Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  Later it would be clear that on this day the tide of American opinion turned against the president’s strategy.

  ***

  Siebersdorf, Austria

  Erika van Bruntland sighed and shifted in her chair. She was balancing the good of her organization, and her career, with an unwelcome truth in the report before her.

  Erika was short, florid, loved Dutch beer, was addicted to Gauloises cigarettes, and fought a losing battle to follow the instructions of her keen mind to take better care of herself. That keen mind was now wrestling with a problem for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Analytical Laboratories, which she headed.

  Entitled with perfect bureaucratic opacity, “Forensic Analysis of Certain Plutonium Isotopes,” the report contained a sensational and potentially deadly conclusion: the isotopic signature of a sample of the Las Vegas fallout, obtained independently by the IAEA, matched that of a plutonium sample taken by the IAEA from piping at Yongbyon. That sample had been taken in 1990 by inspectors observing a strict protocol and chain of custody, with the permission of the North Koreans. The IAEA’s Yongbyon sample was genuine and unadulterated—unchallengeable, unless one alleged the IAEA was knowingly part of a U.S. deception. The lab had also compared the IAEA’s Yongbyon sample to that alleged by the United States to be a sample from Yongbyon. They matched. The U.S. accusation of North Korea had a credible scientific basis.

  The problem, she knew, was that the IAEA director-general didn’t want to point to North Korea, because that might set the stage for the country’s nuclear destruction by the United States. The fact that the UN secretary-general was South Korean made his predicament even worse.

  Unfortunately for the director-general, the U.S. government had asked the IAEA to gather and analyze a sample of the Las Vegas fallout, and he felt unable to refuse. Also unfortunately for him, the manager responsible for the analysis was van Bruntland.

  It wasn’t that she cared much for the United States or its policies; it was that she cared for science and truth and fairness and had courage. Somewhere in her DNA was the readiness to risk all to do the right thing that had motivated some of her countrymen to protect Dutch Jews from the Nazis. Van Bruntland had slow-rolled the lab work and report, but she had not yielded to pressure to “overlook” the agency’s own Yongbyon sample.

  I’m going to play this absolutely straight, she thought. Even so, I’m going to make some of the bigs furious. She felt her stomach jump. I’ve got my pension, but I’m scared.

  Van Bruntland closed the cover with a snap, heaved herself to her feet, and left her office, telling her secretary she was going to confer with her boss.

  Chapter 35

  Rick put down the report he had been reading and Ella said, “So what about Kim? What’s your gut saying about the prospects of getting him to give up his nukes or step aside?”

  They were sitting in the one room of the White House that was truly theirs. Officially it was “The Washington Sitting Room,” but at Ella’s insistence it had been redecorated: every stick of furniture, everything on the walls, every piece of décor had come from their home. “When we leave,” she had said, “Washington can have his room back.”

  He massaged his temples, then stood and began to pace. “I wasn’t at my best when we met—it was such a total surprise! Still, I pushed him—hard—on his responsibility for Las Vegas. I told him clearly he had to step aside or there would be severe consequences.”

  Scowling, Rick continued: “But the way it ended, he may have gotten the impression he can run over me, because we got interrupted. Like I said, he was raving like a Jack Nicholson character about destroying Japan and South Korea, and piling up a mountain of dead U.S. soldiers. Then, Ming comes in and Kim stops in mid-sentence, thanks me—in English, no less—turns and thanks Ming, and then Ming ushers me out. I didn’t have a chance to respond to his anger and threats. He might think I had no response, that he bullied me into silence. That concerns me.”

  “What Kim may think won’t matter if we kill him, like bin Laden.”

  Rick’s eyes widened. “Ella, how can you say that? Kim’s not some terrorist; he’s the head of state of a nation with twenty million people and a seat in the UN!”

  “Rick, Kim is the absolute ruler of a country we call a state sponsor of terrorism! Why doesn’t that make him a terrorist, more dangerous than bin Laden was? Kim kills over twenty times more Americans than bin Laden, but we won’t touch him? Explain that!”

