by Joseph Flynn
She picked up her burger, took a big bite. “Yum. The fries are great, too.”
McGill was reassured. He took a bite and shared Gabbi’s opinion of the burger. He washed it down with a sip of Coke. Popped a fry into his mouth.
“Have to bring my honey here sometime,” McGill said.
“Mention my name, you’ll get a good table.”
McGill grinned. “You think Magistrate Pruet or his bodyguard ever come here?”
“It’s more of an ex-pat place,” Gabbi said.
McGill nodded, worked on his lunch.
“You don’t trust Pruet?” Gabbi asked.
“I don’t distrust him; I kind of like his manner. I’m just trying to sort things out. Decide what I’d do in his place.”
“You don’t intend to freelance, do you?”
McGill shook his head. “Can’t embarrass the president. Just want to make sure I have wiggle room in case anyone tries to put the squeeze on me.” He looked at Gabbi’s computer. “Shall we Google the late Mr. Duchamp? See if he’s been photographed in the company of someone who looks like you.”
Gabbi opened her computer. But they both saw a problem before they even got started. If they remained seated where they were and wanted to see the monitor at the same time, they’d have to share the view of their research with anyone who passed by.
They looked at each other and Gabbi said, “Let me slide in next to you.” She did, careful to leave six inches of space between them. She pulled up the Internet and the ubiquitous Google search engine.
McGill noticed something. “Hey, they don’t have the same keyboard over here.”
Gabbi smiled. “Yeah, the nerve of the French, having a keyboard of their own. Took me two weeks to learn it. Now qwerty throws me.” She pulled up a list of links for Thierry Duchamp. “Only fifty-six thousand-plus possibilities. Well, maybe we’ll get lucky. If it’s all right with you, I’ll take care of the check and get us fresh drinks so we’re not disturbed.”
McGill nodded, said, “Thanks.” He was already into the search.
Gabbi stepped away, came back a few minutes later, wearing a frown.
McGill looked up at her and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Just got a call from the embassy. They fielded a call asking if you’re in town.”
“Who wants to know?” McGill asked.
“A sportswriter.”
Winfield House, London
15
Patti was putting on an AV presentation. A four-color vertical bar chart appeared on a large screen next to where Patti stood at her lectern in a narrow spotlight.
“This chart shows the number of U.S. troops currently in Europe and the annual cost in dollars of maintaining those troops in their European bases.”
The president clicked to the next graphic, a historical measurement.
“Here we have the numbers of troops who have served in Western Europe and the dollars that have been spent protecting the continent since the end of World War II.”
The numbers of both troops and dollars were staggering.
The president looked at her peers.
“There are no charts for the number of European combat troops stationed in the United States nor a dollar amount that has been spent on them because the nations of Europe haven’t had to bear the staggering burden the United States has borne. Charts similar to the first two I’ve shown are available to show the cost to the United States of defending Japan and the Republic of Korea.
“When I said the burden on the United States has been staggering, I was understating the situation. As the president of the United States, and the commander in chief of our armed forces, I’ve come to view the military commitments I inherited—essentially to protect a majority of the planet—to be unsustainable. My country and my countrymen have too many pressing needs at home to subsidize the defense of friends who have grown wealthy under the umbrella of American military protection, friends who have raced past us in many measures of national health and welfare, friends who are increasingly better able to compete in the global marketplace than we are.
“One option available to me is to return home and present to Congress a plan to bring all our military forces home and reinvest the savings in paying down our national debt and addressing critical domestic needs. But my sense is that would be too disruptive and ultimately counterproductive. So what I’m proposing to you here is a concept I call the Proportionate Forces Doctrine.
“I have to digress momentarily to let all of you know that I’ve been thinking of this idea for some time, before I even decided to run for president. As President Severin and Chancellor Kirsch have been the first of your number to visit the White House since my inauguration, I’ve spoken to them of what I’m proposing today to all of you. Jean-Louis, to his credit, has come up with a more graphic and accessible description of what I’m proposing. He calls the plan Points of the Spear.
The president changed the video to a spear image. Three points of it were detailed.
“For purposes of this plan, we divide the spear into three parts: the tip, the grip, and the base. These parts would respectively represent: combat troops, support troops, and supply troops. In the European theater, the tip and the grip would be apportioned to member states of the European Union, the base would be the United States. In the Asian area the tip and the grip initially would rotate between Japan and the Republic of Korea. The United States would be the base. As other nations such as Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore became integrated into the structure, they would alternate as the grip and the United States would remain the base.”
At this point, Prime Minister Kimbrough interrupted.
“Am I to infer, Madam President, that the United States is to become a pacifist nation?”
“Hardly, Prime Minister. We will still have continental responsibilities.”
At that point, the Canadian prime minister, Gordon Kendrie, spoke up. “You’re referring to North America, Madam President?”
“I am, Prime Minister. North America and the Caribbean Basin. That’s where the United States will be the tip of the spear. We hope our dear friends in Canada will be the grip, and we hope to persuade Mexico and the Central American countries to join with our European and Asian friends to be the base.”
