Elliot wondered if he should give his on/off girlfriend a call. It wasn’t too late to go out for a meal or a quick drink. A very quick drink and then back to her his, or hers. Skip the foreplay and go straight to bed. It was the middle of the week, and things were quiet. He could turn up to work late tomorrow. Could say he was out chasing down a story, or something. No one would care too much.

He pulled out his phone, unlocked it, and his finger hovered over his phone book. A quick check of his emails, and he would phone her. Pulling over his laptop, he stirred it from sleep. Most of the messages were junk, and he deleted them. One caught his eye. It was from a contact he had cultivated, but had very little actionable content from, so far. It was titled ‘We are very busy’. He opened it.

: You know how you said to alert you if you-know-who makes a big order? Well, they have made the biggest ever tonight...:

That was strange. There was nothing untoward going on in the world. Yes, there were some border skirmishes in Africa and the Taliban had blown up another mosque, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Picking up his phone, Elliot swiped past the on/off and dialed a number, waiting for the ringtone to be answered.

“I would like to make an order?” He listened to the apology that they would not be able to fulfil any phone orders for a couple of hours. “Okay, thank you.” He rang another number.

“I would like to place an order?” He listened to the response. “No, it’s fine, I’ll leave it and try somewhere else.” A third number had the same response. He didn’t bother trying a fourth.

Dial tone. “What’s up, Elliot?”

“Darren, have you heard anything unusual? Out of the ordinary?”

“Like what? Throw me a bone here.”

“I don’t know. It might be nothing. I was wondering if any of your military contacts have alerted you to anything unusual or out of the ordinary in the last day or so.”

“Nooo ... What are you hearing?”

“Nothing, just a feeling...”

“I’ll ask.”

“Okay, cheers, Darren.” Eliot hung up and went to his bookmarks. He had some traffic cameras bookmarked and paid some store owners for access to the cameras they had showing the outside of their shops. He started with the more legal traffic cameras.

The roads were quieter than they should be, Interstate 395 especially so. The home-going traffic was light. He took some screenshots, pulled over a notepad, and scribbled down some notes. Next, he accessed the deli camera.

Elliot had access to the drive and was able to view what the camera had recorded for the last seven days. The security gate was just in shot. It shouldn’t have been, but he had physically pushed the fixed camera up to catch the security access point. He moved the timer back to morning and watched the day workers queue up to be checked in. Everything was as normal. He fast-forwarded through the day.

Cars arrived, very few left.

He had another camera on the roof of Bed, Bath & Beyond on the corner of St Joyce Street, which covered the National 9/11 memorial and the associated parking there.

He moved next to the restaurant of the Hilton Double Tree, which just happened to have an outside camera pointed at several security gates and the Pentagon’s visitor entrance and associated car parking. That access cost him yearly baseball tickets. He went back to the morning. Same again. Staff arrived, and very few left. His phone rang.

“Yes, Darren?”

“Your spider senses were right. Leave for the regulars has been restricted. Family funerals and marriages only. Reservists have been alerted to possible short-notice call-ups. It’s being touted as ‘readiness’ exercises. Purely administrative, to see how quickly the reservists could mobilise, in theory.”

“Are your contacts saying it’s a purely paper exercise?”

There was a telling pause.

“Officially, yes, but the back channels are saying the opposite. What do you know?”

“Nothing. Genuinely nothing, apart from what you have told me and that all the fast food joints around the Pentagon are flat out.”

“I didn’t think anything interesting was going on in the world?”

“Neither did I. I’m looking now at Al Jazeera, and there is nothing out of the ordinary. North Korea is quiet, and China is still recovering from its brief civil war.”

“My phone is ringing, I’ll get back to you.”

“Okay, cheers, Darren.”

Elliot rang George, his editor, and explained the situation. “Is Elaine still in the press pack for that press junket at the orphanage?”

“It’s a music school for the underprivileged.”

“Whatever. Do you have any inclination as to what might be going on?”

