Shadow Knight's Mate (10 page)

Dennis Wilkerson, the President's new National Security Advisor, remained so largely unknown to the general American public that he could walk through the streets of Washington unnoticed. He was new enough to the high circles of government that he hadn't taken on its trappings. He had no Secret Service protection. Wilkerson liked strolling to work from his apartment at the Watergate, stopping for breakfast along the way, taking time to marshal his thoughts. This habit sometimes made him late to meetings, but he excused himself by saying, “Mr. President, if I don't have time to think there is no point to my being in the meeting at all.” It was this kind of pronouncement that caused the President to listen to him so attentively when he did arrive.

So his strolling-and-breakfast routine continued even during this unprecedented crisis. At 6:45 a.m. in October the sun was not yet quite up, but the streets of Washington were full. Wilkerson walked energetically, turning from Wisconsin Avenue onto a slightly less traveled way, heading toward the small, unpopular café where the staff had come to know him. Wilkerson was about six feet tall but seemed taller because he only weighed a hundred and sixty-three pounds. A few wrinkles spread outward from his eyes, but his brown hair contained no gray. He rather regretted that. Wilkerson looked forward to being a tweedy old professor, well-respected, his opinions sought out. Maybe with a pipe.

He had lived alone his whole adult life, except for his time in the Air Force, and had grown satisfied with his own company. He looked determined as he walked, but there was really little on his mind. The President had accepted his idea, and it was the only idea Dennis Wilkerson had, or had ever had. Withdraw. Take a bow and exit the world's stage. The President had been easy to
convince, and Wilkerson had nothing more to do in his role as NSA other than to keep reinforcing the idea, not let other people stop or even modify it. All-out withdrawal or nothing.

His usual table was empty. Well, so were most of the tables. The café had a small outdoor seating area. Dennis Wilkerson's table was just inside, but close to the open doors. He liked to think of himself as sitting back and taking in the day, while everyone else in the city rushed through it thoughtlessly.

Across the way, a gray-haired man in a tweed jacket seemed to be reading both a magazine and some sort of program schedule, while his eggs grew cold. The man wore thick glasses that obscured his features, but he had all the trappings of the absent-minded professor, papers fighting out of a briefcase on the chair beside him, and a white mark that could have been chalk dust on his elbow. Dennis Wilkerson smiled at how familiar this type was. The old professor which he'd once aspired to become.

The professor sipped his coffee, frowned, looked around, and came toward Wilkerson. A self-service coffee bar stood a few feet behind the NSA's usual table. The professor busied himself there for a couple of minutes, started back toward his table, then turned and said, “Professor? Wilkes, is it?”

“Dennis Wilkerson,” he said, and stood up briefly.

“Yes. You are a professor, aren't you? We met at the Methods of Analysis conference two years ago in Athens. Georgia, I mean.” The speaker chuckled. “Maybe that's why I was there. Greece is more my specialty.”

“Yes, I remember,” Wilkerson said pleasantly, not remembering in the slightest. Academic conferences were always full of types like this. He had met several.

The professor extended a hand carefully, holding his coffee cup in one hand and his magazine under the other arm. “John Owenby. Beloit College. And are you still at—Stevens, was it?”

Wilkerson avoided the name of the college where he had formerly worked. He had a little smile as he talked to Professor Owenby. This was the kind of learned man who had intimidated Dennis Wilkerson for most of his adult life. Now he had soared
beyond the narrow world of academia. “No, actually I'm working here now.”

“Ah. U. Va? Georgetown?”

Wilkerson nodded vaguely.

Professor Owenby said, “Good schools,” then leaned closer confidentially and said, “A little too full of people a little too full of themselves, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

The professor still leaned close, his breath smelling like coffee-flavored mints. “Best advice is to keep to yourself for a while. Let on that you're working on a very involved research project, can't really socialize with the others 'til it's done. That will earn you some respect without your ever opening your mouth. Worked for me, I can tell you.

