Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (20 page)

After reading nothing in Ming’s
appearance and glancing at his watch, Martin broke the silence. “Will China support
this program?”

“We look forward to learning full
details. Might this approach resolve your concerns about Kim?”

Always,
Ming puts me over a barrel!
thought Rick, jaw muscles working.
Now,
he wants me to defer dealing with a grave danger, one that threatens China, too, if
only he could see that!

“It certainly
could, Mr. President, if the U.S.
proposals are adopted quickly.”

“China is always
interested in exploring proposals to make the world safer.”

Martin rose. “It’s time for us to go to
the General Assembly, Mr. President. I’m glad we’ve had this conversation and
am encouraged by your words.”

Trailing her president into the corridor,
Battista felt her heart hammer. Martin’s reversal on the DPRK had been as fluid
and effortless as an Olympic swimmer’s flip turn.
Does he have no scruples?
she thought.
And Ming—does he have no appreciation for the dangers?

Chapter 37

Kim Jong-il preened at the center of the
UN delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The great auditorium curved away to his left and right, rows of nations before
him descending toward the dais and ascending behind him. Seeing how often other
leaders and delegations glanced his way, Kim thought,
once again I have seen and done what others could not.

I
took an old TV spot from Lyndon Johnson’s campaign and adapted it using an
American media company that thinks its client is Las Vegas Families for Peace. My video
creation went viral, as I knew it would. It’s so easy to control others when
you understand how simply they perceive the world! Primitive though it was in
comparison to
my
work, that “Daisy” spot was a huge success
in its day; by juxtaposing childhood innocence and nuclear holocaust, Johnson
defined himself as the man of peace and his opponent, Barry Goldwater, as the
man of nuclear war. It was the most effective piece of political priming ever
produced—until mine.

And
my purpose is much more subtle and complex than Johnson’s! I’m not just trying
to influence beliefs about me or Martin. I’m using emotion to create an alternate
reality, in which Americans can be angered by the destruction of Las Vegas while being
inoculated against the urge to retaliate with their own nukes. The emotions
I’ve created act as a filter through which Americans interpret information from
their government.

And
of course it’s working perfectly, allowing many Americans to feel anger and
patriotism, while triggering their opposition to an attack, particularly a
nuclear attack. Their so-called free press writes what I want: “Kim is
despicable and dangerous and must go, but we have no quarrel with Korean
children, who are already suffering under a U.S.-led quarantine that may well
prove to have been unnecessary.”

Kim smiled.
I’m looking forward to the next few minutes.

Anne Battista waited in the chair of the U.S.
representative.
For God’s sake! Back
there Rick offered Ming the chance to put his own man in as Kim’s successor!
Why didn’t he show some interest? I don’t know which is worse: the fact that
Rick made the offer or that Ming seemed not to even notice.

Secretary-General Park Chang-su concluded
his introduction, and Battista gave her full attention to the scene before her.
Applause for Martin was brief and far from universal. Besides Kim’s delegation
and the Russians, most Middle Eastern delegations sat silent and impassive, as
did the South Koreans, several African nations, and a few South Americans.

As she thought about it later, Battista
couldn’t believe how quickly things unraveled.

Martin framed the destruction of Las Vegas in both American and universal terms, then built
the case against North Korea.
When he stated unequivocally that Kim was responsible, Kim stood and
interrupted, angry but controlled. Like everyone else, Battista got the
translation of Kim in one ear and the president in the other. Later, she would
watch the video go to split-screen at this point, displaying both men in
close-up. With two statements pouring into her ears simultaneously, Battista
had difficulty understanding, but clearly Kim was calling Martin a liar and Martin
was soldiering on with his speech.

Kim took off his headphones, managing to
appear both angry and dignified, and marched out, followed by the DPRK
delegation. Martin deviated skillfully from his text to decry Kim’s departure
and then returned to his themes.

Minutes later, unbeknownst to Martin or
Battista, Kim began a press conference that was covered by virtually every
cable and network and was shown in split-screen alongside Martin’s address to
the assembly. While Martin spoke to the remaining diplomats there, Kim spoke to
the world about his unceasing efforts for peace despite years of American
rejection and arrogance. Periodically an aide handed Kim notes of some point in
Martin’s speech, and Kim did his best to ridicule and refute it.

As Rick began describing his plan for
countering nuclear terrorism, his eye caught a sudden movement to his left. Iran’s
ambassador was on his feet.
So he’s going
to stage a walkout. That’s not too surprising, and it helps make my point.

