Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (15 page)

Chapter 27

Drawn together by the crisis like many
other families, the four Martins gathered in Washington. Now, for the first time in ten
years, the question of what next for Rick’s career didn’t surround them, wasn’t
a companion at every family gathering and a factor in every decision. After
Six-thirteen the danger everyone faced and the impact of the tens of thousands
of deaths had become a shield between the family and their clamoring ambitions.
In an unexpected closeness forged by the bombing, Rick and Ella were getting
acquainted with the young adults who had replaced their children.

The family was finishing dinner when
Mark, a senior hanging on by his fingernails at Yale, said tentatively that
some of his friends thought the country had brought on the attack as a result
of bad policies and brutal instruments for carrying them out.

Stifling her irritation that Mark was so
typically unwilling to commit himself, Ella said, “Mark, let’s say your friends
are right. Where do they go next with that train of thought? How do we stop the
attacks? Or do we just accept them as well-deserved punishment?”

“Well, they don’t go there. They talk
about how criminally wrong Bush and Rogers were and say that we must address
the grievances we’ve created and only then will we be respected and able to
live in peace.”

Rick said, “I agree with some of that,
Mark. But what do we do in the meantime, while we’re addressing those
grievances? That’s what I’m wrestling with, the here and now of tens of
thousands killed and at least a quarter million homeless, and maybe more of
Kim’s bombs headed our way.”

Their daughter Gabriella, a sophomore at Columbia, entered the
conversation while Ella sipped her coffee in silence. “Dad, isn’t
protecting ourselves
what we have to do?
And don’t we have the power to destroy Kim and his country, just blow it off
the map?”

“Gabby, we do have that power. I control
it. What would you think of me if I ordered the Pentagon to blow North Korea off
the map? It’s not only Kim; there’re about twenty million people who’d die with
him. It may well be that their only connection to Las Vegas is that their ruler made a terrible
mistake; he sold bombs to terrorists. Should
they
all die for that? What would you think of me if I ordered
their deaths and General MacAdoo killed them in a single afternoon? He could,
you know!”

Gabriella didn’t respond and Ella broke
the silence. “Gabby, what would you think of your father if he declined to use that
power and Kim destroyed San Francisco?
Or Chicago? Or Washington? Or all three
of them? Is it OK for tens of thousands more Americans to die because Kim is
allowed to use his people as a shield?”

Mark looked at his father. “God, Dad,
you’re really between a rock and a hard place, aren’t you!”

Overcome, Rick nodded mutely, throat
tight and mind churning.

And
how would I feel if, like Steve Nguyen, I found my kids’ bloody bodies and Ella
was gone forever, not even her corpse left on this earth?

He recalled Ella’s words the day it
began. ‘I think I’d become a relentless killing machine.’
Is that what I would do if Kim killed my family? Am I bound to become
that because he has killed others’ families? Or am I bound to find a way that
doesn’t take more lives, as that woman at Las
Vegas said?

Mark’s voice brought him back. “Dad,
don’t we have ways to get Kim without using nuclear weapons, without killing so
many people?”

“Yes, we do have other ways. I could
order an invasion of North Korea to push Kim from power—maybe even capture him
for trial—and take away the country’s nukes and the means to build more.”

“That sounds
better to me,” said Gabriella.

“Well, but the last war in Korea killed
millions and didn’t change the North Korean leader,” said Rick. “Chinese and
North Korean soldiers battled South Korean and UN soldiers. Most of Korea’s cities
were destroyed. The result of all that blood and violence was stalemate, ending
up right back where the war began. Kim Jong-il’s father, Kim Il-sung, became
even stronger, and here we are facing his son and grandson. About thirty-six
thousand American soldiers were killed in Korea.”

“And on Six-thirteen the same regime
killed many more American civilians, right in their homes,” Ella said coldly.
“What’s the count now? Sixty, eighty thousand?”