“And what of the rest of the world, Madam President?” asked Italian Prime Minister Matteo Gallo.
“That we will have to work out,” Patti answered.
Jean-Louis Severin added, “And when we do, we will bear in mind how much America has done for all of us through these past many years.”
Several members of the group nodded. But President Ku of South Korea looked less than thrilled; Prime Minister Sugiyama of Japan was impassive. But it was only the UK’s Norvin Kimbrough who gave voice to any direct criticism.
“As you said, Madam President, we are indeed witnesses to the making of history: We’re witnessing the day the United States of America forsook being a superpower.”
Patti gave the prime minister an arctic smile.
“Let me be the first to tell you, Norvin,” Patti said, “it hasn’t been all that super. But if we’re smart and careful here, all of us will come out stronger.”
Georgetown
16
“Madam Chief of Staff,” Welborn said into Jim McGill’s office phone.
“Thank you for the professional courtesy of using my title, Captain Yates, but when it’s just the two of us, Ms. Mindel will do.”
“Yes, ma’am. What can I do for you?”
There was a pause before Galia answers. “I’d like you to do a background check for me on Sir Robert Reed, the queen’s private secretary.”
Welborn wasn’t quite sure what he was hearing. “The queen of England, Ms. Mindel?”
“That would be the one, captain. Look back as far as, say, his grandparents. I’d like to know everything about him, and condense the information to one hundred double-spaced pages. I’d like that as soon as possible.”
Welborn still didn’t have a clue what all this was about, but didn’t think it his place to ask.
“What sources should I use, ma’am?” he inquired.
“Use anything you can find, from the Library of Congress to any file the intelligence community might have on Sir Robert.”
This time the pause was on Welborn’s end of the conversation. “On whose authority shall I base my inquiries, Ms. Mindel?”
“We both work for the president, captain. That’s whom we’ll be working for here.”
Okay, Welborn thought. “Ms. Mindel, may I use that same authority to make another inquiry? One brought to me by Ms. Margaret Sweeney in a matter that might relate to the shooting of Secret Service Special Agent Donald Ky.”
Galia quickly ran that one through her mind. She was having Sir Robert checked out because she wanted to know if a man who seemed to be developing a personal interest in her might have ulterior motives, ones that might be harmful to the president or her administration. Now Yates was asking her about a situation that had to involve the president’s husband. She could simply tell the young Air Force captain to pass any information he had along to the Secret Service. But James J. McGill had made it painfully clear to her that she was not to muck about in his business, which was certainly what this had to be if Margaret Sweeney was involved.
“Go ahead, captain. But tread very lightly when you use the president’s name.”
London
17
Fleet Street had full-page headlines on Patti’s history-making meeting before the national leaders even left Winfield House. Headlines shouted: YANKS OUT! and NATO DEAD! Television networks from around the world had already stationed reporters and cameras at the gates of Winfield House and now their numbers were doubled. Battalions of police had to clear the way for the dignitaries to depart. Only one head of state, South Korea’s President Ku, had any comment, and only after he had made his way to Heathrow Airport. Asked why he was going home, he said only, “The Republic of Korea is not a member of the G8.” And from the grim expression on his face, it looked dubious whether South Korea would participate in the new alliance structure.
Soon after that, the world’s focal point turned to the Kremlin. The Russian foreign minister, Grigori Babin, announced that his country, in addition to not participating in that year’s G8 meeting, was considering withdrawing from the forum permanently. He would also be discussing with the senior leadership of the Russian government the appropriate response to any hostile posture being adopted by any country following the lead of the United States’ dangerous new plan.
Back home in the U.S., members of the House of Representatives and the Senate rose to speak critically of the president’s plan. As Bob Merriman had predicted, the harshest rebukes came from members of the president’s own Republican party; it was the Democrats who counseled patience, some of them even applauding President Grant’s ideas.
Then the focus shifted to Paris when the website of Le Monde posted the headline: France Will Lead. The Elysee Palace was immediately swamped with a flood tide of questions asking how it was determined that France should be the tip of the spear. Would that be a permanent thing or would that role rotate as President Grant had said? Picking up on that question, the website for Le Canard Enchainé asked: Will Liechtenstein Be the Next to Lead?
All this was not the public rollout Patti had planned. Somebody had leaked her plans.
She asked Galia: “Which bastard was it, Kimbrough or Michaelson?”