Another flicker of motion.
He threw something! A shoe!
Rick tensed
to duck, but saw it fall short.

The Iranian’s action was repeated by
the representatives of Iraq,
Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan,
Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon,
Somalia, Congo, Nigeria,
Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Finally Hugo Chavez, acting as if this had never occurred to him before, heaved
a shoe and left. None of the shoes reached Martin, who completed his speech,
his shock becoming anger and finally, rage.

As Battista left the auditorium, her
British colleague pulled her aside. “Isn’t it about time you tell the emperor
he’s naked? My god, Anne, Martin has been turned aside with fuzzy words by the
UN, by NATO, by every country he’s asked, including mine. As we stand here,
he’s being mocked by Kim Jong-il. He’s leading a parade, but no one’s marching
behind him, except a few Left-wing loonies! His diplomacy has gained nothing,
and it becomes ever more apparent that the United States has no adequate
response to terrorists with nuclear weapons. Martin’s dithering endangers us
all! Anne, you’ve got to do something!”

Stunned, Battista nodded, shuffled out
with the crowd and fled to Neumann’s office.

When she got there, Martin, red-faced and
shaking, was berating his ambassador. He glanced her way as she entered but
didn’t interrupt his dressing-down. White-faced, Neumann said, “Mr. President,
I didn’t predict this, didn’t warn you, because it was not predictable! Nobody
in this room, nobody in the U.S.
government, suspected this would happen! Who can know the mind of someone like
Kim?”

Neumann’s
taken enough,
thought
Bart Guarini.
He should have gotten wind
of the shoe-throwing plan, but he’s right about Kim. The man was not only
unpredictable, he was clever. We all underestimated Kim. At least there’s a
silver lining: this fiasco will help me sell Plan B.

The chief of staff spoke: “Mr. President,
I, too, fault the ambassador for failing to warn of the shoe throwing, but what
if he had? It wouldn’t have stopped you from speaking or changed w
hat you had to say. And we all—
we
all
—underestimated Kim. That’s what we
need to take away from this and incorporate into our planning going forward.”

Bart’s
right,
Rick thought.
I knew Kim was dangerous because he has
nuclear weapons but dismissed him as a political force. That was a mistake. He
understands the media all too well!

Martin took a deep, shuddering breath.
His determination never to let anger cripple him reasserted itself. “Yeah,
Bart, you’re right on both counts. Ambassador Neumann, you should have done
better about the shoe throwing, but you’re right about Kim. I apologize. I
guess I should be thankful that nobody in that bunch but Chavez comes from a
nation that plays baseball. All the others had lousy arms. Chavez had a pretty
good peg, but he was farthest away. Come on, let’s go.”

As she headed for the helo pad, Battista
knew Guarini would have a receptive audience when he pushed Plan B, whatever it
was.

Congressman Ray Morales muted the three
televisions, leaving a total of ten sets of jaws flapping soundlessly at him
from the screens. It was just before seven, so the world had had about nine
hours to react to the spectacle at the UN. That was plenty of time for story
lines to be shaped and floated; now talking heads and bloggers were hard at
work whipping up the mix of support and disagreement they needed to fire up
their followers.

Ray had scribbled a few notes as he
watched in the morning, then decided he needed some brain time, as he called
it. So he sent his chief of staff to the two cocktail parties he was slated to
attend. When the last staffer was out the door, Ray locked it, went to the
refrigerator, pulled out a beer, and dropped into the one truly comfortable
chair.

He took a pull on the beer.
We certainly took a beating today. Kim
really sucker-punched Rick Martin!

Objectively,
Kim’s performance wasn’t all that good. But at the time, the live images—Kim
unafraid to go toe to toe with Martin—surely resonated powerfully in parts of
the world. So did the shoe throwing. And I know, because I’ve humped a pack on
patrol in some tough neighborhoods: there will be extra attacks on the grunts
in the next few weeks because of those images
.

His cell phone rang. Caller ID was
blocked. He considered ignoring it but then mashed the green button with a
blunt finger. In his present mood, if it was a telemarketer, he would enjoy
tearing the guy’s head off.

“Morales!”

“Ray, this is
Bruce Griffith. Thanks for taking my call.”

Morales’ eyes
widened.

“Mr. Vice
President, how are you?”

“You mean, other
than the play, Mrs. Lincoln, how was your day?”

Ray couldn’t
help smiling. “Yes sir, I guess that’s all I
could
mean.”

