Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (25 page)

Chapter 46

Dottie Branson knew her boss was deeply
tired, bone tired, working until his brain was mush, sleeping fitfully if at
all. She fought off the urge to check on him in his hideaway, rising and then
returning to her desk. Rick had absorbed so many blows on Six-thirteen and
since. But worst of all must be his knowing that every arriving minute could
carry news of another bomb.

Rick tilted his chair back and put his
feet on the small desk. He wanted a cigarette but not enough to walk outside.
He fiddled with his notepad, doodling, then wrote “Kim” and underlined it
twice.

Kim
is the key. He’s the one who controls these weapons. But let’s say I could make
him vanish by snapping my fingers; wouldn’t someone else just grab power and
continue to kill Americans and threaten America? Plus Japan and South Korea? Not if I could
convince that person that giving up those nuclear bombs was in his personal
interest. But I haven’t been able to convince Kim, so how could I convince
someone like Kim, his son or his top general? Probably only if he knew I would
make him vanish, too. But there’s no magic wand. The ways I have to make people
vanish are all violent—seize them or kill them. All my life I’ve rejected the
politics of violence. Now . . .

Anyway,
how could I negotiate directly with Kim after Baltimore? I’d be impeached! And besides,
after I placated Kim,
if
I placated him, who’d be next? What if Iran’s Supreme
Leader calculates the same odds—or has a vision—and gives Hezbollah a nuke with
our address?

His left arm and hand wrapped over his
skull, fingers rubbing his aching right temple, a pretzel of anguish.

About
the only thing Americans agree on is that I’m wrong. The Left shrieks that
we’re veering toward genocide in North Korea;
the Right thunders that my indecision and squeamishness will be the end of America. And in
less than two weeks Griffith
will be back on the impeachment warpath, if he ever stopped!

Rick rubbed eyes dry and itchy with
fatigue. Despair stalked him, a jackal just beyond the campfire’s light.

I’m
going in circles. I don’t have the time, with two clocks ticking, one marking
the days until another city is bombed, another counting the days until the
House votes to impeach me!

He felt pounding in his temples.

Needing space, Rick left his cubbyhole
and slouched into the Oval Office.
Last
night, after Ming’s awful call, I sent for Bart and the NSC. We gathered here
and paced and drank too much coffee and re-plowed the same ground.

Again,
we considered the military options; again most quickly proved doubtful or
impossible. Not only is assassination against our principles, we haven’t got a
quick, sure means to kill just Kim. Conventional air and missile attacks are
more likely to lead Kim to nuke South Korea
and Japan
than to scuttle into exile—and he’d try even harder to nuke us again.

Invasion
is a non-starter: Gwon won’t help, and fighting without his army, we’d be
outnumbered and take heavy casualties; invasion would lead to DPRK attacks,
probably nuclear, against South Korea, Japan, and any U.S. base or city Kim
could reach, and it might bring in China. Then I’d have a bloody shambles, like
Truman’s war that killed or wounded over four million, devastated the entire
peninsula, and ended back where it began, without regime change.

That leaves nuclear.

With a grimace,
Rick moved behind his desk and chair and stood, hands in pockets and shoulders
slumped, looking glumly out the thick window to the small patio and nearby
trees.

Eric
and Mac say that if we hit key targets simultaneously Kim won’t be able to
launch nukes. Afterward, the DPRK would no longer be a functioning society;
half to three-quarters of its population would be dead or dying. All urban
areas would be radioactive no-go zones like Las Vegas. Hundreds of thousands, maybe
millions, of survivors, including some fatally irradiated, would surge across
the borders into China, Russia, and South Korea.

That vision had sickened Rick and his
advisors. And no one knew what the simultaneous detonation of nearly two dozen
nuclear warheads would do to the planet. By unspoken agreement they rejected
that option.

Over desperate hours, what emerged was a
plan to use a weapon that no longer existed. If European war had broken out in
the late sixties, America
had a nuclear answer to waves of Soviet tanks racing across Germany: a
warhead that produced a huge, momentary pulse of radiation, killing tank crews.
Enhanced Radiation Warheads produced relatively little fallout and less blast
and heat than other nuclear weapons. After the Cold War, the first President
Bush had them dismantled, but the components were stored at the Pantex
facility. Several could be assembled within weeks, and Martin had ordered it.

Such a weapon—called the neutron
bomb—could be used to ravage a North Korean army or city without creating
cross-border fallout or global ecological damage.

Rick rose on his toes, flexing tense
muscles.

