Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  Guarini nodded and hit speed dial to Sam.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the president!” Sam barely had time to utter the words before Rick was at her side. The room’s uproar dropped to a low hum.

  Martin stood at the podium, the White House logo visible behind him. He had about him the calm of absolute certainty.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . . Ladies and gentlemen! I want to give you and the American people a brief report on what just happened in Baltimore and what it means for America.”

  The immediate, total concentration of dozens of journalists seemed to suck all extraneous sound from the room.

  “A few hours ago, alert and courageous homeland security forces in the port of Baltimore detected a nuclear bomb being smuggled into the country inside a sea container. The various security systems worked correctly, people responded alertly and bravely, and we now have the bomb under examination aboard a military aircraft out over the Atlantic. I am sure you join me in prayers for the safety of that air crew and the bomb experts, who as I speak are doing their duty at the risk of their lives.”

  Rick leaned over the podium, projecting himself into the room, eyes hard and certain.

  “Although some will try to tell you otherwise, this is a great victory for the United States of America! We have defeated an attack that was intended to push us into panic and despair, without—so far—the loss of a single life. We have taken from those who tried this attack an irreplaceable asset: the nuclear weapon they intended to use. From that weapon we will determine its origin, its paternity if I may say so, and take appropriate action. We will take that action deliberately and calmly, bearing in mind both the safety of Americans and our country’s ideals. Our defenses are strong, as demonstrated today, and our resolution is even stronger. We will not only prevail over nuclear terrorism—this nation will work successfully with other nations to put measures in place that will end this twenty-first-century scourge!

  “I must go now. May God bless and protect those in that airplane and this country!”

  Martin left swiftly, ignoring questions, buoyed by a belief that in this moment the country had turned the corner.

  It had, but not the corner he believed. Panic surged from Baltimore faster than any flash flood ever roared down a valley. Via Twitter and instant messaging, MySpace and Facebook, blogs, texts, and e-mail, the raw emotions of several hundred thousand frightened people were connected directly to the nervous systems of friends, acquaintances, business associates, and total strangers. Those they touched passed that fear along to their own contacts, often adding their own concerns.

  Panic spread at Internet speed.

  A few officials reacted as best they could, uploading video of the president’s press room appearance to YouTube and the president’s Facebook page. The keeper of the president’s Twitter account sent reassuring tweets as fast as she could think of them.

  Their efforts were sandbags against a tidal wave.

  ***

  Fahim turned off the motel television. The whore he’d brought for cover, so no one would wonder why he was checking in at 2 p.m., was snoring gently on the bed, unused of course.

  He knew he’d just been touched by the hand of Allah.

  How had they found it? Perhaps some new technology, perhaps just luck. Except it wasn’t luck; whatever happened to the bomb was the will of Allah. It was not Allah’s will that the United States be bathed in his fire again. In the instant of Allah’s touch he knew that.

  I will continue to fight. I will go to the mountains, perhaps to Idaho, or Montana. No one will notice me among the panicked Americans fleeing their cities. They accept loners in those mountains; I will not be unusual or suspicious if I live by myself in an isolated area. The Base knows I will do that and they will find me and send me bombers to wear my vests and drive my trucks.

  Fahim methodically wiped the room of their fingerprints. The woman stirred and mumbled. She’s an infidel whore and she can identify me. Tonight I’ll kill her and dump her somewhere; it’ll be easy in the confusion.

  Allah made me his instrument for cleansing Las Vegas and humbling the Far Enemy. Now he’s chosen me to serve in another way. I’m a skilled maker of bombs, not nuclear ones but all sizes and types of explosive bombs. With the knowledge in my head, the skill of my hands, and materials easy to buy or steal, I am a weapon! Not a suicide bomber but the creator of suicide bombers.

  Many of them!

  Chapter 41

  The president sauntered toward the Sit Room after his triumphant statement. He was in no hurry, enjoying his thoughts in this snippet of time between meetings and public appearances.

