Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  Battista’s mouth flew open, a volcano’s maw, then clamped shut as her eyes went from fiery to uncertain. She shut her briefcase and stalked out.

  What brought that on? she thought. Is the pressure too much for Bart?

  Chapter 18

  An Army Compound in Pakistan.

  “Of course, the Americans are frantic to get their hands on everyone who could possibly be implicated in the bombing or help them find out who is.”

  President Bahadar Sharif was speaking, his eyes probing the group. “Two days ago I received a call from Martin. The Americans want access to A. Q. He was polite but clear: if we do not grant them access the consequences for Pakistan will be as bad as he can make them. Martin gave me his version of Bush’s declaration that those not with the U.S. are against it.”

  The men sat around a table in a room as full of tension as it was of cigarette smoke. They rarely gathered, this group: the current and former political and military leaders of Pakistan. Some had imprisoned or exiled others; some, or their fathers, had hung or blown up close relatives. One had become president after others assassinated his wife, whose father had been hung by his presidential successor. On this occasion, the threat they felt was enough to make them put aside animosity, even hatred, and accept the invitation of Pakistan’s president to meet secretly.

  One of Sharif’s predecessors, General Pervez Musharraf, smiled bitterly. “At least he told you that. I got that speech from a deputy secretary of state.”

  The general who headed Inter-Service Intelligence, the ISI, said, “The Americans are naive, but they are powerful. They are confused, but they are dangerous. Even a blind tiger can kill you, eventually, if you if are locked in his cage. Since American nuclear missiles can reach anywhere on earth, we are locked in the tiger’s cage.”

  Looking around, Sharif said, “What do we know and what is the worst we might not know?”

  Musharraf said, “What we know is that al-Qaeda did this to avenge bin Laden, or even if they didn’t, will happily bask in rumors that they did. That some al-Qaeda leaders are still in Pakistan, where they have been sheltered by certain of us for years. That our own, esteemed father of the Muslim bomb, Dr. A. Q. Khan, ran a nuclear black market for over twenty years and we don’t know the full extent of his customer list. That in response to far less deadly attacks in 2001, the Americans decimated the leadership of al-Qaeda and every group thought to be involved in the attack or potentially able to launch new attacks. That in the process the Americans invaded and conquered two countries, hanging the leaders of one of them.”

  Musharraf felt their complete attention now and gave a tight little smile.

  “The worst we might not know is that A. Q. is directly linked to making the Las Vegas bomb. He denies it, but of course he would, now. However, I can tell you that in 1999 I heard that he was airlifting some irregular cargo to North Korea. I tried hard to find out what it was but could not.”

  The chief of staff of Pakistan’s army said, “This is not 2001! The Americans have learned the costs and limits of the power they are willing to use, their non-nuclear power. Even after losing tens of thousands in the attack, President Martin has made statements less threatening than Volkov’s—and the Russians didn’t even get bombed! What do we have to worry about, even if A. Q. did enable the Koreans to have nuclear weapons and they sold one to al-Qaeda?”

  Musharraf said, “You can say that, even after they easily penetrated the heart of Pakistan to assassinate bin Laden?”

  “We knew the bird was there; he was in our cage. We could pluck him out and hand him over to the Americans at the time of our choosing. Who could have known bin Laden would be so careless, so incompetent, as to allow couriers to lead the Americans to him?”

  Musharraf looked at the group, shaking his head, a teacher saddened by obtuse pupils: “What you have to understand about the Americans is that they themselves do not know how bloody-minded they are; or, at least, they‘re unable to acknowledge it. Because those idiots, whoever they are, used a nuclear weapon, the world is in a new situation. Now, the only resolution Americans will accept is the total destruction of the individuals and countries they hold responsible. In the case of Korea–or Pakistan–that can be done in about one hour, with less than a tenth of America’s nuclear missiles.

  “President Martin is giving speeches about responding to this tragedy by building a safer world for all, but behind him American anger is building. Before long, Martin will find himself scrambling to catch up to the cowboys who want to find everybody who had a hand in this and nuke them until they glow, as I believe their expression goes.”

  “So,” said Bahadar Sharif, “where does that leave us?”

  “In great danger,” said Musharraf.

  The group was quiet.

  “So let’s preempt the cowboys!” said a former head of the ISI, General Daud. “Let’s feed the blind tiger, so that it won’t eat us. Let’s round up some Arabs and hand them to the Americans. And A. Q., too! That bastard lied to us, Pervez, and never shared the millions he got from being a nuclear peddler. I’m sure that money is in Switzerland. Let’s give him, too, to President Martin!”

  Musharraf started to respond, but the chief justice of Pakistan’s supreme court said, “What about the reaction among the people if we do that? There will be terrible unrest! A. Q. is a hero to our entire nation.”

  “I for one don’t want to explain to Pakistan’s people why their government turned A. Q. over to the Americans!” said the leader of Pakistan’s second-largest political party. “A. Q. is old, sick, and rightly admired for giving us the bomb. Without him, we’d have to cower every time those Indian bastards fart. The Americans haven’t asked to take him, only to speak to him. If they do ask, then we decide. No, let’s give them some Arabs, but not A. Q., at least not yet.”

