Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  “Sam, what are Griffith’s favorables?”

  “Pretty darn good, almost as good as the president’s and trending up.”

  Martin shrugged. “I knew that would happen if he was successful, and it doesn’t surprise me now. It’s a price I’m willing to pay for what Bruce is accomplishing for the country. He’s doing well—I say he’s earned his favorable numbers.”

  “Has he earned the right to start greasing the skids for your impeachment?”

  Martin’s eyes narrowed and he beckoned for more. Yu’s jaw dropped.

  “I heard from Ray Morales yesterday. He got a call from the vice president that he believes was to sound him out on impeachment. He says Griffith is building a coalition on the Hill to impeach you if there’s another attack.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. If there’s another attack, he’s the guy who failed to protect the country; he’s the guy in charge of stopping attacks!”

  “It makes sense if he’s built a case against you for preventing him from doing more out of civil liberty considerations, or out of squeamishness about aggressive interrogation. And if you study his press conferences, you can see that thread.”

  “Sam?”

  “If you’re asking whether I’ve heard any impeachment talk, my answer is yes. But I’ve considered it just background noise from the far Right. This is the first I’ve heard linking the VP. Oh, I’ve had some shouting matches with his press secretary about some of his remarks, but like you, I was expecting trouble, so I didn’t think his motive was anything more than the usual VP ambition.”

  Dottie Branson’s voice from the intercom: “Mr. President, Ambassador Chernowski is here for his appointment, to present his credentials.”

  “OK, Dottie, we’re wrapping up.”

  Martin leaned back, crossed his legs, and gazed out a window. Could Morales be right? Is Bruce beyond the usual ambitions of a vice president? I’d better start paying more attention! I remember Ella worried that Bruce’s star would rise too fast.

  He stood. “OK, that’ll have to be it for right now. Let’s all keep our ears to the ground, but let’s also remember that every VP wants to be president and not read too much into this.”

  “Bart, what’s your read? Is Morales angling for something; maybe floating the idea that he’d be a Trojan horse . . . What do you think?”

  “I think he’s pretty straightforward. Remember when he resigned as Rogers’ JCS chairman? He just took off his uniform and went home to Texas—didn’t run off to do the talk shows, or write a book, or be a talking head on Fox. He’s still pretty much a Marine and I think he’s offended by the disloyalty of what Bruce is doing or, I mean, what he thinks Bruce is doing.”

  “OK, thanks. Sam, on your way out, ask Dottie to send in the ambassador.

  “Bart, where are the Speaker and the Majority Leader on this?

  “They support you, but they haven’t clamped down on the discussions.”

  Which means, thought Rick, they think Bruce is on to something.

  Chapter 39

  It was a typical, sweaty Baltimore summer day and Larry Cosgrove was puzzled. The scarred, grimy sea container on the battered eighteen-wheeler chassis passing slowly through what looked like a giant croquet wicket was sending an unexpected signal. Larry, clad in jeans and a tank top, sat in a hot, windowless room near the Consolidated Data and Inspection Portal (CDIP) at the Seagirt container terminal’s exit, monitoring data emitted by each container. These data, transmitted to receivers within the CDIP, identified the container and sometimes also identified specific shipments within it. The portal also contained other sensors that looked for other things, but that wasn’t his concern.

  Larry worked for a freight consolidator serving shippers without enough cargo to fill an entire “box,” forty feet long by eight square. The systems he monitored confirmed that not only had the container arrived, the separate shipments within it were there, as they should be. Nobody had screwed up the container manifest or taken contents out at the last minute to place in another container for some made-sense-at-the-time reason or stolen them.

  The extra signal really wasn’t his concern, but because he was bored, Cosgrove clicked his mouse. Seconds later a truck driver swore. A yellow LED blinked on his dashboard, signaling him to pull into the further-inspection lane. Moments later, a harsh voice came from the cheap speakers in Cosgrove’s computer. “Hey, Larry, what’s with APL sixteen four fifty-eight?”

