Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  Rick turned back to Morales. “Yeah. The rest is before Kim bombs us again.”

  “Yessir. And how much time do you have?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And will destroying that city stop it?”

  “It might, by getting Kim out of power.”

  “Is there anything else that might?”

  “Finding out what he wants and giving it to him.”

  “Can you do that before he bombs us again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So, you’re weighing something specific you can do now that might stop Kim’s nuclear bombing of Americans against something as yet unknown that also might stop it, unless Kim sets off another while you’re searching for that something. And what’s in the balance is tens of thousands of American lives, the lives of people who believe you will protect them because you said you would during the campaign and swore you would on inauguration day!”

  “You didn’t mention Korean lives in the balance, Ray.”

  “You didn’t swear an oath to protect Koreans, Mr. President. You have a great duty to Americans. I’d say you have a much lesser duty to protect Koreans.”

  “Because they’re not in our tribe, is that it, Ray?”

  “Yes, if you want to put it that way. But they still count; you’re going to have their lives on your soul forever, sir, just like me and every other leader who’s ever decided to prep the tree line.”

  So my duty demands my soul. That’s what Ella said.

  No! I won’t make that trade!

  Then what trade will you make? said a mocking voice from somewhere beyond.

  To prevent more attacks I have to close the North Korean nuke store—now. I’ve tried everything else. This is the only way left!

  He heard another voice: Don’t let this be an excuse for more killing. Find another way. There’s got to be another way!

  “I’m sorry,” mumbled Rick, feeling something die inside, “so sorry! I can’t find another way.”

  Morales waited. Finally, the president said, “Ray, what does the country want me to do? What’s your read on public opinion?”

  “Sir you’ve got experts who can answer that. I pay close attention to my district but not nationally.”

  “I’ll ask my experts, but right now I’m asking you.”

  “Most people are very frightened. They’re afraid of more nukes, but also just afraid in general. YouTube is full of Islamist videos screaming, in English, that now the infidels will pay. People want protection.

  “You were right—grabbing the Baltimore bomb handed the terrorists a huge defeat, but frightened people tend to see the glass half empty. The people in my district are on edge. Their lives are on hold, waiting, hoping for something telling them the danger is over so they can go back to their homes and jobs in Austin.

  “But there’s more to it. With the second bomb, people passed a tipping point. Before that, it was like Nine-eleven on steroids: sympathy, sadness, anger, wanting to help—but not many feared for themselves or families or friends. When that bomb was found in Baltimore, it became like every Marine feels in his first firefight.

  “Suddenly, this is about you. Those people down range are trying to kill you, and they could do it any second. A few freeze, refusing to accept that, looking for something to let them keep their sense of immortality. Most, though, react by aiming carefully and firing back rapidly. They want to kill this threat, now. In the moment, that’s all they care about.

  “When you ask yourself what the country wants you to do, Mr. President, think about that!”

  Chapter 49

  Rick had a few minutes before his meeting with the congressional leadership. He glanced at the talking points, then pushed them aside; it was gut-check time and talking points wouldn’t hack it. Their half-dozen gatherings since Six-thirteen were all prelude to today’s, although he would never have predicted it would come to this.

  The horror of the order he might soon sign nearly overwhelmed him. He didn’t want cool objectivity; he wanted resolve. What had Morales said about his choice? “Because that’s better than burying people who trusted you to protect them,” wasn’t that it?

  He realized he was attempting to armor his soul. Intellectually, he knew this armor had a chink: putting Own ahead of Other was the root of the bloody history of the human race. He had resisted that all his life. And yet . . . when faced with the choice of Own or Other on this scale, how could he choose Other at the cost of bloody disaster for Own?

  ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’ That phrase had always evoked his disdain. It was a substitute for weighing the evidence, a triumph of testosterone over thought. Now he realized it was also a fundamental to the human condition, not just the evolutionary programming of the human male.

