Luke Stone 03 - Situation Room

by Jack Mars

  Now he turned and faced the camera directly. He gave it his steely-eyed glare. He was looking right into the eyes of the American people.

  “He’s pretty good,” Pierre said.

  Susan nodded. “I know. That’s what makes him a menace.”

  Parowski pointed at the camera. “The United States is an open society. It is one of the great gifts our forefathers gave us. The terrorists hate us precisely because of our freedom, and our openness. We will protect our freedoms above all else, and we will never give them away, not one ounce, because of what terrorists do. We will win this fight, and at the same time, we will preserve the very traditions that make this the greatest country on Earth.”

  The host almost smiled, but caught herself. Instead, she tried to match the look of resolve on Parowski’s face.

  “Thank you… should I call you Mr. Vice President? Or should I wait for the formal announcement?”

  “Congressman is fine,” Parowski said. “For now.”

  Susan clicked off the sound.

  “Amazing,” Pierre said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what we’re going to do about this guy. He’s stepped pretty far over the line, and we haven’t even announced him as Vice President yet. I mean, take it a little slower, am I right?”

  Pierre shrugged. “He seems like a go-getter. He did a pretty good job.”

  “Would you hire him?”

  “I don’t think I’d hire any politician. To do anything.” He looked at her and smiled. “Present company excepted.”

  Susan’s phone rang. She glanced at it. “Honey, I have to take this. It’s Kat, probably about the last-minute meeting I asked for.”

  Pierre shook his head and smiled. “Knock yourself out. I’m going to bed.”

  Susan picked up. “Kat?”

  “Hi, Susan,” Kat said. “They’re here, and they’re ready to meet.”

  * * *

  Susan stood with Kat Lopez as the three men entered her upstairs study. They couldn’t use the Situation Room for this meeting—it was still full of people. Intelligence was coming in day and night.

  Susan almost couldn’t believe she was doing this. The first man through the door was Senator Edward Graves of Kansas. He was seventy-two years old, and seemed even older than his years. His back was hunched. He walked with a limp. His gnarled and liver-spotted right hand gripped the knob at the top of a wooden cane. His face was craggy and lined. His nose was bulbous, and crisscrossed with broken blood vessels.

  Only two parts of him in any way suggested youth or vitality. For one, there were his eyes, which were as sharp and alert as twin laser beams, and for another there was his hair, which was as black as coal, probably from twice-weekly applications of Just for Men. It was either that, or shoe polish.

  In the madness after the June 6 attacks, as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Ed Graves had briefly become Vice President of the United States. He was implicated in the plot to topple Thomas Hayes, and in fact was arrested along with the conspirators. But, and here was the key, there was no evidence he had known anything about the coup plot.

  Ed Graves was so old, he didn’t use computers. Naturally, he had an email address associated with his office, but he never opened it. He didn’t text or use a cell phone. In fact, he rarely talked on a telephone at all. There was no data trail of any kind that suggested he was involved. If he knew there was a plot to kill the President, he found out about it in a face-to-face meeting, one that was far away from any listening devices.

  Susan didn’t believe it. She knew he was involved. She could see it in his eyes. If Thomas Hayes’s body had remained intact in the Mount Weather disaster, right now he would be rolling over in his grave.

  Thomas used to say that Ed Graves was as dumb as a dead tree stump.

  And that may be true, but here was wily old Ed in the flesh, still alive, and not even in jail. The Chairman of the Congressional Armed Forces Committee since Susan was a teenager, Ed was as hawkish as hawks came.

  “He never met a war he didn’t like.” That was another of Thomas’s sayings about Ed.

  Following Ed Graves into the room was Martin Binkle, the owner of War Junkie, a conservative website with often outrageous commentary that was nevertheless popular among high-level members of the military and the intelligence communities. It was rumored to be a CIA-funded front organization, and Susan imagined it probably was.

  Binkle himself was a thin, balding man whose fashion sense made him an outlier amidst conservative Washington—he favored bizarre-themed bow ties with matching suspenders, often over pink dress shirts. His boyish appearance had stayed with him into early middle-age, and then did a rapid fade in the past few years. For a long time, he looked like a young fool. Now he looked like an old one.

