Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  CODE WORD: PATERNITY

  A Presidential Thriller

  By Doug Norton

  Although many of the people and events described are real, this is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, and governments in this novel are the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  For this is your duty, to act well the part that is given to you . . .

  Epictetus, The Enchiridion

  CHARACTERS

  AMERICANS

  Rick Martin, President of the United States

  Graciela (Ella) Dominguez Martin, First Lady

  The National Security Council (NSC)

  Statutory Members and Advisers (in addition to the President)

  Bruce Griffith, Vice President of the United States

  Eric Easterly, Secretary of Defense (SECDEF)

  Anne Battista, Secretary of State (SECSTATE)

  General Jay (“Mac”) MacAdoo, U.S. Air Force, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)

  Aaron Hendricks, Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

  Other Regular Attendees

  John Dorn, National Security Advisor

  Bart Guarini, White House Chief of Staff

  Scott Hitzleberger, CIA Director

  Ed McDonnell, Attorney General

  Sara Zimmer, Secretary of Homeland Security

  Ray Morales, Congressman from Texas and General USMC, Retired. Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)

  Oscar Neumann, Ambassador and United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations

  Samantha (Sam) Yu, White House Press Secretary

  INTERNATIONAL

  Chen Shaoshi, Minister of National Defense, People’s Republic of China (PRC)

  Fahim, al-Qaeda’s master bomb engineer

  Gwon Chung-Hee, President of South Korea (Republic of Korea (ROK)

  Huang Bo, Ambassador and Chinese Permanent Representative to the United Nations

  Jia Jinping, Minister of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China (PRC)

  Akihiro Kato, Premier of Japan

  Kim Jong-il, dictator of North Korea (The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Kim is addressed as “Dear Leader” by all North Koreans.

  Ming Liu, President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)

  Park Chang-su, Secretary-General of the United Nations, a South Korean

  Young-san Ho, Field Marshal and leader of the North Korean military

  A GLOSSARY MAY BE FOUND AT PAGE 378.

  Chapter 1

  The President of the United States was sitting in a puddle. The southeast wind gusted and President Rick Martin happily steered up into the puff, his tiny sailboat heeling and accelerating immediately as the wind hit its green-striped sail. He straightened his legs, hooked his feet under the leeward gunwale, and hung his dripping butt over the side, counterbalancing the sail’s pull so the boat wouldn’t capsize. Rick shifted the tiller extension and the sheet into his left hand and reached out his right, fingers trailing in the bay.

  He lost himself in the rippling sound and the slick, smooth sensations of the warm water streaming past the small Sunfish he was sailing at the mouth of the Gunpowder River where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. The sky was an inverted blue bowl, just darker than robin’s egg at its zenith and milky around its rim. To the west a fringe of low white clouds curled around the horizon like the remains of a balding man’s hair.

  A bit over six feet tall and wiry—the build of a swimmer or runner—Rick Martin looked streamlined. His salt-and-pepper hair was graying at the temples, but his face was quite unlined, except when he smiled. After six months in office Rick still projected the optimism, lively intelligence, and likeability that had fueled his rise from Maryland congressman to president. He appreciated Camp David but favored another retreat from the pressures of office: the Chesapeake Bay. The VIP guest house at the military’s Aberdeen Proving Ground made a perfect base for the sailing he loved.

  He guided the boat, reflecting that sailing was one of the few things in his life that had purity and integrity. It’s not that I expect politics to have either one, he thought. I take the hidden agendas and exaggerations and outright lies as they come and, let’s be honest, do my share. But it’s such a pleasure to enter a world, even a very limited world, where things are as they seem. The wind blows from where it blows—no man can control it or influence it. This little boat gives immediate and honest feedback.

  Honesty . . . I should be grateful to Glenna Rogers. Had I beaten her back then for the Democratic nomination, I probably would’ve made the same mistakes she did as president. Those mistakes left her vulnerable as few first-term presidents have been, as Jimmy Carter was, and for the same reason: Most Americans don’t like feeling that the country has been humiliated, and when that happens they hold the president responsible.

  ***

  As Las Vegas receded at a mile a minute, Fahim fretted, the I-15 ahead of his car as crisp and stark as fresh black paint on the yellowish, desolate soil. There was nothing he could do now, so he should put it out of his mind. But he could no more ignore it than his tongue could ignore a bit of food between his teeth. He knew he was taking a chance, but he had backup. The young man driving the truck would get his wish for martyrdom in any case, although he didn’t know about the timer or the bomb’s secret. Fahim, who didn’t want to be a martyr, had directed the man who did to press his button at 10:35 a.m.

  Interrupting his drive to California at 10:25, Fahim pulled to the shoulder and sat in the air conditioner’s blast, sweating anyway. The sweat overflowed the barriers of his eyebrows and stung his eyes, which matched the black color of his hair. He compared his worries to the opening night jitters of an actor playing the West End the first time. Thinking of London theater brought to mind his father, a university professor of history who disapproved of his violent embrace of the cause but was nonetheless willing to admit he was cultured—for an engineer. He smiled at the memory of their fond arguments, his wiry body relaxing slightly.

