Firespill

by Ian Slater

  The explosions were very loud now. Sweat dripped onto the screen from his nose. His heart punching his chest, frantic to escape, he tried not to think what would happen when the fire wave hit the Sakhalin. He heard the captain yell his name, and as he turned away from the radar, he saw through the bridge windows that the fire, now blood red, was less than 400 yards away, rolling inexorably towards him.

  Admiral Klein, commanding officer of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, refused to believe the first reports. He said flatly that it couldn’t happen. But the satellite pictures showed that it had.

  Six

  No one had ever seen so many gulls. By noon, fourteen miles over the horizon and beyond the fog bank, they came in tens of thousands. Some headed north and others south, over the wide mouth of Dixon Entrance and the green-dotted blue of British Columbia’s island-strewn coast towards the snow-dusted peaks of the Coast Mountains which formed the common backbone of the American and Canadian lands. Old-time fishermen were puzzled, for there was no storm in sight.

  Forty-three miles northwest of Sitka, Happy Girl lolled lazily on the long, glossy swells. Even had the Vice-President seen storm clouds following the distant claps of thunder she thought she had heard earlier that morning, she would not have cared. This was the first real break since her hectic election two years before, and her only concern this day lay with the big rockfish that inhabit the nutrient-rich upwelling of water about the summits of the undersea mountains that rise almost sheer from the ocean floor to within a few hundred feet of the surface. She cast her line again and smiled mischievously. This was the first time in her term of office that she had managed to elude her watchdogs.

  There was no sign of land, only the hazy, pale blue-washed horizon of the endless Pacific giving her the illusion of a limitless world. She let the quietude seep into her as a lizard would the sun. She felt a tug on the line, reeled in the five-pound red snapper, took the hook out, threw the fish back, and wiped her hands on a clean rag. Harry looked over and made a wry face, friendly but slightly deferential. “Time used to be when you could eat ’em, ma’am.”

  “Time’ll come again, I hope, Harry.”

  “Not in my life. Only fish I’ll ever eat will have all the flavor steamed out. It’s all that sterilizing stuff. The fish are all like that now. Like a goddamned sewer here.”

  The Vice-President said nothing. The last thing she wanted to talk about today was pollution. She looked eastwards, watching a long line of dots trailing the thin sliver of the horizon. “Harry?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Have you ever seen so many birds?”

  Harry’s old eyes squinted at the clouding sky. “Nope, can’t say I have. Must be a storm building out yonder. Don’t look bad here, though.”

  Harry’s mention of a storm made Elaine feel uneasy. Then, quite suddenly, she was assailed by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Despite her need for privacy, and no matter that other vice-presidents had made a habit of deliberately breaking out of their protective cocoon, she rebuked herself. No American vice-president had any business being miles out at sea, virtually alone, radio or not. She should know better. Any senator, any aide knew better. She began reeling in.

  “Harry, I think we’d better head back.”

  Harry nodded and moved towards the cabin to start the engine. Still reeling in, Elaine saw a dark lump bobbing up and down by the boat. She pointed it out to Harry, who shook his head in disgust and fished it out of the water. It was a dead gull. Feeling its sticky body, he threw it back into the sea and showed Elaine his hands, which were now covered with oil. “Pollution,” he grunted, and went into the cabin.

  To starboard a tremor passed through the water as a phantom breeze broke the silken surface of the sea. The Vice-President looked up again at the multitudes of gulls passing over the horizon. “I wonder why they’re all coming from the same direction.”

  Harry pushed the starter button. The motor did not respond. “Don’t know,” he answered. He pushed the starter button a second time. Again it did not respond.

  Seven

  At 5:35 P.M. eastern daylight time a military aide sat in the gallery of the North Virginia Country Club carrying the nuclear code box that always accompanied the President. Below the President and his close friend, Air Force General Arnold B. Oster, moved into match point in the sixth game.