  “Dammit, Ella! I will not become a killer in order to deal with one. . . . Besides, it’s too personal. Everybody would see it that way.”

  “Rick, with the radiation deaths, Kim has now killed about eighty thousand Americans. Shouldn’t it be personal?”

  “But he’s a head of state. If we open that can of worms, where does it stop? Do we take out the leader of every country that we fear, that we disagree with? Do other nations start doing that? Once that genie is out of the bottle, the world’s nations are essentially at endless war with each other—there’s nothing to stop those who say, “She disagrees? Kill her!”

  His face working, Rick turned away and stared out the window. A thunderstorm had engulfed Washington, announcing a respite from the day’s heat.

  Rising, Ella said to his back, “Do you worry that Kim might bomb us again because he thinks he cowed you?”

  “No, he knows our identification technology works and would point to him. He’d have to expect a nuclear attack in response.”

  “Would he be right to expect that, Rick?”

  The president was silent. Ella waited. He said in a low voice, “I’d have to consider it seriously. It would be about all we could do . . . and I’d be impeached otherwise.”

  Ella gripped his shoulder and her voice was hard and sharp, a blade: “Could you give the order, Rick?

  He turned but didn’t answer. His eyes met hers, then cut away. Staring over Ella’s shoulder, Rick said, “Well, I still have time to think about that. It may not come to it. I’m determined that it won’t come to it! Look, we’ve got a lot of balls in the air now. We’re sealing off North Korea so no more bombs get out. We’re pushing hard at the Security Council, and my speech to the General Assembly could put us over the top.”

  His speech accelerating, as if velocity gave certainty, Rick said, “And then there’s Ming Liu. I think the reason he sprang that meeting with Kim was to show that Kim is erratic and defiant, but he has leverage over him. He wanted to demonstrate how much the United States needs China’s support. I know Ming wants more than we can afford to give, but I don’t see why we can’t meet in the middle. After all, Ming can’t want to see me forced into using nukes right next door to China!”

  Rick’s like a fox, thought Ella, surrounded by hunters and dogs, darting to familiar escapes only to find them blocked. He’s being driven toward the corner he fears most, toward a decision only two other presidents ever faced. He’s still twisting and turning, trying to squirm through openings, thinking he can outrun the jaws of his duty, but they’re getting closer.

  Ella’s eyes filled and her throat ached. He believes he can escape, but he can’t. The president can’t. Oh, God! What will those jaws do to Rick’s soul!

  I’ve never faced anything like this. How can I help him?

  Chapter 36

  The world’s correspondents, editors, anchors, pundits, and “experts” of all sorts shouted with the frenzy of songbirds’ dawn chorus in mating season. The most titillating aspect of the UN special session on combating nuclear terrorism was that Kim Jong-il would attend “to correct and rebut the vicious lies and fabrications of the arrogant and foolish President Martin.” Some journalists saw Kim’s decision as a sign that he respected Martin and wanted to engage diplomatically to work things out. Others said Kim had bullied him in Beijing and was coming to the UN to do it again. That week a video portraying Kim as a trash-talking criminal threatening a bumbling Martin made YouTube’s Most Popular list.

  A
s the hour for his speech approached, the president sat with Oscar Neumann, Bart Guarini, and Anne Battista in Neumann’s UN office. As they talked, Sam Yu worked the phones, breaking off when Martin beckoned.

  “Sam, what does it look like to you right now? What’s the story line?”

  “Well, Mr. President, there’s no doubt Kim’s going to drive a lot of the coverage. Many are going to lead it as a sort of OK Corral showdown, with words instead of six-shooters. Some will approve, maybe recalling Churchill’s comment, ‘to jaw, jaw is better than to war, war.’ Others will play it as a predictable consequence of your decision to work through the UN, one that grants a world audience and de facto equality to Kim and puts the United States in the dock.”

  Martin grimaced. “So what can you do to mute the negatives?”

