Balance of Power: A Novel (14 page)

Since the first contact, the admiral had changed his plan. He realized he needed hard information, and the only way to get it was to do overhead reconnaissance. But even that wasn’t good enough. They needed to put some
eyeballs on the problem, as the admiral said. The admiral had asked for permission from Washington, and much to his surprise, it had been granted.

Pinkie had been as confused as everyone else on the admiral’s staff and others in the know when they had heard the President’s speech on CNN. Probably for public consumption, like Eisenhower after Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2, spying on the Soviet Union. Deny it. The USS
Constitution
hadn’t been ordered out of the area. The admiral was going to be ready, even if it meant fudging the rules a little.

Caskey and Messer strolled over carrying their trays and sat down across from Pinkie.

“They got you on that special TARPS mission?” Pinkie asked.

“Yeah. I was going to do another challenging air intercept hop this afternoon, but some things take priority.” He looked at Pinkie. “What’d you think of the President’s speech?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie said, his freckles suddenly becoming more pronounced. “If he meant it, he’s more naive than I thought. If he didn’t mean it, and we’re about to go whack them, that’d be cool ’cause we’ll surprise them, but everyone will accuse him of being a plain old liar, which is uncool.”

“Exactly what I thought. I don’t get it. Let them attack a U.S.-flagged vessel, murder the crew, scuttle the ship, kill a shipmate, and let Indonesia take
criminal
action against them? I’ll bet the Indonesians can’t even get them off that island. They have a military, but not much of one.” He tried to take a bite of food before finishing his thought, and spoke with a full cheek. “I’ll bet they’re still there a year from now if the President’s serious.”

Pinkie leaned forward to MC. “We’re sending SEALs ashore tonight.”

Caskey stopped eating and looked around. No one else was listening. “Are you kidding me? On whose authority?”

“Admiral’s.”

“Did he hear the President’s speech?”

“Yep. Whole staff did.”

“And he’s still sending the SEALs ashore? Didn’t they cancel the authorization to do that?”

“Nope. At least not yet. And they sure haven’t given him orders to withdraw from the area. The admiral figures the speech is for public consumption only, and we’re going to spank ’em.”

“What if he’s wrong?”

“I guess we’ll find out. If the SEALs get caught ashore, it could be ugly,” Pinkie said, drinking the last of his coffee. “But if they don’t get caught, we may go finish the job tomorrow.”

Dillon rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the pile of printed cases, law review articles, and books on his desk. He was nearly done with his research on the Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The adrenaline came again every time he thought about it. Every time he imagined himself telling the Speaker it was still intact, that he was clear to go ahead with it, clear to stand the entire country, or the world, on its head. This wasn’t politics, it was
action.
He had never felt so galvanized in his life.

Congress could issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and no one could say they couldn’t. Unused for almost two centuries, but still there, enshrined in the Constitution, protected from attack by the difficult requirements of amending it. Congress could start its own little private war, and
no one
could stop it.

Dillon looked at himself in the reflection of the photo on his desk. It was a picture of his study group from law school, the best friends he had ever had. It had all four of them with their arms around each other at their graduation on the Lawn of the University of Virginia. Dillon, Molly, Bobby, and Erin. Happiest day of his life. The world was theirs to conquer. They had all graded onto the
Law Review, giving them the ticket to the most prestigious law jobs in the country. Any firm, any clerkship with any judge, any public interest job defending whales, trees, or criminals, any private firm. Whatever they wanted.

Dillon thought of himself as being on top of the tallest hill. Capitol Hill, working for the Speaker of the House. He had just discovered a power in the Constitution that could change the entire way the government operated, that could give Congress a power it didn’t realize it had anymore. It was intoxicating and he loved it, but he had a gnawing feeling he was missing something.

R
OBIN HATED THIS PART
—
WHEN HER BOSS DID SOMETHING
controversial and it caused ten to twenty times the usual interest from the press. He had a press secretary and a private public relations consultant—not many people knew that—but she had to take the calls. And every newspaper reporter and television reporter had this number. There was no hope of answering all the calls. None. She had learned to deal with these crises, but she had never seen anything like
this
. Never. Her boss hadn’t been the Speaker that long, but this was ridiculous. She had stopped hanging up the phone. She just depressed the button and answered it again. There was always someone on it. And they all wanted to talk to the Speaker, to ask him why he was keeping the House in session on Friday night, knowing they would have to work all night. The press had gotten wind of it before most of the members of the House. And the Speaker wasn’t taking any calls. Not until his staff meeting was done; they were preparing for the press conference that was scheduled for…she looked at her clock…one hour from now. Ten-thirty East Coast time, just in time for the morning news shows on the West Coast to pick it up live as their lead-in.

