Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller

by Norton, Doug

  Chapter 51

  Late in the afternoon, Rick began reading the dueling op-eds in USA Today. Two views! he thought. Were there only two?

  It’s About Time, by Senator Rod Peters, R-Arizona

  Although many believe the president’s ultimatum to Kim and to the people he rules was an unnecessary turn to brute force, I disagree. Brute force, it is; unnecessary it isn’t. In fact, I believe it is overdue.

  All agree that Kim’s rule in North Korea is a deadly abomination and must be ended. The disagreement is about how. Those who oppose the president’s plan assert that diplomacy is working and, if given more time, will be successful. There is no need, they say, to resort to what all assume (although the president didn’t say it) will be nuclear strikes. Others believe that an incremental use of conventional forces (code for the blood of our brave military men and women) is a better course than nuclear attack. And all Americans recoil from the prospect of devastating the captive people of North Korea in the manner that Kim brutalized the citizens of Las Vegas, who suffered and died before our eyes for weeks, with survivors still struggling to even begin recovery.

  However unpleasant, however overdue their acceptance, the facts the president has now squarely faced are undeniable: Kim is well along in orchestrating the disintegration of the United States. He is not persuaded to desist by the threat of retaliation. That threat preexisted both the Las Vegas bombing and the Martin administration—for over sixty years it has been the declared policy of the United States to respond to a nuclear attack with equally devastating weapons—and Kim, knowing it, went ahead with not one, but two nuclear attacks. Another compelling fact is that, as the president said, we can’t defend ourselves indefinitely by tightening security. Conclusion: we must remove Kim, now. Every day Kim remains in place is another day he has to devote to his goal of destroying America.

  Another reality is that if we use our nuclear power to remove Kim, we avoid a bloody, probably unwinnable, infantry fight in North Korea, a battle with truly frightening potential for pulling the Chinese in, and prevent Kim from carrying out threats to nuke South Korea and Japan.

  All are saddened that, unless they assert themselves as never before, ordinary citizens of the DPRK will die by the thousands during the brief nuclear missile campaign that destroys the regime that has attacked America twice—yet remains untouched itself. But that is necessary to prevent the death and injury of hundreds of thousands more Americans and the death of America as we know it.

  The president is on the right course, at last.

  Why thanks, Senator, for your unqualified support! I see which way Arizona’s wind is blowing. Now what does Frantic Fred have to say—although I think I know.

  Martin Can’t Be Allowed to Do This, by Representative Fred Stanton, D-MA

  President Martin’s chosen course is an immoral proposition to kill tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of Koreans in cold blood as a coercive tactic. The president is engaging in a hideous and obscene poker game with Kim Jong-il: “I’ll see your Las Vegas and raise you a Pyongyang.” It is comparable to the Nazi SS practice of hauling randomly selected civilians in and shooting them as a bargain offered to the resistance movements—“You stop blowing up trains and we’ll stop random executions.”

  Not only is President Martin’s decision morally repugnant; it won’t make Americans safer. In fact, it will put us all in greater danger, as attacks on North Korean cities are sure to cause Kim to redouble his efforts to destroy American ones—and now with the wholehearted support of his captive people and at least the grudging approval of much of the world. And with all sympathy for America incinerated by the fireballs that claim Korean lives by the hundreds of thousands, we must consider seriously the probability of new attackers coming forward—like Iran and its Hezbollah.

  Nothing can bring back Las Vegas.

  I’ll say it again: nothing can bring back Las Vegas. So even those who support the president’s plan as retribution will find no lasting comfort in the murder of equally innocent Koreans. The dead of Las Vegas will still be dead. The city will still be in ruins. The survivors will still be living in camps and in the homes of generous strangers throughout this great nation.

  So nothing about the president’s plan makes sense. Except, perhaps, to a man who needs to defend himself against impeachment by the far Right. It is a grotesque irony that the impeachment the president fears would never be successful, because a great majority in the Congress, in the country, and indeed in the world, supports his diplomacy to protect America and end the crisis.

