.S. citizens," the FBI director implored. "We are in the process of moving the alleged attackers' families into custody for questioning and protection," he added.

Charlotte nodded. They'd gone around and around the question of whether and when to release the ident.i.ties of the bombers for the last forty-five minutes. The early theory on the attacks from the intelligence community was that all of the attackers were living in the United States and were coached by someone from ISIS or Al Qaeda to launch a lethal multicity attack on soft targets.

Now the suspects' apartments would be searched, computer hard drives would be examined, e-mail and text records would be reviewed, and the story would probably be a familiar one. The difference between this investigation and the others that had occurred on Charlotte's watch was that this group had managed to elude law-enforcement and intelligence agencies during the planning and implementation phases. One of the theories presented to her in the meeting was that they'd communicated on the "secret Internet." A senior intelligence a.n.a.lyst had recently done an entire presentation on secret Internet messages and transactions at one of the recent national security meetings. He'd explained that it was of particular concern because of the difficulty of monitoring the encrypted material. Charlotte wondered if that a.n.a.lyst would be on television the following morning claiming to have been waving a red flag at her national security team.

One thing was clear to Charlotte. The bombers had innovated beyond the government's ability to watch and protect and prevent. The suspects detained in Miami offered the greatest opportunity for intelligence gathering, but it could be weeks before they talked.

"Where are we on the Miami suspects?" Charlotte asked.

"They're being moved to a federal facility."

"Gitmo?"

"That's TBD. Most likely Gitmo for security purposes and a host of other legal and logistical reasons."

Charlotte had requested a private briefing with the attorney general for nine P.M. to revisit the enhanced interrogations that had been utilized by previous administrations. She remembered being asked about torture during the presidential campaign. At the time, Charlotte had said she'd take a careful look at the issue and had a.s.sured the interviewer that she'd never do anything to endanger the lives of American soldiers fighting abroad. But now the debate about enhanced interrogations seemed ludicrous. She'd do anything to find out who was behind the deadly attacks and to make sure no other attacks were planned.

"If there are no security issues, I leave it to Craig and the lawyers and communications folks to make the determination about when we release the bombers' IDs." Charlotte stood to leave.

"Madam President, is it something you'd like us to save for your speech to the nation?" the CIA director asked.

"I don't want anyone to do anything when it comes to releasing information to the public for the purpose of my speech. Understood?"

Heads nodded. Charlotte walked out of the Situation Room alone and rushed upstairs.

She hadn't been able to reach the Carmichaels yet. Sam had tried several times before the NSC meeting, and the calls went directly to voice mail. Charlotte didn't want Sam to leave a voice message asking them to return the call. She couldn't imagine receiving a message like that about one of her children, and she wasn't about to put them through any more anguish than what they were about to endure.

"Sam, let's try both of their numbers again," Charlotte called from inside the Oval Office.

She heard Sam pick up her phone and was surprised to hear her say, "Mrs. Carmichael, please hold for President Kramer."

Even though she'd been thinking about it since the moment she learned that Warren had been killed, she still didn't know what she was going to say to his parents. Charlotte wanted them to know that their son was a hero and that she'd found him indispensable. She'd tell his mother and father that their son was kind, humble, funny, and wise beyond his years and loved by all - especially her. Charlotte would make sure that they knew that he died helping others and that she would make sure that the individuals behind the attack were brought to justice. But those things seemed inconsequential. In Charlotte's eyes, Warren was a man in the prime of his life, but Charlotte knew that if the news were being delivered to her about Harry or Penny, her thoughts would be on the baby she'd brought home from the hospital. She would think about the first steps Penny and Harry had taken, the first words they'd uttered, and the way she'd celebrated their first days of school, Christmas mornings, and birthdays. How did you tell a mother that the boy she raised to do the right thing and help others and live a life of service had died in the line of duty? How did you tell a mother that the son she prayed for every day while he served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan had died in an attack in Washington, D.C.?

Charlotte took a deep breath and walked around her desk. She picked up the phone slowly.

"Mrs. Carmichael?"