  Yu glanced at her bleeping smart phone, silenced it, and said, “Well, a lot depends on Kim.” She ticked off points as she spoke. “If he disagrees in a sober, diplomatic way, we say that you wisely brought him to the table to give peace a chance. If he foams at the mouth, we say you lured him into a public display that demonstrates his erratic and volatile nature. If that happens, we’ll imply that his behavior is consistent with the irrationality it would take to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon. On background we’ll say: you guys saw him—was that the behavior of a rational man? How could any administration do more than we are to protect the country without resort to our own nuclear weapons?”

  We’ve got the bases covered, she thought, head tilted back to look Martin in the eyes.

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, Martin said, “Yeah, either of those spins will help with the Left, but what about the Right, the nuke-’em-til-they-glow bunch?”

  Shaking her head, Yu said, “Mr. President, nothing short of removing Kim will placate those groups! They want you impeached because Kim’s still there and you haven’t pushed the red button. They’ll continue to shout about that no matter what you do today.”

  Rick shrugged. “So how’re we doing with the rest?”

  “Well, as usual, polling shows people are not thinking about this in a consistent or disciplined way. For example, a large majority is against any measure that would seriously harm large numbers of North Koreans. But when asked more specific questions, turns out they would support actions that caused a lot of Korean casualties if they believed they were necessary to stop further nuclear attacks on the U.S.”

  The president sighed. “In other words, the majority want me to make the North Korean problem go away but not make them feel bad about it!”

  Guarini spoke: “So how do we look regionally, Sam?”

  Stealing a glance at her vibrating phone, Yu said, “Generally speaking, the closer someone is, geographically or personally, to Las Vegas, the more negatives about how we’re handling things. A clear majority in the Northeast think your diplomacy is the right approach. There’s an exception to that—right here in New York City. For obvious reasons, the people here feel connected to Las Vegas. Out on the West Coast, opinion splits evenly, but the trend is negative. About two-thirds of those in the South and the Mountain states are negative. The Midwest and upper Midwest are split, with support for you increasing as you move north.”

  Turning to Martin, Guarini said, “Mr. President, we need to get something out there showing we have a tough Plan B.”

  “And what is that, Bart?” said Battista, eyes flashing.

  “Come on, Anne! You know that if what we’re doing now—quarantine, the UN, the IAEA, the Northeast Asia Group—doesn’t soon show signs of getting Kim out, we’ve got to try something else. We can’t stick with this approach if it’s a loser!”

  Seeing Battista’s hands snap to her hips as she yanked her shoulders back, inhaling to propel her riposte, Rick thought, great—my two oldest advisors are like eighteen-wheelers about to collide!

  Not far away, President Ming sat with the Chinese permanent representative to the UN. In his office, Ambassador Huang Bo advised Ming from a comfortable chair across a low table.

  “Martin is in a very difficult position,” said Huang. “None of his initiatives has budged Kim, who proclaims innocence and threatens to destroy South Korea and Japan if attacked. The quarantine is working but only because we have sealed our Korean border, refused over-flight to any aircraft bound to or from the DPRK, and held our navy back. The Americans’ polls show a trend away from Martin’s policy. He is being undermined not only by Kim’s defiance and clever manipulation of opinion but also by his own vice president. Vice President Griffith has become quite popular—something rare in their politics for a vice president—and he is advocating a harder line. Sources tell us that Griffith is quietly contacting legislators, testing their stomach for Martin’s removal, which they have the power to do through a process called impeachment. If Martin is impeached, Griffith immediately becomes president. Martin may believe you hold the key to his survival.”

  Ming peered at him over steepled fingers, then said, “What might he be prepared to offer?” Prior to being appointed to the UN, Huang Bo had several postings to Washington, ultimately as ambassador. Ming thought Huang understood Americans and their government better than anyone else in China’s leadership.

  “Martin is a man of great self-confidence. Perhaps he does not yet believe his position is as precarious as it is. We Chinese are not being forced by events to take any position. We are not in danger from Kim, or from al-Qaeda. America is facing the dragons: we are not.”

