Primary Command

by Jack Mars

  He guessed wrong.

  The man was a simpleton. His major claim to fame was that he came from a rich, blue-blood, old money family, but he went and fought in Vietnam anyway. Call it noblesse oblige run amok. The man had deferred his entry to Yale for a year, joined the Marine Corps, raced to the other side of the world, managed to engineer a couple of minor gunshot wounds in the leg, and was back in New Haven in time to ogle the co-eds at freshman orientation.

  David Barrett, also from old money, had skipped Vietnam. It was optional for a young man from his background, and he had better things to do with his time. Boy, they never let that go, did they? If someone had told him that this decision would follow him the rest of his life…

  But it didn’t really matter, did it? He still became president of the United States. And the big-toothed American hero Mark Baylor got to be his understudy.

  “Mr. President?” Richard Stark said. His eyes showed a look of concern. Was it concern for his president’s well-being? Probably not. He was probably just worried that his boss was no longer listening to him.

  “Let’s take a break, guys,” President David Barrett said. “Okay? Leave these assessments with me and I’ll go over them this evening. I’m going to call my wife and my parents and see how they feel about this evacuation plan. In the meantime, with everything else, steady as she goes.”

  “We’d like your order to go to DEFCON level 3,” Stark said.

  Barrett raised a hand. “Richard, let’s just hold our horses, stay where we are, and continue to monitor the situation.”

  The eyes of the three other men in the meeting told him that was the wrong answer. Those eyes seemed to dart back and forth, imparting information to each other that David couldn’t understand.

  A wave of unreality suddenly washed over him. It was almost as if these men were imposters. Those hostile, angry eyes seemed to be set deep inside rubber masks.

  No. It was impossible.

  “General, I appreciate all of your recommendations,” David said. “And I will take them under advisement. But the end of the world can wait a few more hours.”

  * * *

  Those few hours passed, and then a couple more.

  The shadows outside the tall windows grew long, then dark began to settle in. David Barrett did not open the heavy drapes. He did not want to see the sun setting on a warm early summer night. He did not want to think about summer at all.

  He did not want to think about the crowds gathering to watch the Nationals play baseball. He did not want to think about people at the Delaware beaches, or in boats on Chesapeake Bay, catching the glorious fire of the sun as day became night. He knew that the people were out there, doing these things. He knew it.

  In here, we were supposedly having a crisis. We had done a bad thing, spying on the Russians. Then the Russians did a worse thing, taking our spies prisoner and stealing our little submarine. Then we topped it with an even worse thing. Now they were toying with doing very bad things. And if they did them, then we would have to…

  “David?”

  Were we children? Was that what it was? We had never graduated from childhood? It was sure beginning to seem that way.

  “David, please.”

  He looked up and noticed he was sitting in the same tall-backed chair he had occupied during the meeting with General Stark and Mark Baylor. That meeting had happened hours ago. He had taken his dinner right here in the Oval Office, and had never moved from this chair.

  He had dismissed his Secret Service men long ago, though he was sure there was at least one still standing out in the hallway. The truth was he had begun tracking their movements. And that was odd because his daughter, Elizabeth, must have been doing the exact same thing, in the days before she…

  “David!”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  Sitting across from him was Kathy Grumman, his new chief of staff. David had hired her when he banished Lawrence Keller to Legislative Affairs after the crisis with Elizabeth’s kidnapping had been resolved.

  Kathy had come from the State Department, where she had been chief-bottle-washer or some such. David couldn’t remember now. He knew she had come highly recommended. And when he met her, he liked her personally. In fact, he still did. He just didn’t really care what she had to say anymore.

  “We need to develop a strategy to deal with the events that are unfolding,” Kathy said. “The Pentagon brass are very upset that they didn’t get to move their little DEFCON needle one number to the right. The protest in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, has devolved into a full-on riot, with looting of shops, arson, and shots fired. There are almost certainly agents provocateurs mixed in with the crowds there. The Russians have closed the Strait of Bosporus, against international maritime law, and we need to determine a response. The United Nations General Assembly is going to vote tomorrow morning to condemn our rescue action at Sochi.

  “The Russians have ordered their embassy staff, right up to the ambassador, to leave for London as soon as possible, and have given our Moscow embassy personnel twenty-four hours to leave the country. None of this takes into account the troops massed at the borders of Georgia and Ukraine, the ramped up missile defense readiness on both sides of the fence, or the fact that our fighters and theirs continue to make repeated visual contact in various parts of the world.”

  David stared at Kathy. She was probably about forty-five years old, with blonde hair just going gray. She was well-preserved, attractive even. She had blue reading glasses that hung on a silver chain. She was wearing a dark blue skirt suit. The hemline was conservative, just above the knee.

  She had never married, so he understood. Married to her work, he guessed. You almost had to be. These people around here, they were very ambitious. Jobs at the White House weren’t handed out for free on street corners.

  She was still speaking, her face serious. For a moment, he felt very sad for her. All that sacrifice, and where had she gotten herself? Here? With him? For what? Didn’t she understand that there were baseball games and barbecues going on?