  Waiting for the event that would henceforth define him, he muted his humanity, burying it beneath hatred. He remembered the tens of thousands of Muslims America had killed. He remembered the suffering of his own Palestinian brothers at the hands of the Israelis, who owed their existence to Americans. He remembered the humiliation of Muslims at Abu Ghraib prison. He remembered Guantánamo.

  Suppose he failed? Some stupid oversight? The Sheikh’s memory would be mocked instead of glorified. Heart pounding, he gripped the wheel as if crushing it would ensure success.

  At 10:30 a flash brighter than Fahim had imagined stabbed his rear-view mirror, which he had set for night to protect his eyes. He cried out, mouth a rictus that was part astonishment, part orgasm, then slumped in release as triumph embraced him. I have just struck the mightiest blow ever against America!

  And I am going to do it again.

  ***

  The harsh sounds of jet skis and helicopter rotors were startling. Rick looked around and saw his secret service detail closing fast from their escort positions fifty yards away, followed by a small Coast Guard patrol boat. A familiar Marine helicopter was landing at the shoreline.

  Agents surrounded his little sailboat. All but the one who spoke looked away, scanning for danger, hands on the waterproof bags he knew held weapons.

  “Mr. President, there’s a national security emergency and we need to get you to the helo! Get aboard behind me, please.”

  Feeling a stab in his stomach, but also a thrill, Martin clambered aboard, mind racing. Another Russian incursion into the Ukraine? Something involving Israe
l? Maybe Korea? Whatever it was, it might be his first crisis and he was secretly eager to tackle it, more than ready to be tested.

  The crew chief jumped out of the helo—its rotors continuing to turn—trotted in a crouch to the president, and led him toward it. As if by magic the head of Martin’s secret service detail, Wilson, appeared with a submachine gun and trailed him, followed by an officer carrying a briefcase. Rick moved to his familiar place, saw National Security Advisor John Dorn belted in nearby. The moment the president’s soaking shorts squelched into his seat, the helo leaped skyward.

  Martin, buckling his lap belt, looked at Dorn, saw his pale face, and said, “What!” in a sharp, flat voice that made it not a question, but a command.

  “Sir, a nuclear bomb has exploded in Nevada, in or near Las Vegas! Because we haven’t detected any missiles or unidentified military aircraft, we think it was a terrorist act. We have no communications—”

  Dorn’s lips kept forming words, but Martin’s mind had stopped, like a sprinting soldier halted in mid-stride by a bullet. He sat back in his seat, folded his arms across his chest, and stared at the forward bulkhead. His gaze rested on the Great Seal of the President of the United States.

  That’s me.

  He recalled, in a flash, his thoughts from many years past, thoughts that came immediately after he had once tumbled into a ravine, breaking an ankle while winter hiking alone in the wilderness during college: Later this is really going to hurt, but right now you’ve got to put that away and figure out how to stay alive.

  Holding a satcom handset tightly to his ear against the chopper’s noise, Martin asked General “Mac” MacAdoo, chairman of the JCS, “Do you have any doubt this was nuclear?”

  MacAdoo responded from the Pentagon, “No sir! Two DSP satellites picked up a flash with the unique characteristics of a nuclear explosion. Besides, we have satellite imaging showing such destruction that it had to be a nuke, plus what they saw from Creech Air Force Base, about thirty-five miles away.”

  “Okay, Mac, but what’s the chance that this was a ballistic missile attack and NORAD just missed it, somehow didn’t detect a lone missile coming from an unexpected direction?”

  “No chance, Mr. President. The old BMEWS radars might have missed one, the way you said, but now we have interlocking, multi-sensor coverage from six satellites. It’s possible the warhead was put into Vegas using a short-range missile, or an artillery tube, but if so the firing point had to be within the U.S., probably within the state. It’s also possible it was aboard a commercial aircraft.”

  “I understand . . . thanks.”

  Martin hung up and looked numbly out the window.

  Well, now it begins. Nuclear terrorism was a nightmare and now it’s real and mine to deal with. How vulnerable is my administration: did we fail to connect the dots?

  How do you deal with tens of thousands of bodies on a radioactive rubble pile?

  Who did it?

  Why Las Vegas?

  What’s next?

  Rick’s tongue explored his dry mouth. He wanted desperately to be anyone but who he was: the commander-in-chief. He felt drowsy, his lassitude driven by fear of acknowledging the terrifying expectations that now weighed on him. I can’t do this . . . I’m not ready . . . I can’t handle what’s coming.

  “Mr. President . . .

  “Mr. President!”

  Dorn, face grim and energetic, held out a sheet of paper. “Here’s a draft agenda for the NSC meeting.”

  Martin came back from his despairing reverie, took it, and read. Soon he felt a lessening of the sharp pain in his stomach. I don’t have to do this all myself. There’s an entire government, steered by smart, determined people who know what to do about some of this horror. I need to be worthy of leading them, but I don’t have to have all the answers.

  “Thanks, John; let’s go with that.”