  Rick smiled ruefully. That’s what Ella’s been telling me. I rejected her counsel, certain I could think my way past war. War is not the answer! But what is the answer? If I kept trying, would I discover it? I’ll never know, because I don’t have time to keep trying.

  The knife stabbed his gut again as he permitted the thought that his next breath could be followed by news of another ruined, radioactive city.

  Rick had decided, sometime over a sleepless night, to take the road that would almost certainly lead to the death of Sinpo. He hadn’t told Ella because, in a way he knew but couldn’t describe, he would have felt patronized by her approval; she had been certain since the beginning that he must crush Kim. He realized she knew because she hadn’t asked about his meeting with Morales.

  Martin hadn’t made his decision in a rigorous accounting of pro and con, or in a flash of conviction. No, it had been a matter of accepting that all doors but this one had shut, one by one, and there was no time left to find others—if they existed. Realizing he had decided was frightening, but also comforting, because the strain of reexamining his options was over.

  Killing Sinpo was now the default. Unless something new miraculously appeared, he would sign the order sitting within that folder on his desk like a malevolent genie in a bottle. He stared at it.

  “Mr. President, the congressional leadership.”

  “OK.”

  Guarini ushered them in; Martin rose, pumping hands and mouthing greetings automatically. God! How he wished some atmosphere of comradeship, of uniting to do what was best for America, had developed! Instead, there had been weeks of sterile role-playing that depressed him deeply. He knew they were here to walk the tightrope again, asserting Congress’ war powers authority without sharing any responsibility for presidential decisions. Do it; we’ll see how it plays, and then we’ll say what we would have done. And of course, amazingly, what they would have done would look just about right. He didn’t resent this; it was just politics, but he wished it were otherwise.

  As they were getting coffee or water and seating themselves, Easterly and MacAdoo entered. Martin felt the legislators tense.

  You don’t know the half of it! I used to sit where you do and believed my job was to make speeches and cast votes and let the chips fall. I didn’t feel responsible for accomplishing anything, for final results. As long as I could say I was doing my best under the circumstances, my conscience was satisfied. If my best wasn’t good enough, well I’m only one among five hundred legislators.

  That’s where you are.

  Where am I? Like Truman said, I’m where the buck stops! How wrong I was to doubt Morales; it’s my fellow politicians who don’t understand.

  When all were settled, Rick walked to a wingback chair and sat within the group, now assembled in an oval of couches and chairs. They looked at him warily.

  “Gentlemen, thank you for coming over again. I think these meetings are important to allow us to informally exchange ideas, and I certainly welcome your thoughts and suggestions. I want to share my impressions of the present situation and hear yours, and then describe the courses of action we see.”

  He registered that their faces were carefully neutral, then
continued: “I asked you over this morning to tell you that international examination of the Baltimore bomb positively identified it as North Korean. I intend to announce that tonight, and you must keep it to yourselves until then. The scientists—American, Chinese, and IAEA—are unanimous.

  “So here we have it: Kim Jong-il destroyed one American city and attacked another, after being warned we were on to him and the consequences of further attack would be severe. I believe this is intolerable and Kim must now give up, or be removed from, control of the DPRK and its nuclear weapons. That’s how I see it.”

  The Speaker, a twelve-term congressman from Minnesota, said, “I’m with you on that conclusion, Mr. President, but as they say, the devil’s in the details. How do you propose to get Kim out?”

  Well, here we go, thought Rick. “We’ve attempted negotiation, using all channels. Kim has turned everything down, even President Ming’s offer of comfortable sanctuary in China. He has continued to deny any connection to the bombing of Las Vegas and the attempt on Baltimore. Yet, any moment, perhaps before I complete this sentence, Kim could attack us again. We have no more time.” Martin felt perspiration pop on his forehead.

  Looking as if he couldn’t believe Martin’s words, the Speaker said, “Mr. President, you’re saying diplomacy is over. Many Americans, most of them in our party, won’t accept that. You haven’t made the case for war!