Inside his office, Congressman Stanbridge from the Forty-ninth District in San Diego was in a beatified state. The tension in the office was audible, a humming of human energy: excitement and fear, jubilation and an instinctive
desire to run for cover—or to change one’s name.

“Robin!” he yelled through the closed door.

She put a call down on hold without even determining who was on the line, and rushed into his office. “Yes, sir.”

“I want you to change the location of the press conference. I want it to be in the Rotunda, right under the Dome. In the center of congressional history,” he said, smiling at how appropriate that would be.

“You’ve never had one there, sir,” she said, puzzled.

“I know that, Robin. I know that.”

“But the press has never set up there.”

“I guess the ones who can will be the ones who get this story.”

“Should I tell them anything else?” she asked, hoping for some other morsel to offer the inquisitive press other than that the Speaker would be holding a press conference at 10:30 about a “major development.”

“Nope. Keep them guessing. Has Pete Peterson called yet?” he asked, hoping the Senate Majority Leader was still on his side. Peterson hadn’t been very receptive to the idea initially, but said he would consider it. Stanbridge was counting on him to get the Democrats to agree to a debating schedule that would let them consider it tonight. Peterson said they knew their best chance to defeat it was tonight, when it was new and uncomfortable to everyone.

Stanbridge looked at those staff members gathered again, every one of whom had been up all night and showed it.

Dillon stood next to him, assuming a position of leadership without being asked. The Speaker did not object. “Anybody else have anything before I ask Mr. Dillon to give us the results of his research?”

No one spoke. “Okay, Jim?” the Speaker said.

Dillon looked at the staff and tried to force his heart back down his throat. He answered slowly. “There isn’t anything out there in American law, or constitutional law,
or cases, and not much in law reviews, that says we can’t do this. It’s really never been argued, because nobody has ever thought of it.”

The Speaker hesitated and looked at the ceiling. He glanced at his watch, measuring the time between now and his press conference, when he would announce this to the entire world. He could not afford to be wrong. “Do you realize the implications?”

“Yes.”

“It could be the end of me politically.” He turned his head quickly to Dillon. “You understand that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We can’t be wrong.” He looked as serious as Dillon had ever seen him. “You willing to take that risk?”

“Mr. Speaker, the attack on the
Pacific Flyer
has already meant the death of twenty-six Americans. They’re not just politically dead, they’re
really
dead. I want to do whatever we can to get these guys. If that means taking a position that is marginal in someone’s eyes, then fine. But I don’t think it’s marginal.”

“So, the bottom line, Mr. Dillon, is that there is nothing that says we can’t do this?”

Dillon shook his head slowly. “Nothing.”

Stanbridge lowered his voice. “Not only could this mean a new era for Congress, it could mean the end of this President.”

Stanbridge walked into the Rotunda, the large circular room underneath the dome of the Capitol building. The center of power in Washington, or at least the center of the power not resident in the White House. The cameras whirred and clicked as Stanbridge walked to the small, hurriedly constructed wooden platform in front of a huge painting of General George Washington resigning his commission to Congress as Commander in Chief of the Army. The reporters hurled questions at him, annoyed at not having been able to find out what this was all about.
He paused behind the mountain of microphones and phalanx of reporters without saying anything, a grave but confident look on his face. Standing slightly above them on the platform made him look taller, and he kept the microphones low, near the middle of his chest instead of in front of his mouth so that he towered above them in any picture. He waited until the hum died down. CNN and all the major broadcast networks were carrying the press conference live. He stepped to the microphone and raised his hand.

“Good morning. Before I open for questions, I thought I would tell you what this is all about. Otherwise you wouldn’t know what questions to ask.” There was a political chuckle, meaning no one thought it was truly funny.