“Say.” He leaned back, studying Wilkerson through those thick spectacles. His eyes behind them, Wilkerson noticed, were pale blue and very alert. His study of Wilkerson was penetrating as he asked, “Aren't you the fellow who wrote the paper on—what was it called?—‘National Insecurity'—a couple of years ago? Yes, you sent it to the chair of my department.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Well, someone sent it. The chair asked me to vet it for historical content, but I got caught up in the policy ideas myself. Not my sort of thing, really.” He winked and chuckled. “I'm not really interested in anything that's happened since about 123 B.C. But I found it fascinating. There are some good historical analogies, of course. Rome under Claudius. Feudal Japan. All failures more or less, but still… Where was it published?”

“It never was,” Dennis Wilkerson said, and his attempt to make the sentence sound lighthearted only highlighted its bitterness. His smile was sharp and brief as he sipped coffee.

“Not surprised, to tell you the truth. It had too many ideas. Stuffy old rags like this one”—he waved the magazine under his arm, and Wilkerson saw that it was a thick academic journal— “like a lot of blather about the long dead, not policy suggestions that might actually—horrors!—have some application to the real
world. They prefer my kind of thing, actually. Doddering and out of touch.”

He dropped the magazine, the
Journal of Ancient Perspectives,
and Wilkerson saw John Owenby's name on the cover. “Your article was much more interesting than anything that's been published in here in ten years. It deserved wide circulation.”

“Actually, it was seen by some influential people.” Wilkerson enjoyed saying this with becoming modesty because of the huge irony of the sentence, known only to him.

“Excellent!” Professor Owenby shouted. “The kind of thing that might lead to a government grant, maybe? But you know, that paper should still be published. Maybe after a revision. Learn the kinds of things these rags are looking for. Or maybe even something for much greater circulation. Drop the footnotes, go for learned earnestness. I've had a few of those, too.
Atlantic Monthly,
you know.”

Wilkerson was nodding. “That's a good idea.” The President was going to need help selling this new policy of isolationism. A broad-circulation article could help immensely. It was exactly the sort of thing he could contribute. And now that he was National Security Advisor, his name alone should be enough to get it published.

It would help, though, to have that aura of academic respectability that he had never quite achieved in his previous career. “I'm awfully busy right now, though, and the article would need some revision to turn it into the type you're thinking of.”

“Oh, I'm sure you can find a good editor. Really you need more of a collaborator, though, but I'm sure you have some colleagues….”

Wilkerson wouldn't throw a crumb to his “colleagues” at his former colleges, all of whom had dismissed him as lightweight, and he certainly couldn't collaborate with any of his current “colleagues” since they were all rivals for the President's attention. Getting this article published, some place prestigious, would remind President Witt why he had brought Dennis Wilkerson on board in the first place. It would solidify his authority.

He needed someone who could write, someone with contacts in the publishing world, and someone who would never fight him for attention. Wilkerson looked at the figure across from him, with bread crumbs on his lapel and a distracted look in his eye.

“Professor Owenby, could you help? I can almost guarantee you prestigious publication and a co-credit.” Beneath Dennis Wilkerson's name and in smaller type.

The old professor looked frightened. “Me? Oh, no no no. You don't need an old codger like me. You need someone young and vigorous—”

Who would undoubtedly yank the spotlight from mild-mannered young Dennis Wilkerson. “No, sir, you're my man. But let me ask you, do you have the time, and can we work quickly?”

The gleam returned to the old man's eye. “Well, I am known as the fastest blue pencil in the east, as a matter of fact. You're so familiar with the material, and I know the style… It should be the work of only a few evenings.”

Over the next few minutes, Wilkerson managed to talk the old professor into the project. Owenby seemed glad to give a boost to a much younger colleague, and clearly had no idea of the elevated position Dennis Wilkerson had attained. Well, as he'd said, he didn't care about anything that had happened in the past two millennia.