  “When you announce, backed by international scientific investigation, that the Baltimore bomb is North Korean, Kim may become more amenable. We don’t know yet. And what about continuing to work through the UN? We should give sanctions and the quarantine more time to work!”

  Irritation shredded the fog of Rick’s fatigue. More time? Am I the only one here who hears the clocks ticking?

  “Ron, if I do that, which do you think would happen first—the sanctions bite, another city goes, or the Martin administration gets impeached?”

  “Mr. President, if you think impeachment talk is because you’re using diplomacy, you’ve been poorly advised! That talk isn’t driven by your methods; it’s fueled by the ineffectiveness of your administration in protecting American lives! It will really gather momentum if you turn from diplomacy to killing.”

  It required all of Martin’s extraordinary self-control to send his rage away to its place, to listen rather than erupt at this heedless fool.

  Agitated, the Speaker continued. “You’ve seen those videos! A lot of Americans believe war is not the answer; the president doesn’t have to kill Korean kids to protect American kids. They want and expect your administration to protect them but don’t believe for a moment that you have to start another Korean war to do it!”

  “And what do you believe, Ron?”

  “I believe it’s your job to use all the vast powers of the presidency prudently, to protect America with a scalpel, not a meat cleaver. We don’t need another ill-conceived war of choice!”

  Seeing that his boss could not contain his anger, Guarini jumped in: “Mr. Speaker, you fear another bloody war in Korea. What I fear is the bloody war in America, begun by Kim on Six-thirteen!” Glancing at each of them, Guarini continued: “What about the rest of what the president said; what if we lose another city while we’re talking? Is it prudent to risk that? Is it moral to risk it?”

  The senate minority leader responded. “I’m glad that’s on your mind, because it damn well should be! Listening to the Speaker, I thought maybe I’d missed the announcement of a foolproof defense against nuclear terrorists so that we could consider at our leisure how to deal with Kim.

  “After Baltimore a lot of Americans are scared to death. They don’t believe the Martin administration is doing what it takes to protect them from Kim’s bombs. That’s why they’re camped out, away from cities! That’s why our economy is in free fall! And that’s why a lot of them are telling their senators and congressmen to give you the boot, Mr. President. They’re saying ‘OK, you’ve had your chance to do this and you didn’t get ’er done.’ That’s why Bart’s counting potential impeachment votes!”

  The Speaker growled, jowls quivering “So, Jesse, you and your NRA crowd want to bomb them back to the Stone Age? Nuke ’em til they glow? Will that give you more courage? Will that jump-start our economy? Are more mass graves OK with you, so long as they aren’t American?”

  Martin was, somehow, able to keep his voice even. “You each bring up an important point—that thousands of lives are in the balance here. We’re all aware of that, and all horrified and saddened by it. I don’t believe any of us want to see more mass graves of any nationality.”

  The president’s gaze probed each congressional leader, hoping to find another soul laid bare. “However, I can’t say the same about the man we have to deal with. I’ve stood toe to toe with Kim and I know he doesn’t care. And, for that matter, al-Qaeda’s new leader doesn’t care either, so long as those graves advance the cause. Whether Kim is manufacturing and planting the bombs, or whether he manufactures them and al-Qaeda delivers them, Kim is the key. No more DPRK bombs, no more mass graves!”

  He looked into their faces, each in turn, his eyes piercing the careful veils of their expressions like a bayonet. “You know what I’ve been trying to do, what Ming and others have been trying to do, and that it hasn’t worked. So if Kim won’t step down, for us, or for the UN, or for his Chinese patron, or for the good of his people, how do I get him out before he attacks us again?”

  Rick wasn’t surprised when nobody answered. “I can order Kim assassinated.” He looked at each of the men from the Hill. This is what they call a pregnant pause, he thought. And nobody’s giving birth. Not one of them is willing to go anywhere near that. So, neither am I.