“No. I’ll speak to our owner and see if the money people have noticed anything unusual.”

“Okay.”

Elliot’s phone buzzed. A text message from Darren.

: Check out the ship finder website. Especially the task force on the way to Taiwan... :

Elliot did so. The task force on the way to Taiwan had done a complete one-eighty four hours ago. His thumb danced across the screen again as he flipped through his contact list. Dial tone.

“What?”

“Elaine, I need a bit of a favour tomorrow at the Press Pack.” He heard her sigh in response.

“What do you need?”

Elliot knew that all questions were carefully vetted beforehand and that the Press Secretary did not take kindly to Madame President being asked questions that had not been vetted beforehand, so he didn’t ask for a question.

“I need you to ask around the aides, see if one of them will let slip something they shouldn’t.”

“Like what?”

“Like, why didn’t the Pentagon go home tonight. Like, why the task force on the way to Taiwan has just reversed course, and why all leave in the military has been restricted.”

“I didn’t hear of any new conflict anywhere...”

“Nor have I, but something is going down...”

“I’ll make some enquiries...”

“Thanks, Elaine.”

Elaine cut the connection and looked down at the new seventeen-year-old female intern, Iris, lying naked between her spread and equally naked legs.

“Did I tell you to stop?” Elaine chastised.

Although he tried all his contacts, he could find out no more. Nothing for it, he would have to go into work early tomorrow. Something was going down, and if he wasn’t in the office when it did, he was going to have to do some explaining...

Elliot watched his fellow passengers on the tube. Nothing seemed out of place. The carriage was maybe a little quieter than usual, but there was no thinly veiled panic or frantic hushed conversations.

There was nothing in the news, no increased police presence in the streets. It was a normal seven am commute.

Hanging his coat over the back of his chair, Elliot nudged his mouse to wake his screen. The first port of call was to check his emails. Nothing helpful. Maybe he was overreacting. But his gut said he wasn’t, and he trusted his gut.

George, their editor, walked in. Elliot headed over to him.

“Did you speak with our owner?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“The money markets are quiet. No strange share dealing or obvious insider trading.”

The morning proved frustrating. The signs were there, but signs of what...

“Who has the TV remote?” Elliot tracked it down and changed the screen from its finance market display to one of the major news channels that was covering the President’s PR trip.

Elaine studied the mass of aides. There was a definite tension in the air as Madame President spoke to carefully vetted students. Each interaction was carefully scripted and manipulated to bolster whatever demographic her advisors thought she was polling poorly with.

Presidential Security was about average. No more, no less than usual. She may not know their names, but she knew most of their faces. She had been covering the White House for almost twenty years, and whilst the President changed, the staff on the whole didn’t. There were a few new faces in the entourage. Whilst they weren’t dressed in the suits of Presidential Security, their suits did little to hide their military bearing. A military uniform would have been out of place in such a setting, but some things you could not hide, no matter what you wore. Who they were and what they were doing here was intriguing. She looked around for Iris.

Iris was not the sharpest typeface in print, but she had her uses, other than her tongue. Unlike members of the press pack, she wasn’t dressed in a sharp suit or conservative dress, like Elaine, but in a clingy short dress. Elaine had sent her out to harass any single male aide or to try to split one from the pack. Male aides, on their own, were easier prey. Given the requirement for aides to spend most of their awake hours at work, in order to ‘succeed’ at their job, it left them little time to socialise. And the sexually hungrier they were, the easier they were to tempt.

It was cliché, but clichés exist for a reason.

Iris’s bubbly personality, youthful curves, endless legs and seemingly permanent innocent expression were at odds with Elaine’s early fifties permanent look of cynicism.

The Press Secretary was calling them all together for the obligatory press conference and saccharine question and non-answer session. Elaine looked down at the bit of paper with her question nestled amongst the other carefully chosen questions to be asked by the ‘chosen few’.

Fuck it.

