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A man in his position and with his responsibilities needs to be ahead of the news, and he doesn’t like knowing that something huge is going on that he knows nothing about.
Something triggering a phone call from Beijing and an urgent visit to the president.
A check of his watch.
He’s been waiting for nearly an hour.
And he has to find a bathroom, and quick. His bladder is screaming for relief. He’s due in two weeks for a prostate procedure that will ease the eight to ten times a day he needs to visit the toilet, and now he wishes he had scheduled the surgery last month.
Another rub of his hands against his pants leg.
A young and confident-looking Hispanic male White House aide comes around the corner and says, “Mr. Loomis? The president apologizes for the delay, and he’ll see you now.”
He feels the warmth of embarrassment.
He really needs to urinate but he can’t afford to wait, and doesn’t want to anger the president.
“Thanks so much,” he says.
He gets up slowly—afraid that if he moves too quickly his bladder will let loose—and the two of them walk to a door guarded by a female Secret Service agent, who whispers something into her sleeve. The aide opens the door, and he walks in.
CHAPTER 64
THIS IS THE third time Dale has been in the Oval Office, but the previous two times he was part of a delegation. Here he’s all alone with President Barrett, who’s sitting behind his desk.
He says, “Hey, Dale. Take a seat. Sorry for the delay but I was caught up in the nation’s business.”
“Thank you for seeing me, sir, on such short notice,” he says, slowly taking a chair, not wanting to put any quick pressure on his bladder, looking over at the president—dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and striped red-and-yellow necktie—and Dale takes a glance at his desk.
There are the phone banks and a paper desk calendar, and the president is moving his hands and Dale leans over and sees—
Solitaire.
The president is playing solitaire.
What the hell?
Dale slowly sits back. Okay, he thinks, give the man a break, he’s juggling a lot of responsibilities, and if playing solitaire helps him unwind and relax at the end of the day, well, so what?
Eisenhower and others would putter around on a small golf green on the White House grounds, Nixon had a bowling alley, but so what if the man wants to play cards?
But Dale feels just a bit of annoyance that he was made to wait, over a card game.
Especially since he so desperately has to visit a bathroom.
Barrett says, “Ever play solitaire?”
“Sometimes, sir.”
“No, I mean, really play it. With actual physical cards you can hold in your hand.”
What the hell is going on here?
“Ah, no, sir. Usually, it’s on my laptop or phone.”
The president shakes his head in apparent disgust. “Not the same. You need to actually hold the cards in your hand. Have the physical touch. Like other games on the internet, from chess to go to so many others. When things exist on the internet, they fail to exist in the real world.”
He puts down a card and looks up from the game. “Years ago, my parents were schoolteachers, even though my dad was a disabled Marine. Sunk all their savings into the teachers’ union pension fund. Everything, because they trusted the fund managers and they trusted the people who worked for them. One day, there was a burp, a blip, something electronic went south on the Chinese international markets, and they lost nearly everything. Instead of living out their years comfortably in a condo in Hawaii, they lived in a rental apartment in a tough neighborhood in Oakland. Because their money turned from something real into something electronic, something that could disappear in seconds.”