Deception Point Page 58

â€Å"I have an emergency!† The administrator was short of breath. â€Å"†¦ call for the President.† Tench looked suspicious. â€Å"Not now, you don't!† â€Å"It's from Rachel Sexton. She says it's urgent.† The frown that obscured Tench's face had all the earmarks of being more one of puzzlement than outrage. Tench peered toward the cordless telephone. â€Å"That's a house line. That is not secure.† â€Å"No, ma'am. In any case, the approaching call is open in any case. She's on a radiophone. She needs to address the President right away.† â€Å"Live in ninety seconds!† Tench's virus eyes gazed, and she held out an insect like hand. â€Å"Give me the phone.† The administrator's heart was beating now. â€Å"Ms. Sexton needs to address President Herney straightforwardly. She instructed me to delay the question and answer session until she'd conversed with him. I guaranteed â€Å" Tench ventured toward the administrator now, her voice a fuming murmur. â€Å"Let me reveal to you how this functions. You don't take orders from the little girl of the President's rival, you take them from me. I can guarantee you, this is as close as you are getting to the President until I discover what the heck is going on.† The administrator looked toward the President, who was presently encircled by mouthpiece specialists, beauticians, and a few staff individuals talking him through conclusive corrections of his discourse. â€Å"Sixty seconds!† the TV chief hollered. Locally available the Charlotte, Rachel Sexton was pacing fiercely in the restricted space when she at last heard a tick on the phone line. A rough voice went ahead. â€Å"Hello?† â€Å"President Herney?† Rachel shouted. â€Å"Marjorie Tench,† the voice rectified. â€Å"I am the President's senior consultant. Whoever this is, I should caution you that trick calls against the White House are infringing upon â€Å" For the wellbeing of Christ! â€Å"This isn't a trick! This is Rachel Sexton. I'm your NRO contact and-â€Å" â€Å"I am mindful of who Rachel Sexton is, ma'am. Also, I am far fetched that you are she. You've called the White House on an unbound line advising me to interfere with a significant presidential communicate. That is not really appropriate MO for somebody with-â€Å" â€Å"Listen,† Rachel smoldered, â€Å"I advised your entire staff a few hours prior on a shooting star. You sat in the first line. You watched my preparation on a TV sitting on the President's work area! Any questions?† Tench fell quiet a second. â€Å"Ms. Sexton, what is the importance of this?† â€Å"The significance is that you need to stop the President! His shooting star information is all off-base! We've quite recently taken in the shooting star was embedded from underneath the ice rack. I don't know by whom, and I don't have the foggiest idea why! Be that as it may, things are not what they appear up here! The President is going to underwrite some truly errant information, and I firmly exhort â€Å" â€Å"Wait one goddamned minute!† Tench brought down her voice. â€Å"Do you understand what you are saying?† â€Å"Yes! I presume the NASA head has coordinated an enormous scope extortion, and President Herney is going to get trapped in the center. You've in any event got the chance to defer ten minutes so I can disclose to him what's been happening up here. Somebody attempted to execute me, for God's sake!† Tench's voice went to ice. â€Å"Ms. Sexton, let me give you an expression of caution. In the event that you are thinking again about your job in helping the White House in this battle, you ought to have thought of that well before you by and by embraced that shooting star information for the President.† â€Å"What!† Is she in any event, tuning in? â€Å"I'm revolted by your showcase. Utilizing an unbound line is a modest trick. Suggesting the shooting star information has been faked? What sort of insight official uses a radiophone to call the White House and discussion about grouped data? Clearly you are trusting somebody blocks this message.† â€Å"Norah Mangor was executed over this! Dr. Ming is likewise dead. You must caution â€Å" â€Å"Stop in that spot! I don't have the foggiest idea what you're playing at, however I will remind you-and any other person who happens to block this call the White House has recorded testimonies from NASA's top researchers, a few prestigious non military personnel researchers, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all underwriting the shooting star information as exact. Why you are out of nowhere changing your story, I can just envision. Whatever the explanation, see yourself as diminished of your White House post as of right now, and in the event that you attempt to pollute this revelation with any progressively ludicrous charges of injustice, I guarantee you the White House and NASA will sue you for maligning so quick you won't get an opportunity to gather a bag before you go to jail.† Rachel opened her mouth to talk, yet no words came. â€Å"Zach Herney has been liberal to you,† Tench snapped, â€Å"and honestly this bears a resemblance to a modest Sexton exposure stunt. Drop it at the present time, or we'll squeeze charges. I swear it.† The line went dead. Rachel's mouth was all the while hanging open when the skipper thumped on the entryway. â€Å"Ms. Sexton?† the chief stated, peering in. â€Å"We're getting a swoon signal from Canadian National Radio. President Zach Herney has recently started his press conference.† 68 Remaining at the platform in the White House Briefing Room, Zach Herney felt the warmth of the media lights and realized the world was viewing. The focused on barrage performed by the White House Press Office had made an infection of media buzz. The individuals who didn't find out about the location by means of TV, radio, or on-line news constantly caught wind of it from neighbors, colleagues, and family. By 8:00 P.M., anybody not living in a cavern was hypothesizing about the subject of the President's location. In bars and parlors over the globe, millions inclined toward their TVs in worried miracle. It was during minutes like these-confronting the world-that Zach Herney genuinely felt the heaviness of his office. Any individual who said power was not addictive had never truly experienced it. As he started his location, be that as it may, Herney detected something was wrong. He was not a man inclined to organize dread, thus the shiver of fear presently fixing in his center alarmed him. It's simply the size of the crowd, he let himself know. But then he knew something different. Intuition. Something he had seen. It had been such a seemingly insignificant detail, and yet†¦ He instructed himself to overlook it. It was nothing. But it stuck. Tench. Minutes prior, as Herney was getting ready to make that big appearance, he had seen Marjorie Tench in the yellow foyer, chatting on a cordless telephone. This was bizarre in itself, yet it was made all the more so by the White House administrator remaining next to her, her face white with dread. Herney couldn't hear Tench's telephone discussion, however he could see it was petulant. Tench was contending with a fervency and outrage the President had only from time to time observed even from Tench. He delayed a second and grabbed her attention, curious. Tench offered him the go-ahead. Herney had never observed Tench offer anybody the go-ahead. It was the last picture in Herney's psyche as he was signaled onto the stage. On the blue mat in the press territory inside the NASA habisphere on Ellesmere Island, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was situated at the focal point of the long discussion table, flanked by top NASA authorities and researchers. On an enormous screen confronting them the President's initial articulation was being channeled in live. The rest of the NASA team was clustered around different screens, abounding with energy as their president propelled into his question and answer session. â€Å"Good evening,† Herney was stating, sounding uniquely hardened. â€Å"To my individual compatriots, and to our companions around the world†¦ â€Å" Ekstrom looked at the enormous burned mass of rock showed conspicuously before him. His eyes moved to a backup screen, where he watched himself, flanked by his most somber staff, against a scenery of an enormous American banner and NASA logo. The emotional lighting made the setting resemble a neomodern painting-the twelve witnesses at the last dinner. Zach Herney had transformed this into a political sideshow. Herney had no way out. Ekstrom still felt like a TV preacher, bundling God for the general population.