The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  He waved his arms to draw the attention of one of the soldiers at the barrier, but the soldier looked straight through him. “Hey! You!” John shouted. “Press Secretary Barefoot is sending someone out here to fetch me. Can’t you let me stand inside the barrier until he comes? It’s not much fun out here.” He opened his jacket, exposing the lining, to show he was unarmed.

  The soldier aimed his machine gun at him. “Get away from the barrier!” he commanded, without looking him in the eyes.

  “Away? How am I supposed to do that?” he replied as a young man behind him grabbed his arm to avoid being shoved to the ground. It wouldn’t be long before the surging crowd got out of control; Bugatti had seen it before. Someone would end up lying there, never to get up again.

  “Get back—now!” screamed the soldier.

  Bugatti stared at the gun barrel and noticed the sweat running down the soldier’s face. He forced himself backward with all the strength his weakened body could muster and dialed Wesley’s number again on his cell phone. After a long minute’s wait, where the tempest around him increased along with cries of panic, he finally heard a woman’s voice on the line. “I’m on my way down right now, Mr. Bugatti. We’ve informed the control post.”

  * * *

  —

  Wesley’s secretary presented herself as Eleanor. She led him along a path around the side of the White House, saying she was sorry the tumult at the barriers and checkpoints forced them to make a detour. The air was cracking with tension like the moment before the cyanide pellet falls into the bowl of acid.

  The lawn over towards Executive Avenue and the fence in front of the Ellipse were swarming with security, but no one checked Bugatti or his companion. They had their attention trained on the mass of humanity that stretched from the White House fence all the way to the other side of the Washington Monument. Bugatti shook his head; there were thousands of people out there. Was the American eagle facing extinction, or was it collecting itself to soar once more, stronger than ever? How was it ever to resurrect itself in this suffocating, poisoned atmosphere?

  The secretary led him into the West Wing, followed by two security guards, and there John was greeted by a distraught-looking Wesley. Bugatti was glad he wasn’t in his shoes.

  Wesley led him past his office, the Roosevelt Room, and Vice President Sunderland’s office and into Sunderland’s secretary’s office next door. He took off his ID chip and motioned for Bugatti to do the same with his guest chip. Then he waved Bugatti in through a narrow door in the back of the room.

  They entered a small archive room packed with ring binders, a room Bugatti had never known about during the three previous administrations, where he’d waited for statements from chiefs of staff just on the other side of the wall. Only this time the chief of staff was no longer chief of staff. Against all normal procedure, he’d suddenly gotten to play the role of vice president.

  “Who were you thinking I’d speak to, Wesley? And why come here, instead of your off . . . ?” His question was cut off by Barefoot’s hand over his mouth.

  “The chief of staff’s secretary’s office is my office now,” he said, gently shutting the door.

  “Does that mean you’re working for Sunderland now, too?” Wesley nodded. Bugatti pursed his lips and gave a low whistle.

  “Yes. I’ve been moved closer to Sunderland and have to do a lot of his secretarial work on top of everything else.”

  “Jesus Christ! What about Sunderland’s old secretary, Margaret? Where’s she?”

  “She quit.”

  “You’re kidding. But what are we doing in this closet? Has this room always been here?”

  “It’s my archives. They put in the dividing wall last week when they moved me over here. There’s a back door close to the pressroom.” He pointed at another narrow door. “It’s because here no one can hear us. But we’ve got to speak softly, okay?”

  “Is your office bugged?”

  “They all are.”

  “Then why didn’t we meet in town?”

  “There are a lot of us who can’t go anywhere without being followed by security agents, especially not without our ID chip.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “There’s a microphone in the chip. They’re listening wherever I go.”

  “Too fucking much! How about your apartment? Couldn’t we meet there?”

  Wesley attempted a smile and shook his head. He leaned close to Bugatti.

  “John, you’re not going to get to speak with the president. It’s been days since I’ve had a private conversation with him, myself. He’s not giving interviews anymore, not even to you.”

  “What’s happened? Is he losing his mind? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “It would be understandable after having watched two wives and an unborn son be murdered.”

  “I don’t know if he’s going mad or not. I’m not a psychiatrist.”

  “What about you?”

  “What do you mean? Have I gone crazy, too? No, but I’m getting there!” There was sweat on Wesley’s forehead. Bugatti had never seen him so disheartened.

  “No, I mean, can I interview you? Naturally, I would never use your name, only the usual ‘informed sources, close to the president.’”

  Wesley shook his head slowly. His expression had changed. It had lost its look of boyish innocence, once and for all. Sometimes fear could cause this, but usually it was due to being disappointed with oneself. Bugatti knew Wesley had always gotten his energy from his straightforwardness and ability to get things done, and all this he’d had to renounce. He was a very unhappy, disillusioned man—that was obvious. He wasn’t giving Bugatti an interview because he couldn’t. He couldn’t because he dared not—it was as simple as that.