“Did we have nukes back then?” asked
Gabriella, with the historic cluelessness of the young, even those well
educated.

“We did,” said
Rick.

“Did the
president think of using them?”

Rick drank some
coffee and replied: “Yes, he did. But he chose not to and actually fired his
top general partly because the man, Douglas MacArthur, kept pushing it.

“That president was Harry Truman. In
World War Two he allowed the military to A-bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Korea he made the opposite call. In
his memoirs he wrote that he feared a full-scale war with China had he
agreed to nukes. But I have to wonder if he was so sickened by the earlier
bombings that he couldn’t do it again. He said not, but we’ll never know.”

“So is that how
you feel, Dad, that you just couldn’t do it?”

Rick stole a glance at Ella. Her
expression cut him like a knife.

“Before I answer that, there’s more to
consider. Kim has between three and ten nukes, as best we know. He has missiles
that could explode over South Korean and Japanese cities—maybe even reach Hawaii. If we were to
invade, Kim might launch those nuclear missiles. Japan,
Korea, and America have
defensive missiles that could probably shoot down some of those North Korean
missiles. But we don’t have many of them and we haven’t tested them much—so,
who knows?

“So, could I do it, could I order a big
nuclear attack on North
Korea? I could, but only if I was sure it
was the only option to protect us. I’m not sure yet.”

Ella thought that ‘only’ option might not
be the same as ‘best’ option, but didn’t say so. Instead she said, “
When
will you decide, Rick?
When
will you know enough?”

“I can’t say,
Ella. But I
will
know!” Rick’s face
flushed, and Mark and Gabby traded knowing glances.

Ella held Rick’s stare and wondered when
he would accept that the only way to deal with Kim was kill him or imprison
him. Like the drug lord who murdered her father, Kim was a law unto himself,
more a force of nature than a man.

“Dad,” said Gabby, “would a big nuclear
attack on North Korea
keep Kim from shooting those missiles at us and the Koreans and the Japanese?”

“General MacAdoo
says so and I think he’s right.”

“Then tell Kim
that’s what you’re going to do unless he gives it up.”

 
“If I confront him, give him a deadline—that
may provoke him to launch his missiles. And he certainly will make threats that
cause riots in South Korea
and scare the Japanese half to death, not to mention Americans, who are already
spooked!”

“OK, but isn’t that better than killing
twenty million people without a clear warning?” said Mark.

“Do you have any reason to think Kim
would heed your father’s warning, Mark? I don’t know how much you know about
North Korea under Kim and his father, but that man allowed tens of thousands of
his people to starve to death by insisting upon his own harebrained schemes for
farming and then diverting international food supplies to his huge army. You
can’t sway Kim by threatening harm to his so-called dear people!”

“Yeah, Mom, but even Kim needs a country
to rule. If his country is blown up, he’s out of a job!”

“Do you think that hasn’t occurred to
him, Mark?” Ella shot back. “Does Kim seem stupid to you?”

“Well, no, but I just think we should go
the extra mile for peace and spell out exactly what’s going to happen to him if
he doesn’t step down.”

“Go the extra mile? Mark, don’t you think
your father has already
done
that?
Kim destroyed an American city and killed tens of thousands. Since Six-thirteen
your father has given everything he has to negotiate a solution to this threat
to our very existence and hasn’t ordered a single shot fired. I’d say he’s
already gone the extra mile!”

 
“So, Dad,
do
you think Kim can be pressured into giving up his nukes or going into exile?”

“I can’t say for sure, Mark, and I’m
still trying that, but I’m certain the problems I’d create by making an or-else
demand and starting my stopwatch would be huge.”

“Rick, you’ve done all anyone could
possibly do to solve this crisis in a humane manner! You’re giving everything,
you can’t sleep, you exist on caffeine and cigarettes—yes, I know you’re
sneaking a pack a day—and you’re getting an ulcer. . . .” She ran out of words,
but her angry eyes continued to speak: ‘diplomacy won’t work.’