  Ming was mulling that over when the Americans arrived. During a few minutes of small talk he decided Martin did, indeed, seem supremely confident. But although his senses were dulled by the intervention of interpreters, Ming discerned, the way he might sense an object hidden by the sun’s glare, that Martin knew he was running out of time. And Battista: squinting, body taut. He saw her brittleness, the gambler facing long odds but forced to play.

  The two leaders and their foreign ministers moved into Huang Bo’s official office while he and Neumann went to his private office. Martin said, “President Ming, this is a historic occasion! History will mark it as the point at which mankind turned from the seductive but terribly dangerous path of nuclear proliferation. I’m grateful that you are here.”

  Ming nodded, holding his face blank.

  “Let us talk of history for a moment, the history of your country and mine. Am I correct that you have been briefed, as I have, about the discussion between our governments after the Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998?”

  “I certainly recall the tests, but what about them?”

  “The U.S. government analyzed gasses that vented from the underground test chambers and determined that some of the nuclear material was of Chinese origin. Our secretary of state called in your ambassador and, I am told, not only protested strongly but identified the Chinese facility that had produced this material.”

  “Perhaps this occurred as you say. I could make inquiries.”

  Feeling a weight on his shoulders, Martin thought, he’s not going to deal now. Ming’s going to make me come to him, ask for what I want, and then put me off. I’ll still need his support next week, next month, and next year; he can take his time, wait for me to put more and more carrots in front of him, knowing I have no sticks. There are things China wants at play in this situation, but not things China needs.

  No, that’s not right—China needs North Korea as a buffer! Rick bridled his excitement.

  “President Ming, I hope we have the same understanding of the situation between the United States and North Korea. Kim attacked us, and as long as he remains in power, we are at risk of other attacks. That is intolerable. But if a coalition removes Kim and his successor agrees to verifiably end their nuclear weapon programs . . . we have no need to further change the character of the DPRK. China could earn the gratitude of the United States and the entire world if you led such a coalition.”

  Martin’s eyes held Ming’s in silence.

  Anne Battista gulped. Rick’s so o
ften cited the reunification of Korea as an example of how good might come from the tragedy. He just abandoned that, without even being asked. I know we’re in a weak position, but this means Rick’s desperate. She felt slickness on her palms.

  That’s interesting, thought Ming. He just told me that North Korea could remain a sovereign, communist nation. Let’s see what else he’ll give me.

  “Mr. President, what you suggest would be difficult for China, maybe impossible. Perhaps a situation could arise in which such a change would benefit the people of the Democratic Republic. That would be worthy of consideration and further discussion. However, in the few minutes we have left, I would like to hear your plans for nuclear weapons.”

  Rick winced, stomach acid burning in his throat. Ming just pocketed my concession and told me the price is higher still. He’s got the power and he’s going to use it—bastard! Why doesn’t he see this is in China’s interest?

  Martin resumed: “As important as those plans are, Mr. President, I believe that at this moment there is a more urgent matter. I’m speaking of the U.S. proposal that the Security Council declares the DPRK has committed a breach of international peace and security. Will China support it?”

  I don’t want Bruce Griffith to replace Martin, thought Ming. Griffith is far more likely to do the one thing that would cause serious difficulty for us: attack the DPRK. I need to give Martin enough to keep him limping along on the negotiation path, a step or two ahead of impeachment.

  “Mr. President, most assuredly someone committed such a breach. But you are asking a great deal of China, to condemn a neighboring, friendly people and accuse them of a very grave act, without conclusive evidence. You are also asking China to take a position that would create disharmony in our relations with the DPRK, which would in turn leave us less able to assist Kim privately in understanding the benefits of restraint and cooperation.

  “Yet, I know what it is for a nation to lose ninety thousand in a day and see another half million made homeless. That was what we faced after the Sichuan earthquakes in 2008. I understand the forces that arise in such a circumstance, forces demanding government action. Perhaps China could abstain when the Security Council votes. I will discuss this with Huang Bo.”