  “Is there anyone else I can go to?” Bugatti implored. “Is there no one who will say anything? You know how discreet I am. It doesn’t have to be that specific. I just want to get a handle on the situation we’re in, and where the hell we’re headed. I want to be cleared to tell about it somehow—you can understand that. There must be a way, before they shut the media down altogether. Because they are going to shut it down, aren’t they, Wesley?”

  He looked at Bugatti for some time. “Those who are willing or allowed to speak, know nothing, and those who do, won’t. Everyone left here is loyal to the president. All of them! Even the secretary of commerce, and you can bet the big business and finance boys haven’t been giving him much peace lately.”

  “The new chief of staff, Burton, what about him?”

  “I don’t know what’s happened, but both Lance Burton and Donald Beglaubter have been completely closed off the past couple of weeks.”

  “Are they under some kind of pressure?”

  “Everyone’s under pressure here, but I know what you’re driving at. No, I don’t know if they’re under any specific pressure.”

  “Secretary of Defense Henderson?”

  “He’s Jansen’s man.”

  “Vice President Sunderland?”

  “Are you kidding?” Wesley shook his head. “They’re all one hundred percent loyal. Both the president’s staff and the Cabinet do as they’re told.”

  “There’s got to be someone who can unseat Jansen, for God’s sake. He’s violated the Constitution so many times, it’s logical to assume there’d be someone, isn’t it?” Suddenly, Wesley stiffened and clamped his hand over Bugatti’s mouth. “John! Shh!” He put his mouth next to Bugatti’s ear. “If your mission is to find out if anyone’s out to remove Jansen from office, then I’d recommend you get out of this country while you can, understand? No one says the borders are going to remain open. You know too much and you ask too much, so that’s my advice to you. Now we’re going to go back to my office, put on our chips, and then you’re going to ask me silly, trivial questions, okay? But
if you’re clever, maybe there’s a chance you’ll be heard by the right people. I don’t know precisely where these surveillance tapes circulate, but if the right people hear the right questions, maybe you’ll find out something you’re looking for. Just be careful in everything you say and do from here on in.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The leaves on the bushes outside Wesley’s window were about to burst into life, and it wouldn’t be long before the trees in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building would be bright green. This was the time of year when life-affirming signs of springtime were supposed to dispel the dark melancholia of winter, but it wasn’t having any effect on him. Sitting in the world’s busiest workplace, Wesley felt paralyzed, oppressed, and alone. Far from a new season of hope and renewal, this spring accentuated a feeling of self-hatred and despair that was in danger of engulfing him if he wasn’t careful.

  * * *

  —

  Early that morning, one of the White House guards had been attacked with a sharp instrument when he stopped a suspicious person at the appointment gate. He quickly bled to death at the foot of the wrought iron lattice as the assailant was overpowered by soldiers and driven away. From within Thomas Sunderland’s office Wesley could faintly hear the ambulance sirens, followed by cries of demonstrators that were quickly silenced by power hoses.

  Wesley was told that the attacker had been a journalist from a neoconservative magazine, and the government’s reaction was prompt. All the offices that housed The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, American Enterprise, and other neocon publications were immediately closed down.

  This, in turn, caused an unexpectedly widespread and violent backlash. Suddenly it was as if everybody who opposed President Jansen’s drastic policies felt threatened, no matter which end of the political spectrum they belonged to. Militias came out of hiding in the wilderness of Bitterroot Range, the Smoky Mountains, the Everglades, and many other places, attacking military installations and police stations simultaneously. Fighting was intense, bloody, destructive, and over with as quickly as it had begun. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powers, attempted to play down the insurrection, but the FBI’s reports told quite a different story. Hundreds of government troops and police had been killed, with practically no militia losses. These battles revealed the huge difference in morale between the two sides, and even worse, it was estimated that the militias’ arsenals had doubled in size thanks to all the weapons and ammunition they’d captured during the fighting. General Powers had a lot to answer for.

  This information immediately led to yet another crisis meeting in the Defense Department, and during the next few hours officials from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA worked up terror scenarios that left both Wesley and the rest of the White House staff thoroughly shaken.

  In the middle of all this, his mother had called, her voice shaking as she told him his father could no longer cope with the state of affairs wrought on the country by the government. He’d tongue-lashed her and insulted her for having ever worked for Bruce Jansen. He’d tossed his old Democratic convention badges out the window and, what upset his mother most of all, had pulled his military cadet uniform out of the closet, thrown it on the floor, and pissed on it.

  Wesley felt the world closing in on him; he was steadily being suffocated. It wasn’t just that the administration was digging deeper and deeper into the unknown, a shaky tunnel that would either collapse at any moment or emerge into a state of total chaos. The worst was the feeling that he’d been trapped by his own vanity and ambition. He’d fought to get this far and wasn’t about to give up the status he’d attained. A status that could now be his undoing.

  He was preoccupied with these dismal realizations as he left for the Oval Office to have dictated what he was to say at the evening’s press conference.

