Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  “We don’t want him looking presidential during your first term,” said Ella.

  “I’ll take that chance. What do you think, Bart?”

  “I think it’s a good idea. But it’s tricky—it has the potential to give him more visibility, and favorable visibility at that, than you get. It’s also tricky on resources. What resources does he control? Certainly, it’ll have to be FEMA, but what about the rest of DHS, like the coast guard? What about the military units around Las Vegas? How do we link in the attorney general and the FBI?”

  “Yeah, Bart, that’s gonna be a mess to sort out.” The president smiled at his chief of staff. “Looks like you’ll have to earn those big bucks the government pays you.

  “Sam, what do you have to say?”

  Sam knew this arrangement would cause a ferocious turf war with the vice president’s press secretary, but also saw both its logic and the fact that Martin and Guarini believed it was a good idea. She decided not to try to stop the train.

  “Like Bart said, it’s tricky. It’s probably going to get ugly from time to time, but it sounds to me like it’s what we need to do. I’m not so sure Griffith is going to want this; if there’s another attack, or somebody gets caught scamming, like what happened after Katrina, he’s going to be right in the line of fire.”

  “OK then, here’s what we do next: Bart, set up a meeting, in the Oval Office, for the two of us and the VP. Let’s see how that goes and what he wants to control.” Martin smiled. “Let the games begin!” he said, in a self-mocking tone.

  “Mr. President, Director Hendricks.” As he spoke, the air force sergeant gestured toward the handset on the bulkhead.

  Chapter 15

  “Hello, Aaron. What have you got?”

  “Mr. President, the full Paternity analysis has been completed and double-checked. Our first indications have been confirmed.”

  Martin’s stomach heaved. It was North Korea!

  “I have Scott and his lead analyst with me now, but I’d prefer to have a face-to-face.”

  “OK, let’s do that. We’re due at Andrews at . . .” Martin looked inquiringly at the sergeant, who replied, “0030, sir.”

  “0030, I’ve just been told. Let’s do it after the regular brief.”

  “Yes sir. Until tomorrow, then.”

  Martin replaced the handset. Rivulets of perspiration now ran from his armpits; he hoped they didn’t show on his shirt.

  “Aaron and Scott have information from analysis of bomb debris and fallout. Let’s circle back to what you said, Bart, about the possibility of getting a handle on the origin of the bomb. Let’s assume we’ll eventually accumulate considerable circumstantial evidence but that it won’t be conclusive. What’s our approach to that evidence? What do we do with it?”

  “Well, first of all, we should put it out there,” said Guarini. “I go back to my point about staying on the same page with the American public.”

  “Yeah, but suppose Aaron and Scott are goosey about revealing sources and methods—which they usually are!”

  “You may just have to tell them sorry and go ahead. We don’t have to hang all the laundry on the line, but for sure we have to say what this administration believes after considering the evidence.”

  Martin looked at Sam Yu.

  “Mr. President, when Bush got it wrong about Saddam’s WMD, and then so much of the world became persuaded that he had lied, it put the credibility of all future administrations in hock. To reclaim credibility, we would have to lay out all the evidence—air-tight. Short of a fully documented claim by al-Qaeda—assuming they’re the bombers—there’s nothing journalists would consider air-tight. Trust me, I am one!”

  Yu made a wry expression and continued: “So my approach is to reveal as much as you and Aaron are comfortable with and then just deal with the disbelief as factually and unemotionally as I can. And, yes, state what the administration believes but only after it’s your settled belief. Once it’s out there, there’s no credible way to change your mind without new evidence, evidence you’re willing to put on display.”

  Martin nodded, then said, “now for the really hard question. What do we do about it if we believe the bomb was built by Nation ‘X’?”

  If Rick has one trait that bothers me, thought Guarini, it’s his preference for “we.” All of us in politics use it reflexively because it serves our constant search for the cover of collective responsibility. Senators don’t have “I” moments, unless they’re talking about successes or failed policies they opposed. I’m that way for sure, so why should it bother me that he is?