Nuke
one target. Would that cause Kim to flee? Motivate a coup by some hastily
formed opposition group? Convince Ming to remove Kim by force? Induce Gwon to
cooperate?

Or would it cause Kim to launch his
nuclear missiles?

Turning, Rick
gazed across the Oval Office, thinking about the annihilating weapons he had
ordered to be prepared.
Morally how, if
at all, does this differ from the Nazis’ Final Solution? How am I different
from Himmler if I sign a bombing order that kills tens of thousands of
civilians?

Rick felt a
giant vise squeezing his chest, a finger of pain tracing his neck and jaw. He
pushed a thought away.
Not now, God . . .
no time.

Is
there no other way?
Rick
asked the bust of George Washington.
The
only feasible military option is so awful; why not continue working diplomacy
and internal security, with faith that they will succeed? After all, we stopped
the bombers cold at Baltimore.
We defeated them there. If we did it once, we can do it again! And diplomacy is
working. The UN has condemned North
Korea and demanded that it dismantle its
nuclear weapons.

Rick glanced at the presidential flag
flanking his desk, the eagle’s fierce gaze.

But
. . . with that second bomb this became about more than
defending.
Right now the country’s on its back. We’re seeing the dissolution of
our social contract. No longer believing their government—their president—will
protect them, Americans are withdrawing into enclaves and arming themselves.
All but the most disadvantaged have fled our cities, leaving them to looters.
Our economy is collapsing. Anyone who looks Korean is attacked on the street,
or at the least gets cursed.

At
this point there’s no gradual path to recovery. We can’t reverse the
disintegration without an act as dramatic and game changing as the bombs that
drove us there.

And
now I’m back to the neutron bomb.

Rick sat down heavily at the presidential
desk, drummed his fingers on it.

But
I don’t have to do what others say is necessary and right if I think it’s
wrong. I can stick to what I believe is right. Let them impeach me!

His lips twisted.
Yeah, but then the country would get Bruce Griffith.
He’d
probably go for the full nuclear
strike package. So, because I’m morally offended at the options facing me, I
open the way for Bruce to choose the most morally offensive of all? Where’s the
morality in
that?
Besides, I don’t
want to be a failed president! And what about Ella’s belief that duty must
sometimes override morality? Is she right, or is that thinking like a guard at
Auschwitz
?

How
many times did I say it during the campaign? Must have been hundreds. With
stern face and firm tone: “I will do whatever is necessary to protect the
American people!”

Now
I’m face to face with myself. I know what I said, but I don’t know what I
believed. When you scrape off the campaign gloss, what did I mean by “whatever
is necessary”?
Anything?
No matter how repugnant? What did I mean
then? What did others believe I meant? Am I now bound by those words?

He picked up a letter opener and,
unconsciously, held it like a dagger.

I
didn’t think about what those words meant; what they might require. They were
just a check-off, like my pledge to always level with the American people. The
price of entry. Pay to play. Saying certain things was as necessary as having
campaign funds. Lacking either one, I’m out. Any presidential candidate would
be out.

So
there are huge mitigating circumstances. Like someone who is pressured into
signing a contract without understanding it. Like a home buyer taken in by a
predatory lender. When I said those words, I didn’t really mean
“whatever.”
 
My listeners, if questioned,
would have said they didn’t expect it to be literally anything. Circumstances
have changed since I said that. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds. No, I don’t feel bound by those words to nuke North Korea!

Rick poured coffee and scuffed back to
his private office. Placing the mug on a coaster with the presidential seal, he
dropped into his chair.

But
the price of
not
doing whatever it takes is so huge, and
it’s paid in deaths and mutilations and cancers and orphans and fear—deep, deep
fear that’s destroying us right now!

It’s
not that I’m running out of options. It’s
time
I’m running out
of!

What
am
I going to do
before one of those clocks ticks zero?
His stomach cramped.

All the supports of his life, everything
that held him, protected him, stood as a bulwark between him and chaos, had
been swept away. He was dizzy, in a fog, disoriented, unable to concentrate,
wandering through mental loops that always ended in disaster.

Like other politicians, Rick Martin had
acknowledged his faith, taking care not to give offense to anyone. He regarded
religion as no more than one of several sources of inspiration, guidance, and
optimism.

Until this moment.

The words of a familiar scripture, one he
had intellectually acknowledged as expressing profound distress but never
thought about, much less felt, now pierced his soul.

Desperately, he knelt and said, “Lord,
let this cup pass from me!”

Alone in his hideaway, Rick felt those
words erupt from his soul. Though he knew the words, he didn’t have the courage
to finish the passage.