  * * *

  —

  The president looked wretched, and for good reason. He sat behind his desk with dark circles under his eyes, a shadow of the self-confident leader he was supposed to project when speaking to the nation in a couple of hours. He nodded at each of the assembly, one by one, then spoke. “I want to tell you that I received a death threat a half hour ago, one that must be taken seriously. We don’t know how, but someone managed to place a written threat in a Secret Service agent’s locker.” He nodded towards Vice President Sunderland, who held up a copy of the note.

  “The original has been sent to technical analysis,” Sunderland reported. “So far, we know there are no fingerprints, and it looks like the message was printed out on a White House printer, on official stationery.”

  The note was passed around. “I’ll be damned . . .” mumbled Chief of Communications Donald Beglaubter.

  Wesley studied it as well. “The American president is sworn to defend the Constitution,” it read.

  “Bruce Jansen has not fulfilled his oath and must therefore announce his resignation no later than four A.M. tomorrow, or else his throat will be slit like a pig’s within twenty-four hours.”

  He shook his head. “Okay, this is bad news, of course. There’s apparently someone in the White House who has a huge need to express his dissatisfaction, and of course it’s a great cause for concern that we don’t know who it is. But is this a particularly serious threat? We’ve seen worse, haven’t we?”

  Staff chief Burton sat forward on the sofa and looked at Wesley. “Yes, perhaps . . .” he said, and paused. “But the bodyguard whose locker the note was found in was himself found lying in front of the locker with his head half cut off.”

  Wesley shuddered as he felt the self-loathing inside him turn to fear. Anyone serving the president could have been the victim, but doubtlessly the choice of a highly trained bodyguard had a specific grim, symbolic significance.

  Jansen folded his hands over his laptop. “I won’t be participating in the press conference this evening. Lance, you and Donald will have to help Wesley put it together. You are to state that there have been encounters with militias, without giving any details of success or failure. Do you understand?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. President, but how can we keep something like that secret?” asked Wesley, his eyes fixed on the floor. “For example, we can’t stop the pirate radios that are broadcasting all over the country. How many official shortwave transmitters did there used to be, and how many are lying around in attics or basements that still function? Plenty, I’ll bet. And what about the Internet, cell phones, and photocopied flyers? What rabbit are we going to pull out of the hat to stop all that?”

  Thomas Sunderland looked directly at Wesley. “No, magic tricks may not work here, but we can do something to draw the public’s attention elsewhere. You’re the communications expert. You’re supposed to be good at that sort of thing.”

  “Right. So maybe now’s the time to carpet bomb the militia camps with napalm.” Again he regretted his choice of words, especially when he saw the vice president’s expression. Maybe it wasn’t exactly napalm Sunderland had in mind, but it looked like he’d been considering some kind of massive response. Wesley was sure there’d be plenty of innocent victims. He couldn’t bear the thought of it.

  President Jansen noted his expression. “Wesley, we’re forced to look at the domestic situation now, aren’t we? We don’t want a civil war on our hands, but we almost have one at the moment, anyway, and it must be put down with the appropriate force.” He turned towards Lance Burton. “Yesterday I ordered the Pentagon to immediately call home all American troops stationed abroad. They’re shipping out from Europe and the Middle East as we speak.”

  Wesley felt himself beginning to sweat. He closed his eyes and tried to stay cool. From what Jansen was saying, there’d be a massive “defensive” attack carried out on American soil within twenty-four hours, while at the same time the United States’ multitude of interests abroad—after decades of intense cultivation—would be left to fend for themselves
. What would the United Nations make of all this? It would doubtlessly be met with rejoicing in the Middle East and probably also in domestic installations housing the military and their families, but how long would the world rejoice when the planet’s only superpower disappeared—whether one loved it or hated it—from one day to the next? Okay, the entire US military was returning home—and then what? Would they send an aircraft carrier up the Alabama River to wipe out the militias that had entrenched themselves in Talladega National Forest? Would they use Harpoon missiles to blast the billionaire militia sympathizers’ fleet of yachts out of the water down in Tampa and St. Petersburg? Would the marines begin storming city streets, and paratroopers start dropping out of the sky to pacify uppity ranchers in Minnesota? He couldn’t conceive any of it. He looked at Donald and Lance, hoping they’d speak up, but they remained silent.

  “The staff will receive a list within the next couple of hours stating the executive orders that are to be put into effect,” Sunderland said.

  “Do you think implementing the executive orders will justify the use of the military in the minds of the public?”

  “We have no choice, Wesley, else the situation will get out of control.” This time Jansen wasn’t looking straight at him. “We have to make the streets as safe as possible for the average, law-abiding citizen.”

  “What does the UN secretary general have to say? Has he been briefed?” Wesley asked, cautiously. Of course he had to have been notified. Wesley just wanted to hear Jansen say it.

  “I’m meeting with our UN ambassador and the secretary general this evening,” he replied.

  Wesley took a deep breath. “I expect the foreign journalists will have a lot of questions about our calling home the military. Can’t your meeting with the secretary general be held before the press conference?”

  The vice president broke in. “There won’t be any foreign journalists” was all he said.