  “Or, perhaps we could capture Kim and put him up before the ICC. Eric, how about that?”

  “Sir, the SEAL in me wants to say we can do it . . . but we can’t. Kim controls the DPRK so tightly that no American special ops team could grab him and get out of the country. With a lot of luck, they might be able to kill him—but not bring him back alive.”

  The president resumed: “OK, Eric, we invade the DPRK and chase Kim out. Then, depending on how much help or opposition we had from China, we let Ming pick a Korean communist to succeed Kim and eliminate the nukes, or we assist in reunification under South Korean rule and they eliminate the nukes. What’s the prospect of doing that?”

  “Highly problematic, sir. We’d be outnumbered, since it’s unlikely that South Korea would assist us or even permit us to cross their territory in invading. The Japanese might go in with us, but without ROK support we probably couldn’t supply our forces in the field. Kim has said he’d attack us, the Japanese, and South Korea with nuclear weapons if we attacked him, and he’s demonstrated the capacity to do it. China might well help him, either overtly or covertly. Mac and the field commanders have looked closely at this and think the odds are we’d end up in another bloody stalemate, and, unless our ABM defenses are perfect, Japan, Korea, and maybe Guam would get hit with Kim’s nuclear missiles.”

  “And for sure Kim would be doing his best to pull off another nuclear attack in the United States!” added Guarini.

  The congressional leaders said nothing. This time the president waited.

  With an angry expression, the senate majority leader spoke up: “Then the Pentagon has been lying to Congress for years! You’ve always told us you could handle the North Koreans!”

  “That’s right!” said the house majority leader.

  “Gentlemen,” said Mac evenly, “we were always speaking about our ability to respond to the north invading the south. In that case, the ROK military would be fully with us and we’d have use of South Korea’s ports and airfields. We weren’t lying; we were talking a different ballgame.”

  The president observed the men he had summoned. And now we all know what comes next. None of my former congressional colleagues will look me in the eye. Funny, but the Democrats seem angrier than the Republicans, as if it’s unconscionable that a fe
llow Democrat would put them in this position.

  He spoke somberly and fatalistically, like a man who had come to terms with his advanced cancer. “In the nineteen sixties Herman Kahn wrote a book, subtitled thinking about the unthinkable. The title was On Thermonuclear War. That war seemed pretty close then, but we got through the next thirty years. Now we’re at that precipice again; in fact we’ve been swept over it. We’re here not by way of hostility among the five big nuclear powers, but thanks to a pissant dictator with Ray-Bans and a fondness for movies. How could we—and I include myself—have been so willfully blind?”

  In a voice heavy with sadness and consequence, the president said, “Tell them, Eric.”

  “Yes, sir!” Secretary of Defense Easterly responded with the brisk confidence of a surgeon describing what he could do with his knife, without acknowledging that he didn’t expect surgery to save the patient. A slight tremble in his hands betrayed his feelings.

  “We have a full range of nuclear options, but they boil down to two.

  “We can hit the DPRK with eighteen nuclear warheads simultaneously. This would ensure that Kim couldn’t launch any nuclear missiles. It would destroy all cities and military bases and, ultimately, kill half to three-quarters of the population. Essentially the DPRK, including the Party, the military, and what passes for civil society, would cease to exist. Refugees, many dying from radiation, would surge into the ROK and China, maybe some into Russia. Fallout would cause some problems in South Korea and Japan but not in China or Russia. We expect no American casualties from such a strike, which could be accomplished in a few minutes using cruise and ballistic missiles.”

  Easterly’s words left Rick faintly nauseated and a little light-headed. He reminded himself that he hadn’t signed the order yet. Judging by their expressions, the five legislators were explorers scrambling away from a suddenly gaping crevasse.

  With sweat beading his hairline and a slight tremor in his voice, the secretary of defense continued.