  President Martin must not be allowed to carry out his murderous plan. If ever there was an issue that should bring Americans into the streets in protest, this is it!

  Rick rubbed his weary eyes, feeling as if the orbs bulged from their sockets and would burst if he weren’t careful. Well, Fred has certainly gotten what he asked for! That’s some crowd outside. He couldn’t see the demonstrators thronging the fence bordering the south lawn of the White House because carefully positioned trees blocked the line of sight—and any assassin’s aim. But both sight and sound were only a click away.

  Television showed a large crowd milling angrily; he heard their chants and taunts. Since the West Wing simply loomed indifferently about a hundred yards away, the demonstrators were more interested in each other and the reporters doing stand-ups than in the actual object of their feelings. Police, some on horseback and all in riot gear, grimly kept the groups apart and off the six-foot wrought-iron fence girdling the White House grounds.

  Rick’s finger twitched and the sights and sounds vanished.

  He felt as if he were being circled by sharks, and criticism from both Right and Left sapped his confidence. The Right was just snarky, but the Left . . . It was much harder to be called a murderer, by standards he hadn’t abandoned, when he knew he was one, or soon would be.

  He looked at the clock, suddenly hungry, both for dinner and for conversation with Ella.

  ***

  “You look a little bedraggled this evening, Mr. President,” said Ella with a gentle smile. Actually, she thought he looked haunted, like the photos of FDR just before his death, bruises under eyes so distinct they looked like makeup.

  “That’s because people I thought were friends are calling me reckless or worse in public while telling me privately they support me. Support me . . . when? When they write their memoirs?”

  Rick took a large bite of roast beef, acknowledging privately that he and fellow politicians accepted inconstancy and fecklessness in others so that they could forgive it in themselves.

  “How about Ray Morales?”

  He chewed, swallowed, then said: “The freshman congressman from Austin is in my corner!”

  “Don’t be snide, Rick ! How’d your meeting go?”

  He cocked his head and smiled. “You were right to push it, Ella. He’s a good man, and our talk helped me think this through, but I’ll never be able to compartmentalize and rationalize killing the way he does.”

  He frowned. “And neither, apparently, can the New York Times. Did you read today’s . . . ?”

  Rick read from his Early Bird: “Listen to how it begins: ‘President Martin has made a deadly misjudgment.’ And their sanctimonious conclusion: ‘We pray that you will not act on this misjudgment, because that act will leave you open to accusations of genocide and will leave the United States a pariah nation.’

  “And what will it make me if I let Kim remain in control of half a dozen nukes and he takes out Philadelphia, or Boston, or Chicago? And what will that leave the nation? Answer me that, editors!” He flung the clip sheet to the floor.

  Ella thought of commiserating but knew that would be irresponsible. Instead: “What’s the hardest part of this, Rick?”

  “Giving an order that will exterminate fifty thousand human beings, maybe more, like they were cockroaches! Do you know how the neutron bomb kills? Slowly. After massive radiation, thousands will crawl away and die in corners, like bugs
zapped with a can of Raid.”

  Ella thought his eyes looked wild, as if the mind behind them was considering flight. She rose from her chair and looked down at him, arms crossed. Her eyes locked on his. “Well, Rick, Steve Nguyen and a lot of his friends and neighbors died just that way! Remember? And that’s how people in Philadelphia or Boston or Chicago could die. Unless you get Kim out now or kill him. Is there some less revolting way to do that?”

  Rick stood, too, his body shouting anger and fear. “Less revolting? Sure. I can order the invasion of North Korea! That would be just good, old-fashioned bombs, machine guns, and bayonets! Not like killing cockroaches at all. Bombs, machine guns, and bayonets are the proper way to kill human beings! Wouldn’t bother me half as much, or the New York goddamn Times, either!”

  He was shouting when his words stopped rushing.