  After Binkle came Haley Lawrence, who was really the focus of Susan’s interest. Lawrence’s trajectory was firmly on the right side of the political cosmos. His father had been a general. Haley had played football in high school, had gone to Yale as an undergrad, and was recruited directly into the CIA from there. In the last Republican administration, he had risen as high as the agency’s Deputy Director. When Thomas Hayes came in and tried to clean house, he had moved to Stanford University, where he lectured on Foreign Policy and International Affairs. He was a board member of the Heritage Foundation.

  At the same time, Haley Lawrence was clean as a whistle. He had also been investigated in relation to the coup plot. He did use email, he texted, and he blogged. His blog was thought to have a quarter million visits a month. He was in contact with many people, and they with him. In none of those thousands of emails, texts, and online conversations was there any hint he knew the coup was coming. The plotters hadn’t included him. They knew that he was a reasonable man and would never agree to such a thing. He’d probably even turn them in.

  “Gentlemen,” Susan said. “Thank you for coming at this late hour.”

  “Susan,” Ed Graves said, “we have a good idea why you called us. This is a very difficult time for everyone, and we might as well try to put aside our differences. You did the right thing by calling us. And we’re willing to hear you out.”

  Susan gestured at the high-backed chairs. “Won’t you sit down?”

  The three men took seats, Edward Graves sinking slowly into his chair, as if sitting too fast would break him like glass. Susan sat across from them. Kat Lopez stood, as usual. Susan had rarely seen Kat take a seat during their time together.

  “I gather you’ve all seen Michael Parowski on television tonight?” Susan said.

  “He put on quite a display,” Martin Binkle said. In addition to the clown costume he wore, he had a strange, high-pitched voice. “I find him an embarrassing choice for Vice President, to be honest with you.”

  Susan shrugged. “Some will like him, some won’t. He has his fans.”

  “Yes,” Edward Graves said. “But not among us.”

  “Well, I guess it’s good that I don’t have to ask the Senate for his confirmation then,” Susan said.

  “No, you don’t. But you do have to ask the Senate for confirmation of your nominee for Secretary of Defense. I assume that’s why you called us in. Things are spiraling out of control, and you can’t wait any longer to nominate someone. Here’s what I know, Susan. You’re going to want my help getting your person through the Senate, and you’re going to want the help of these two gentlemen in shaping the public opinion around your pick.”

  “I wouldn’t say things are spiraling out of control,” Susan said. “Until you’ve been blown up, then handcuffed to a man’s waist on a motorcycle in the middle of the night while assassins try to kill you… well, that’s spiraling out of control. Otherwise, I’d say you’re very prescient, Senator.”

  Edward Graves laughed. It sounded like he had a bag of marbles deep in his throat. “Hardly. I’ve been around Washington so long at this point, I don’t think there’s a single gambit I haven’t seen. You need a Secretary of Defense. We all do.
With that in mind, we’ve brought a list of moderate liberals that we might be willing to get behind, given the right circumstances.”

  The Senator made a show of slowly removing a folded piece of white paper from his pocket. Susan imagined the names were scribbled on there in his infamous chicken scratch handwriting.

  Kat Lopez made a move to take the paper from the Senator, but Susan stopped her with a hand.

  “I don’t need to see that list,” Susan said.

  “I think you should look at it,” Graves said. “Now isn’t the time for a long, contentious, and tedious confirmation process.”

  Susan nodded. “Right. But the person we have in mind isn’t on your list.”

  “Then we’ll fight you tooth and nail,” Martin Binkle said.

  “There’s no need for you to do that,” Susan said.

  “You’ll give us no choice.”

  Susan smiled. She disliked Martin Binkle immensely. She disliked Edward Graves. The thought of making them happy gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am slowly rebuilding the government of this country. And I’m doing it in such a way to ensure that the regrettable events of June never happen again. I’m moving away from polarization, and building a team of rivals.”

  Edward Graves was beginning to look bored. Of course he would grow bored. He had no imagination. He had nothing to occupy or spark his mind.

  “What are you saying, Susan?”

  “I’m saying the next Secretary of Defense is in this room.”

  The three men stared at her. Haley Lawrence, the only one of the three with a brain, seemed to get it right away. His face took on a look of consternation, then curiosity.

  Martin Binkle seemed to get it next. Susan watched him. He did it by a slow process of elimination. He looked first at Kurt Kimball. No, he was already the National Security Advisor. Next, at Susan—she wasn’t about to demote herself to Defense Secretary, was she? Kat Lopez was out—too young, too Hispanic, too female to ever make it through the gauntlet of conservative senators.

