Ultimatum

by Matthew Glass

  “No, I’m not going to compromise the operation. Once it’s finished, it’s all yours.”

  “How soon will they be done?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’ll get Miami off our backs. It’ll knock it right off the front pages. That’s great.”

  “Not if it ends up like Waco,” said Hoffman. “Already we’ve got a trust issue. We’re not going to look too good if we end up with a hundred dead rednecks on our hands.”

  Eales smiled. “Come on, Ben. No one cares about dead rednecks except other rednecks.”

  “I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” said the president.

  “I’ll get Barry to prepare our case,” said Ames. “We’ll lay out the way you’ve handled it, Mr. President, show that you’ve been moderate and patient. Whatever happens, everything you’ve done you’ve done to protect the lives and property of U.S. citizens. It’ll be ready to go.” Jodie Ames had brightened up. “Okay. I’ll get to work.”

  Ben and John stayed on after Jodie left.

  “The wonders of the modern news cycle,” said Eales. “In’t it great?”

  “You think Katzenberger’s guys know what they’re doing out there?” asked Hoffman.

  “I hope so,” said Benton. “They’ve had seven weeks to figure it out.”

  There was silence.

  Benton looked at Eales. “Are we trying to find out who leaked?”

  The president wasn’t talking about Whitefish now, and Eales knew it. “Likelihood is we won’t find the source. It’s probably someone on the Chinese side anyway.”

  “Or some do-gooder at the ESU,” said Hoffman.

  Benton didn’t reply. He had his own suspicion.

  “This is going to hurt us, Joe,” said Eales.

  Hoffman nodded. “The Budget Reconciliation Bill goes to the Hill next week. Then we’re scheduled for the Small Business Bill two weeks after that. They’re both crucial.”

  “And they’re all going to take months,” said Benton. “Let’s not panic. A dip in my ratings now doesn’t make any difference as long as we can bring them back. We just need to keep the momentum going until the ratings come up.”

  “As long as they do.”

  “They will.”

  “If Whitefish goes Waco it’ll be a fucking disaster,” said Eales. “If these bills stall, we’re dead.”

  Hoffman’s face was grim. If things started stalling, they would never get the package through.

  “I’ll talk to anyone in Congress I have to talk to,” said Benton. “All day and all night. Talk to Barb. Just set it up.”

  Hoffman nodded. He had already started doing that. The president’s diary for that day had been thrown out and it was now filled with meetings with key congresspeople. The secretary of the environment, Andrea Powers, was on the schedule as well. She had demanded a meeting with the president and from the tone of her voice it sounded as if she was going to resign by e-mail if she didn’t get it.

  “I have another question,” said Eales. “Are we still on course with this strategy? Do we push through the bills for New Foundation first and then migrate public opinion to the true size of the relocation? Because we could use this to change course. Go public with what we know and push for everything at once.”

  Benton shook his head. “John, look at the craziness we’ve got here when this stuff just comes out as a rumor. What happens if we come out and say it’s true? We don’t just stall, we lose control. Unless we can say we’ve got a solution, we can’t do it. We’ve got to be able to say we’ve got a solution. Until we get to that point, the strategy is to get the elements of fairness in place first. I’m not changing direction.”

  “We may have no choice. Events may have overtaken us.”

  “Well, let’s see about that. Jodie’s out there saying this is simply one extreme scenario. If they buy that, we’re okay. They get hung up on White-fish, in a week’s time this is just some other crazy scenario some journalist was talking about.”

  “The longer we leave it now, the harder it’ll get if we have no choice,” said Hoffman.

  “Maybe. Eventually, if we’re forced to, we come out and say, sure, we got this report as you all know, we’ve done some more work to verify, now we’re in a position to say this is what we expect to happen. Makes us look judicious.”

  Hoffman glanced at Eales doubtfully. “Okay,” he said. He stood up. “We’ll try to keep everyone on track.”

  “I’ll talk to anyone,” said Benton. “Just let me know who I have to talk to.”

  Hoffman nodded. “To start with, you’ve got Andrea Powers coming in about ten minutes.” He smiled. “Good luck.”

  Hoffman left, closing the door behind him. Benton was silent for a moment.

  He turned to Eales. “I want to ask you a question, John. On the question of who leaked. I’m not sure if this is completely crazy but. . .You don’t think it could have been Larry?”

  Eales was genuinely surprised. “Olsen? Joe, there’s a whole bunch of people with a motive.”

  “You think Larry has one?”

  “What? Ramp up the confrontation?” Eales thought about it. “That risks bringing it out into the open. Larry doesn’t want to do that. If anything, Alan’s motive would be greater. He wants it in the open. He wants this in Kyoto.”

  “No, not Alan.” Benton thought about it. “Alan wouldn’t do it.”