  An athletic six-footer who always looked as if he had just stepped off a reviewing stand, Oster served the ball into the President’s corner. It dropped slowly. The President, his red face in marked contrast to the hospital whiteness of the squash court, moved quickly but not hurriedly behind the ball and drove it into the front right corner. Oster, anticipating him, had already moved across the court. He intercepted the ball on the rebound, flicked it across to the President’s backhand, and stood in center court, waiting for the inevitable hard backhand drive, but it didn’t come. Instead he could hear the plop of a dead ball dribbling forward from the back wall. Oster turned around. “You don’t usually miss those, Walt.”

  The President, who at fifty was three years younger than the general, wiped the sweat from his eyes with his armband. “No,” he answered quietly, almost dispiritedly, “no, I don’t.” His voice was almost apologetic. “You mind if we break off now?”

  Oster picked up the ball with a deft flick of his racket. “Not at all. Walt?”

  “Yes.”

  “You okay?”

  The President smiled without conviction. “Yes. Hard day.”

  Oster glanced up at the aide sitting alone in the gallery. He decided to wait until they were in the privacy of the locker room before asking more questions. The President was his closest friend. They had been in school together long before the future President had gone to Harvard, and he knew that when Walter Sutherland couldn’t kill an easy backhand, it meant he was either out of shape or he was worried. And the President was in shape. They had been playing an hour’s squash three times a week for the past ten years. Sutherland had then been an up-and-coming congressman serving on the powerful Armed Services Appropriations Committee to which Oster had been an advisor.

  Oster knew he had made himself unpopular in some circles for his frankness, but his blunt honesty had made him the President’s closest confidant and friend. Walter Sutherland could tell him anything with the assurance that his thoughts would go no further. The President had to have at least one such friend in the White House, an ever-ready sounding board for some of the tougher decisions.

  Clara Sutherland, the President’s wife, was another thing. Though she had always been willing to support her husband during the tougher moments of his office, she was essentially nonpolitical. She was a deeply religious woman, whose beliefs did not dispose her to insert herself into the world of power and manipulation. When she first heard gossip about her husband and Elaine Horton, for example, she had discounted it, convinced that it was just crude gossip.

  Until recently, staff, friends, and even the press corps had refrained from confronting her with her husband’s infidelity, but a month ago a loud-mouthed young reporter, violating the self-imposed restrictions of the press corps, had blurted out, “Mrs. Sutherland, could you tell us whether you and the President have come to terms with your husband’s liaison in Congress?”

  There had been a hush in the pressroom before Clara Sutherland, with a smile on her face, had replied, “My husband’s relations with Congress have always been extremely close. I believe that it’s most proper for a President to maintain ties with Congress, don’t you?” The First Lady got a solid round of applause for that one, but the story broke in some of the tabloids, and try as they might, the local networks couldn’t avoid mentioning it. Finally, CBS and NBC had made passing, cautious references to it.

  It was the networks’ mention of the story only a week before which Oster had in mind as he entered the locker room with the President. After making sure that the Secret Service agents and the aide were outside in the corridor, Oster asked bluntly, “Walt, how’s th
ings with Clara?”

  The President peeled off the sweat-soaked T-shirt and dropped it wearily to the floor. “She’s very understanding.”

  The general nodded and began adjusting the shower tap. As the water began drumming loudly, he raised his voice. “Hell, I know that. She’s a champion. But how are things?”

  Walter Sutherland looked up at his friend. No one else would have dared press the question. He sighed heavily. “Things are—well, not so good. Truth is, Arnold, Clara’s hurt, but she’s so goddamn understanding I feel like a child-beater. That’s how things are. It was that goddamn press conference that did it. In a way I was almost pleased that little bastard brought it up. At least, I thought, now we could talk about it. But Clara won’t even do that. She never said a word. Any other woman and I’d think she was trying to get her revenge, but not Clara. She’s forcing herself to keep cheerful about everything. Makes me feel even worse.”

