He got a nod from a man dressed in a grey single-breasted suit and what looked like a reddish tie. He’d been standing by the gates and started to amble towards us.
‘Davy Boy! Long time!’
‘Yo, Josh, good to see you!’
Sarah and I looked at each other as they exchanged greetings. She had the same concern as I did: Was this guy going to stay with us?
‘How goes it Davy, get a place for me?’
Davy continued towards the wagon. I could see his tie now – lots of small Dalmatians on a red background. ‘Hey, you know what, just park in the West Exec duty pool.’
As we got out of the vehicle Josh clapped Davy enthusiastically across the shoulders. ‘Come here, let me introduce you to my friends from the UK. This is Sarah.’ They shook hands. ‘And this is Nick.’ We pressed the flesh.
‘Hey. Good to see you. Welcome.’ Davy was in his mid-thirties, and very open and friendly. He was also tall, fit, good-looking and had all his own teeth – white and perfect. If he hadn’t been in the Secret Service, a great career would have beckoned as the Diet Coke man.
Davy had everything arranged. ‘I’ll take you guys to the gate house, get you an ID pass each and take you in. As you know, it’s kinda busy today, but we’ll do what we can for you.’
Sarah and I gushed our thanks as we started to walk off with him. Josh cut in from behind us, ‘See you folks in a few.’ I heard his door close and the wagon start to move.
Davy did all the small talk. ‘Take long to get here?’
I looked at my watch. It was ten sixteen. ‘No, not really, just over an hour.’
‘That’s good. Was he complaining about the traffic?’
‘He did nothing but moan.’
Davy Boy liked that one. It seemed that nothing had changed with his old workmate.
Josh’s black Dodge passed us on the way to the gates that would let him into West Executive Avenue. We were going there as well, but via the security gatehouse. Josh stopped at the big, black iron gates, which opened automatically for him. The gate house was to the left, with a turnstile and airport-style metal detector. From a distance it had looked as if it was made of white PVC and glass, like a conservatory. As we got nearer, I could see that it wasn’t; the white paint covered steel, and the glass was so thick I could only just make out movement inside.
As the gates closed behind him, I could see Josh parking in line, nose in to the pavement, about fifty metres up on the left-hand side.
There was a big round of applause to my right, and the roar of excited children’s voices, coming from a huge marquee which had been erected in the rear White House gardens. Davy grinned. ‘There are about two hundred of them in there. Been practising all morning.’ He screwed up his face as the applause continued. ‘At least they think they’re good.’
I could see more clearly into the gatehouse now that we’d gone through the fence, turned right and were standing by the metal detector. Just beyond that was the turnstile. Two bodies were inside the gatehouse. The door opened and one of them came out. An electric buzz came from the turnstile as Josh came through to join us. The guard was white and in his forties. His Secret Service uniform was a very sharply pressed white shirt, a black tie, black trousers with a yellow stripe and black patent-leather belt kit, holding a semi-automatic pistol and spare mags. He couldn’t wait to have a go at Josh.
‘Things must be getting desperate round here if they’re bringing you back!’
Josh laughed; he’d obviously had this for years from this guy, because he gave him the finger as he replied. ‘I’ve been sent to get rid of all the dead wood, so you’d better watch out, lard-arse.’
Everybody contributed to the banter as the fat one slapped his stomach. Sarah and I were the gooseberries in this, so we just kept our mouths shut and concentrated on looking awestruck at standing so close to the official residence of the most powerful man on earth.
I could see that Lard-arse and a younger black guy who was still inside the gatehouse were also responsible for manning a bank of TV monitors and radios. Davy got hold of a clipboard and went through the signing-in procedure. ‘Nick, surname please?’
‘Stone.’ Being with Josh, there was no option but to reply truthfully. ‘OK, S–t–o–n–e.’ There was a few seconds’ pause as he finished writing.
‘And Sarah?’
‘Darnley.’