  The phone rang. Katzenberger was on the line. They had nine of the Whitefish people in custody. Two were confirmed dead. There had been no sighting yet of Bill Dare, the leader of the group. FBI and state troopers were moving on the main compound. Apparently the shooting so far had happened at a couple of outposts.

  The president told Katzenberger to minimize the use of force. And to keep him informed.

  He told Eales what was happening. “I just pray they don’t go in there and slaughter a slew of them.”

  “No agents killed so far, right? Well, maybe they’ll take it easy. If agents start to go down, the others’ll go fucking postal.”

  There was silence. Half of Benton’s mind was on Whitefish, half on Olsen.

  “I’m going to talk to Larry,” he said. “I’ve got to be clear on this.”

  “You’re going to accuse him of leaking?”

  “You think I made a mistake? Appointing him?”

  Eales opened his mouth to reply.

  The phone rang again. It was Eleanor Gottlib, the president’s assistant, to say that Andrea Powers was there. Eleanor asked if the president required a note taker for the meeting. He told her that he didn’t. As he spoke, Benton signaled to Eales to leave the office.

  Eales went out through the door to the president’s private dining room.

  ~ * ~

  There was a moment of awkward silence after Andrea sat down. Then she spoke. Within about a minute it was clear she had come to resign. She felt she had been kept in the dark about the report over Miami—even if it was only a scenario—that the press had seen she was out of the loop, and her position now was impossible. Benton tried to placate her. Somewhere in Montana at that moment, several hundred trigger-happy FBI agents were storming the hideout of a bunch of overarmed, overaggressive lunatics, including sixty women and children, and he could only imagine what was about to happen. Now one of his cabinet members wanted to resign. Whatever damage had already been done by yesterday’s confrontation over the emissions scenario would be made ten times worse if his environment secretary walked out. More importantly, he didn’t want to lose her. Andrea Powers came with a dream resume for the role. Formerly CEO of Amberton Systems and head of the Business Forum on Social Responsibility, she was one of the few people in the country who could talk credibly to business leaders about the environmental perspective and to environmental leaders about the business perspective. And she could get things done. In the short time she had been in office, her work on driving compliance had been extraordinary.

  Powers’s anger was palpable. Benton tried to assuage
it, but she wouldn’t be placated. Eventually he fell back on the ultimate argument at his disposal. If she wanted to achieve what she obviously felt so passionately about, serving in the administration was the only way to do it. Had she really lost the credibility to do her job or was it her pride talking? She could leave the administration, but if she really cared about what she was doing, how would that help? He asked her to consider that.

  Powers did. Eventually she said that if she was going to do her job, she had to be kept informed about anything touching her area of responsibility. Benton committed to keep her informed of everything he could. That wasn’t quite the same thing, but it was close. Benton told her to think about it, and if necessary they could have another conversation. By the time she left, Joe Benton was pretty sure that Powers was going to stay on. But there was a wound now, he knew, and it would take its time to heal.

  After that he faced a day full of meetings and calls. It was amazing how much damage could be done with a look. There seemed to be a general belief the Miami scenario was true. Or at least everyone needed reassurance that it wasn’t. Benton didn’t say that, he just kept saying it was one of a number of scenarios, saying it nonchalantly, matter-of-factly, to show that he wasn’t perturbed by it, so why should anyone else be? He said it when he met with Dan Bass, the recently appointed director of the National Relocation Commission, and he kept saying it in the afternoon-long series of meetings he had with worried congressional leaders. Between the meetings he was getting updates from Whitefish, where the operation was in progress but details were frustratingly few. And somehow in the midst of all that he had to find the time to call Larry Olsen.

  He didn’t have the time for niceties, and he didn’t much feel like them anyway. “Larry, I’m going to ask you straight out,” he said. “Did you leak that report yesterday?”

  There was silence. Olsen’s face on the screen was hard to read.

  “With respect, sir,” he said eventually. “That’s a crazy question. It’s also insulting.”

  “Well, I’m asking it. I’ll apologize for the insult once you give me an answer.”

  “Mr. President, I think if that’s where we are, you probably have your own answer and you don’t want me in your cabinet. And if that’s what Alan’s telling you, that’s fine.”

  “Alan’s not telling me anything of the kind,” said Benton.

  “Really?” Olsen’s expression was skeptical. “Well, is that what you’re saying, that you don’t want me on board? Because if you are, Mr. President, just say it and I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Benton shook his head.

  Olsen took a deep breath. “Then for the record, Mr. President, I didn’t leak it. And for the record, I would never do such a thing.”

  Benton was silent a moment. “All right, then. I apologize.”

  “Sir, I have no more idea than you who leaked it. If I had to say, probably someone from the Chinese side.”