  Because he’s the president.

  Having listened silently for a while, Ella suddenly spoke up, her voice cold and hard: “We hold them accountable. We do it in a way that tells anybody else thinking about providing a bomb that they’d better think again!”

  Rick said, “Ella has no doubts! She wants an eye for an eye.”

  Ella’s eyes flashed and narrowed at Rick’s condescension, but she held her tongue.

  “Well, Mr. President, that’s surely gonna be on the table,” said Guarini. “Another way of putting Ella’s words is to say that deterrence has failed and unless it’s restored, where’s the barrier to more bombings?

  “But doesn’t what you do depend a lot on the identity of nation X? I’m not sure we learn much discussing it in the abstract. You’re going to have to do something and most Americans have to feel it’s right. Beyond that, what can anybody say right now?” Guarini shrugged, palms up.

  “Dinner’s ready in the rear cabin, sir.”

  “I’m not hungry; you all please go eat. I’m going to catch a nap.”

  Ella shot Rick a look that said, “Are you OK?” He nodded and smiled, hoping she’d go eat because he was angry but didn’t want to have it out. She knew that, too, so she squeezed his shoulder and went aft with the others.

  At first Rick’s thoughts were a jumble. What am I going to do? No, what are we going to do? I’m going to involve Congress and the public. I said I would be open and I will be open. But Bush got Congress and the public and the UN involved with Iraq and spent six months trying to find a course that had real support. No, he didn’t exactly do that. He spent six months trying to develop support for what he had decided—invasion. I’ll do it differently. I won’t try to sell; I’ll lead a genuine national and international dialogue.

  But what if there’s another bombing? What then? And how much time do we have to sort this out? The economy is panicked. I laughed when Bush urged Americans to buy and sell, go to dinner, take that vacation, but he was addressing the problem I have right now: if Americans don’t resume normal activity soon, we’re going to have a meltdown. And that nightmare in the desert—I’m going to be blamed when it’s not all tied up neatly in a month!

  No! There are opportunities for me, particularly after I hand security and recovery off to Bruce. And after I hang the bomb on Kim, I can make a strong case that he has to go . . . hold summits to get the support of the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and South Koreans . . . probably use this as the lever to unite Korea. And if I position the South to run the country, they’ll support reunification. Maybe they’ll even provide the troops if force is required to remove Kim. Then there’s the opportunity to establish stronger accountability for nuclear weapons and materials, maybe give the IAEA real teeth.

  I have the chance to put the world on a safer course!

  ***

  The man being interviewed in front of a very large tent wore scrubs and exhaustion. “Yes,” he said, “we’ve put the worst injured in these tents. There’s nothing we can do except make them comfortable with drugs and give family members a chance to be with them.”

  The screen changed to a stand-up of a reporter looking almost as tired as the nurse.

  “And so it has come to this,” she said with a delivery that had once been brisk but now was slurred. “The American medical system is completely overwhelmed by Las Vegas. All of the technology, all of the drug
s, all of the dedication of its people, and the best that can be done is to make thousands of terribly injured human beings quote comfortable unquote in a sweltering desert until their lives flicker out.

  “Will the president’s visit change anything? Now that he and the first lady have seen and felt the horror here, will the Martin administration do more? People here are praying it will.

  “This is Ellen Shapiro reporting from Creech Air Force Base, near what used to be Las Vegas, Nevada—or maybe, from hell.”

  Chapter 16

  The White House

  The president reread the Wall Street Journal’s editorial:

  Where casinos like the Thunderbird and the Golden Phoenix once stood, another sort of bird rules. Las Vegas is now the home of a vast congregation of vultures, carrion crows, and even seagulls, in their thousands. The smell of death travels to the visitor and the survivor on desert winds.

  But this is more than the smell of death. It is the smell of Evil.

