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special. She’d persuaded every president she’d ever worked for to do the same thing that Charlotte was attempting. She’d made the case that by allowing a single network to film every detail of life inside the White House over a twenty-four-hour period, viewers would gain a better understanding of the numerous problems the president had to deal with. The “Day in the Life” was a good idea as part of a larger White House effort to refocus the press on Charlotte’s agenda, but Melanie had no interest in being part of the West Wing’s public relations apparatus anymore. For nearly six years, Charlotte’s image had been her central concern. Enhancing and protecting it had been her purpose in life. But as the country’s secretary of defense, she felt a far greater obligation to the men and women who served in far-flung places and to their families who raised children,ran households, and nursed their wounded and traumatized soldiers. Melanie made a point to visit Iraq and Afghanistan as often as she could, and it had served her well in her eighteen-month tenure. The appointment capped a decade-and-a-half career in government that spanned three presidents. Melanie had served as Charlotte’s first chief of staff and her closest advisor for the entire four years of her first term as president, but on the eve of Charlotte’s reelection, she had resigned. Charlotte had enticed her to return to the administration by offering her the Cabinet post commonly referred to as the SECDEF. In her new post, Melanie had earned praise from both sides of the partisan divide for her management acumen and for her understanding of the impact that the never-ending deployments were having on soldiers and their families. At thirty-nine when she was sworn in, she was the youngest secretary of defense in history, but in an era when soldiers took to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to communicate with family, friends, and reporters, Melanie’s youth wasn’t held against her as it might have been a generation earlier.
    Now, while Melanie waited for Brian to return to the line, she scanned her page of notes about the increase in benefits for the families of former combat troops that she’d lobbied for on Capitol Hill and tried to calculate what time it would be when she landed in Washington.
    “Mel, are you still there?” Brian asked.
    “Who was that?”
    “The executive producer wanted to go over my piece for the morning.”
    “They’re leading with the speech?”
    “Yes, but it was touch-and-go for a while between the speech and Taylor Swift’s surprise album drop.”
    “Did you see Warren tonight?”
    Warren was Brian’s best friend. They had met four years earlier, when Brian was covering the war in Afghanistan and Warren was the public face of the military’s effort to train the Afghans to handle their own security. Even though they were predisposed to view each other with a healthy degree of skepticism, the two had formed an instant bond. Warren had become one of Brian’s most helpful militarysources, and Brian had become a trusted peer and resource when Warren planned his move to Washington after he left the military.
    “Dale agreed to meet him for a drink, so he canceled on me, which is just as well. I had a ton of work to do tonight.”
    “I can’t believe those two are together. Is she treating him well?”
    “He seems exceedingly happy.”
    “We know what that means.”
    “At least they’re compatible in that department.”
    “It’s amazing that Dale manages to stay in Charlotte’s good graces while sleeping with every man in her orbit.”
    Warren also happened to be Charlotte’s most senior political counselor, the person she’d turned to the year before when her political “brand” needed rehabilitating. His duties were varied, but he was the person responsible for giving her straight talk when no one else in her inner circle was willing to do so. Melanie had never served as a political advisor, but she’d