  The idea that he had even suspected Olsen suddenly seemed ludicrous. Joe Benton was embarrassed. How could he have thought that? It was crazy. He had to get his head clear. He had to break out of this circle of guess and secondguess where he was trapped.

  “I’m going to talk to President Wen,” he said suddenly.

  “With respect, sir, I don’t think—”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “It makes you look weak. We’re still waiting for a response from them. You don’t talk to them when you’re waiting for a response.”

  “What response?”

  “Their proposal.”

  “Larry, they’re not giving us a proposal. You’ve said it yourself.”

  “They haven’t told us that. Technically, we’re still waiting for it.”

  “Hell’s bells, Larry! I don’t care about technically. This is nuts. I’m going to talk to him.”

  “As your secretary of state, sir, I advise you not to.”

  “And as president, I thank you for your advice.”

  Benton cut the line. It was rare for Joe Benton to be genuinely angry, but he could feel his heart pounding. He picked up his phone and got through to Ben Hoffman and told him to set up a call to Wen. Hoffman must have heard something in Benton’s voice because he simply asked when the president would like to make the call, as if he had been just waiting for the request.

  This was madness, thought Benton. Everything was out of control. Anything could be happening right now in Montana, and if it went wrong the press would be all over him. On Capitol Hill, some kind of craziness seemed to have taken hold and even normally solid congresspeople were panicking over a single rogue report from a journalist at some second-rate Canadian newspaper. And people were telling him he couldn’t pick up a phone to talk to another world leader about an issue that was of crucial concern to both of them and to the whole world, as a matter of fact. And he couldn’t talk to him? He had to get back on top. He had to start following his gut a little more. He had to listen to himself a little more, and to the so-called experts a whole lot less.

  ~ * ~

  Friday, March 25

  Oval Office, The White House

  On the screen, an FBI agent was standing in a cellar full of weapons. Rounds of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades were on the floor at his feet.

  “They should get that fucking guy out of the shot,” muttered Eales. The agent was in a bulletproof vest with FBI written in fluorescent letters. “The conspiracy junkies will think it’s staged. They’ll never believe they gave up without using that stuff.”

  The Whitefish siege had ended shortly after five a.m. Only six were reported dead in the compound, including Bill Dare, the group’s leader. A slightly larger number had been injured. Two state troopers had died.

  Joe Benton had felt an enormous surge of relief when he heard the news, almost had to remind himself that two law enforcement officers had died. He felt the shackles around his hands loosening. When he talked to President Wen, he could talk to him knowing he had earned at least a little extra freedom of action.

  Now he was waiting for the call, which was scheduled for eight thirty a.m., eight thirty p.m. in Beijing. Olsen and Ball had arrived an hour earlier to brief him, and Eales came to sit in on the call along with Oliver Wu, who was going to interpret and take notes. They agreed on what the president would say. Then they waited, watching coverage of Whitefish on the screen.

  Toward the end of the siege, most of the group had surrendered. Resistance folded after Dare died. Looking at the weapons in that basement, Benton wouldn’t like to think what would have happened if Dare hadn’t died when he did.

  “I heard one of his own guys shot him,” said Alan Ball.

  “First sensible thing any of them did in two months,” muttered Olsen.

  “We ought to get some of their guys on camera saying there were no wanton killings. I’ll talk to Katzenberger.” Eales glanced at the president. “Jodie’s going to set up a press call for you with Katzenberger and Erin. Let’s make sure you get some of the glory.”

  Benton nodded.

  They had to wait a little longer. Finally the call came through.

  Joe Benton waited for President Wen to come on the line.

  “President Wen,” he said in an upbeat tone. “I’m glad we are able to talk. I hope you’re well.”

  Wen returned the pleasantry in Mandarin. Wu translated. “President Benton, it’s a shame we have not been able to meet.”

  Wen hoped that they would meet soon. In fact, he hoped they would meet in Beijing soon after the G9 summit in India.

  Benton said he hoped they could meet as soon as the conditions were right, which was the line he had agreed with Olsen and Ball. Then, as they had planned, he went on to say directly that he was disappointed U.S. companies hadn’t won any of the contracts that had been awarded by the Chinese authorities a couple of weeks back.

  “I regret,…” translated Wu, “I have no influence over commercial decisions, President Benton . . . These were commercial decisi
ons that were made by the responsible authorities ... You too do not interfere in commercial decisions. We should cooperate as much as we can within the limits of our power.”

  Olsen rolled his eyes.

  “I would like to send my secretary of commerce to meet with your trade ministers,” said Benton.

  “Certainly ... He would be welcome...United States ministers are always welcome.”

  “We need to cooperate as much as we can.”

  Wen agreed. He asked what else President Benton had in mind.

  Benton said he would be open to any proposals President Wen wished to present.