The Profession by Steven Pressfield Read Free Book Online

even shared with her what might be considered confidences. But that was years ago and under far different circumstances. Why have I been tasked to make this delivery to her now? What connection can the former first lady have to any of this?
    My wife—I should say estranged wife—is a pretty famous new-media journalist. Her name is Adrienne Economides; you might have heard of her. She calls herself A.D. professionally because it sounds more like a man. I call her A.D. too. One of the more constructive habits I’ve acquired from her is the practice of due diligence. Research. A.D. is a scrupulous note taker and deep driller, as they say in the Nooz biz. She taught me about proprietary databases. Big outfits like the
New York Google Times
or Fox/BBC subscribe to these massive private search engines to the tune of five or ten millionbucks a year. Authorized reporters get access. When A.D. and I split up, I gave her my Ford F-250 in trade for her two code-bars, which we still share. The conventional military also has a number of clearance-required databases—AKOP, Trident-V, and the Manassas Group being the most familiar to the general public. Private contractors have their own key-access sources as well. But the most reliable, comprehensive, and easiest to use are the two dedicated journalists’ databases—Getty/Carolingian in London and al-Hamra in Dubai. The searchware used on both is called CPK, a.k.a. “cupcake.” Among reporters, cupcake is a verb. You cupcake somebody. While I’m waiting in Amman, I cupcake Mrs. Cole. (There is also a “blind cupcake,” which means your search is encrypted so that no one can trace who initiated the activity.)
    Margaret Rucker “Maggie” Cole: widow of President Jack Cole (1960–2029), former two-term first lady. Bryn Mawr College, 1994, summa cum laude, English Literature; Yale Law School, 1997. Partner, Lowther Schapiro & Bloom LLP, 2006–2019.
    I scan through a blizzard of blog posts, articles, photos, and videos. Few depict Mrs. Cole’s family or professional life, which apparently she has guarded jealously. I have to run an enhanced search to learn that her father was James MacDowell Rucker who, according to an appreciation in
Oil and Gas Journal
upon his death in June 2019, “was a pioneer in ‘rejuvenated extraction’ from depleted fields using high-pressure nitrogen injection. He is credited with revitalizing the vast Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, as well as Safaniya, also in Arabia, and el-Arish in Iran. He was the architect of the merger between ExxonMobil, Petróleos Mexicanos, and Brazil’s Petrobras.” A footnote tells me that Mrs. Cole served as counsel to this conglomerate for twenty-two years.
    Most of the video of Maggie shows her as first lady. Jack Cole, aswe all know, was a two-term governor of Virginia, chairman of the RNC, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, vice president under Jeremy Spruance, then president himself. The following is from politix.holo:
    After her husband’s death, Mrs. Cole oversaw the design and construction of the Cole Presidential Library in Falls Church, Virginia, which she still directs, as well as founding and serving as CEO of the Institute for Strategic Analysis, an Alexandria-based think tank specializing in issues of energy policy and global politics.
    My final cupcake is “intersect Gen. James Salter.” Pickings are slim. I unearth only one tidbit that I had known before: that Margaret Rucker had been a sophomore at Bryn Mawr when James Salter was a first classman at Annapolis. I dig up a photo of the two of them together from June Week, the time of graduation balls and dances. Are they a couple? I can’t tell. Maggie wears a gown and Salter is in dress whites, but there is no accompanying text or caption and the resolution is so poor that it breaks up into pixels when I try to enlarge it.
    While I’m doing this a holo comes in from my estranged wife. She has tracked me via our shared cupcake code. Her call