  Sharif looked at the others, saw agreement. He said, “We in this room are the heart and soul of Pakistan. If we are agreed in taking this step and each of us controls our followers, unrest will be manageable.”

  “How will you do it?” asked Daud.

  “That’s for my government to determine,” responded Sharif. “But, I don’t mind telling all of you what I’m thinking. We’ll give that greedy bastard A. Q. one chance to save his miserable skin: We will require that the American interrogation be conducted in A. Q’s home, under our supervision. If he is clever enough to avoid implicating himself, he stays in Pakistan. If he does not, we will let the Americans have him.

  “Martin will be so grateful that, even if it does turn out that A. Q. helped build that bomb, he’ll be willing to shield Pakistan.”

  Bahadar Sharif went around the table, and each man agreed. It was done. The group dispersed rapidly, glad to be free of each other

  Chapter 19

  “Ella, I’ve been thinking about what I said on the plane, about you wanting an eye for an eye. That was mean of me. I apologize.”

  Her look told him she was glad for his apology but wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

  They were together in the White House family quarters but alone, each cocooned by festering anger. Rick knew Ella wanted to talk about his dismissive words on the plane. He also knew she wouldn’t bring it up. After a day of nonstop decision making, he felt as if he couldn’t form even one more coherent sentence. But he knew continued silence wasn’t an option.

  “Rick, it’s not our disagreement: it’s the way you handled it. You acted like I’m some hockey mom who doesn’t have a brain! I have a law degree from Columbia, for God’s sake, and my GPA was better than yours. I’m as smart as anyone on that plane!”

  He grimaced, hands up in appeal. “I said I was sorry!”

  She slammed her book shut. “I don’t think you get my point, dammit! If you include me in meetings I’m going to express opinions. I’m not going to sit there like a piece of arm candy. And if you dis me again, I’m not just going to take it quietly! You know, Rick, you’re admired for listening to all points of view. A
ll, that is, except mine. It’s time you started hearing me.”

  “OK, OK—Uncle!” he said, flashing his never-fail disarming grin.

  “And you are going to begin now!”

  Rick groaned inside. This conversation was a chasm between him and bed. “OK, what’s on your mind?”

  “As if you didn’t know!”

  “What?”

  “An eye for an eye.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you can’t dismiss it. There’re lots of Americans who think that’s the way to go when we find out who did this. Maybe they’re not the people who voted for us, although I’ll bet some did, but you’re going to have to engage their point of view. You can’t just look down your nose at it and them. And you are going to have to do it soon.”

  Rick’s eyes dropped. “I know.”

  “And you are going to have to consider it seriously. That call from Aaron during the flight tells me we’ve figured out where the bomb came from—at least as solidly as we can. You haven’t said anything and you don’t need to. It’s got to be either North Korea or Iran, or, just maybe, Pakistan. None of the other nuclear governments is so out of touch with reality as to run the risk or, like Pakistan, so lacking control over their country.”

  She looked into his eyes. “What are you going to do, Rick?”

  He held her gaze. “What’s best for this country and the world.”

  “Suppose what’s best for this country isn’t what’s best for the world?”

  “I’ll deal with that if it plays that way.”

  “Which comes first?”

  “This country, of course—why do you ask?” he snapped.

  “Just wanted to hear you say it! Rick, do you realize that you haven’t once said ‘my country,’ or ‘our country’? That seems disconnected to me, as if you’re some impartial judge. Is this about your country and my country?”

  Rick shot to his feet as if her words were electricity. “Ella, you’re being silly, like those people who think it matters whether or not I wear a flag pin!”

  “No, Rick, I’m not! Answer my question.”

  Her eyes felt like searchlights probing for his soul. “All right. Of course this is about my country and your country!”

  “Rick, you’re famous for your cool. You’ve accomplished some amazing things because you stayed detached, didn’t get caught up in emotions. I understand why you’re that way—you saw your parents destroy each other with their anger. But remaining emotionally unattached also means you can only draw strength from yourself, from that cool, quick, bright intellect of yours, and from God.”

  She glared. “You with me?”

  He nodded.

  “Rick, could you order a nuclear attack on North Korea or Iran? I don’t mean do you have the authority, I mean could you do it?”

  “Ella, it’s not going to come to that.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Don’t duck the question, Rick!”

  The searchlights had found their target. He looked away, then back. “Tell me why I would do such a thing, something that would make me as bloody as whoever set off that bomb, as bloody as Saddam, as bloody as that butcher in Serbia!”

  She flung her right hand toward him. “How about your duty as president of the United States, how about the oath you took to preserve, protect, and defend?”

  Rick’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t agree to become a mass murderer when I took that oath!”

  “What did you swear to do?”

  He took a breath, exhaled slowly. “I swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. The Constitution is about life, about living freely—not about murder. There will be a way to do this without becoming a murderer like the ones who destroyed Las Vegas!”