  Dorn swallowed hard, eyes shifting around the cabin, shoulders slumped. “Sir, at this point we don’t have enough information to get anywhere in this meeting. Maybe a few nuggets of useful output, but . . . mostly it will be . . . unhelpful.” He squared his shoulders and looked at the president. “I think you should say a few words and leave the meeting to me while you go off to do what is, actually, the most important thing right now: figure out what to say to the country.”

  “You’re right. There’s going to be a lot of chest-pounding and butt-covering in that meeting, and right now I’ve got no need to listen. I’ll take your suggestion. Thanks!”

  Dorn, satcom to ear, said, “Sir, SECDEF has joined the call.” Martin picked up again.

  “Mr. President, we need military support for rescue and security in Las Vegas right from the get-go. I’ve alerted the Eighty-second Airborne, and if you approve, the ready brigade will be on their way in eight hours.”

  “Sounds right, Eric.

  “John, unless someone in the NSC spots a problem, let’s do that!”

  Marine One banked and began a swift, jinking descent to Andrews Air Force Base, where three identical helicopters waited to begin his second journey.

  But what if . . . ? With a sweeping motion, Martin grabbed the handset. “Mac, we’ve got to figure out whose bomb it was and we can’t rule out one of ours. When you’ve completed a hands-on inventory, let me know right away!”

  The chairman was startled because he hadn’t thought of that, despite a head start on the president in absorbing the news. “Yes, sir!”

  Well I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch! This guy doesn’t rattle. Right at the moment that thought made General MacAdoo feel pretty good. An instant later he didn’t. If one of ours is missing—not only missing but unreported—by the time those dominoes stop falling, the U.S. military will be shaken to its foundations!

  When the rotors had stopped, Rick Martin rose and strode from the helo, leaving wet footprints.

  He felt on top of his game.

  ***

  There! A hand! Steve Nguyen attacked the rubble like a machine.

  The day the vulnerability of the United States was laid bare was a day off for Nguyen, a casino employee who lived in Las Vegas with his wife and two children. Now Steve dug frantically, with the maniacal strength of one who believes all he is or ever will be depends on it.

  He found his younger daughter, her face angelic but her chest crushed. He began vomiting, not caring that he was bringing up blood. When he had extricated her small body and laid it to one side, he resumed digging. He knew her older sister would be nearby.

  I have to get her out of there! I can’t leave her!

  He laid the body of his older child tenderly beside her sister. Squatting beside his daughters, Nguyen rocked on his heels, threw back his head, and howled. It was a cry of grief, rage, and helplessness. Had she heard it, First Lady Graciella Dominguez Martin would have known that cry well.

  Chapter 2

  So, what should I tell the country?

  The president sat in a small room at the nuclear-hardened National Command Authority Relocation Site, tunneled into the solid granite of a Virginia mountain. He took in his sterile, musty surroundings: concrete walls, a desk, swivel chair, table, and two armchairs. I’m the only president who’s ever been in this room, he thought, and right now that feels better than the Oval Office, like a clean slate.

  Hands resting on the desk, Rick felt a stab of pain between his right shoulder and his spine. He relaxed his hunched posture, flexed his shoulders, and the ache vanished.

  So far, nobody has claimed the bombing. Well, if Paternity works like they say, we’ll find out. I doubt the bomb-maker was the bomber—too risky for another nation. Probably the bomber was al-Qaeda, but maybe not; we’ve had our own terrorists attack us with bombs and poisons.

  Placing his palms flat on the desk, Martin stared at the legal pad silently demanding wisdom of him.

  During the campaigns, every candidate promised to level with the American people. I made that pledge as a matter of course. Now I have to make a decision.

>   If I level, I’ll say, “We don’t know who did this and we may never know. We’ll probably be able to make an educated guess before long, and then the question becomes what we do on the basis of that guess.”

  The president’s mind continued saying words only he would ever hear himself speak: “This is so terrible that we as a nation and certainly we political leaders refused to contemplate it, so we didn’t take serious steps to prevent it or prepare for it. Now we’re forced to take those steps. In order to protect you, your government is going to have to do things that so reduce the openness and freedom of your lives that we will fundamentally change as a nation. I’m sorry, but it’s come to that. And even after we do, your government won’t be able to guarantee your safety.

  “I pledged to level with you and now I have.”

  Martin stood up, pushed his chair back with his thighs, moved to the table, and poured coffee. He intended to add cream and sweetener but forgot as his mind returned to creating his speech. He took a sip, grimaced, then added them. Cup in hand, he stood gazing at a landscape photo without seeing it.

  But, of course, I can’t and won’t say those things.

  Americans want to hear that I know who did it and we’re going to get them and it will never happen again and nothing in their lives will change.

  They don’t really want their leaders to level with them when it’s bad news. Jimmy Carter did that and it earned him derision. Mondale tried it in 1984 and got thumped by Reagan. And Glenna crushed her Republican opponent after he leveled about what would follow a heedless American withdrawal from Iraq.

  No, I can’t level with the American people unless I’m willing to be a one-term president, maybe even impeached.

  Martin moved back to the desk, sat momentarily, then began to pace the few steps the room allowed.

  So, I know what I’m not going to say. What am I going to say?