Chapter 9

When he got back to his room there was a note on the door, telling him to contact the duty supervisor. That seemed odd, seeing as how he had just started his 48 hour off time. He turned and went down the hall, out of the living quarters section of the building, to the elevators. Then, since it was only one floor down to the command suite, he took the stairs.

Brad Zimmerman was the supervising analyst at the duty desk. He was doing paperwork when Bob walked in. He looked up, said, "Be with you in a sec," and went back to the paperwork. Bob got a cup of coffee from the carafe in the coffee maker, and picked up a donut. He'd eaten about half of it when Brad put his pen down and spoke.

"You have two weeks of comp time coming," he said.

"Say what?" Bob stared.

"Compensation for working that executive assistance gig the other day."

"Comp time," said Bob. "I've never heard of comp time. Not in this job."

"That's because there has never been comp time in this job before. The president was happy with the way things went, and he wanted to reward the people involved."

"I see," said Bob, who did not see at all. He kept quiet about what he was thinking about, which was that after wasting millions of taxpayer dollars playing golf, the president now wanted to waste even more as bribery for his accomplices to keep their mouths shut.

"It starts as soon as your 48 hours are up," said Brad.

"What am I supposed to do?" asked Bob.

"Go somewhere," said Brad. "Disappear and do not come back for two weeks."

"What about the schedule?"

"The schedule will be adjusted."

"What about Steve?"

"Campinelli gets two weeks off too."

He couldn't help it. It just felt wrong.

"You know this is a crock," said Bob.

"I do," said Brad. "We all do. But we will do as the president suggests, and life will go on." He shrugged. "There is a bright side to all this."

"What's that?" asked Bob.

"Turns out some secretary at the Secret Service snagged one of those radioactive golf balls, unaware it was radioactive, and tried to take it home. Radiation detectors at the White House entrance went bonkers. Suffice to say there will be no more taskings of that sort."

"Well that is a good thing," sighed Bob.

"Unless you're the idiot who thought that hare-brained thing up and sold the president on doing it," said Brad. "If you're that guy, you're fired."

"Maybe there is justice in the world after all," said Bob.

"Just disappear for two weeks, until this all blows over," said Brad. "And for God's sake don't talk to anybody about it."

"I am injured that you would think that even possible," said Bob.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go stay with your girlfriend. Get laid."

"Who told you I have a girlfriend," asked Bob, suddenly apprehensive.

"Everybody has a girlfriend. Even the married guys have girlfriends."

"Well, somebody definitely forgot to issue me a girlfriend," said Bob.

"Then go find one. See you in a couple of weeks."

"Roger that," said Bob, who saluted, and left to go back to his room to get his suitcase and head for home.

Bob sat, staring at the screen, which displayed the only digital picture of Riley he had. It was the one from her Facebook page, and showed her with her long black hair split in the middle, where a hank of blue-black hair separated halves of her head. He could tell she had studs in one ear, but the other was hidden. She was smiling at the viewer, and he felt that smile somewhere just south of his belt. Her face had the plain look of a woman who had forgone makeup, but in his opinion, she didn't need any. She just looked beautiful.

He thought about her question, one of the last things she'd said to him in their last phone conversation. She'd asked him to be her boyfriend. He'd thought she was kidding around, just joking with him. Still ... she hadn't said she was joking...

His phone was in his lap, and the index finger of his right hand twitched as he thought about dialing her. What could he say? "I've got two weeks off and I'm dying to come see you?" She'd freak out. Nothing had been said about him ever going to see her. In fact, both of them had remarked on how they'd never see each other in person. That was a given. That they had any kind of relationship at all was a fluke, an accident of her urge to complain to a government she didn't think would even see her protest, and assumed wouldn't care if they did. And his response had broken a dozen or more rules.

Still ... he could at least tell her he had extra time off. Maybe they could do some extra Skyping or something.

He heard the distant, tinny sound of a phone ringing on his phone's speaker. He looked down, and realized he had punched the little green phone beside her name in his contact list without conscious thought. He got the phone to his ear just as she picked up.

"Hello Mr. Personal Number," she said.

"Hi," he replied. "You got a minute?"

"For you? I have two!"

"Um ... something came up. I got a sort of reward at my job. They gave me two weeks off."

"You're going on vacation?" she asked, her voice climbing even higher than usual.

"Well, it's not exactly vacation. They called it comp time, but it's like vacation. I'm supposed to go somewhere."

"Where?"

"They didn't specify. They just don't want me hanging around the living quarters."

"Wait," she said. "You mean you live at your job?!"

"I never said that," he said.

"It sure sounded like it."

"I can't talk about that. The point is that I have to take off, and I have no idea where I'm going to go. I mean I can still call you, and Skype with you and all that. Most hotels provide free wifi for their guests these days."

"Let me get this straight. Your boss ... let's just say the United States Government, for the sake of argument ... says you have to leave your job and go spend two weeks in a hotel someplace? That's insane, Bob!"

"They didn't say I have to go to a hotel. They just said I have to disappear. Wait. I shouldn't have said that either. I can go anywhere I want, Riley. I was thinking about the Grand Canyon. I've never been there."

"Oh," she said. Her voice had a peculiar flat note to it that he hadn't heard before.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I'm happy for you."

"I guess so," he said.

"It sounds like you don't want to go on vacation," she said.

"I just wasn't expecting it. It kind of came out of the blue. That's all."

"And all you could think about was going to visit the Grand Canyon," she said. That flat tone was back in her voice.

"Well? Where else should I go?"

"You're asking me? I've never been anywhere, Bob. I left Texas and moved to Colorado. That's it. I've been to Pike's Peak. That's it. One mountain. I'm not exactly your world traveler, Bob."

"Sorry," he said. "I just thought about how I'd never been to the Grand Canyon before," he said.

"Have you ever been to Pike's Peak before?" His ears pricked up as instinct told him her question was more important than the simple words indicated.

"No," he said, carefully. "Actually, I haven't done a lot of traveling myself. Just around here, other than the Carribean a couple of times. And France once. And Canada I guess."

"I see," she said.

He knew he was about to make a mistake, but he couldn't help himself.

"Heh, heh," he laughed, nervously. "You'd have laughed if you heard what my boss said I should do."

"What's that?" she asked, but she didn't sound all that interested.

"He said I should go spend time with my girlfriend."

"Did he now?" Her voice changed again.

"Yeah. He said everybody has a girlfriend, even married guys."

"That's awful," she said, outraged.

"I'm sure he was just kidding," said Bob.

"So ... what did you say?"

"Say?"

"About his idea. About going to visit your girlfriend."

"I told him somebody had forgotten to issue me one," said Bob.

"I see," she said. "I'm kind of busy, Bob. I have a drawing I have to finish, and then I have to go pick up Curtis."

"Oh." Her sudden change of tone confused him. She sounded almost mad. "I guess my two minutes are up," he quipped.