  We are well aware that any use of the term “evil” invites parody. Many in the president’s party ridiculed the phrase “axis of evil” and still refuse to receive the idea of evil into “serious” political discourse, taking its use as evidence the speaker is simply another redneck clinging to guns and God.

  We would remind those who have banished this term of an observation by human rights activist Natan Sharansky, once a political prisoner in Russia’s gulag, now an Israeli citizen and political figure. Writing about the differences between repressive social systems and free ones, he said, “Over the years, I have come to understand a critical difference between the world of fear and the world of freedom. In the former, the primary challenge is finding the inner strength to confront evil. In the latter, the primary challenge is finding the moral clarity to see evil.”

  We applaud the breadth and wisdom of the plan to which President Martin so eloquently rallied a shocked nation in the first hours after the murder of Las Vegas. As an intellectual construct, we could not improve upon it. Although it was more a wish list than a call to arms, it really is all that is possible right now because we don’t know—as the president said, “yet”—whom to hold to account.

  When we do know, we expect President Martin to have the moral clarity to reject the counsel of those who will say we brought this on ourselves, or who claim that retaliation is beneath a great nation, or any of the other echoes that persist of the puerile sixties refrain, “hey, can’t we all just get along?”

  The answer to that question is no, we can’t, not after Las Vegas.

  Martin gulped the rest of his coffee and walked down the South Portico to the Oval Office. If the Journal’s editorial board knew what Aaron had told him last night, what would they call for him to do now? He was pretty sure he knew.

  As usual, Bart Guarini and John Dorn attended the daily intelligence briefing. Afterwards, Hendricks looked at the president inquiringly. His look said, “now for Paternity. Do you want these guys in the room?”

  Martin spoke: “Bart and John, we’re going to hear from Aaron about a scientific analysis that may help identify the bomb. I’ve asked Bruce and Sam to join us.”

  When Griffith and Yu had poured coffee and taken seats, Martin looked around and said, “Aaron has additional information about the bomb. This information comes from something called the Paternity Project, which will be new to you, Bart and Sam. The NSC has had a presentation on Paternity and after this meeting I’d like you to go to the skif for that same briefing.”

  Well, that should make Bruce feel better, thought Rick. He knows he was brought into Paternity before Bart.

  “Go ahead Aaron.”

  “Mr. President, let me begin by summarizing matters briefly for Bart and Sam. For more than forty years, we‘ve been collecting, both clandestinely and openly, samples of nuclear material from around the world. This material is for the Paternity Project, one of our most tightly held secrets. The resulting library has given us the capability to determine the origin of the uranium or plutonium in a bomb, either before or after it has exploded. The Paternity analysis has already been used successfully on three occasions, one involving tests by Pakistan and two by North Korea. When the Paks tested, we revealed something about it to the Chinese. Las Vegas is the fourth time we’ve done this analysis.

  “Our assessment has been conducted independently by two teams. Both reached the same result: Las Vegas was destroyed by a plutonium weapon, and the plutonium came from North Korea’s Yongbyon fuel reprocessing facility. I have no doubt about that. Let me show you something.”

  An assistant handed Hendricks four charts. He gave one to Martin and passed the others to Guarini, who handed them around. Each chart had three patterns of vertical lines marching across it, one above the other, apparently identical. The top pattern was labeled “First DPRK Test.” The middle pattern was labeled “Second DPRK Test” and he bottom one, “Las Vegas.”

  “These charts display the results of spectrographic analyses of the particles collected after North Korean tests in 2006 and 2009, and at Las Vegas. As you can see, they match.

  “This is not the only evidence. Paternity has samples of the fuel rods used in Kim’s research reactor and copies of its operating records indicating what the isotopic composition of plutonium reprocessed from those fuel rods would be. We ran another analysis, comparing the isotopic composition of the Las Vegas sample to the predicted isotopic composition of plutonium from Yongbyon. They matched.

  “There are third and fourth pieces of evidence. They’re not as solid, but they also point to North Korea.