  Rick’s voice returned to normal. “And best of all, it wouldn’t be me doing the killing, would it? Soldiers pick people to kill, and, instead of piling up all the bodies in a single day, they’d pile them up a few hundred at a time. Not so dramatic. Much easier to rationalize, except on Memorial Day!”

  “So, why don’t you do that?” she said gently.

  He stood silently, looking away.

  “Rick . . . why not do it that way?”

  He looked at her with hopeless eyes. “Because if I use neutron bombs, and Kim goes, no more Americans die. The bodies are Kim’s tribe, not our tribe.”

  Ella stepped close and hugged him, gently pulling his head onto her shoulder. Tenderly, she stroked the back of his neck.

  Then she stepped back, picked up the Early Bird, and said: “Rick, the New York Times is not the only editorial board that counts. What about this? ‘Something horrible may happen in a week. It need not. Kim can stop it. His countrymen can stop it. We pray they will. But if they do not, it will be a necessary horror.’”

  “Ah, the Washington Post! Always inclined to cut the home team a little slack!”

  “Is it pandering to point out that either Kim or the people he rules—and who accept his rule without protest, by the way—can keep our attack from happening? They can, can’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if they don’t, if they choose not to act, aren’t they responsible for what happens, for what you told them would happen?”

  Rick raised hands in supplication, a parent frustrated by a teenager’s sophistry. “Ella, that’s making the victim responsible for being assaulted! A first-year law student could demolish that argument!”

  “Not if I were making it!”

  He’s losing it! Ella thought. He’s slipping back into that parallel universe where men like Guzman and Kim don’t exist, where evil is a label given by spin doctors, not a beast that comes at your throat.

  Ella grabbed his shoulders, looked explosively into his eyes, rammed her face close to his. He felt her breath. “Forget that, Rick. Forget . . . the . . . courtroom! We’re not talking about courts and laws here. Kim does not submit himself to law. As long as he controls North Korea, he remains beyond the reach of law. And as long as he controls North Korea, our country—the one you take for granted and the one that saved my life—is going to keep coming apart!

  “What are you—not the law, you—willing to do to save America?”

  Woodenly, a speaker with stage fright reading a speech he was too nervous to comprehend, Rick said: “During the campaign I said I’d do whatever it takes.”

  She gripped his shoulders with all her strength. “And will you?”

  “Yes, God help me, but yes!”

  Chapter 52

  “Aaron, any positive signs . . . Kim . . . coming to his senses?” said Martin, tone and expression revealing his optimism making its last stand against despair.

  “Mr. President, the military appears to have completed movement into positions to attack the ROK. Overhead shows initial launch preparations at several ballistic missile sites but no sign of missiles themselves. The motorized infantry regiment we first observed near Pyongyang a week ago remains there. Imagery of sub bases shows empty, so the boats must be at sea.”

  “Aaron, what I asked was do you have any evidence of a move against Kim?” said Martin, loudly.

  Impassive, the DNI said, “None, sir. The movement of that regiment to Pyongyang last week was probably a precaution in case of unrest, but we’ve seen nothing on overhead. If there were street demonstrations, we’d see ’em.”

  “And the U.S. Interest section of the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang tells us there’s no political activity,” interjected Battista.

  “Yeah, but it’s not mobs of peasants waving pitchforks or Pyongyang’s citizens marching with placards: it’s the calculation of a few powerful men in Kim’s inner circle!”

  “Sir, we can’t see into the minds of those men. That information is simply not available to us.”

  Guarini’s heart hurt for his friend as the DNI’s reply left him twisting in the wind. Feeling like witnesses before an execution, the NSC and advisors sat fidgeting, watching the president, who would address the nation at nine that night, the zero hour. Everything was ready: if he signed the attack order, three neutron bombs would detonate above Sinpo as he spoke to the world.

  Dully, Rick said, “So what can you tell us about China, Aaron?”