They made arrangements to get together that evening and begin their collaboration, and shook hands warmly before Wilkerson had to rush away. As he walked toward the White House, invigorated, he couldn't stop smiling, although once or twice he had a niggling little worry like a leaf floating down the edge of his peripheral vision. What had Professor Owenby said? That this policy of isolationism had always been a failure in the past? They'd have to come up with some examples of successes when they worked together.

He walked faster. By the time he reached the White House side gate his smile was so wide he didn't match the picture on his White House security badge at all, and the guard had to study him closely.

Back at the cafe, Professor Owenby's demeanor didn't change. He still appeared befuddled as he finished his coffee, gathered up his things, stuffed them into his book bag, and looked around as if trying to remember where he was. He paid his check, left a carefully-calculated tip that included nickels and pennies, and walked out to the curb. A cab conveniently waited there, and Owenby got in without glancing at the driver. “Ramada Northwest,” he said, and settled into the seat. The temptation to get on the phone to the Chair was nearly overpowering, but he resisted. Not until he was alone in his hotel room.

At the next intersection the cab sat a little longer than the traffic required, until a man in a black overcoat opened the back door and climbed in, forcing Professor Owenby to slide away. “I'm afraid this one is—” he began, until the unsmiling man flashed a badge in a small carrying case at him. When the professor bent to peer at it, the man snapped the case shut.

“May I see that again? I don't think I'm familiar with that particular badge.”

“Homeland Security,” the man said, his mouth snapping as tightly as his badge case.

Neither the man in the overcoat nor the cab driver said another word during the rest of the drive. After a while, his protests ignored and his helpless academic act getting him nowhere, Professor Owenby shut up too.

A day later, outside Dennis Wilkerson's office, which was within shouting distance of the Oval one, Wilkerson was getting coffee at the communal urn. He had an assistant to do that sort of thing for him, more than one actually, but he still—he would never admit this to anyone on the planet—felt a little intimidated by both his elegantly appointed office and his lofty position. He liked walking out of the office to fetch his own coffee, enjoying the hum of the West Wing, the sidelong glances of people who were not exactly his subordinates but ranked far below him on any organizational chart of presidential staff. The short stroll to the coffee urn also gave him time to collect his thoughts.

A young man was already there, an earnest young man with dark hair, bright blue eyes and absolutely no lines on his face. He wore a blue blazer that was unadorned but might as well have carried the crest of his school on the pocket. Harvard, no doubt, or perhaps Princeton. This was the kind of young man so far out of Dennis Wilkerson's league that Wilkerson had never competed with such a person, hardly ever even encountered one. This young fellow had probably breezed into the kind of college, through family connections or native brilliance or both, to which Wilkerson had never even dared to apply.

Dennis Wilkerson would have loved to be a Harvard man, have that background, be able to toss off names of Cambridge hangouts easily. In meetings, which were now of the highest level, he still glanced around wondering where these people had gone to college, and feeling sure that they all looked at him askance—the Podunk U grad who had risen to the highest level of his nation's government. Wilkerson should have had a little knowing smile all the time, but thought it was the others who did.

So generally he hated bright young men like this on sight. This one, though, turned with his White House coffee mug and stared at Wilkerson with his mouth actually hanging open half an inch when he realized whom he had nearly bumped into.

“Mr. Wilkerson, sir. Can I get that for you?”

Clearly he wanted to call Wilkerson by some title but didn't know what it would be. Even Harvard men were at a loss sometimes. Wilkerson smiled graciously and handed over his cup.

The young man put two sugars and a good amount of cream into the cup, giving himself away. He had been watching Dennis Wilkerson. He handed over the cup with apparent reluctance to break the contact between the two. Wilkerson took it with gracious thanks and continued to stand there.

“My name is Bentley, sir.” As Wilkerson wondered if that was a first name or a last, the young man cleared it up. “Bentley Robbins. Aide to the deputy press secretary.”

“And doesn't he need your help right now, Bentley?”

“No, sir, she doesn't. She's on a little road trip, and I wasn't invited.” The young man shifted his weight from foot to foot. “And what are you working on, sir, if I may ask? Or would you have to kill me if you told me?”