  It’s all in how you choose to look at things. Yes, it’s shocking and infuriating that Kim would try another bombing. Kim? Well, not yet proven, but who else? Anyway, you could either be furious and frightened that Kim was still trying, or else be calmed and steeled by today’s success. I know there’ll be plenty of people who’ll be furious and frightened, but I’m not going to give in to them or their way of thinking—we won big today!

  Rick began whistling, then stopped because he didn’t want to appear overconfident. Hands in pockets, he nodded to the Marine holding the door, passed through, and glided athletically into his seat. Chairs scraped, people rose. He waved them down and looked at Dorn.

  “Mr. President, you were magnificent in there!”

  Martin offered his lopsided grin. “Thanks, but I don’t mind telling you I know those defenses won’t succeed indefinitely. Time is not on our side. We’ve got to move quickly, not only because we need to put an end to this danger, but because the momentum of this great success gives us leverage.

  “What have you got for me so far?”

  “Mr. President.” Sara Zimmer’s voice interrupted over a bad connection. “The engineers believe they’ve safed the bomb! I’d like your permission to send them to Pantex.”

  “What’s the risk, Sara?”

  “They’ll be routed direct to Amarillo at forty thousand. If the bomb should detonate at that altitude, ground effects would be minimal.”

  “What’s minimal?”

  “Well, there would be little fallout and that bit would stay airborne. If someone below should be looking right at the aircraft when it explodes, there might be some vision damage. Electromagnetic pulse effect—EMP—would scramble some computers for a while. Radiation is a non-issue; the ground is way too far below for gamma or neutrons to be a problem, much less alpha.”

  Martin pursed his lips then said, “What if it blows at Pantex?”

  “If that happens, we’re in a whole new ballgame, but the engineers wouldn’t be recommending delivery there if they believed it could. These guys live near Pantex, with their families.”

  Fist striking palm with a smack, Rick said, “That sure would be a new ball game! That would turn the tables on us; it would be like they had successfully targeted our key nuclear facility. No to that plan!”

  He looked around. “Any ideas?”

  Easterly and McAdoo had their heads together. Then Zimmer’s voice: “Well, the bomb’s aboard a C-130 with aerial refueling. We can send it anywhere you want, Mr. President.”

  Easterly said, “Kwajalein.”

  “Surrrre,” replied Zimmer. Martin looked puzzled at the understanding in her tone.

  “Kwajalein Atoll, sir, in the Marshall Islands,” said Easterly. “It’s the most isolated military base we have with enough infrastructure for scientists to examine the bomb. It’s perfect!”

  “OK, send it there! And have the FAA keep other planes far enough away that they won’t get zapped if it blows, despite the confidence of those engineers. Keep the bomb under two-person control and continuous video monitoring. I’m going to invite the IAEA to send a rep to participate in the analysis. No further digging into it until IAEA gets there.

  “Got that, Sara?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anne, get with the IAEA to arrange it.”

  “Yes sir . . . Mr. P
resident, I think you should invite a Chinese scientist to participate.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have a reason. It’s just a hunch that having them in this from the beginning could turn out to be important.”

  “Yeah, like if the bomb turns out to be one of the Chinese designs that Khan was peddling,” said DNI Hendricks.

  “Good!” said Martin. “Let’s do that.”

  “Mr. President, I think it would be a good thing if you called Ming and made the offer directly,” said the vice president. “It may get you inside his head a little and also let him know that we are aware of the design possibility and don’t intend to call them on it. We can be pretty confident that if the warhead design is theirs, they didn’t give it to Kim, knowing him as they do.”

  “OK, Bruce. I’ll do that.”

  Martin’s phone bleeped. “Sir, this is the Sit Room watch officer. Television is showing huge numbers of people leaving East Coast cities. We’ve seen reports from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, here in DC, plus Baltimore of course.”

  Instantly, Martin’s stomach flamed. Shit! It didn’t take long for the fear mongers to regroup. Should I go back to the press room? No, I don’t want to overdo that. How about if Ella and the kids and I visit big cities around the country, spend a day in each, show there’s no imminent danger?