On screen, the camera changed to a shot of the podium with the Presidential crest clearly in view. Two American flags draped, just so, behind. Elliot turned up the volume on the TV. The President calmly walked up to the podium. There was the obligatory speech that said a lot without saying anything, and then the President invited questions from the assembled reporters.

“Trent Crimm, from The Independent. Will the funding be a once-off, or is this just for the duration of your presidential term?”

“I would like the funding to outlast my many terms in office, as I believe underprivileged youths are...”

Elliot switched off mentally. It was all bullshit. As soon as public interest waned in the school, the funding would be quietly funnelled elsewhere. Trent was replaced with another reporter, and a bland question was followed by a bland answer, and then onto the next media stooge.

A familiar face appeared on the screen.

“Elaine McDonald, ABN News. Madame President, Pentagon staff did not go home last night. Military leave has been rescinded, personnel are being flown back from overseas postings, and the task force that you very publicly sent to Taiwan is headed back to our shores. Madame President, what are you not telling the American people?”

The assembled press pack turned as one to look at Elaine in shock.

“You fucking dancer, Elaine!” Elliot shouted up at the screen as the President turned to briefly look at someone behind her.

“I can assure you, Elaine, that I am holding back nothing from the American people, and I can assure you that there is nothing to hold back. You are mistaking normal military movement for something else. Can I remind you all that I am here to talk about our underprivileged children from marginalised minorities...”

The damage had been done, and subsequent questions obviously deviated from the pre-planned script, forcing the Press Officer to step in.

“Madame President has further engagements this afternoon and will not be able to take any further questions...”

The President was ushered off stage in a manner that implied she was indeed keeping something back.

George stepped out of his office.

“Did you see George! Did you see it!”

“I saw it, Elliot. Toby!” George beckoned to Toby, their videographer.

“Yes, sir.”

“I want every piece of footage you can get of that press conference. I want to know who every single person in her entourage was and who the fuck she looked at.”

“On it!”

Elaine handed over her press credentials to a decidedly unamused Press Officer backed up by two security officers. She was not unduly concerned; she might get them back this Presidential term, or she might not. It wasn’t the first time in her career that she had lost Presidential access. A few carefully worded pieces in the press and online, and she could bully her way back in. She just had to spend a month or two or three in press purgatory to serve as a warning to other reporters who thought about going against the wishes of the Press Office. She noted that Iris still had hers as they were escorted out of the school back onto the street.

She hailed a taxi.

“Well?” she asked of Iris.

“I got a few numbers ... An older man by the name of Teddy. A wedding ring, so,” she shrugged unhopefully “Another, Jack, who is a definite possibility, but too low in the pecking order to be of any realistic use. That might change in the future, and a few other possibilities.” Iris replied as she climbed into the back of the taxi, the hem of her short dress riding up as she did so.

“Good girl,” Elaine said as she gave the driver the address for the office.

“Will you get into trouble?” Iris asked.

“A little...” Elaine’s pulse was still running high from the adrenaline. As the taxi pulled away from the curb, she leaned over and kissed Iris on the lips as her hand slipped up the thigh of the much younger woman. She had watched Iris get dressed that morning and knew a thong awaited her fingers. She easily pulled it aside and slipped a finger inside Iris, breaking from the kiss momentarily.

“You did well, love...” Elaine murmured as Iris let out a little moan.

It was frustrating.

They had the key. Just not the lock in which it opened.

All the other media outlets had now jumped on the bandwagon. Sources were being kept close to chests, but if any of the competition knew what was going on, they were not saying. Which meant they didn’t know either. It was hardly comforting.

The task force, meant as a show of force and support for Taiwan, was not the only carrier group heading home. The one that had been keeping its thumb firmly down on the heads of the Somali pirates was heading home as well.

At the moment, those same pirates were keeping their heads down, but once they became aware that the carrier group was no longer there, it would be open season again on the oil tankers. There had been no word, official or otherwise, from the embassies of the G10 about the USA’s military retraction. Or the inevitable repercussions. The only major force now protecting traffic through the Suez Canal was the British with a woeful two frigates and very little support for the action at home.