  Oster soaped up and didn’t say anything until he had sluiced the suds from his face. “Hell, Walt, she’s not saying anything because she’s too damn sensible. Knows it’s all water under the bridge.” The general paused. “Isn’t it?”

  Sutherland felt like a shower, but he was exhausted. He had made the decision to sit and talk, to unload his private burden, or as much of it as he could, on his friend. But now the bluntness of Oster’s question inhibited him. He found himself answering vaguely, “Well it’s finished as far as I’m concerned, but you know … I mean it’s difficult when the two of us have to see so much of each other.”

  Oster as usual was quick to cut through the President’s hesitancy. “You been fooling around with her again?”

  “Goddamn it, you bastard, I should have you court-martialed.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it, you mean?”

  “No—yes. It’s just that you’re less subtle than a B-52.”

  Oster grinned. “The best airplane,” he said proudly. “Straightforward.”

  The President managed a laugh. “No, I haven’t been fooling around. But—” He found it hard to say her name. “Elaine, you see, she’s still—well, she’s…”

  “Hot?” offered Oster.

  “Yes. Never says so, but I know. Sounds conceited, I suppose.”

  “Horse balls,” said Oster, toweling himself vigorously. “Elaine’s a great woman—knows a great man when she sees one. I introduced you. Don’t ever forget it.”

  “I remember.”

  “I only introduce damn fine women, Walt. Still, what’s your problem? She wants to; you don’t. You can keep your distance.”

  There was a long silence. Oster knew he had hit a nerve, but for once he didn’t press. Sutherland got up and began to shower. He finished quickly. Eyes still closed, he reached for a towel. There were none on the rack, and Oster handed him one. The President wiped his eyes slowly, as if playing for time. “I don’t know, Arnold. I don’t know if I can keep my distance.”

  Oster’s voice was lower now. “You still love her?”

  “Yes. But I have to stop … that.”

  “Why?”

  “Guilt. My job. My wife.” He smiled, his eyes empty. “The President of the United States can’t fuck around.”

  “Horse balls. If Roosevelt could run the country for all that time and enjoy himself on the side, why can’t you? Just keep it quiet.” The general hesitated, but only for a moment. “It can be arranged. I’d help—you know that.”

  “And what about Clara, Arnold?”

  “She’s a grown woman. She could do the same. She’s got a mind of her own.”

  The President tightened his tie absently. “No. She wouldn’t want to do the same.”

  “All right, she wouldn’t want to. But she could, and that’s the point.”

  “It’s not right, Arnold. It’s as simple as that. I know it reeks of God, Mother, and Boy Scouts but I was raised on all three and I can’t shake them. What’s worse, I’m not sure I want to.”

  Oster lit up a cigar, a practice which Sutherland abhorred but tolerated out of friendship. “Look, man, I’m your friend, not your pastor, and I tell you, a happy President is a good President—or a lot fucking better than a lonely President. Right?”

  Thinking hard, Sutherland took his navy blue suit off its hanger. He was about to answer when an aide entered the locker room. “Mr. President, you’re wanted at the White House.”

  “What’s up?” the President asked calmly.

  “Don’t know, sir. Just told me it was top priority.”

  As the aide began to explain, Sutherland finished dressing, nodding from time to time. On his way out, he called back to the general. “Arnold, stay in Washington, will you? I need you nearby.”

  “Yes. Mr. President. I’ll be here.”

  Walter Sutherland left his friend wondering how it was that a man who daily dealt with the enormous pressures of public affairs had such difficulty making up his mind about a woman. Oster didn’t know whether Walter Sutherland would take his advice, but he hoped like hell that the problem would be solved before the strain on the Chief Executive started to affect the way he handled his other responsibilities.

  At 6:00 P.M. eastern daylight time, a grim-faced President walked briskly along a brightly lit corridor beneath the White House. At the end of the long, polished floor, two immaculately dressed marines stood guard outside a door marked Authorized Personnel—A-1 Clearance Only.