Ignoring her message, Rick smiled at Ella
and took her hand. “As usual, your mom has summed up something complicated in a
few well-chosen words.

“Come on, get
ready—we’ll be leaving for Aberdeen
in five minutes. The wind forecast is perfect, and I don’t want to miss a
minute of sailing!”

As he watched his family bustle off, Rick
thought that Kim wanted to kill them or, for a price, enable terrorists do it.
This time he didn’t scold himself for getting personal.

Chapter 28

Vice President
Griffith exploded into the conference room at Creech Air Force Base, his energy
and impatience flung outward like shrapnel as he entered.

“OK, let’s get started! Harry, what the
hell
is the problem with shelter for the
survivors? People are still jammed together in tents like sardines—those lucky
enough to be
in
tents, which most are
not! Where are the trailers?”

Harry Fisher, the FEMA onsite leader,
reminded himself that the VP was willing to hear the truth, however unpalatable
it might be. If you pushed back at Griffith,
he listened. He would rip your head off if you didn’t have your facts straight,
but if you did, he faced them. So, he leaned into it. “Sir, we learned all over
again after Katrina: when you want it bad you get it bad. T
housands of trailers
turned out to be unfit for
habitation. We ain’t goin’ there this time! We’re not sole-sourcing or
short-cutting. We’ve got a competitive bid process with all the oversight
needed to prevent another fiasco. Until that’s done, tents are the best we can
do. And, by the way, sir, we have every damn tent in North
America out here now!”

“So why settle for that? They’ve got
tents all over the world! Go get ’em!” Fisher and his colleagues understood
that Griffith’s
tone and eyes added, ‘Thanks for busting your butt. I’ve got your back.’
 

 
Now humorless, the VP said, “OK, Harry, let’s
take that apart. Where are you guys in the trailer process?”

“We have valid bids from five firms.
There’s one six hundred pound gorilla in the business, Horizons, and all the
rest fight over the crumbs. So, it’s kinda like Paul Bunyan competing with four
of the Seven Dwarfs.”

“How long ’til
the trailers arrive if you play out the bid process?”

“Well, I’d say it will take another
ninety days to award the contract, then after award—if there’s no protest from
any of the losers—another forty-five until trailers begin arriving, and six
months until the full production run is delivered.”

“Harry, do you trust the Horizons guys? I
know they have stockholders and a profit imperative and all that b.s., but do
you
trust them
not to screw us?”

Fisher’s mind cranked:
OK, what’s going on here? Is he setting me
up? He’s getting ready to tell me to go sole-source if I say I
trust ’em. Then he can say
I assured him and duck
the shit if it goes south. Would he do that? You know, I don’t think so, and
besides, he’s right: it’s just unacceptable that these people, after all
they’ve suffered, don’t have decent shelter yet!

“Yes sir, I do. They’ll take their
profit, but they’re not assholes. They want to help. They can’t do it for free,
but at the end of the day, they want to help the country. Yeah, I trust them.”

“Then sole-source it. You get any flak
from Les Moore or anyone else, you tell ’em that’s
my
decision and call me if they want to argue the point.”

Griffith
looked to his right.

“OK, Arnie, now tell me how you Feebies
are earning your keep! I know, The Book says FBI will be in charge on-scene
after any terrorist-related event, but damned if I can figure what evidence is
left. It all vaporized, didn’t it?”

FBI Assistant Deputy Director Arnold
Cantwell grinned at Griffith.
“Well, the physical evidence did, but that’s not all we’re working on. We
interviewed around fifteen thousand survivors, the most seriously injured and
irradiated first. About ten thousand died from radiation in the first two
weeks, and we got statements from nearly all of them.”

“And?”

“And, nothing
yet
. But that doesn’t mean nothing ever! This has to be done, if
for no other reason than to cover our asses, sir. But I’m here to tell you we
could come up with some gold dust; it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen the
bureau crack a case by just plain ball-busting, mind-numbing persistence. It’s
what we do, boss.”

