cabinet was new; some because hindsight had showed him that the loyalties of people he had trusted lay elsewhere, others because the lives of friends and confidantes had been cut short in the remote mountains of Idaho two and a half years ago.
Building a team was tough, he knew. Finding the right people was critical, and it had taken some time to rebuild his team. The background checks had been far more extensive, something he had insisted on. And although the congressional review of his appointments had been easy—heck, Congress would have given him anything he asked for then—it was still a while before he was able to fill every position. He had the right team now, but several were still learning their jobs and he knew it would take some time before they were fully up to speed.
Trust was built over time. The trouble was, he needed that trust now. He needed some outside counsel, someone independent to bounce his thoughts off of, someone to challenge his thinking, someone who could give him an unbiased opinion. There was one person, he thought—by far the best option he had. But would it be fair to ask?
He watched as several leaves fell slowly to the ground. Winter was coming and Washington winters could be cold. Nothing like Colorado, where he had lived for over fifty years; in Washington, the coldness went beyond the weather. People took a calculated approach to relationships here and something was always at stake. There was always something to be gained—support for a bill over here, opposition to a policy over there—and he had come to view most interactions as a game. Many times, it was a zero-sum game where you either won or lost and, sometimes, it wasn’t always clear where you stood when the game was over. The lure of power drew some very shrewd operators to the nation’s capital, and their agendas were not always what they seemed to be. That had been a painful lesson.
A cold breeze hit him and he shivered. He turned and began walking back toward the Oval Office.
___
“Why don’t you ask him?” Maria suggested, “Let him make his own decision?”
“Because I’m afraid he would say yes,” President Kendall responded.
They were sitting in the living room, on the second floor of the White House Residence. A fire crackled in the fireplace and, although the TV was on, the volume was muted. Neither paid attention to it anyway.
“You’re afraid that he’ll feel obligated,” Maria said as she sipped her tea.
The president nodded. They had been married for thirty years, long enough that Maria could read his moods as well as his thoughts. She often helped him sort out the pros and cons of tough decisions.
“He’ll say yes if I ask him, even if he doesn’t want to.” And that was the problem, Kendall thought. After their harrowing ordeal two years ago, he had no right to ask. If anything, he was indebted to Matthew—hell, the man had saved his life—and there was no way he could ever repay him. If there was, asking him to come back to the White House certainly wasn’t it. Matthew had made his feelings fairly clear two years ago. After the investigation, after the congressional hearings, after the head of the Secret Service and the FBI had both resigned, Matthew had told him that there was nothing left for him in Washington. It had been more than the corruption in the Secret Service, Kendall knew, more than the corruption in the vice president’s office. It had a lot to do with Stephanie.
“You miss him,” Maria said. It wasn’t a question.
“I do,” the president admitted. He had come to see Agent Richter as more than his protector—Matthew meant so much more to him. He knew that a psychologist would tell him this was normal, that it was something that soldiers who had survived combat together experienced. After surviving the horrors of war together while others around them came home in body bags, after being forced to make terrible choices as they faced life and death side by side,
Building a team was tough, he knew. Finding the right people was critical, and it had taken some time to rebuild his team. The background checks had been far more extensive, something he had insisted on. And although the congressional review of his appointments had been easy—heck, Congress would have given him anything he asked for then—it was still a while before he was able to fill every position. He had the right team now, but several were still learning their jobs and he knew it would take some time before they were fully up to speed.
Trust was built over time. The trouble was, he needed that trust now. He needed some outside counsel, someone independent to bounce his thoughts off of, someone to challenge his thinking, someone who could give him an unbiased opinion. There was one person, he thought—by far the best option he had. But would it be fair to ask?
He watched as several leaves fell slowly to the ground. Winter was coming and Washington winters could be cold. Nothing like Colorado, where he had lived for over fifty years; in Washington, the coldness went beyond the weather. People took a calculated approach to relationships here and something was always at stake. There was always something to be gained—support for a bill over here, opposition to a policy over there—and he had come to view most interactions as a game. Many times, it was a zero-sum game where you either won or lost and, sometimes, it wasn’t always clear where you stood when the game was over. The lure of power drew some very shrewd operators to the nation’s capital, and their agendas were not always what they seemed to be. That had been a painful lesson.
A cold breeze hit him and he shivered. He turned and began walking back toward the Oval Office.
___
“Why don’t you ask him?” Maria suggested, “Let him make his own decision?”
“Because I’m afraid he would say yes,” President Kendall responded.
They were sitting in the living room, on the second floor of the White House Residence. A fire crackled in the fireplace and, although the TV was on, the volume was muted. Neither paid attention to it anyway.
“You’re afraid that he’ll feel obligated,” Maria said as she sipped her tea.
The president nodded. They had been married for thirty years, long enough that Maria could read his moods as well as his thoughts. She often helped him sort out the pros and cons of tough decisions.
“He’ll say yes if I ask him, even if he doesn’t want to.” And that was the problem, Kendall thought. After their harrowing ordeal two years ago, he had no right to ask. If anything, he was indebted to Matthew—hell, the man had saved his life—and there was no way he could ever repay him. If there was, asking him to come back to the White House certainly wasn’t it. Matthew had made his feelings fairly clear two years ago. After the investigation, after the congressional hearings, after the head of the Secret Service and the FBI had both resigned, Matthew had told him that there was nothing left for him in Washington. It had been more than the corruption in the Secret Service, Kendall knew, more than the corruption in the vice president’s office. It had a lot to do with Stephanie.
“You miss him,” Maria said. It wasn’t a question.
“I do,” the president admitted. He had come to see Agent Richter as more than his protector—Matthew meant so much more to him. He knew that a psychologist would tell him this was normal, that it was something that soldiers who had survived combat together experienced. After surviving the horrors of war together while others around them came home in body bags, after being forced to make terrible choices as they faced life and death side by side,
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