The Army had triggered something in Liam, leading him to military intelligence and a master’s degree in foreign service at Georgetown, where he easily slipped into being recruited into the CIA and, from there, its Directorate of Operations. He’s bounced back and forth from overseas assignments to Langley, and now he—a kid who used to fish off the wharves in his old DC neighborhood, getting into lots of fights and committing petty thefts after school—is moments away from giving the commander in chief the President’s Daily Brief.
The thin black leather binder in his lap contains the morning report—known as the PDB—and he’s still surprised that he’s the only one here to pass it along to the president. The PDB can run anywhere from ten to fifteen pages and is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Washington, containing a morning overview of the world that is assembled through reports from the CIA, the NSA, the Department of Defense, and lots of other three-letter agencies.
Traditionally it’s presented to the president by a high-level administrator in the Agency, accompanied by two or three aides. Three months ago, Liam had been called away from his office to join the director of national intelligence and the acting director of the CIA to accompany them when they presented the PDB. Several weeks later, it had been Liam and his boss, the acting director, and now, he’s here alone.
Very strange, off the books, and not the typical way it is done, but President Keegan Barrett is known to like being atypical and off the books. As a former director of the CIA, the president still has friends and allies at the Agency and is known to keep a close eye on the operators that catch his notice.
Like one Liam Grey, apparently.
A door opens to a small office next to this empty living room, and one of President Barrett’s aides, a young Black male wearing a lanyard displaying the required White House ID, says, “Mr. Grey? The president will see you now.”
“Thank you,” he says, and he gets up and takes the half dozen steps that will change everything.
Like some other presidents before him—Nixon and Trump, for example—President Barrett doesn’t like to work from the downstairs Oval Office. The day after his inauguration last year, in a sit-down with editors and reporters from the Washington bureau of the New York Times, he had said, “Too much history in that place. It feels like you’re in the middle of a museum exhibit. I want to be able to kick back, put my feet on the furniture, and get work done without being interrupted all the goddamn time.”
President Barrett is sitting behind an old wooden desk that was supposedly used by President Harding. He gets up from the neatly piled folders and telephone bank and briskly walks over to Liam.
That’s when the CIA officer notes he and the president aren’t alone in the small, wood-paneled room.
On one of two small blue couches arranged around a wooden coffee table is a woman about Liam’s age, sitting still and looking smart. She’s wearing a two-piece black suit—slacks and jacket—with an ivory blouse. Her light-olive complexion is framed by black hair that is cut and styled close.
She stares at him with dark-brown eyes, and President Barrett says, “I believe you know each other.”
Liam nods, smiles. “Noa Himel. We were in the same training class.”
She gets up, offers a hand, and says, “Glad you remembered me. My hair was longer back then.”
He takes her grip, firm and warm, and says, “I remembered you outrunning my ass on the obstacle course.”
She smiles, sits down. “It’s not called that anymore. It’s the confidence enhancement course.”
With his trademark perfect smile, President Barrett says, “I hate to interrupt this company reunion, but we’ve got work to do. Liam, take a seat next to Noa.”
Liam goes over and does so, catching a slight whiff of her perfume. It’s nice. The office is small, with bookcases, a couple of framed Frederic Remington western prints, and not much else. The PDB feels heavy in his lap, and the president says, “Liam, you can put that aside for now. We’ve got more important things to discuss.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, now confused, as he puts the leather-bound volume down on the coffee table. The PDB has been nearly sacred since the era of President John F. Kennedy, when it was known as the President’s Intelligence Checklist. Since then it has expanded and grown in importance, and it’s now considered the most highly classified and important piece of intelligence the president receives on a regular basis. Some presidents wanted the briefings daily, others weekly, and during the last several administrations, it was prepared on a secure computer tablet, but this president—sitting across from him and Noa, wearing dark-gray slacks and a blue Oxford shirt with the collar undone and sleeves rolled up, his skin tanned and thick brown hair carefully trimmed—demanded it go back to paper.