He frowned, and she spelled it for him as she wiped her new glasses with a tissue from her pocket. ‘OK, if you can just sign here and here for me, please.’
The first signature was for the ID card, the second for the entry log. Josh then signed himself in as well. Davy gave the clipboard back to the guard, who handed Sarah and me each an ID card. Lard-arse smiled at Sarah as he passed her card over. ‘You’re not going to let these two losers show you around, are you?’
‘I guess I’m stuck with them for now.’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘The only place these two know is the canteen. You’ll just be eating doughnuts and drinking coffee all day, and look what that did for me!’ He looked down at his belly.
We joined in the laughter. Mine was out of sheer relief at getting even this far. It appeared that we weren’t quite in the Good Lads Club because we didn’t have our cards on nylon straps – we had clips, with a black V on a white background – not for visitor, but volunteer. It must have been part of the deal, today being busy: no visitors. It seemed Davy and Josh had made a real effort for us. I hated that. It made me feel even more guilty, but I’d live. At least, I hoped I would.
Our IDs looked quite different from the ones Davy and Josh were wearing. Theirs had a blue edge surrounding their pictures, and some red markings underneath. We clipped ours onto our jackets and Davy clapped and rubbed his hands together. ‘OK, people, let’s do this thing.’ He walked around the detector and waited with Josh as we walked through it.
As we all went through the turnstile I didn’t know which feeling inside me was stronger, elation at getting past the first hurdle, or concern that I was now fenced in and the clock was ticking.
We walked north along West Exec Ave. We weren’t inside the actual grounds yet, as the iron fencing that stretched away from the gate divided the White House from the road. We seemed to be aiming for an entrance about fifty metres further up, which opened onto the front White House lawn. Looking through into the gardens, I could see the rear of the main building and the marquee. A member of the Emergency Response Team was standing under a tree, talking into his radio as he watched the road, and us. He really looked the business. He was dressed from head to foot in black: black coveralls, black belt kit, body armour and boots. He had a baseball cap with ERT on the front and a pager that was hooked onto the leg strapping that went round his thigh to keep his pistol and holster in place. It looked as if his main weapon, probably an MP5, was covered by a black nylon support across his chest.
Josh took a back seat as Davy started to give us the brief while we continued towards the gate. ‘Regardless of what people think, this place is basically just an office complex. Over to the left-hand side’ – we looked over at the old Exec Building in perfect unison, like a group of Japanese tourists – ‘that’s where the VP’s office is, and that’s also the Indian Treaty Room. It’s a fantastic sight, I’ll try and get you in there later on, especially if our little tour the other side of the fence is cut short.’
We carried on up the road between the two buildings, basically just listening to Davy Boy. The more you listen, the less you have to say and the less you can fuck up – and the more time you can spend looking for anyone who looks remotely like a dark-skinned Al Gore or Bill Gates.
Walking purposefully between the two buildings, via the gate, were men in conservative suits and women in identical two pieces, each with an ID card dangling on a nylon cord. Television and power cables snaked across the tarmac, and at the top of the road, where it met Pennsylvania Avenue, satellite trucks were jammed onto every available square inch of space.
As we got to within ten metres or so of the gate I saw Monica Beach in front of me, on the White House side of the fence. I looked at Sarah. She’d seen it, too. Multi-coloured umbrellas were pitched high to keep the light out of the camera lenses. Spotlights were rigged up for the reporters to look good in front of the cameras, and there were yet more power cables. They seemed to have a life of their own. The whole place looked like a Hollywood location.
Beyond Monica Beach I could see another gatehouse, which I guessed was the press entrance point from Pennsylvania Avenue. Throngs of people with videos and cameras jostled against the railings to get a good shot of the building. They seemed to be photographing everything that moved, maybe in the hope of capturing some celebrity to show the folks back home. If this all went to ratshit in a few hours’ time, I guessed the police would be appealing for them to hand in their footage.