  “Mr. President, overhead imagery and communication analyses paint a picture of Chinese preparations to move into North Korea. As we’ve reported, for the past week China has allotted nearly one hundred percent of all transport—road, rail, and air—to moving troops. And they’ve put their entire airborne force, about thirty-five thousand soldiers, on high alert, plus having their largest airborne training exercise ever. That suggests they plan on more than just putting up a human wall at the Korean border to stop refugees.”

  Griffith said, “Since we weren’t all in on your conversation with Ming Liu, can you bring us up to speed?”

  Rick suppressed his irritation at Griffith’s snarky question. “Ming is tough, but he’s level-headed and unemotional. I can work with him, tomorrow and down the road.

  “But today . . . the bill comes due for all we’ve given China . . . and Ming will pay it. “

  “Did he say that?”

  “No, Bruce, but he has no better option if we hit Sinpo. That would force Ming’s hand. He’d then believe we’d follow up with a full nuclear attack, and he can’t live with that.

  “Anne . . . the UN?”

  “Mr. President, the Russians introduced a Security Council resolution that a nuclear attack on North Korea would be genocide. Obviously, that’s not going to pass, but it will get quite a few votes. They’ll also introduce it in the General Assembly, and there it will pass.

  “The DPRK UN ambassador’s invitation to President Clinton to come to Pyongyang in the interests of peace was a pretty predictable and cynical move. Clinton’s turn-down is being cited by some as evidence that you don’t want anything to stand in the way of nuclear war, Mr. President.”

  “Well, Bill might have gone if I hadn’t convinced him that he was going to be held hostage.” Martin paused and for an instant they saw the old insouciance. “It may also have helped that I reminded him about his decision not to reveal Chinese cooperation with Pakistan’s nuclear bomb program, which probably enabled Khan to help Kim build the Las Vegas bomb. We agreed it wouldn’t help if that were raked over while Las Vegas is still radioactive.”

  The president paused, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squinted. “Anything else, Anne?”

  “Well, the secretary-general is as frustrated and furious as his countryman Gwon. He’s trying to create a wave of condemnation that will make us extend the deadline, climb down from our ultimatum.”

  Well, what else did we think he’d do? He’s just defending his tribe, like I am.

  “I guess we have to expect that.

  “Sara, what news from Homeland Security?” That’s going to make Bruce mad, asking Sara when I’ve put him in charge of homeland def
ense, but I don’t care. Sara will tell the truth. Bruce won’t.

  “My people are working their butts off, but the results are uneven, sir. The truth is, what triggered the first alert, which eventually led us to that bomb, was a fluke. It was the damn asset control device that led to the initial inspection, not radiation from the bomb.

  “So, we plug away, every day, but it takes time to produce more and better radiation scanners, time to install them, time to train operators . . . and time works against us. If they get lucky once, or we screw up once . . . well, that could be another city.”

  “We’re here to put that shoe on the other foot!” said the vice president, unable to contain himself any longer.

  Martin sighed. “No, Bruce, we’re here to decide. I haven’t signed the order.” The president’s voice was tired but firm.

  Guarini said, “Mr. President, Americans want Kim gone, now! Today most of them don’t care as much about how that’s done as they do about getting it done. Later, when they feel safer, they will care and you’ll be subject to criticism, maybe a lot of criticism. But right now . . . well, we’ve seen people vote on this administration with their feet.”

  Even you, Bart? Martin seemed to shrink, to accept that his desperate hope of avoiding a slaughter was gone.

  Hurriedly, Dorn said: “What about asking Congress for a declaration of war before launching the attack? I know this isn’t the first time we’ve considered this, but I think it could be very important.”

  Leaning forward, Griffith pounced. “Congress will not take responsibility for this decision, but they may encumber it with conditions. Like no use of nuclear weapons without separate congressional approval! Like only purely military targets may be attacked! No matter what, the Martin administration owns this decision, so let’s not waste time and energy—maybe even tie our hands—trying to duck it!”