  “At this point, I’m concerned that events are racing out ahead of us,” she said now. “We haven’t made any sort of statement acknowledging the gravity of the situation, nor have we come up with anything like a cogent plan of action. Respectfully, I’d like to request that you give me free rein to move forward on…”

  David raised a hand. “Kathy, let me stop you for a minute. I’ve heard everything you said. Here are my answers. The guys at the Pentagon are always pining to go to DEFCON whatever. If there isn’t a war, or the threat of one, then what are they supposed to do all day? I think we can safely ignore them for the time being.

  “Meanwhile, a riot in Brighton Beach sounds like something for the New York City Police Department to worry about. If you want, feel free to call Mayor Dietz and tell him we’re pulling for them over here. We’re in their corner. I’ll even do it, if you set up the call for me.

  “Next, if the Russians have closed the Black Sea to international shipping traffic, that sounds like we need to lodge a complaint with someone.”

  Kathy nodded. “We already have. So have the Turks, the Romanians, the Bulgarians, the Ukrainians, the Greeks, and the Georgians. Once the General Assembly is finished condemning us tomorrow morning, it’s likely they’re going to condemn the Russians immediately afterward.”

  David shrugged. “See? There you go.”

  He and Kathy stared at each other for a long moment.

  “David,” she said, “I think you might not be fully grasping that with the possible exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and Russia are as close to war as we’ve ever been. They are furious about what happened at Sochi, and are refusing to negotiate or even speak with us. Meanwhile, a shooting war could break out at any one of a dozen flashpoints at any time, and there are real concerns among our intelligence community about command and control of Russian missile defense. An errant nuclear launch is all it would take…”

 
; He nodded. “Yeah. It’s a big problem. I get that.”

  “Have you turned on the TV? The press is hammering us, and so far our response is that we are crafting a plan, which we will announce shortly. Things are dangerously close to being out of control. And at least as of this moment, we are not demonstrating the leadership needed to guide this situation to a positive outcome. It’s not the mayor of New York’s problem. It’s not the UN’s problem. We need to take the reins here, David.”

  He could see her point. Of course he could. He was the president. He didn’t get here by not understanding things. He recognized that there was a crisis going on. He just didn’t feel up to the job of managing it.

  “Kathy, I think I may be going insane,” he almost said.

  But he didn’t say that. The president of the United States didn’t say things like that, even if they were true.

  “Okay,” he said. “Have me some remarks drafted. Hit all the right notes. Our fervent desire to work with the Russians to deescalate. Our absolute right to rescue American citizens who have been held incommunicado by a foreign power. How we stand firm with people of good will everywhere. Our willingness to work with the UN to broker some sort of deal. Whatever doesn’t declare war, and makes sense to all of our stakeholders.”

  She took a sheet of paper from her stack and handed it to him.

  “Already done.”

  He gazed at the paper in his hand. “Thank you. I’ll look this over and get back to you. We can do the statement first thing in the morning, a briefing format, no live reporters in the room.”

  Kathy shook her head. “David, I was thinking tonight. It’s just about nine thirty. It’s a short speech. If we do it now, a lot of networks will interrupt programming for it, and we’ll get a lot of coverage on the eleven o’clock news. We can put surrogates to defend it on the late night cable shows.”

  David shook his head. “I haven’t even read it yet.”

  “Tomorrow morning is too late, David. The Russians are eight hours ahead of us. We can’t let this go on all night.”

  David finally felt something stirring within him. It was anger. She was drifting toward insubordination here.

  “Kathy, I just gave you my answer. I’m tired. I’m going to review the speech, chew on it a bit, and then I’ll probably go to bed. I suggest you go home, relax, enjoy yourself, then get back here bright and early tomorrow morning, ready to work.”

  He paused, wondering if he was going to say the next thing in his mind.

  Yeah. He was.

  “In other words, get out of my office.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  10:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  Georgetown

  Washington, DC

  It was getting late. Nearly time for bed.

  That’s when the telephone rang.

  Lawrence Keller sat in the living room of his Georgetown brownstone, sipping a cup of hot hibiscus tea. CNN was on the TV, with the sound muted. They were covering the Russia crisis nonstop. All Russia, all the time.

  Keller sighed. He was fifty-two years old, and had been a long distance runner his entire adult life. Recently, his doctor had told him his blood pressure had crept up into the hypertension range.

  What did the man expect? After the past couple of months he’d had, anybody’s blood pressure would be up. Unlike most people, however, Keller had resolved to do something about it. Something besides going on medication. It wasn’t like he could start an exercise program. He already got more exercise than ninety percent of the population.

  Hibiscus tea was his answer. If you drank it every day, supposedly over time it lowered your blood pressure. Well, the jury was still out on that. But in the meantime, it did have the benefit of making him sleepy.

  He stared at the phone, still ringing, still insistent. It was after ten o’clock. Who would be calling him this time of night? The answering machine picked up, but whoever was on the other end hung up as soon as Keller’s voice came on.