  He led a brief discussion of this new development and his idea, then called Sam and told her to make an announcement. He looked at Guarini. “Bart, get the show on the road for this! The Secret Service will hate it, but they’ll just have to suck it up.”

  After calling Ella, Martin returned his attention to the NSC. “OK, John, you have me again. What should we do to leverage this success and move our agenda forward?”

  Dorn was once again astounded, and angered, by Martin’s relentless optimism. It was hard for him to work for someone who saw opportunity in every development, when he himself more often saw problems.

  “Sir, we’re all just starting to get our arms around this thing. We don’t even know yet where the bomb came from, much less who was trying to smuggle it in or what they intended. We’re going to need some time.”

  Wrong answer! thought Guarini. John still doesn’t understand that you have to work with Rick as he is: a confident opportunist who wants to run when he’s feeling good. To bond with Rick, you always have to have something to give him when he wants to go full throttle.

  And I do: Plan B.

  “Mr. President,” said Guarini, “I agree with John that there’s a lot we don’t know right now. But I think we can make some assumptions without being irresponsible. For the present, let’s assume the bomb is Kim’s. Let’s take the same approach: unless there’s a case made otherwise, North Korea is once again the perp, acting alone. So the question is, how are we going to respond to Kim’s second attack?”

  Battista saw Martin nod attentively. Bart’s wrong, but, damn, he’s good with Rick, she thought. Eric and Mac look prepared—Bart must have put them to work on Plan B already. He kept me out of the loop. Well, if he figures he can roll me, he’s going to be surprised! She cut her eyes to Bruce Griffith’s image on the monitor. Is he also out of the loop? Can’t tell.

  “Bart!” He glared at her. “Let’s not forget that we have the option to call this bomb an attack, or something else; emphasize increased threat or improved defense. So, we are not considering our response to Kim’s second attack unless we decide to handle it that way. Obviously, if we’ve been attacked again, we must respond strongly. But it’s not a given that this was an attack; we may have caught them before they could set up the attack.”

  “Good point, Anne,” said the president.

  Guarini grimaced, then smiled. “Point taken, Anne. But I think the president has already characterized this as an attack, in the press room fifteen minutes ago. We could, I suppose, walk that back. But for now, let’s consider that we just defeated a second attack.”

  Guarini’s glance at the president drew a nod.

  Dammit! thought Battista, they’re not taking me seriously! Her face flushed as she felt her betrayal.

  Guarini said, “We have these options, it seems to me, to force Kim from control of the DPRK: we can continue our present line of activity, diplomacy and quarantine, or an augmented version of it—or we can start really using military force.

  “Since we just found a nuclear bomb in Baltimore, I submit that our current activities aren’t handling the threat we face.”

  “They may actually have increased the threat,” said the vice president. “By not striking the DPRK we may have led Kim to believe we’re unwilling to do that, so he feels free to take nuclear potshots at us.”

  “Perhaps,” replied Guarini, shocked at Griffith’s open criticism of the president’s chosen course.

  “I know the risks of diplomacy!” said Martin, slapping his palm on the table. “Proceed, Bart; tell me something I don’t already know!”

  “Well, sir, I doubt if any of this will be new to you, but I’d like Eric and Mac to review some military options.”

  Easterly said, “Mac, why don’t you walk us through this?”

  Nodding, General MacAdoo took a sip of water and began to speak.

  “Mr. President, we’re contending with a nuclear power ruled absolutely by someone who is, as you have experienced, given to fits of rage. Our use of any military force might cause Kim to go nuclear. The DPRK appears to have the capability, using Taepodong-two or Nodong nuclear missiles, to hit South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and perhaps Guam, Hawaii, or Alaska. We don’t know this for a fact, but we do know that three of Kim’s nuclear weapons have been detonated successfully and the DPRK has tested the Taepodong to ranges well beyond Korea and Japan. Plus, DPRK aircraft could nuke South Korea or Japan. We also know that the north has tons of chemical weapons stocks. We must assume they have the capacity for large-scale chemical attacks on anyone within aircraft or missile range. This is the backdrop to anything we may consider.”

