I wouldn’t be instructing him where it goes next, to whom and why, and we’d better hope chain of custody never becomes a question. Because when Marino stopped at Rex’s house in the middle of the night, that was the end of anything remotely resembling proper procedures.
Driving slowly along 17th Street, we’re getting close, and I dig in my briefcase for my lipstick, giving myself a quick touch-up in the visor mirror. The Hay-Adams hotel is coming up grandly on our right, one of Benton’s and my favorite places to stay. I look out wistfully at its columned portico, the four flags fluttering over it in the fog.
National guardsmen and police on every corner are ready for war, armored vehicles strategically placed. The Ellipse is fenced-in like most everything else, the national Christmas tree up but not lighted yet. I know where we’re going but not who we’re meeting or why. Benton hasn’t said anything that might give me a heads-up about what’s expected of us.
But it’s hopeless quizzing him further as we near the first checkpoint, the White House complex gleaming like an eggshell in the overcast.
Across from it is the soaring gray granite Louvre-like Eisenhower Executive Office Building with its cast-iron roof sculptures and window frames.
We stop in front of barricades, the windows humming down again. National guardsmen in camouflage are no-nonsense as we show our IDs while a K-9 sniffs around. More radio calls are made, and we’re allowed to move on, not getting very far before going through the same routine again.
At last, we’re on the White House grounds behind thirteen-foot-high black iron fencing, the security more extreme than I remember. The guard shack ahead has pop-up steel barricades and tire shredders, plenty of ominous warning signs posted. I can see the parking places where we’re going, and from here all of them look full.
“Good morning,” Benton says to a Secret Service uniform division officer in ballistic gear, an MP5 on a sling across his chest.
“I need to see some identification.” He says what we’ve heard before, and it doesn’t matter if the two of them are acquainted.
They could be drinking buddies or brothers, and you’d never know. In addition to being a forensic profiler, an expert in human factors for the Secret Service, Benton works closely with cyber and counterterrorism experts. He’s in thick with the intelligence community. But you’d never guess it based on the way we’re being treated.
His all-access White House pass doesn’t merit so much as a nod of recognition as we give our badge-wallets to an officer built like a Marvel comic book hero. He’s stone-faced as he looks at our credentials, swiping our IDs on a portable scanner, never losing track of everything going on around him.
A second officer runs a long-handled inspection mirror along our high-tech electric SUV’s undercarriage, making sure we’re not rigged up with explosives or hauling weapons and other contraband. Then a handler with her Belgian Malinois appears, and the falcon-wing doors open up, the trunk is popped. The sleek shepherd-looking K-9 snuffles industriously, alerting on nothing beyond the pistol Benton always carries.
“Have a good day.” An officer waves us through.
“You always know when something’s important,” Benton says. “It all comes down to parking.”
The narrow road we’re slowly following is lined with spaces, all of them taken.
“Usually, I’m stuck in employee parking near the Ellipse where protesters heckle you or worse if you’re spotted getting in and out of your car,” he says.
THE U.S. FLAG WAVES at half-mast from the White House rooftop, where Secret Service countersnipers stand sentry in the misty rain.
In tactical gear, they’re armed with submachine guns and high-powered rifles, four stories up without the benefit of safety tethers, and better them than me. I can see them walking around while surveillance cameras in space and on the ground constantly stream images to tablets and other electronic devices, according to Benton.
Monitoring real-time information, they’re watching every person, every vehicle in the area, and that includes the two of us inside his personal SUV on West Executive Avenue. I’ve not visited the White House or the Capitol since the January 6 attack almost a year ago, and it’s as if our country has been occupied by the military.
“I keep thinking how much worse it could have been,” I comment as we creep slowly past parked cars, and the lack of visitors isn’t because of the weather.
“I think about it every time I drive to work,” Benton replies, and the Secret Service’s headquarters is but a few blocks from here. “Worrying about domestic terrorism, about what some fringe extremist group will come up with next.”