  “It’s gotta extra emitter,” he said through a mouthful of candy bar. “My gear’s getting a signal that doesn’t correlate to any RFID tag in my system.”

  “Dammit! This is the fourth load diverted for inspection on my shift. I’m gettin’ real fuckin’ tired of this shit!”

  Cosgrove, who didn’t like this particular federal agent at all, flipped him off invisibly and munched the rest of the candy bar.

  A stumpy man wearing sweat-marked blue-black fatigues with a badge denoting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stalked across grease-spotted concrete. Pulling himself up onto the cab steps, he told the driver, “Awright, run us through the Vassis.” He was referring to the Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System, or VACIS, another portal, one much more sophisticated than the CDIP.

  As the trucker pulled the container through the portal, a light blinked red and a horn sounded. The driver and the CBP man both swore.

  “Bananas! Fuckin’ bananas, five’l get you ten.” The CBP officer was referring to the tendency of the VACIS to alarm on naturally occurring radiation, such as emitted by bananas, or several kinds of granite, or cat litter, some types of porcelain, and a long list of other harmless items.

  “OK. Pull it over to dump and thump.” That was the area where CBP opened containers and inspected the contents, sometime removing them—“dump”—and sometimes tapping on them—“thump”—in search of hidden cavities.

  During the journey, Gus the CBP officer thumbed his mike and said, “Larry, what’s the manifest say for this bitch?”

  “It’s a grab bag. Consumer electronics, plus some portable generators, and yeah, some toilet fixtures, probably porcelain.”

  When the truck reached dump and thump, the K9 team—the explosive sniffer—was waiting. As the box was unloaded the handler looked bored; the German shepherd looked happy. When the dog reached the portable generators, he went to alert. The shepherd became elated; the men became engaged.

  The handler called out, “K9 has a positive!”

  Gus’ anger became alertness. The dogs got fooled sometimes, but they were a lot more accurate than the VACIS. Gus keyed his radio. “Blue Diamond. We have a Blue Diamond at site Charlie Three.” He and the driver and the K9 backed off about one hundred feet. Other CBP officers set up a security perimeter around the tractor-trailer, which sat patiently in dump and thump with its doors open.

  After working about an hour, army EOD Specialist Breanne Murphy disarmed an explosive device, a relatively small—meaning it wouldn’t have killed anyone but her—amount of Semtex rigged to be triggered by a commercial asset tracking and control apparatus.

  EOD—Explosive Ordnance Disposal—is a craft that demands an audit trail. If the device blows, it’s crucial to know everything the dead technician did, especially the fatal move. Thus, the soldier “in the hole” describes and discusses every finding and every planned action with others at a safe distance.

  Murphy paused for a moment, wiping sweat from her face. So, was that it—or was it sucker bait to lull her into tripping a booby trap or failing to search thoroughly enough to find the main charge?

  God, it stinks in here! They musta used this box to pack recyclables headed to Asia. But I do love this shit. It’s a head game for sure, to make the bet you’ve got it figured out, then snip the wires and see if you’re still alive the next second.

  She swigged from her canteen, then carefully, with step-by-step commentary, opened the generator’s weather shield and saw something that literally terrified her.

  With
a mouth so dry she could hardly speak, Breanne said, “Jesus! I see a probable implosion device.”

  “I ain’t Jesus. I’m even better—I’m a first sergeant,” said the team leader, observing the edge-liver’s code of keeping it light.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Damn right I am! It’s about the size of a basketball.”

  “Any timing or triggering device?”

  “Shit, I can’t tell. Not an obvious one but there’re a hell of a lot of wires!”

  “What’s your PRD read?”

  Breanne, on her belly peering under the “generator,” scooched around so she could see her belt-mounted radiation detector.

  “Fuck me! It’s at the upper end of the yellow, about 25!”

  “OK, video everything, take a couple of IRs, and back out.”

  ***

  “Mr. President, the NEST team has confirmed it’s a nuke.”