  Wrong number.

  Then the phone started ringing again. He picked it up but didn’t answer. The caller ID was blocked.

  Keller wasn’t interested in speaking to anyone, especially not a drunk-dialing old friend or former military buddy. He had been divorced for ten years. His daughters were grown women who lived on the west coast, Seattle and San Jose, respectively. He spent much of his time alone these days, and he preferred it that way.

  After his divorce, Keller had thrown himself into his work, and had clawed his way to become chief of staff to the president of the United States. That arrangement had lasted until six weeks ago.

  When David Barrett had fallen apart after Elizabeth was kidnapped, Keller had become David’s eyes and ears in the Situation Room. It was possible that Keller had saved the world from nuclear disaster—he was no longer quite sure. And after it was all over, how had Barrett thanked him? By showing him the door and kicking him downstairs to Legislative Affairs.

  Well, Lawrence Keller would be dipped in brown sauce before he would work in Legislative Affairs. He had taken a leave of absence and was burning through the personal time he had accrued during decades of government service.

  The phone started ringing again. Keller pressed the green button.

  “Yes. Can I help you?”

  He recognized the voice instantly. How could he forget the sound of the man who had been his boss for years?

  “Lawrence, it’s David. I need to speak with you.”

  Keller had been watching the news coverage for the past several hours. Once again, the world was on the brink. And he realized that in the back of his mind, he had almost been expecting this call. Not a sure thing, certainly not. But he wasn’t surprised by it.

  “David, I’m happy to talk anytime you like. I know it must feel like you have a lot on your plate right now.”

  Keller thought David would like that phrasing. The man was weak, and he often talked in terms of his feelings. In Keller’s experience, the thinking David Barrett did was constantly being polluted by feelings. Often enough, his thoughts made no sense at all.

  “I heard you left Legislative Affairs,” Barrett said.

  “I didn’t leave. I never went there in the first place.”

  “So you’re available?”

  This was already going somewhere Keller enjoyed. Kathy Grumman was well meaning enough, and was reasonably effective as bureaucrats went. But chief of staff to the president? She was hardly made of that kind of material.

  “Yes. I’m available. What do you have in mind, David?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Barrett said. “In confidence.”

  Keller smiled. David wasn’t offering him his old job back. Not yet. And that was just fine. Keller’s mind jumped a few moves ahead, looking for something he might get out of this that was even better than his old job.

  “Fine. I can call tomorrow and schedule a meeting through your people, if you like, or you could put it on the schedule yourself.”

  “Not like that,” Barrett said. For a split second, his voice sounded agitated.

  It was a strange thing to say. Keller waited.

  “Later tonight, I don’t know what time, possibly quite late, you’ll get a call from a number you don’t recognize. When the call comes, pick it up.”

  “Okay, David.”

  “Thank you,” Barrett said. “Speak with you later.”

  The line went dead.

  Keller had a flashback to a moment when he was in the Oval Office with David. David had been standing behind the Resolute Desk, the great old mammoth nineteenth-century wooden desk that had been a gift from Great Britain.

  He remembered thinking that David Barrett was too small for the desk. Not because David was a small man physically—he wasn’t. In fact, he much larger than the average man, probably at least six feet five inches tall. He was dwarfed by that desk because he was too small for the job. Great men had stood at that desk, confronting gigantic problems. Old photos of JFK during the Cuban Missil
e Crisis often showed Kennedy and his advisors around the desk. David Barrett didn’t belong at that desk.

  Keller had always known this about him. Their relationship had been a marriage of convenience—David had stumbled into the presidency through a confluence of family connections, money, good looks, and grooming. Their own party had installed Keller as David’s chief of staff, with the hope that Keller could guide the man through the minefield of his own lazy mind and awful instincts.

  It hadn’t worked, and now David had wandered into yet another disaster he had no idea how to handle. Without someone like Lawrence Keller around to do his thinking for him, David was like a homeless waif, the survivor of a shipwreck, clinging to a piece of flotsam and drifting wherever the currents took him.

  The phone rang again. Keller picked it up at once.

  “Grand Central Terminal,” he said.

  “Do you know who this is?” a voice said.

  Of course he knew the voice. Getting a call from the president of the United States was not such a simple thing. They were monitoring David’s phone. They had heard everything that was just said. It was a wonder they still hadn’t figured out how to listen to people’s thoughts. In any event:

  “Yes,” Keller said.

  “My guess is you’d like to find your way back to relevance again.”

  Keller shrugged. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  Maybe this was the opportunity that was better than returning to chief of staff. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. He had done these people a favor not that long ago, was ushered into a room full of psychopathic warmongers, and quickly found himself out on the street.

  “Our friend has been acting strangely, even for him. We’re concerned that he won’t be able to stomach the meal set before him.”

  “Does that surprise you?” Keller said.

  The person at the other end of the line ignored the question. “Do you know where he plans to call you from?”