Montmartre, Paris
18
Alexandru Régis and his wife Ana were fourteen and thirteen respectively and married for almost a year. Régis, of course, was their public surname. Their true names were known only to a handful of other Rom. Their families and their clan were of the entertaining arts: musicians, singers, and dancers; jugglers and acrobats; conjurers, magicians, and fortune-tellers. Ana’s pure high voice, singing songs of love, was the last thing Alexandru heard at night before he fell asleep. Ana wanted very badly for Alexandru to give her a child, and he certainly wanted her to bear him many sons, and pleasure him even when a child didn’t result, but Ana was as delicate as she was beautiful. He was sure if they consummated their marriage too soon — especially as big and hard as she made him — he might kill her, if not with his manhood then by snapping her in half during their passion. He’d had a dream warning him of just such a fate and he heeded it despite his desperate longing. They would wait and when Ana matured into womanly strength then they would know ecstasy such as they could not yet imagine. For her part, Ana tempered her frustration by appreciating her husband’s gentleness and intelligence — and how he did let her pleasure him by throttling his great shaft until it erupted and became a soft, weak thing in her hand.
The two of them sat before Alexandru’s great grandmother in the hour before midnight in her room above the storefront where she foretold the future to credulous French folk and tourist gadje — outsiders — as Madam Mystère. To the young couple she was Bunica — Grandmother — Anisa. As she was also the queen of their clan, they were doubly respectful. They’d come to her with the story of the gadje who wanted Alexandru to find a blonde woman. The gadje who had given Alexandru ten euros with the promise of as much as 190 more. They thought Bunica Anisa with her wisdom might know a way to get the family even more than that.
She stroked the cheeks of both children and gave them a gold-toothed smile.
“Americans, you say?” asked Bunica Anisa.
“The man definitely; the woman possibly,” Alexandru replied. “Her French is perfect, including the Parisian accent. But her English is American and also perfect.”
“Which part of America?” the queen asked.
She expected much of her great grandson. His intelligence was a sparkling thing.
“Television American. Also the man is a flic.” A cop.
“But he was not with the gendarmerie?”
“No, he is here looking for the woman, who looks like the woman he is with.”
“Describe this woman with the flic.”
Alexandru did.
Bunica Anisa asked, “Is she his lover?”
Alexandru shook his head. “She works with him, I would say.”
“Not for him?”
The young Rom reviewed his impression of the two gadje.
“She defers to him, but he doesn’t force the respect.”
Anisa took that into her calculations. Ana liked her husband’s description. It matched her understanding of the way she felt about herself and Alexandru.
“This woman they seek,” the queen asked, “could she be the other’s sister?”
“They did not say, and I am not certain.” Alexandru’s face clouded with uncertainty.
“What is it, my sweet?” Bunica Anisa asked.
After only a slight hesitation, Alexandru said, “With sisters, are they likely to have different…” He cupped his hands in front of his chest.
His grandmother cackled. “It is possible, yes. Some are different, others almost alike. But what you say means the woman you saw and the one you didn’t are not identical twins. More likely they are strangers with a resemblance. Let me think the night on this.”
Bunica Anisa kissed each of them goodnight, but she held Alexandru back a moment. “Your wife is waiting for her marriage bed to have meaning.”
Alexandru lowered his eyes. He knew Ana would never have said anything, but he believed Madam Mystère really did have the second sight
“I want nothing more, Bunica, but I have my fear.”
“You are everything a young man should be, Alexandru. You and Ana will have your joy soon enough. I have seen this.”
The boy lifted his gaze and smiled brightly.
“And the gadje with their euros?”
“That we will find out.”
The Hideaway, Paris
19
McGill had the lights off in the apartment where he was staying. He looked out at the skyline of P
aris. In the immediate vicinity, it was more quaint than breathtaking. Apartments and small commercial buildings. The streets below were still filled with pedestrians even as midnight approached. Tourists having a good time in Paris. Nobody thought to look up to where he stood watching them, sipping from a bottle of water.
He turned away when he heard the two bars of his cellphone ringtone: “Hail to the Chief.” Patti calling.
McGill tapped the speak button and said, “I’m still thinking foreign travel is a lot more fun when you’re with your honey.”
“Your honey wishes she was with you right now,” said the President of the United States. “Just you and me—with every last reporter on the dark side of the moon.”
“Sounds good, but neither of us is a quitter when we have a job to do.”
“More’s the pity. I called to have you reassure me that the Dark Alley move you showed me will really work.”
“Just like a charm,” McGill promised.
“And if I do it right I won’t look like I’m mugging someone?”
“You’ve been practicing right?”
“Yes.”
“Then it will be devastating but entirely misleading.”
“There will be lots of cameras,” Patti said. “There always are, everywhere I go. Sometimes the weight of all the attention makes me tired.”
McGill’s curiosity about what his wife had in mind rose to new heights, and he was disturbed that she sounded almost dispirited, not like herself at all. But as far as the Dark Alley move he’d shown her went, he knew she had excellent physical coordination—a dancer’s grace—and she worked hard at everything she did.
“The cameras won’t matter,” he said. “Do it right and they’ll record just what you want them to see. Now, without me poking my nose where it doesn’t belong, I really have to ask: Are you all right?”
After a moment of silence, Patti said, “Yes. I’m fine. Up to a point. If anything’s bothering me, it’s that I’m angry. For the first time in a long time, I’d like to smack someone.”