  Sara Zimmer’s voice came from the speakerphone in the tiny White House bomb shelter. “They do not, repeat do not, see any timing device. That doesn’t mean it’s not armed, though. There could be an electronic detonating device, say a cell phone. They believe the bomb is stable enough to move. Our plan is to helo it to the air base at Dover, Delaware. That’s a rural area; plus an aircraft out of Dover is over the Atlantic almost immediately. I’ve given instructions to handle it according to the protocol we developed—get it out over the ocean, analyze it, disarm it, and deliver it to the Pantex plant near Amarillo for detailed study.”

  “OK, Sara, I remember you briefed us about that procedure at an NSC. That seems like the right thing to do.”

  “I’ll keep you advised, Mr. President.”

  Martin broke the connection. Hearing someone enter, he half-turned in his chair and saw Ella. He reached up; she grasped his hand. They sat in apprehensive silence.

  That silence was broken by Bart Guarini’s arrival. “Mr. President, Ella. You’ll need to go on TV tonight! I’ve got the speechwriters working on two—one if we lose another city and one if we don’t.”

  Rick tried to think of a quip about how one speech would differ from the other, but he couldn’t.

  Discouragement washed over him. This changes so much, just when we were making progress! There’s going to be panic, anger, another stock market collapse, more congressional hearings, and most of all, demands for action. But what action? Against whom? Is this Kim or someone else?

  Ella said, “Kim?”

  “We haven’t analyzed the bomb yet, but surely it’s Kim’s. How could there be another leader who’d run that risk? God help the world if there’s another like him out there!”

  Guarini spoke, with an edge of fear: “Mr. President, if it’s Kim—and I agree it surely is Kim—we have to go to Plan B immediately! We can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to remove him from control of North Korea and its nukes!”

  Another voice said, “I agree.” Guarini and the Martins saw John Dorn, who reached the doorway as Bart spoke.

  So here we are, Rick thought: Four people in a bomb shelter trying to figure out how to save civilization by destroying a portion of it. It’s come to that!

  No, stop being dramatic. This is not about saving civilization; it’s about saving the United States and the Martin administration. Or maybe the other way around, if I’m honest.

  “Sir, we’ve got to take the gloves off!” said Dorn.

  “What does that mean, John?” said Martin.

  “That means taking Kim out any way we can—assassination, kidnapping, hitting Pyongyang with a nuke. Whatever it takes!” Dorn’s face shone with sweat.

  The president held up a hand and spoke sharply: “So, the end justifies the means? It’s really not possible to defend ourselves without compromising our ideals?”

  Dorn fired back: “Sir, the people who agreed when you made that statement didn’t feel threatened! If we lose another city, everyone will feel threatened! Every city and town will become a fortress. The economy will collapse. No security measure will be too intrusive or too destructive of civil liberties. You could be impeached.

  “If that bomb goes off, and probably even if it doesn’t, the people of this country are going to be scared to death and mad as hell. We can either ride that wave or be drowned by it!”

  “What do you think, Bart?”

  “I agree with John!”

  “Rick.” The three looked at Ella.

  “The end does not justify the means, not now, not ever. But that’s not all there is to it. Sometimes things have to be done that cannot be fully justified. They have to be done by those who have accepted responsibility for others. A family. A tribe. A nation. Those who have responsibility sometimes have to accept the cost of doing the unthinkable, of paying an awful price personally because it’s their duty to others who trusted them.”

  Rick was about to speak when Dottie Branson’s voice came from the speakerphone. I wonder where she is . . . still at her desk while I’m safely in this shelter? Who else is in the usual place, risking incineration? I hate the idea that I have to be preserved, above all others, as if I’m some totem or god whose very existence will save the nation. I know I’m not and, right now, I have no damned idea how to save the nation.

  “Mr. President, Sam’s on for you.”

  “Sir, there’s breaking news. The networks and cables are running live feeds of police activity on the Baltimore waterfront and speculating about it. The press room is filling with reporters expecting our statement.”

