The Transport

Chapter 3 - CHARLES

Charles Nauman was not really surprised when he got asked away from his desk at the CIA headquarters by three Secret Service agents dressed in black suits. His own boss stood on the sideline with a worried frown on his face, phone at his ear. The man worried about himself and the fallout on his department, no doubt. Maybe worried about Charles, too, but then, maybe not. He wasn't a good boss.

"Dr. Nauman? Please follow us," were the only words he heard from the leader of the group that had flashed his credentials. The look on their faces and demeanor did not invite discussion. And Charles had a degree in history, not martial arts.

His colleagues spoke in hushed tones, averting their eyes while Charles and his black-dressed entourage mazed their way out of the cubicles of the European Desk section, to the elevator and out of the lobby.

One agent joined Charles in the back seat of a black Town Car and they took off. After a minute, he knew that their destination was D.C. They crossed the Potomac ten minutes later, helped by a flashing blue and red light clipped on the roof of their limo.

The White House it was. Charles handed over his driver license, and they entered through a side entrance, driving up to the side of the building. They led him up a small set of stairs into the original central building, not the West Wing where the Oval Office was located. Maybe twenty people waited to pass the security check. It was like a beehive, a constant low-level noise of conversation. Langley's CIA headquarters and the Pentagon had a similar buzz, but not as intense as here. Countless staffers and guests around him shuffled paper while waiting or were discussing the state of affairs and votes on the Hill. One Secret Service agent talked to the checkpoint security, and Charles received a preferred treatment and could bypass the queue. Someone scanned for weapons and dangerous objects. Charles had no briefcase with him and had forgotten his phone in the charger on his desk, so the procedure was quick.

While he had his arms raised, Charles recognized the National Security Advisor on the other side of the security check. She was in a quiet conversation with the Secretary of the Army, surrounded by a small group of officers and staff. Looks were thrown at Charles. Not-so-nice looks; especially the military ranks gave him evil eyes.

Uh-oh, busted, Nauman!

"Doctor Nauman?" the National Security Advisor stepped forward as soon as Charles had passed security. "Noona Patel. Follow me." She was an overweight woman whose parents had immigrated from India to the US in the nineties. She had risen to the highest levels in her profession and was known to go head to head with generals and agency directors alike to get her will.

"Good to meet you, Madam." Charles shook the offered hand and hoped his nervousness didn't show too much. A White House visit had not been in his job description. But had been an inevitability when his predecessor had briefed him. Too many things had to be set in motion, and despite the secrecy around project TINCAN, someone in the highest levels of military had to start asking stupid questions why the instructions of a simple political CIA analyst were moving so many wheels in Army and Air Force.

"Not the Oval Office?" Charles asked when they took an elevator into the basement.

"Are you kidding, young man? There are more microphones in the Oval than touchdowns the Washington Football Team has scored all season You get the real deal, young man."

They rode down several floors. Bare walls greeted them, long corridors in all directions. "This is the part of the White House where the serious things happen," Patel explained.

As long as it doesn't involve rubber hoses and pliers! The naked concrete made Charles think about bad spy movies where people vanished in wet basements. But this was the US. Wasn't it? And he had done nothing illegal. Perhaps.