Home Free - Fern Michaels [52]
The women stopped eating, their tiredness forgotten, the evergreens just a backdrop as they wiggled and squirmed to congratulate and hug their friend. Maggie flushed and blushed and beamed with happiness.
“You need to play this cool, Maggie,” Nikki said. “This is uncharted territory for you. Ted was . . . Ted was . . . Well, he was what he was. If you’re thinking of marriage, you need to take this slow and easy. I hate asking this, but are you sure, really sure, Maggie, that Gus feels the same way? You said it started out as a joke.”
“I’m sure,” Maggie said solemnly. And she knew in her heart that she was sure.
“Okayyy,” Kathryn said jubilantly. “That’s out of the way. Now, let’s discuss what you think went on at Camp David that we should know about.”
Maggie leaned into the circle. “For starters, Jason Parker is out of the picture. At least I think he is. It was a fluke that I invited him, so he really played no part in what went on, and I am not really sure anything went on. There is that notebook I found. Jason is so into himself, he was probably just listing the initials of the people there so he could hit them up as possible investors for when he got back.
“He’ll probably send out his commemorative picture along with a brochure soliciting new clients. I racked my brain about the initials JJ and can’t come up with anything. It could be something as simple as a reminder of something. I do it myself all the time. I am not seeing anything sinister in that notebook.”
“Then for the moment, let’s take him out of the mix. What else, Maggie?” Alexis asked.
“I guess the thing that got in my face was all those people who gave up their family Thanksgiving to go to Camp David. All those politicians. It’s easy to understand someone like me, the teacher from Maine, and the college boy giving up our holidays and agreeing to go to Camp David, but those politicians have been there before and undoubtedly will go there again. So, why give up a family holiday unless it was a command invitation?
“The other thing is Fergus and his colleagues. Thanksgiving is not a European holiday, so in a sense I can understand those men coming here to the States and going to Camp David, but they’ve all been there before, too. That’s what is not computing for me.”
“Then we need to work on making it compute for you and us,” Isabelle said.
“I have Ted doing a deep background check on Jason Parker. I can have him do the same for every attendee that was there. I’m sure we have tons of stuff in our archives we can pull out, but we need recent stuff. We need to know what’s going on in their personal lives, personal finances, scandals, if any, friends. We need to know if any of them have stepped out of the box recently and what their true feelings about this president are. It’s a given that every politician in this damn town has his or her own agenda,” Maggie said.
“Think about this. Adam Daniels is from the CIA, Barney Gray represented the FBI, Henry Maris is a deputy over at Homeland Security, and Matthew Logan is in the DOJ. Not represented was the NSA. Now, let’s ask ourselves why the National Security Agency didn’t have representation there. Was the Department of Justice opposed to the NSA?” Annie asked thoughtfully. “Justice opposed to security. Doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Unless the NSA person declined the invitation or couldn’t make it for some reason,” Myra said.
“That’s a possibility, but the media would have mentioned that. I met up with the media before I had lunch with the president. And they were as puzzled as I was about the guest list. They were trying to pump me while I was trying to pump them,” Maggie said. “We both came up dry.”
The Sisters looked at each other, their eyes reflecting the questions they had as they tried to figure out what it all meant.
Yoko closed her eyes and sighed. “Does the president think we’re mind readers? If she wants our help, why doesn’t she just come out and ask for it? Why all this subterfuge?”
“It’s politics,” Annie said,