DUTCH AND GINA: A SCANDAL IS BORN (15 page)

“I mean who wouldn’t want Dutch Harber?” Liz was smiling now.
 
“That man is the total package.”

Gina, however, remained all business.
 
“I wasn’t aware that an office had been assigned,” she said.

“You mean assigned by you?” Liz asked. “No, I would not have expected you to assign me anything.
 
That’s why I went to Dutch.
 
Since he’s the one who hired me, I consider myself working directly for him.”

“Oh, do you now?”

“Yes, I do.
 
I thought that was clear.”

“Well let me make something clearer to you, Miss Sinclair: you work for me.
 
Not my husband, not my husband’s people, but me.
 
He asked me to put you on my staff, and I agreed to do so, but you work for me.
 
Now if you have a problem working for me, if you find me to be objectionable in any way, then I would strongly suggest you uncross those beautiful legs of yours, slap that fake smile off of that beautiful face of yours, and sail your beautiful ass out of this White House.”

Liz was taken aback by Gina’s forcefulness.
 
She had expected to find a woman under siege; a woman so overwhelmed with the hate she had to endure day in and day out that she wouldn’t have any fire left.
 

She was wrong.

“Well,” Liz said, still smiling, but more to save face than to pretend gaiety, “I guess your reputation is well earned.”
 

When Gina wouldn’t respond, when she wouldn’t ask what reputation was that or something akin to that, Liz went on.
 
“You are known, as I’m sure you’re aware, as the bitch of the beltway.”

This hurt Gina more than Liz would ever know, but Gina wasn’t about to show it.
 
“One more comment like that,” she said, “and I won’t give you the choice to leave.
 
You will be fired.”

And on that, Gina turned to leave.
 
Liz’s smile was now completely gone.
 
So the bitch is tough, she thought.
 
But two, she also thought, could play this game.
 

“What I need you to do for me,” Liz said in an attempt to reassert her own authority, and Gina turned back around.
 
“I need you to provide me with your daily, weekly and monthly schedules.
 
I need to know at all times where you are, where you’re going, and where you hope to go.
 
I need to be included on every manifest that includes you, and I need to accompany you, in your limo, whenever you leave the White House.
 
But even when you’re in the White House but not in your office, I need to know exactly where you are.”

Gina stared at her, slapped on her own fake smile, and then left.

ELEVEN

Dutch and Crader were in the office discussing the latest attempt by the Speaker of the House to once again change the date of the White House conference on immigration reform when Gina arrived.
 
Dutch could immediately tell, by that firm look on her face, that she was pissed.

“What’s the matter?” he asked her.

“That woman, I’m telling you Dutch, may be more than I can bear right now.”
 
Then she glanced at Crader.
 
“Hello, Crader.”

“Ma’am,” Crader said.
 
“Need me to get lost?”
 
he asked Dutch.

Dutch shook his head.
 
“What did she say?” he asked his wife.

“It’s not what she says, it’s how she says it.
 
I know she was once worked for you and has all of these glowing credentials, I know all of that.
 
And I respect that.
 
For a woman to become the security chief at a big corporation like Harber Industries is quite an achievement.
 
But I just get the feeling whenever I’m around her that the last person on the face of this earth she wants to protect is me.”

“Protect you?” Crader found himself asking.
 
“Who is this woman that she needs to protect you?”

“Liz Sinclair,” Dutch said, and Crader nodded.
 
“I see,” he said.

“You know her?” Gina asked.

“I’ve never met her, but I’ve heard about her.
 
I thought she left DC in disgrace or something or other?”

“She did,” Gina said.

“She resigned,” Dutch said, “but I’ve invited her back to work on Gina’s staff.”

“As my bodyguard,” Gina said.

“Your bodyguard?” Crader asked.
 
He looked at Dutch.
 
“Death threats?”

Dutch and Gina exchanged glances.
 
Gina knew that any time they get such hate mail, it does something to Dutch.
 
Once he even considered resigning his presidency and walking away from it all.
 
But he thought about Little Walt and didn’t want his son to grow up thinking that he was a quitter.

“There’s been quite a few,” Dutch said to his friend.
 
“It’s beginning to concern me.”

Crader nodded.
 
“Anything I can do you let me know.”

Dutch nodded.
 
“I will.
 
But I have total confidence in Liz.”

“At least one of us does,” Gina said.

“Excuse me, Mr. President,” Belle spoke into the desk intercom.

Dutch pressed the button.
 
“Yes, Belle, what is it?”

“Loretta King wishes to see you and the First Lady.
 
She says it’s a matter of some urgency.”

Gina looked at Dutch and Dutch immediately pressed on the Nursery TV monitor that sat on his desk.
 
Nurse Riley was playing with Little Walt.

“He’s okay,” Dutch said to Gina, causing her to outwardly sigh relief.
 
“Send her in, Belle,” Dutch said to his secretary.

 
Within seconds LaLa was coming through the door, and she came with a DVD.

“What is that?” Gina asked her.

Crader was there, which caused LaLa to hesitate for a second.
 
Her heart still pounded at the sight of him.

“You can talk around him,” Dutch said, misinterpreting her hesitation, “he’s a friend of the family.”

“What’s going on, La?” Gina asked her.

“I received a call from a reporter at Fox.
 
They wanted to know if your office would comment on a taped interview that was to be broadcast on their network within the next twenty minutes.”