“So I’ve been told. Keep at it!”

Griffith
turned to Major General Stanley Karnow,
the Pentagon’s on-scene commander.

“So, Stan, how are your troops handling
burial duty? I know they’d rather be jumping out of perfectly fine airplanes,
like good little paratroopers.”

“Yes sir, you got that right. This really
sucks! But despite their bitching, my soldiers realize that with this many
dead, only the military has the people to handle it the right way.”

Karnow’s blue eyes went cold. “I’ll tell
you what: if my troopers ever come up against the guys who did this, we won’t
need Guantánamo to hold the prisoners.”

The vice president grunted, then snapped,
“What about security? Any looters?”

“A few, but the radiation scare has done
more than my airborne division to keep ’em away. Radiation poisoning is such a
shitty way to go, and because so many of the dying have been on TV and the
Internet, the scumbags have stayed away, by and large.”

“Yeah, that’s certainly safer. What about
your soldiers—any radiation problems?”

“No sir, because they stay clear of the
no-go zo
ne and wear protective gear
near it.”

Griffith
stood. “OK, flight time! Let’s go have
our look around.”

The vice president strode from the Creech
Air Force Base commander’s conference room with gusto, glad to be handling his
recovery duties far from Washington.
First, it gets me out of Martin’s shadow,
he thought.
Second, it gives me my own
press pool: I’m not covered by those prima donna White House correspondents;
I’ve got younger, hungrier reporters, still trying to make it. And I can sit in
the same room with the players; when my ass is on the line, I don’t want to be
deciding from some big-screen shot of a guy expounding from two thousand miles
away. I want to be close enough to see the lines around his eyes, to smell
sweat—or bullshit.

After forty-five minutes above the ruined
city, during which Griffith kept up a steady
fire of questions and instructions, the group parted and Griffith headed for another “town hall” with
survivors.

As each of the agency leaders knew full
well, there Griffith
would “do a Rudy,” copying the outspoken, decisive style of New York Mayor Rudy
Giuliani after Nine-eleven. But though contrived, it wasn’t bad, because it got
results and generated great press, for their agencies as well as for him.

Back in his office at Creech, Arnie
Cantwell smiled at a memory. After being hit with survivors’ anger at spoiled
food, the VP had ordered the FBI to fetch the CEO of that company. He’d enjoyed
his phone call launching agents toward corporate offices in New Jersey, whence the surprised executive
was escorted to an FBI Gulfstream. In flight to the undisclosed destination the
agents had deli sandwiches; the CEO was served one of his company’s meals.
Forty-five minutes after touchdown at Creech, the CEO had received a memorable
chewing-out and was back aboard the Gulfstream with Griffith’s list and his forty-eight hour
deadline. Cantwell smiled.
What a
righteous use of power!

But Griffith’s
blunt criticism of the president’s diplomatic activities felt off, a taste of
milk going sour.
His assumption that they
shared his opinion and were his guys was flattering but . . . it’s almost as if
he’s holding auditions for a Griffith
administration,
thought Cantwell, rubbing gritty eyes, then cursing when
their sting told him he had gotten sun block in them again.

Chapter 29

“Hello, everybody.” Dorn spoke, trying to
sound brisk but not succeeding; he was tired. They all were.

“The president wants an update on
international support for his initiatives. I know it’s been a busy forty-eight
hours for everyone.” Dorn glanced at the video screen and said, “Ambassador
Neumann, first to you.”

Air Force One was out of Zaventem for the
fourteen-hour flight from Brussels to Tokyo. Martin, Easterly,
and Dorn sat in the large cabin, which served as dining room and conference
room, squarely over the Boeing 747’s huge wings.