  Ella sat up straighter, glanced at the book in her lap, then said, “Rick, I pray you’re right. But this may reach a point where there’s no way to protect the people of our country, except by destroying the country—and its people—whose government is giving or selling nukes to terrorists. And if that happens, you’ll need more than your intellect and detachment. You’ll need at least some fraction of the feeling of belonging to the tribe, the tribe of Americans, which led other Americans to endure torture in Hanoi, to attack the men with box cutters knowing it meant crashing their airliner, to endure the sickness and the terror of Guadalcanal, and to stand sentry barefooted in the winter of 1778.”

  Then her words stabbed: “I don’t think you have that feeling right now, Rick—you’d better begin working on it!”

  Wonderful! Rick thought, scowling. You’ve just asked me to become part of mankind’s greatest problem, tribalism. The tribe is mankind, not Arab or Jew, Korean or American!

  He felt like countering with a zinger, but Ella had begun her diatribe by ordering him to hear her. He knew he would lose her respect and earn her anger if he tried to brush by this moment, so instead he did something unusual: He spoke without calculation or circumlocution.

  “Ella, I’m not sure if I can do that.” His face was troubled.

  She stood, facing him and taking his hands. “Tell me what you felt when Steve Nguyen appealed to you.”

  “That my soul is accountable to his soul and the souls of his wife and kids, for making this come out OK.” He felt her hands squeeze his.

  “That’s a start. What else did you feel?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rage. Nobody has the right to do that to the people of this country, no matter what our differences may be!”

  “The people of this country. Would those be Americans? She smiled at him.

  Smiling back he said, “Yes—Americans.”

  “OK. Keep thinking about them. Keep thinking about those doomed, suffering Americans we watched wandering the no-go zone until they collapsed.”

  All right, she thought. He is strong enough to do this! I just have to keep helping him break through his detachment, his damned neutrality. Suddenly she was bursting with tenderness for this good man who was facing a decision so horrible that he could not yet acknowledge it.

  Pulling him to her she said, “OK, bedtime. You come wit’ me, sojer. I show you good time.”

  Rick couldn’t stay awake for the good time.

  As she watched him sleep, Ella thought, not for the first time since arriving in the United States, what an odd sense of self many prominent Americans exhibited.

  It’s as if they think of themselves as people who happen to live in America, rather than as Americans. Do they consider that because they “happen” to live here their lives are longer, richer, safer than if they “happened” to live in the Congo or Yemen or Sudan or . . . Mexico?

  No, they show no sign of realizing that their safety and freedom are not givens.

  Are they aware that if America “happens” to become less secure, less wealthy, less free, their lives will change for the worse? They don’t act like it. It’s as if they believe they have only to click some “opt out” button. Observing their detachment, I think of dinosaurs munching placidly, while their changing environment prepares to kill them.

  Chapter 20

  A burly figure pounded the treadmill in the gym provided for members of the House of Representatives. It was 5:45 a.m., or 0545 to Ray Morales, who still thought in military time. There was a scattering of others but Morales was alone, engrossed in thought.

  I’ve heard a lot about helping the victims but not much about how we’re going to prevent more attacks. We haven’t got anything yet on who planted the bomb or how, so preventing another attack is that much harder. Al-Qaeda probably did it, but other than motive there’s zip connecting them so far. This thing could have been done with far fewer people in the know than Nine-eleven, and some or all of them were vaporized in Las Vegas.

  The president laid out an ambitious plan in his speech, but since then I haven’t observed, or heard from my Marine buddies, anything more than dealing with Las Vegas. Rick and Ella were smart to make that quick trip to the scene. Video hit millions of bloggers and crack
berry addicts, plus saturating cable and network news programs and social networking sites. Slick!

  So our president has shown us his compassion. I hope he’s about to demonstrate leadership and fidelity to his duty as commander-in-chief. I figure the bomb must have come from North Korea or Iran. When the scientists in DOE figure out who made it, what then, Mr. President?

  Morales accelerated. Sweat streaked his face and his pace drove his thoughts.

  And what, Mr. President, if the dragnets sweeping the country snare someone who probably knows who did the deed, or who probably knows about another attack in the works? What will you do, Rick Martin? If you stick by your statement that the country doesn’t need to compromise its ideals in order to defend itself, you’ll never find those answers.

  Morales shifted to high gear. He felt the regular rhythm of his stride seeming to give order and discipline to his thoughts. A quick smile as he admitted that, secretly, he’d always liked marching, its precision and certainty.

  Ideals are important, but if you stick to them while someone with a different set is using yours to kill you, you’re gonna die. I know that from experience. If you play nice, Rick, if you salve your conscience, how many more Americans will be killed in an attack that you might have prevented or disrupted?

  And then there’s Ella, her life in Mexico, her father—how he died and why. She believes that beyond a point, negotiation and compromise won’t hack it; that it’s sometimes foolish to wait until struck to strike yourself. She knows what it is to be stalked by an implacable killer. One got her father and would have murdered her if he hadn’t sent his family to Los Angeles. I wonder what she’s thinking and saying to Rick?

  At the end of his workout, Morales grabbed his towel and blotted his forehead, breathing heavily.