  Looking at Hendricks, the president said, “Aaron, how many nukes does Kim have now?”

  “We certainly don’t know, sir, but we think somewhere between three and ten.”

  “Mac, haven’t we got some defensive weapons against Kim’s missiles?”

  “Yes, sir. Our navy and the Japanese and ROK navies have cruisers with Aegis missiles that can probably knock down Nodongs. We’re less confident about Taepodongs. And our Patriot missiles, which both the Japanese and the South Koreans have too, have some chance of getting them. We also have one aircraft with a laser able to destroy a missile early in flight, but the weather must be clear for it to work.”

  “I’m not hearing a lot of confidence, General!” said the president.

  “No sir, you’re not. Although Bush Two withdrew from the ABM treaty that banned our testing, following administrations decided to observe it, so we haven’t tested against live targets in years. The Nodong is based on the SCUD, and we downed some SCUDS during the Iraq campaigns. The ABL—that’s the airborne laser—has a lower probability of success than Aegis or Patriot. It’s had one successful shot, but in comparison to the others, we haven’t tested it much.”

  “Aaron, how many Nodongs and Taepodongs?”

  “We don’t know exactly. Except those they’ve tested over the past ten years, the missiles have been hidden from our satellites. We get an occasional sniff from communication intercepts, but since the DPRK has almost no cell phones and few telephones, there’s not much. We estimate they have a couple of hundred Nodongs operational. As for Taepodongs, it’s more likely a couple of dozen than a couple of hundred.”

  “Aaron, I have to say, your intel on the DPRK is awful!”

  “Yes, sir, it is. The DPRK is the toughest intelligence target on the planet.”

  “How about Gwon’s people . . . do they have anything better?”

  “Probably, sir, but Gwon’s mad as hell at the United States; plus cooperation began drying up early in the Rogers administration after she
outed those detention centers they were operating for us.”

  Cords stood out in the president’s neck as he said, “What I’m hearing so far boils down to saying we have no military option!”

  Chapter 42

  Secretary of Defense Easterly, face and tone carefully neutral, said, “No, sir, we have options, several of them. None of them are clean or sure, but we’ve got ’em.

  “You can change our policy and we can try to kill Kim. Or we could take out Yongbyon and all his other known nuclear sites with cruise missiles and hope that the ROK, Japan, and our bases could survive any of Kim’s missiles we didn’t get. Or, we could destroy any part of the DPRK, or all of it, with nuclear weapons delivered by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, or stealth bombers.”

  Flinging his briefing paper toward a wastebasket, Martin said, “None of those are options!”

  The vice president cleared his throat, turning all eyes toward his image. “Sir, I submit that those are indeed options. Horrible? Yes. Unprecedented? No—but worse than any president since Kennedy has faced.”

  As if trumping, Martin said, “Eric, if we nuke Pyongyang, how many people die?”

  “Sir, the population is between three and four million. Depending on the size of the warhead, burst height, and other technical decisions, I’d say from one million to all of them, however many that is.”

  “And what would we accomplish?”

  “Maybe kill Kim and his gang. Maybe convince him to go into exile. Maybe the shock of a nuke would get Ming to cooperate with us in pushing him out. Maybe create such fear among the elite that a coup would come out of nowhere and take him out.”

  Rick felt the blood rising in his neck. His face flushed. Leaning forward, eyes sweeping the room like shotgun barrels, he fired into the crowd: “Look, I want some graduated options! I refuse to believe we’ve got nothing short of violating our principles by assassinating Kim or using a nuclear weapon! Bomb his palaces. Destroy Pyongyang’s airport. Shoot down their air force. Level a small city with conventional bombs. Engineer a coup—he must have some rivals. Don’t give me only choices between surrender and Armageddon!”