“Look, Ray, I’ll get right to the point.
I know you don’t like to beat around the bush. I’m sure today’s spectacle
sickened you, as it did me. I believe—and I’m going a bit off the reservation
here—that you and a few others like you need to be in the loop, for the good of
the country. So, I’m putting together what you military guys call a Red team.
You know, some trustworthy, experienced folks who will tell me the unvarnished
truth and, frankly, do some preliminary planning for other options that this
administration isn’t willing to consider, even after this morning. What do you
say?”

Planning
for other options?
What
other options? Assassinating Kim? A strike
on North Korea?
Could the man be talking about a coup? At the very least he’s trying to get me
on the impeachment bandwagon!

Carefully, Morales said, “Mr. Vice
President, I know what Red teams can do. You’ve got a good idea there, but I
guess I’m a traditionalist. I believe in the unity of command. I’d be honored
to serve on a Red team that reported to the president, but this one sounds a
little different. So thanks, sir, for thinking of me, but no thanks.”

Griffith
’s voice changed. Its tone said, ‘I’ve
done nothing untoward here, and if you ever suggest that, I’ll tie you in
knots.’ “Ray, the team reports to me for now but eventually will report to the
president. You’d be a real asset and I’ll ask again as the situation develops.
Listen, it’s nearly eight and you should get home to that lovely wife of yours,
Julie—have a good evening and please remember me to her.”

“I’ll do that,
Mr. Vice President.”

“Goodbye, Ray”

“’bye sir.”

Griffith
is smooth and he’s got balls . . . I’ll say that for him. “Eventually will
report to the president”—yeah, when he is president! Well, it seems there’s no
end to today’s surprises. The question is what, if anything, I do about this
call. I gotta say I agree we need to come up with some better plans for dealing
with Kim. How can I get involved with that?
Should
I get involved?

I
need to talk to Julie!

Morales deposited the bottle in the trash
and headed home, oblivious to his surroundings as his mind wrestled with this
problem.

Listening to their call a few hours later
from an Argus intercept, General Hsu frowned.
Morales’ refusal was predictable; Griffith
shouldn’t have risked asking.
Hsu thought nostalgically about the old days,
when NSA only eavesdropped on the Soviets and their helpers. He was walking a
fine line now and it scared him.

Chapter 38

Head up, smiling, Rick strolled along the
South Portico.
Things are breaking my
way. That IAEA confirmation of Paternity was huge! We’re getting some momentum,
and I’ll bet my numbers are up.

After Bart and Sam were seated in the
Oval Office, Martin said, “I think the IAEA announcement is a game-changer,
Sam, don’t you?”

Yu thought
, that announcement is a big plus. A game-changer? Uh-uh—but I don’t
want to burst his bubble.

“It’s a great development, Mr.
President—sure silenced the WMD-all-over-again crowd!”

“It’s also taken away the Security
Council’s escape hatch,” said Guarini with a grin. “They’ve had to call Kim’s
actions a breach of international peace and security. Oscar’s done a nice job!”

“Yeah, he believes that before the week
is over the council will support our quarantine,” replied Martin.

“So how’re we
doin’, Sam?” said Guarini.

“Well, it’s a little soon–only
forty-eight hours—but even so, there’s a five point increase in people who feel
the country’s on the right track. The newspapers that doubted you are at least
no longer expressing those doubts, and some have explicitly changed their
positions. With bloggers, less so; they tend to hold their opinions
tenaciously.”

“What about that war-is-not-the-answer
video?
 
You know, the one they call Daisy
Two? Have we learned anything about Las Vegas Families for Peace?”

“Only that the organization doesn’t
exist; it’s a cover. That hasn’t reduced interest in that video or several
others they’ve posted. The mystery and the power of their messages keep interest
up and they spread like wildfire.”

“I’m not surprised. I’ve seen them and
they’re good! It’s pretty effective to use a clip from one of my campaign
speeches, where I was pointing out that we don’t need to compromise our values
to remain secure, and couple that with an assertion that nuclear retaliation
would do just that. And, frankly, I agree with them.”

“And that’s a point we should explore,
Mr. President,” said Bart. “You might have to go beyond negotiation. Plan B.
Remember Glenna Rogers cooked her goose by making a big course change in Iraq without
preparing the public; might be we should start, just as a contingency.”