  Since special aide Bob Henricks, a discreet distance behind, had joined him a few minutes earlier, the President had said nothing—had not even acknowledged his presence, and all Henricks could hear was the loud, hollow echo of their footsteps in unison.

  The President felt irritably in his pockets. He had forgotten his handkerchief, and in a crisis his hands sweated profusely. He could live without crises. Some men, like Kissinger, he remembered, had soaked them up, used them as fuel for their careers. Solving big problems kept them happy. Crisis cranks. They loved it. He didn’t. After months of preparatory work, just when he finally felt confident enough to launch a massive legislative assault on a whole range of domestic and foreign policy problems—and incidentally secure his place in history—this catastrophe had to come.

  The high shine of the guards’ helmets pleased him. Although they looked impassive, the marines had already checked to see whether each of the approaching men wore the required striped I.D. card on his lapel. For the President, the guards were daily reminders of his personal control. He would need a firm hand on the reins this evening. His first question to Henricks was more of a snap than an inquiry. “How big’s the area?”

  “At the moment, two thousand square miles, Mr. President.”

  The President allowed himself the luxury of incredulity. “Two thousand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sweet Jesus! Why wasn’t I told immediately—this morning?”

  Henricks, for all his calculated casualness, replied somewhat sheepishly, “Ah, the cable was put into the ‘Urgent’ slot by mistake, sir—instead of ‘A-l Priority.’ ”

  The President’s head turned sharply. “By mistake? We’ve got a million-dollar computer in our basement and you’re telling me the cable was put in the wrong box?”

  Henricks had a way of accepting responsibility while seeming to sidestep the major portion of blame. “I’m afraid so, Mr. President,” he replied.

  But this evening the President was unrelenting. “Not good enough. You should have been on top of it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long’s it been burning?”

  “All day. At first the experts said there was a good chance that it wouldn’t spread. That’s before we knew about the tanks breaking up.”

  Reaching the end of the corridor, the two men stepped onto a small platform under the eye of a camera-computer which verified their I.D. through an instantaneous check of their photographs and thumbprints. The guards snapped to attention as the oak doors slid open. Inside the windowless Special Operations Room, busy aides barel
y glanced at the President as he entered and sat down at the long, oval mahogany table which ran almost the entire length of the cedarpaneled room. On the east wall, a huge relief map of the world slowly descended from the ceiling as the equally large movie screen retracted. Superimposed over each of the capital cities was an illuminated digital clock face—orange for those ahead of Washington time and blue for those behind. As the lights began to dim, most of the aides left the main room to work in the Communications Annex nearby, which was filled with chattering telex machines monitoring the news services and receiving official cable traffic.

  President Sutherland shifted his chair for a better view of the huge map, whose oceans passed from ultramarine to navy blue as the lights behind the screen dimmed, casting lighter-shaded ocean currents and green mountain ranges into greater contrast. The President turned to look for his top aide from the Environmental Protection Agency. “Where’s Jean?”

  Henricks glanced up from his attaché case. “She’s taping a newscast of it now, Mr. President. The networks are covering it as a special report.”

  The President’s fingers began drumming on the table. “That figures. The United States government has to wait for Walter Cronkite. What in hell is our Intelligence Service for?”

  Henricks was drawing a red circle off a group of islands that lay adjacent to the Alaskan Panhandle. The circle represented an area of about two thousand square miles on the world map’s transparent overlay. He turned about carefully on the small stepladder. “Intelligence is covering it too, sir.”

  The President smiled derisively, wiping his hands with a trail of Kleenex he’d pulled hurriedly from his jacket. “That’s nice.”

  Henricks was relieved to see Jean Roche walk in carrying two video tapes. The President waved the Kleenex impatiently towards the bank of TV sets and video recorders. “All right, Jean, let’s hear it.”