Davy continued to give us the general picture as we stood at the gate. There was a bit of a bottleneck as ERT and uniformed Secret Service security scrutinized the IDs of everybody who was waiting to go through. ‘The White House can be broken down into three main parts. The east wing’ – he pointed to the far side of the main house; we looked, but I was more intent on scanning the faces of the news crews that were walking from the building up to the beach – ‘then, in the middle, the executive mansion. That’s the part you always see in newsreels. As you can see, just outside, on the lawn, is where the ceremony will take place. The kids will be doing their thing in front of the stage.’
Arranged on the stage were a couple of rows of chairs, and two lecterns emblazoned with the presidential seal. The flags of Israel, Palestine and the United States were being unfurled on flagpoles. The scene looked idyllic.
Sarah was watching the hordes of tourists poking their video cameras through the fence. ‘Isn’t it dangerous to be so exposed to the road?’
Davy shook his head. ‘No, they’ll close off Penn Ave soon.’ He pointed to our side of the Executive Mansion. ‘This here is the west wing, used mainly for administration and press briefings, as you can see.’ He nodded over to the TV crews behind us.
We turned, and it gave both of us an opportunity to have a good look at the personnel. I couldn’t see anyone who looked remotely like our targets. In any case, these guys were technicians sorting out camera gear, not reporters. We just had to get back to playing the tourist.
‘The Oval Office is in the west wing and not in the Executive Mansion,’ Davy went on. ‘That’s why these guys’ – he pointed at the crowd by the fence – ‘never get to see him. They’re always looking at the wrong place and from the wrong side. The Oval Office overlooks where all the kids are at the moment.’
Still we waited, shuffling forward towards the security. Now and again Josh and Davy waved at somebody they recognized. We moved out of the way so that a group of sharply dressed men and women could come through the gate onto the road. One of the women recognized Josh. ‘Well, Mr D’Souza! What brings you to town?’
Josh stepped to one side with a larger than normal smile on his face. ‘I thought I’d just drop in and say heyyy.’ We stood and waited for a few seconds so that he could finish his conversation. I could hear him talking about his kids being part of the ceremony. Sarah suddenly remembered something. ‘Oh no, the camera. I’ve left it in the car.’
Josh heard and turned his head. ‘Hey, no problem, I’ll open the truck.’
Sarah didn’t want to mess up the conversation. ‘That’s OK, I’ll do it.’ She held out her hand for the keys and Josh presented them.
I’d forgotten it, too. We were going to need it, as we were tourists on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Josh looked at me as if I was a mophead. ‘We now know who’s the one with the smarts!’ Then he turned back to his conversation.
We waited until Sarah ran back to us with the camera in her hand, and Davy continued the tour. ‘Come on, I’ll show you something that you see on the news every day.’ Following yet more power cables, we were walking along the pathway that led from the gate to the front of the east wing. We went down a few steps and past a door with a small white semi-circular canopy over it. More power cables spewed over the ground and a portable generator was chugging away to my left. Every time we passed groups of people, I watched Sarah for a reaction. She was the only one who could give a positive ID on these people. I could only make possibles.
‘Here we are.’ We‘d arrived at a large glass-panelled door. I looked to the left and saw a satellite truck backed up against the side of the main stone staircase, which was the North Portico of the Executive Mansion. Under the staircase were open doors leading into the ground floor. A flight above it led to the first floor and the main entrance. Davy ushered us through and we were immediately confronted by a very familiar sight, the lectern with the presidential seal from which I’d seen so many White House statements delivered. The room looked very purposeful and businesslike, but was much smaller than I’d imagined. Facing the lectern were plastic chairs, arranged in rows with a centre aisle. It looked more like the set-up for a community meeting in the local village hall, except that there were wires everywhere on the floor, with camera crews sorting out TV equipment and mikes. I was busily scanning the room, looking at the dozen or so people who were in a frenzy preparing for the afternoon’s events.