  Looking into Martin’s eyes for understanding and seeing it, Guarini spoke, leaving Martin deniability. “Sam, tell them inspectors found a powerful bomb in a container at the port.” Still looking intently at the president for some sign and intuiting agreement, Guarini continued: “Experts have safed the bomb, and it’s being removed now to a military base that for security reasons will not be identified. People in Baltimore are not in danger from this bomb. Oh, and Sam, characterize this as a preliminary report.”

  “OK, Bart.” Sam knew the president had not been rushed to the bomb shelter because of a truckload of TNT in Baltimore. She also knew not to ask. Still, she refused to fly completely blind. “Bart—should I be prepared for substantial revision to this preliminary report?”

  “Yes.”

  Dorn said, “I’d better get the NSC together.”

  “Right,” said Martin, “and we can’t do it from down here—no teleconference equipment in this hidey-hole.”

  He turned to Wilson. “Look, the bomb’s being managed. It’s time for me to get back upstairs, at least to the Sit Room. The hunkering down is over.”

  The four of them watched the head of the presidential protective detail consider briefly, then heard him agree. They trooped upstairs, the president, Dorn, and Guarini striding away from Ella at the corridor leading to the Sit Room. After a few steps, Rick spun around and went to Ella, putting an arm around her shoulders and leaning in close to her ear. After a brief, whispered conversation, they hugged and parted.

  As they approached the Sit Room complex the agent in front of Martin cupped his hand to his earpiece, then turned to the president. “Sir, Secretary Zimmer reports the helo has arrived at Dover OK.” Martin gave a thumbs-up and followed Dorn and Guarini into the large conference room, where five screens displayed the networks plus CNN and Fox News.

  Suddenly, all the screens cut to a worried man at a podium, glancing down at notes. Rick felt a stab in that familiar spot in his stomach because it was the mayor of Baltimore.

  Chapter 40

  Human beings usually oversimplify and then misapply lessons of a notorious disaster. Katrina-driven lesson number one in Mayor Funk’s head was ‘evacuate at the first sign of serious trouble.’ The second was ‘if you don’t know the risk, overstating is better than understating.’

  He put both lessons to use, announcing that a nuclear bomb had been discovered in the port of Baltimore and people in the area should immediately evacuate to a distance of at least ten miles. He promised f
urther updates when available and introduced the director of public safety, who read evacuation routes and other instructions in a frightened voice.

  Rick watched in helpless fury.

  Soon every building and parking area in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor district was gushing people and cars, but quickly the gush became a trickle as vehicles and humans filled all available streets and sidewalks, congealing in a heaving, shouting mass that pulsed angrily but went nowhere.

  Guarini’s phone rang. Samantha Yu exploded in his ear: “Bart, I need a statement to release or somebody at policy level to speak to the press, and I need it now!”

  Guarini agreed and was about to tell her he was on the way. Click! How about the vice president? said a voice in his head. He asked Yu.

  “Bart, that’s crazy! He’s in Nevada today.”

  “So what? We can patch him to the press room and he can answer questions. He’s the guy the president put in charge of homeland security; let him face that wolf pack!”

  “Bart, don’t you get it? He’s out there with his own coterie of reporters. Guess which group will get the lion’s share of his attention! He’ll marginalize the White House press and play to his pack of wannabes. The White House reporters will never, ever forgive the Martin administration. It’s a non-starter!”

  Shit, I should have thought of that!

  “Sam, you’re right. OK, I’m heading your way.”

  “Thanks, Bart.”

  “Sam needs help and you’re going, right?” said the president.

  “Yes.”

  “Right decision, wrong guy. You stay here and help John pull together the NSC and work up some options. I’ll help Sam.”

  The chief of staff’s disagreement was so sharp he forgot protocol: “Rick, you can’t do that! You don’t know any more than John and I do, which is not jack shit! They’ll skin you alive and then fight over your bones!”

  “I don’t know more than you do about this bomb, but I do know this: I’m the president. I’m the one with the red button. I’m the one who will make the decisions about how we respond, so I’m the best one to go live now and calm things down. We just defeated a major attack without the loss of a single life—unless someone gets trampled in Baltimore. People need to hear me say that.”