Deception Point Page 58

â€Å"I have an emergency!† The administrator was short of breath. â€Å"†¦ call for the President.† Tench looked suspicious. â€Å"Not now, you don't!† â€Å"It's from Rachel Sexton. She says it's urgent.† The glower that obscured Tench's face had all the earmarks of being 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 in any case. 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 creepy crawly 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 advised me to defer the question and answer session 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 disclose to you how this functions. You don't take orders from the girl of the President's rival, 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 amplifier specialists, beauticians, and a few staff individuals talking him through conclusive modifications of his discourse. â€Å"Sixty seconds!† the TV director shouted. 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 guide. Whoever this is, I should caution you that trick calls against the White House are disregarding â€Å" For the wellbeing 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. Also, I am dubious that you are she. You've called the White House on an unbound line advising me to intrude on a significant presidential communicate. That is not really legitimate MO for somebody with-â€Å" â€Å"Listen,† Rachel smoldered, â€Å"I advised your entire staff two or three hours back on a shooting star. You sat in the first line. You watched my preparation 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 importance 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 the foggiest idea why! Yet, things are not what they appear up here! The President is going to underwrite some truly errant information, and I unequivocally 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 speculate the NASA chairman has arranged an enormous scope misrepresentation, and President Herney is going to get trapped in the center. You've in any event got the opportunity to delay 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 thinking again about your job in helping the White House in this crusade, you ought to have thought of that well before you by and by supported that shooting star information for the President.† â€Å"What!† Is she in any event, tuning in? â€Å"I'm revolted by your presentation. Utilizing an unbound line is a modest trick. Inferring the shooting star information has been faked? What sort of knowledge official uses a radiophone to call the White House and discussion about grouped data? Clearly you are trusting somebody blocks this message.† â€Å"Norah Mangor was slaughtered over this! Dr. Ming is additionally dead. You must caution â€Å" â€Å"Stop in that spot! I don't have the foggiest idea what you're playing at, however I will remind you-and any other person who happens to capture this call the White House has recorded statements from NASA's top researchers, a few eminent non military personnel researchers, and yourself, Ms. Sexton, all embracing the shooting star information as exact. Why you are out of nowhere changing your story, I can just envision. Whatever the explanation, see yourself as alleviated of your White House post as of right now, and in the event that you attempt to spoil this disclosure with any progressively ludicrous charges of treachery, I guarantee you the White House and NASA will sue you for maligning 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 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 disease of media buzz. The individuals who didn't catch wind of the location by means of TV, radio, or on-line news constantly found out about it from neighbors, collaborators, and family. By 8:00 P.M., anybody not living in a cavern was conjecturing about the subject of the President's location. In bars and family rooms over the globe, millions inclined toward their TVs in uneasy 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, be that as it may, Herney detected something was not right. He was not a man inclined to organize trepidation, thus the shiver of worry presently fixing in his center frightened him. It's simply the size of the crowd, he let himself know. But then he knew something different. Nature. Something he had seen. It had been such an easily overlooked detail, and yet†¦ He advised himself to overlook it. It was nothing. But it stuck. Tench. Minutes prior, as Herney was planning to make that big appearance, he had seen Marjorie Tench in the yellow passage, chatting on a cordless telephone. This was peculiar in itself, yet it was made all the more so by the White House administrator remaining next to her, her face white with trepidation. Herney couldn't hear Tench's telephone discussion, yet he could see it was petulant. Tench was contending with a passion and outrage the President had only sometimes 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 carpet 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 a huge screen confronting them the President's initial proclamation was being channeled in live. The rest of the NASA group was crouched around different screens, overflowing 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 compatriots, and to our companions around the world†¦ â€Å" Ekstrom looked at the enormous scorched mass of rock showed unmistakably before him. His eyes moved to a backup screen, where he watched himself, flanked by his most severe work force, against a background of a tremendous American banner and NASA logo. The emotional lighting made the setting resemble a neomodern painting-the twelve messengers 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.