 
“Good evening, Mr. President. We’ve circulated
a draft security council resolution charging North Korea with a breach of
international peace and security. As anticipated, we’re running into
considerable skepticism, not that a breach occurred, but as to the identity of
the offender. As expected, the pushback is about the authenticity of the
samples. While we have a chain of custody for the Las Vegas sample, we don’t have one for the
Yongbyon sample. We are being told that in such a grave matter the Security
Council can act only on the basis of incontrovertible evidence.”

“Aaron,” said the president, “can’t you
give Oscar more to work with?” His tone and gestures milked the cliché ‘What?
You can’t do better than that?’

Hendricks’ video image took that with
lips clamped tightly, then spoke: “No, sir. I’m confident the material was
obtained from Yongbyon and that it is unadulterated, but our chain of custody
began after my agents got out of North Korea.”

“Mr. President,” interjected Griffith, head bobbing on
the screen, “with all due respect to Oscar and the good work he does at the UN,
I just don’t think this is worth a lot of your time. Given what happened in
2003, there’s no way we’ll be able to move the focus from U.S.
credibility to North Korean culpability. Oscar has to keep trying, but there
are much better uses for
your
time
and prestige than trying to get the UN to tackle this.”

Martin glared at Griffith’s image. “Well, you may be right,
Bruce, but getting UN support is almost a necessity, as far as I’m
concerned.”
 

Addressing Neumann, whose bald head
reflected light as he sat before a blue background across which the words “U.S.
Mission to the UN” filed, the president said, “Oscar, keep at it. Are you
reminding your colleagues that the world changed on Six-thirteen and that
ducking this issue will put their own countries at greater risk? What do they
say to that?”

“That slides off like water from a duck’s
back, sir. Among the Perm Five, only the UK supports our draft fully. The
French, Chinese, and Russians all sing the same song: Each nation must deal
with this changed world in its own way; each of them is quite confident it can
do so without the UN, and so should we be. In other words, dealing with North Korea is
our
problem! Unsurprisingly, there is in
conversations with the Chinese and Russian a common undercurrent: While this is
an
American
problem, North Korea is
their
neighbor, and they expect to have
a say in their neighborhood. As for the rest of the Security Council,”
Neumann’s hands appeared, framing his face, “I don’t think any of them feels
threatened by
North Korea
or by Islam
ists with nukes, not so long as there
are higher profile targets, like us.”

Rick, listening with his right hand
cupping his chin, thought
Damn! That’s
what I got from NATO. Don’t they
get
it? I guess I owe Oscar an apology for the other day.

“Well, Oscar, I know you’re the best we
have for a very tough job. I’ve just experienced something like that, and it
gave me a new perspective on your challenges. Let’s both pledge to keep butting
our heads against those walls, because unless we knock them down, the world
will miss its last chance to put the Armageddon genie, state sponsored nuclear
terrorism, back in the bottle.”

Smiling, Neumann
said, “That’s a deal, sir.”

In a corner of his mind, Rick
congratulated himself:
Armageddon genie.
That’s a great sound bite; I’ll use it at my press conference in Tokyo.

“So, I might as well go ahead with my
update.” Martin paused, looked down and rubbed the back of his neck.

Looking up, he said, “In brief, my
counterparts were sympathetic but just barely willing to invoke Article Five. I
really had to do some arm-twisting. That’s pretty shocking, considering the
North Atlantic Council invoked Article Five soon after Nine-eleven, without
much fuss. But today they were reluctant to go on record that a North Korean
attack on the United States
is an attack on every NATO nation, even though that’s precisely what the treaty
requires.”

 
“What’s your take on that, Mr. President?”
said Bart Guarini from the White House.

“Bart, I’d say it’s the usual suspects,
self-interest and fear. Our more willing supporters in Brussels see themselves as high enough on
somebody’s target list to want NATO backup as a deterrent. The others don’t
feel threatened now but fear becoming targets by supporting us.”

“So, we’ve gotten all the help we’re
going to get from NATO!” said Griffith, who was with Guarini in the Situation
Room.

“That’s what it looks like to me, Bruce,”
said Martin.