There was a beat of silence from inside the chief of staff’s office. Then, “Is there really no way we can help them?”
Lura liked President Sandra J. Stevens. More than that, she admired the woman.
Madam President was as brilliant as all get-out but still humble enough to know she didn’t have all the answers. Most importantly, though, Sandra Stevens had the gumption to stand up to the nation’s enemies, both foreign and domestic. And that was why she’d been reelected for a second term in a landslide.
“It’s too risky,” Meadows said flatly. “The oversight committee would flag that cash transfer in a matter of days, if not hours. We can’t hazard that kind of exposure.”
“I have personal funds,” the president insisted. “I could?—”
“No.” The word came fast, sharp. “You know your personal banking is scrutinized as closely as your professional banking. And before you ask, because I recognize the look on your face, my personal banking as your chief of staff is scrutinized, too. I can’t dip into my personal wealth to help them. They’re going to have to figure this one out for themselves.”
Lura’s throat went dry even as her palms began to sweat.
She knew where the Black Knights could get their hands on ten million dollars without attracting the attention of the oversight committee.
But you should take a page from the book titled: Stay In Your Lane, A White House Survival Guide and keep sitting right where you are, she told herself. You know anything else is beyond dangerous.
She hadn’t meant to read the memo from the president that had been sandwiched between policy files and speech drafts. She hadn’t meant to point to it on her boss’s desk and ask, “What’s this about a mission gone wrong and an unofficial extraction team?”
Lord, remembering the look on the chief of staff’s face that day nearly made her toss her morning coffee, even now, three whole-ass years later. After explaining what she’d seen, Leonard Meadows had sworn her to secrecy with an icy promise of dire consequences should she not keep her trap shut.
And they hadn’t spoken of it since. She had tried not to even think about it since. But now…
It’s my patriotic duty to help if I can. Right?
Or maybe her patriotic duty was to pretend she was deaf and dumb. Maybe a good assistant would mind her own damn P’s and Q’s and?—
Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
That was one of her father’s favorite sayings. And it was enough to have her shoving to a stand.
Her knees were Jell-O, her throat was dry. But she managed to work up enough spit to swallow stickily as she crossed the short distance to the thick oak door that separated her office from the chief of staff’s.
She was fully aware that by doing what she was poised to do, she could be placing the last nail in the coffin of her career. But she’d been raised never to turn a blind eye to those in need. And it sounded like the Black Knights were in need indeed.
They only have until midnight.
Before she could second-guess herself, she rapped her knuckles against the wood.
“Come in, Lura,” her boss called at once, sounding impatient. He always sounded impatient.
Her heart chugged like a freight train inside her chest as she pushed on the heavy wooden panel. After stepping fully into the room, she closed the door behind her with a soft thunk…a sound different from the Oval’s door. But it still felt portentous. Final.
Leonard Meadows’s office was everything anyone would imagine it to be. Leatherbound books lined mahogany bookshelves. The lemony scent of furniture polish lingered in the air. And the chief of staff’s desk was piled high with files and paperwork, one desktop, one laptop, and a cluster of coffee mugs because the man consumed caffeine like water.
Meadows sat at his desk in one of his bespoke three-piece suits, his arms crossed over his chest. President Stevens stood beside him, looking powerful in a gray pantsuit with an American flag pin stuck through her lapel.
Lura opened her mouth, but the words dried up in the back of her Sahara Desert throat. She licked her lips with a tongue so dehydrated she could feel her individual taste buds rasping against her skin.
“Well?” her boss prompted. He didn’t abide hem-hawing or hesitation. “What is it?”
Lura took a steadying breath and met the gazes of the two most powerful people in the country—maybe even in the world.
She might be the lowly daughter of a small-town mayor in Rabun County, Georgia, but she had an idea. A brilliant, inspired idea.
“I know where the Black Knights can get ten million dollars.”
8