“I remember, Bart!” Martin said with a
glare. “But this is not the Rogers
administration. Our favorables are
much
higher than theirs were, despite the blip caused by adjusting our Taiwan policy.”

Adjusting?
thought Bart, frowning.
We threw them to the wolves. And the
reaction wasn’t a blip; it was an eruption.

“Look, we’ve put Kim in a box!” continued
the president, wagging a finger at Guarini. “He’s sealed off. He can bluster
and lie all he wants, but that’s an irritation, not a danger. Now that there’s
IAEA confirmation that Kim did it, the Chinese will seriously consider our
ideas for removing Kim peacefully, especially since Ming knows I won’t push
reunification. He can help us dump Kim and still have his communist buffer.”

Yu read tension and frustration in
Guarini’s face as he said, “But suppose Kim got several bombs out of the
country
before
the quarantine?
Suppose there’s a team here now, getting one into position, or waiting for it
to arrive on some container ship or an eighteen-wheeler slipping in from Mexico
or Canada? If we base our policy entirely on the assumption that we’ve rendered
Kim harmless and then lose another city—”
  

Interrupting, Martin wore a superior
smile. “Bart, suppose you’re right? Suppose there
is
a team with a bomb already on the loose? Moving more
aggressively against Kim wouldn’t change that; they’d still be out there. Where
we need to be aggressive is homeland security, to break up any terrorist
attack, and Bruce Griffith is certainly doing that!”

Guarini recognized that Rick hadn’t
accepted or even considered his point; he had just used the debater’s trick of
redirection to slide by it. That worried him; he had fought to control his
friend’s reflexive optimism as long as they’d been together.

Seeing he wasn’t going to move Martin,
Guarini said, “Speaking of the vice president, what are we gonna do about him?”

“What do you
mean, Bart?” said Martin, head tilting.

“Sam, what are Griffith’s favorables?”

“Pretty darn
good, almost as good as the president’s and trending up.”

Martin shrugged. “I knew that would
happen if he was successful, and it doesn’t surprise me now. It’s a price I’m
willing to pay for what Bruce is accomplishing for the country. He’s doing
well—I say he’s earned his favorable numbers.”

“Has he earned
the right to start greasing the skids for your impeachment?”

Martin’s eyes
narrowed and he beckoned for more. Yu’s jaw dropped.

“I heard from Ray Morales yesterday. He
got a call from the vice president that he believes was to sound him out on
impeachment. He says Griffith
is building a coalition on the Hill to impeach you if there’s another attack.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If there’s another
attack,
he’s
the guy who failed to
protect the country;
he’s
the guy in
charge of stopping attacks!”

“It makes sense if he’s built a case
against you for preventing him from doing more out of civil liberty
considerations, or out of squeamishness about aggressive interrogation. And if
you study his press conferences, you can see that thread.”

“Sam?”

“If you’re asking whether I’ve heard any
impeachment talk, my answer is yes. But I’ve considered it just background
noise from the far Right. This is the first I’ve heard linking the VP. Oh, I’ve
had some shouting matches with his press secretary about some of his remarks,
but like you, I was expecting trouble, so I didn’t think his motive was
anything more than the usual VP ambition.”

Dottie Branson’s voice from the intercom:
“Mr. President, Ambassador Chernowski is here for his appointment, to present
his credentials.”

“OK, Dottie,
we’re wrapping up.”

Martin leaned back, crossed his legs, and
gazed out a window.
Could Morales be
right? Is Bruce beyond the usual ambitions of a vice president? I’d better
start paying more attention! I remember Ella worried that Bruce’s star would
rise too fast.

He stood. “OK, that’ll have to be it for
right now. Let’s all keep our ears to the ground, but let’s also remember that
every VP wants to be president and not read too much into this.”

“Bart, what’s your read? Is Morales
angling for something; maybe floating the idea that he’d be a Trojan horse . .
. What do you think?”

“I think he’s pretty straightforward.
Remember when he resigned as Rogers’
JCS chairman? He just took off his uniform and went home to Texas—didn’t run off to do the talk shows,
or write a book, or be a talking head on Fox. He’s still pretty much a Marine
and I think he’s offended by the disloyalty of what Bruce is doing or, I mean,
what he
thinks
Bruce is doing.”

“OK, thanks. Sam, on your way out, ask
Dottie to send in the ambassador.

“Bart, where are the Speaker and the
Majority Leader on this?

“They support
you, but they haven’t clamped down on the discussions.”

Which
means,
thought Rick,
they think Bruce is on to something.