He stood up.
Somehow, I feel better, no longer alone and beyond any help or comfort.
I’m probably tricking myself, but I feel buoyed by
something.

Chapter 47
  

In the Presidential Briefing Room, Rick
prepared with fatalistic intensity to learn the recommended target for
annihilation. Unsuccessfully, he tried to block images and voices of Las Vegas. “Find them,
Mr. President. Punish them for what they did here!”
 
No,
he thought.
This is about protecting, not
avenging. But I don’t know if this will protect; all I
know
is it will kill a lot of people who had
nothing to do with Las Vegas.
Maybe I’m just tired of the strain of trying to find a way without more
killing. Maybe if I keep looking, I’ll find it.

Secretary of Defense Easterly spoke, the
volume of his first words and the pause after them signaling that he was
pulling Martin back from wherever he had gone.

 
“.
. . We recommend the city of Sinpo
for our demonstration attack. It’s on the east coast of the DPRK, near the
widest part of the Sea of Japan, and about equidistant from the Chinese and ROK
borders—roughly a hundred miles from each, and about one fifty from Russia. Our
best estimate—guess, really—is a population of about one hundred fifty-eight
thousand.”

Martin, usually chatty with his briefers,
was silent. Easterly glanced from his notes to the president.
Poor bastard! I don’t think he wants to know
much about Sinpo.

Bart Guarini, ever conscious of how his
boss and friend would appear to history, tried unsuccessfully to will Martin
into engaging, probing, questioning the choice.

Silence.

At last Guarini
said, “Eric, tell us why you chose Sinpo, rather than a military target.”

“It really came down to geography. We
want to have as little effect on the DPRK’s neighbors as possible. Most of the
North Korean army has moved into positions close to the ROK border, the DMZ,
and the ROKs have a large force facing them. They’re pretty close together, too
close to be confident the ROK troops wouldn’t be affected if we put neutron
bombs on the North Koreans. Plus, northern soldiers who weren’t killed outright
would probably come storming south, into the ROKs, starting the land war we’re
trying to avoid.

“There are two other army concentrations.
One is in and around Pyongyang
and the other is along the Chinese border, probably to keep Kim’s dear people
from fleeing. Since we don’t want any impact on China
and don’t want to hit Pyongyang
on this first strike, we can’t hit those troops.

“Bottom line?
There are no military targets right now for the neutron weapons.”

“OK, go on,”
said Martin flatly, a forefinger repeatedly tracing the rim of his coffee mug.

“Sir, since the neutron bombs have never
been tested in the atmosphere, we have only an approximate idea of their kill
radius. In order to be certain of inflicting heavy casualties, three weapons
are assigned. They’ll be delivered by cruise missiles. Time on target will be
mid-morning in Sinpo.”

Rick tasted
bile.
I’m sitting here planning to kill
thousands of people, just blot them out in the midst of an ordinary morning.
How
can I do this? Horror fought exhaustion for dominance of his mind. Then he
heard a gargling voice and knew it spoke from a mass grave in Nevada. “Don’t let us down, Mr. President!”

“And how many
people am I going to kill at mid-morning in Sinpo?” he said dully.

Guarini was appalled that Rick Martin,
once the master of “we” and the passive voice, was now taking all this upon
himself. Hurriedly, he said, “It’s
we
,
Mr. President. We
all
believe we must
do this to protect Americans and enable our society to recover.”

Martin nodded,
stone-faced, awaiting Easterly’s answer.

“It’s impossible to say for certain—there
are too many unknowns—but surely tens of thousands. Say, fifty to seventy-five
thousand.” Easterly shrugged, frowning.

“And after I sign that order, it happens?
How fast?”

“We can have the cruise missiles on
target within an hour, or you can specify a time. As I said, we recommend
mid-morning Sinpo time.”

Jesus!
Like having pizza delivered!
Martin’s finger, the one tracing the rim of the coffee mug, began to twitch. He
didn’t notice as he sat in silent contemplation of piles of Korean bodies
covering up piles of American bodies. Desperately, he told himself that he was
still pursuing
 
other options, that until
he actually signed the order—maybe even for a few minutes after he signed—one
of them
 
might work. Ming, or even Kim,
might see reason and he, Rick Martin, would not become a mass murderer.

He realized the three were staring. “OK,”
he said in a hollow voice, rising from his chair like a zombie, knowing he had
moved another step toward becoming the evil he was fighting.

MacAdoo and Easterly watched as he left,
followed protectively by Guarini. “My God!” said Easterly. “Did you see that?”