  “This explosion was weak, as nuclear explosions go. We estimate one to five kilotons. There’s evidence that the uncontrolled chain reaction—the explosion—was poorly tamped. In other words, the force of the explosion blew the plutonium apart so rapidly that very little of it exploded. This matches what we found in samples of their test in 2006, which was also only about six kilotons, and in 2009.

  “The fourth piece of evidence is that last January an account controlled by Kim received a deposit of one billion Swiss francs from an Iranian bank.

  “We believe the Las Vegas bomb was of North Korean origin, Mr. President.”

  Rick noted the qualifications in that careful statement, but of course Hendrickson would hedge.

  He spoke: “Aaron told me last night, so I’ve had a little more time to absorb it. But I’d like to hear your initial reactions.”

  Dorn said, “OK, now we can start developing a specific strategy. How much confidence do we have in this information? That’s question one. Two, with that figured out, what actions do we take? Three, do we put this out and if so, to whom?”

  “I think we put it out there,” said Yu. “It’s going to leak. We can’t have as many agencies and people as we need working on our response without a leak; it’s a given.”

  “Before we do that, we probably should privately brief key ambassadors; and let the president make a few calls to heads of state, before we do that,” said Battista.

  “Don’t forget briefing congressional leaders,” Guarini added, to a chorus of agreement from all but the vice president.

  “That’s only window dressing!” said Griffith. “What really matters is what this administration is going to do about the fact that North Korea enabled terrorists to kill tens of thousands of Americans on June thirteenth. And it’s not just about what they did. It’s about blocking what they may do next. We must act!”

  Martin’s eyes narrowed. There he goes again, half-cocked! “Bruce, what about John’s first point—what’s our confidence in Paternity?”

  “Mr. President, we’ve just seen the evidence and it’s solid. Aaron says he has no doubts. That’s good enough for me!”

  “George Tenet believed Saddam had WMD and he was dead wrong.”

  The VP interlaced his fingers and leaned forward, forearms on the table. His voice rang with conviction: “This is not the same situation, not even close! One—Paternity is a proven technolog
y. Two—we’re not guessing Kim has nuclear weapons; he’s shown the world by testing them. Three—Kim has a record: He sold missiles to Iran and Pakistan and helped Syria build a nuclear reactor to make plutonium. Four—the stakes are much higher now. If Kim continues to pass nukes to terrorists, more cities will be destroyed. America will come apart if that happens!”

  The president, sitting with legs crossed in his back-tilted chair, thought about asking Griffith what he recommended but didn’t want that discussion now. Scrambling like a quarterback, he lobbed a pass. “Bart, you haven’t said much yet.”

  “That’s right, sir. I really need the full briefing first. Sam and I should get up to speed.”

  Martin nodded. Good ol’ Bart! He always gets it.

  “Right! Let’s wrap this up so you and Sam can do just that. Aaron, Bruce, and I need Bart for a meeting in an hour, so get to it now. Bruce, see you at ten thirty.”

  Right on schedule, Guarini and Griffith returned to the Oval Office. Martin motioned to the couches and sank into a wingback chair facing them.

  “Bruce, last night I came to an important conclusion. The gravity and complexity of this situation requires unprecedented measures. No administration since Lincoln’s has faced such a combination of destruction and danger within America’s borders. On top of that, there are huge challenges abroad, beginning with the one we spoke about an hour ago. There is simply too much presidential-level decision making and leadership for me to do it all. I’ve decided to give you a very large, critically important set of responsibilities.”

  Martin paused, looking intently into Griffith’s eyes, seeing curiosity, caution, and ambition. “Bruce, I’m putting you in charge of recovery, reconstruction, and internal security. Your authority and responsibility will be second only to mine in those areas.”

  The two gazed at each other, probing eyes, as Griffith did the risk-benefit calculations and took notice that he was not being invited to consider this role. It was being assigned. Realizing he had to accept, he decided to see what more he could get.