“In twenty minutes?” Gina asked.
 
“When was this interview taped?”

“Apparently late last night.
 
They didn’t want to go live with it until all of their legal ducks were in a row.”

Gina frowned.
 
“What kind of interview is this?”

“They sent a snippet,” LaLa said, “just the part of the interview they particularly want you to comment on or, even better, agree to a sit down interview yourself.”
 

Crader took it from her hand and moved over to the DVD player attached to the TV.
 
Gina and Dutch again exchanged glances, both unable to shield their worry; both relatively certain that this was going to be bad.

As soon as Crader pressed Play, it was clear that it was bad.
 
Max Brennan was being interviewed, by an older, male reporter, in what appeared to be a studio.
 

“Let me make sure I understand you correctly,” the reporter was saying.
 
“Are you saying that you know for a fact that Roman Wilkes and the First Lady had an affair?”

Gina’s heart dropped as soon as she understood what the interview would be about. Dutch, however, showed no outward change, although he, far more than her, was raging inside.

“I’m telling you that I not only know this to be a fact,” Max said to the reporter, “but I was the one sneaking Roman Wilkes into the White House to be with her.
 
Whenever the president would be out of town, or across town attending some extensive meeting somewhere, Wilkes would show up and the First Lady would personally ask me to escort him to the Residence.
 
Once,” he said, and moved around in his seat, for some dramatic effect it seemed to Dutch, “I caught them in the act.”

“The act of making love?”

“Yes,” Max replied.
 
“They were in the Lincoln bedroom.
 
The First Lady was naked and so was Roman Wilkes.
 
I saw it with my own two eyes.”

Gina’s heart began to pound.
 
She sat nervously on the edge of Dutch’s desk, to steady herself.
 
LaLa moved over to her and placed a hand across her shoulder.
 
Dutch could not take his eyes off of Max.

“And he wasn’t the only one, either,” Max went on.

“What do you mean?” the reporter asked.

“There was another man the First Lady used to entertain.
 
I don’t remember his name or anything like that, but he favored Roman Wilkes, let’s just put it that way.”

“Why are you coming forward now?” the reporter asked.

Max shook his head.
 
“Because I couldn’t take it anymore.
 
I’m just disgusted how that woman has turned the White House, the people’s house, into her own personal whore house.
 
It sickens me to think that I was so duped by her.”

And then the TV screen went black.
 
The end of the snippet.

Gina, LaLa, and Crader looked at Dutch.
 
Max was his best friend since forever.
 
How could he not believe Max?

Dutch stood up, walked from around the Resolute Desk, and headed for the exit.
 
He didn’t look at his wife, he didn’t so much as look where he was going.
 
He just went.
 

Gina moved to follow him, but Crader stopped her.
 
“Not a good idea, ma’am,” he said.
 
And then he followed Dutch himself.

Gina looked at LaLa.
 
LaLa hugged her.
 
And she sobbed in the arms of her friend.

“But why are you leaving?” Allison asked Max as Max stood behind his desk putting his personal items into a box.
 

“I’m not wanted here anymore.”

“What are you talking about?
 
Of course you’re wanted, Max.
 
Just because Dutch asked Liz Sinclair to come back here has nothing to do with your service to him.
 
He loves and values your job as his chief of staff and you know it.”

“I told you I talked to a reporter last night.”

“So?” Allison said, completely ignorant to what the taped interview Dutch and Gina had just watched.
 
“It can’t be that bad.
 
Not to where you have to quit.”

“It’s complicated, Ally, all right?”

“But how could you leave the president at a time like this?
 
He needs you, Max.”

“I know he does.
 
But he . . . It’s complicated, Ally.”

“What if the president doesn’t accept your resignation?”

The door to Max’s office flew open so wide that it nearly bounced back close.
 
The president entered, with Crader behind him.
 

“Mr. President, maybe you can talk some sense into Max,” Allison said as Dutch made his way toward Max.
 
Only Dutch didn’t appear to be in any mood to talk sense into anyone.
 

He went behind the desk and, without hesitation, fist punched Max so hard in his face that it knocked Max back and completely over his desk chair. Dutch, too, nearly fell over the chair.

Allison was so amazed by the unfolding scene that she was speechless.
 
She then moved to help Max, but Crader pulled her back.
 

“Not a good idea,” he said.
 
Mainly because his instincts told him that Dutch wasn’t finished with his “best friend” yet.
 
Because if he were Dutch, he wouldn’t be finished either.

And Crader was right. Dutch grabbed Max up by the catch of his coat lapel and dragged him, literally dragged his now bleeding chief of staff out of his office, along the West Wing corridor, all the way to the exit.

The Secret Service followed them, talking feverishly into their ear pieces, unsure what they were supposed to do when it appeared that the president himself was the perpetrator, rather than the victim, of the attack.

So they simply held back and followed.
 
Crader had grabbed Max’s box of personal items and was following too.
 
When Dutch made it to the exit, the Marine at the door immediately opened it for the president, as was his duty.
 

The president, still singularly focused, took Max, took his best friend, and threw him with a hard heave, out of the White House.
 
Crader then threw the box out too, the few personal items crumbling around the disgraced chief.

Dutch stared at his friend for another moment, smooth down the wrinkles in his tailored suit, and then headed, with tears in his eyes, back to the office of the Oval.