Deception Point Page 58

â€Å"I have an emergency!† The administrator was winded. â€Å"†¦ call for the President.† Tench looked skeptical. 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 seemed, by all accounts, to be 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. Be that as it may, the approaching call is open at any rate. 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 a bug 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 defer the public interview 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 girl of the President's adversary, 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 currently encircled by receiver experts, beauticians, and a few staff individuals talking him through definite amendments of his discourse. â€Å"Sixty seconds!† the TV boss hollered. Locally available the Charlotte, Rachel Sexton was pacing uncontrollably 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 remedied. â€Å"I am the President's senior counsel. Whoever this is, I should caution you that trick calls against the White House are disregarding â€Å" For the good 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. What's more, I am suspicious that you are she. You've called the White House on an unbound line instructing me to interfere with a significant presidential communicate. That is not really appropriate MO for somebody with-â€Å" â€Å"Listen,† Rachel raged, â€Å"I informed your entire staff several hours back on a shooting star. You sat in the first line. You watched my instructions 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 recently taken in the shooting star was embedded from underneath the ice rack. I don't know by whom, and I don't have a clue why! Be that as it may, things are not what they appear up here! The President is going to underwrite some genuinely errant information, and I firmly prompt 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 chairman has arranged an enormous scope misrepresentation, and President Herney is going to get trapped in the center. You've at any rate got the chance to defer ten minutes so I can disclose to him what's been happening up here. Somebody attempted to murder 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 reconsidering about your job in helping the White House in this crusade, you ought to have thought of that well before you actually 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 characterized data? Clearly you are trusting somebody captures this message.† â€Å"Norah Mangor was murdered 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, yet I will remind you-and any other person who happens to block this call the White House has recorded affidavits from NASA's top researchers, a few prestigious non military personnel researchers, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all supporting the shooting star information as precise. Why you are out of nowhere changing your story, I can just envision. Whatever the explanation, view yourself as calmed of your White House post as of right now, and on the off chance that you attempt to corrupt this disclosure with any increasingly crazy charges of unfairness, I guarantee you the White House and NASA will sue you for criticism 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 skipper stated, peering in. â€Å"We're getting a black out sign from Canadian National Radio. President Zach Herney has quite 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 rush performed by the White House Press Office had made a virus of media buzz. The individuals who didn't catch wind of the location through TV, radio, or on-line news perpetually found out about it from neighbors, colleagues, and family. By 8:00 P.M., anybody not living in a cavern was estimating about the subject of the President's location. In bars and parlors over the globe, millions inclined toward their TVs in anxious miracle. It was during minutes like these-confronting the world-that Zach Herney really felt the heaviness of his office. Any individual who said power was not addictive had never truly experienced it. As he started his location, notwithstanding, Herney detected something was awry. He was not a man inclined to organize fear, thus the shiver of worry presently fixing in his center surprised him. It's simply the greatness of the crowd, he let himself know. But then he knew something different. Intuition. Something he had seen. It had been such an easily overlooked detail, and yet†¦ He advised himself to overlook it. It was nothing. But then 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 unusual in itself, however it was made all the more so by the White House administrator remaining close to her, her face white with trepidation. Herney couldn't hear Tench's telephone discussion, yet he could see it was quarrelsome. Tench was contending with an intensity and outrage the President had only here and there observed even from Tench. He stopped a second and got 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 brain as he was prompted onto the stage. On the blue floor covering in the press region inside the NASA habisphere on Ellesmere Island, Administrator Lawrence Ekstrom was situated at the focal point of the long conference table, flanked by top NASA authorities and researchers. On an enormous screen confronting them the President's initial articulation was being funneled in live. The rest of the NASA group was crouched around different screens, abounding with energy as their president propelled into his question and answer session. â€Å"Good evening,† Herney was stating, sounding strangely firm. â€Å"To my individual comrades, and to our companions around the world†¦ â€Å" Ekstrom looked at the immense roasted mass of rock showed conspicuously before him. His eyes moved to a backup screen, where he watched himself, flanked by his most somber faculty, against a scenery of an immense 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.