“As you have all heard, the President has decided not to pursue the terrorists who killed innocent Americans aboard an American-flagged vessel carrying American goods to a country that is our trading partner.” He stared coldly into the cameras. “I am not going to let it rest there. My staff and I have been up all night since then, evaluating our options. I will be calling on the House, and I have word from my counterpart in the Senate that he will do likewise, to
intervene
.” He paused, looking at them. “To do what the President is afraid to do.” He waited until the murmur died down. “I will be asking the House and the Senate to authorize direct action through the issuance of a Letter of Reprisal. As I’m sure you know, the Constitution of the United States authorizes just such a Letter to be issued by Congress in Article one, Section eight. I’m also sure, though, that you’re not intimately familiar with it, because it hasn’t been used since the War of 1812. Until now…”

He tried to go on but the clamor of shocked reporters was too much. He waited and watched the tumult. Finally he continued. “If the…if the President won’t do what he is required to do, to protect citizens and the property of citizens, then we will.” He held up his hand as the reporters fought to get their questions out. “In due time,”
he said calmly. “In due time. Frankly, we were hoping it wouldn’t come to this. We expected the President to take the appropriate steps, especially in light of the presence of the U.S. battle group already there. But we were wrong. Therefore, Congress will be in session until this is done. The Rules Committee is meeting right now in special session to consider a rule to allow this to be heard and passed tonight. I expect we’ll be here all night, but we’re prepared to do that. I’m sure my fellow members of Congress will have questions, but we’ve done the research necessary to answer those questions quickly. Now, if there are any…”

The reporters cut him off before he finished his sentence. “Is this legal?” asked the correspondent from
Newsweek
.

“Absolutely,” responded the Speaker in the first of many answers. He knew there would be intense interest but had underestimated the firestorm his announcement would generate. Reporters were on cellular phones, the cameras were rolling, and the networks showed no intention of cutting away to their regular programming.

The questions came at him like baseballs from a runaway pitching machine, and equally hard. The frustration the reporters felt at not being able to prepare questions on the topic, and their ignorance of the subject matter, flustered them. One finally asked about the Constitution, and why, if the action was legal, no one had taken it recently. Stanbridge told him exactly what he thought, that no one had done it because no one had thought of it.

Word spread quickly through the House and Senate and the rest of Washington. In the offices of the Counsel to the President, Molly Vaughan stared at the television in disbelief. The Speaker was out of his mind. Usurpation. Betrayal. A politician run amok. Her anger rose as she thought of Jim Dillon working away on something he wouldn’t talk about. She felt sick.

Dillon watched the small television he kept on the top of his desk. The newspeople had been caught off guard. That was rare. They usually had some idea of what was coming. Not this time. Even if they had heard rumors, they wouldn’t have had any idea what it was about. Nobody did. When Dillon had raised the idea with others on the staff, he hadn’t found one person who even knew what a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was, let alone that it was a still existing constitutional power of Congress. Dillon was so nervous his hands were shaking. The Speaker had accepted his research. He had notified Congress that they were going to be in session all night if necessary to debate and vote on issuing a Letter to strike against the terrorists. Stanbridge made it sound as routine as he could, but everyone involved—and most who weren’t—saw the implications of Congress being able to conduct a private war without the President, and in fact in direct conflict with the President. Most doubted that the Constitution said it was possible, but no one knew enough to say it didn’t.

Even the constitutional law professors whom the reporters always called, who were always happily on standby to contribute their remarks in low, controlled, knowing tones, were baffled. Most had never given ten minutes’ thought to the clause they were being asked about. Some tried to bluff, but most said frankly that they were surprised, didn’t know the history of the clause, and would have to “look into it” before commenting further. Dillon turned off the television and put it away.

He waited with sweaty palms for the phone call. For someone to call and tell him about some case or treaty or whatever it was that he had missed that proved him wrong, dead wrong. But no calls came.

He glanced up at the clock. 11:00
A.M.
He drew a deep breath and read the copy of the Letter of Marque and Reprisal from 1812 that he had found in the Library of Congress and put it next to his notepad. He began copying
the language and unconsciously updating it. “To all those who shall see these presents, Greetings. BE IT KNOWN, That in pursuance of an Act of Congress, passed on the…” Stanbridge had asked him to have a draft ready for the afternoon to be distributed to the other members.

Suddenly Dillon’s heart froze. He stared at the bottom of the 1812 Letter of Marque and Reprisal. How could he not have noticed it before? How could he have done all that research and never wondered how the Letter actually worked? He stared at the bottom of the Letter. It was signed by James Madison. Dillon breathed deeply as he tried to think his way around it. Manchester would
never
sign it. That was the whole point. He sat back and looked at the ceiling and closed his eyes. Did the President have to sign it, or was that just window dressing? His heart pounded. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips. He imagined the next press conference that the Speaker would have to give: “Just kidding about that Letter thing. Turns out the President would have to sign it, and we know he isn’t inclined to do that, so we’ll be meeting later in the week to discuss options of monitoring the Indonesian criminal investigation….” Dillon filled his lungs with as much oxygen as he could hold so he wouldn’t pass out.