  Now Binkle seemed to consider himself. He got trapped there for a moment, before he realized the implausibility of it. Ed Graves? Too old, too unwilling to work beneath a woman, and already entrenched in a power base that he wouldn’t leave until he reached his deathbed. That left only…

  Haley Lawrence. Binkle turned and looked at him. Of course. It was a lightning strike of a choice. A conservative, with intelligence and military credentials. An academic. A scholar. He would sail through the confirmation process. And he would join a liberal administration, counterbalancing the weight of that union-backed gangster of a Vice President.

  “What are you talking about, Susan?” Ed Graves said.

  “I’m going to nominate Haley as my Secretary of Defense,” Susan said. She turned to him. Big, blond, his former athlete’s body spreading out toward fat in late middle age. “If you want it, that is.”

  He seemed thoughtful. He almost smiled. He narrowed his eyes at her, as if trying to read her mind. “I’m honored,” he said finally, the first words he had uttered during the entire meeting. “I would like to talk with my wife first, and then take a night to sleep on it. In the morning, I think I’ll know more about where I am on this.”

  Susan raised her hand, the famous STOP sign that was becoming her trademark. “Please know that I’d love to have you. But before I can offer it to you formally, I need something from the three of you.”

  “A little horse trading?” Ed Graves said. “Nothing less than I’d expect from you.”

  “We’re in a time of crisis, Ed. We can’t have any more of our people die in these attacks. It’s not a political issue. I don’t care if it makes me look bad. It’s a humanitarian issue. We have to make the attacks stop. Meanwhile, the intelligence I’m getting right now is not worth much. I believe the agencies are holding out on me. I need you guys to crack the whip and bring people into line. It’s either that or I’ll be forced to clean house, up and down the entire dial. And I’ll do it, too. I don’t care. I’ll install someone from NYU or the New School as the head of the NSA. I’ll bring someone down from the People’s Republic of Vermont to run the CIA. Is that what you want from me?”

  “So we bring the intelligence people into line, and Haley becomes the new Defense Secretary?” Ed Graves said.

  Susan shrugged. “That, along with a turn toward positive coverage of this administration in Martin’s online rags and newspapers, and I think we’d have a deal.”

  Graves smiled, his old face crumpling into lines that most people rarely saw.

  “You surprise me, President Hopkins. You’re stronger than your predecessor, do you know that? You’re smarter, craftier, and a much better chess player than he ever was. This is a move that could only be made by a big person. A selfless person, willing to take flak from her own side. Someone who really cares about our country, and not her own political side. I’m impressed by this move, to be honest, and I think the men with me are, as well.”

  “Hear, hear,” Martin Binkle said.

  Susan stared back, quiet, but feeling gratified.

  “Martin, do you think we can get the President that press coverage she’s looking for?”

  Binkle nodded. “I think we can manage it.”

  Susan looked at Haley Lawrence again. When Parowski got wind of this, he was going to have a cerebral hemorrhage. That filled Susan with a sense of delight. She wasn’t about to let Michael push her around. Not only was she installing a conservative in a more powerful position than Michael’s, just wait until Michael got a look at his own travel itinerary for the next few months.

  Michael was going to spend some time mending fences and greeting the tribes in sub-Saharan Africa, and then as the cold weather came in, there was some work for him to do among the Aleut and Eskimo peoples up in Alaska. All of this had come to her while they were sitting here. If she could manage it, she’d have him visiting American scientists testing ice core samples on the melting glaciers up in Greenland.

  “If you like that move, then I think you’ll adore the next one,” Susan said.

  “And what is that move?” Ed Graves said.

  “I’ve summoned the Chinese ambassador, and I’m about to throw her, and her entire embassy, out of the country.”

  They stared back, silent, clearly stunned.

  “What do your people think of that?” Haley Lawrence said.

  Susan shook her head. “I haven’t told them. But I don’t think they’d be pleased.”

  The three men laughed. “My God,” Martin Binkle said. “President Hopkins, for a woman, you have quite a pair of balls.”

  Susan stood up, and the men across from her did likewise.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “I feel like this has been a very productive meeting.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  10:35 p.m.

  Women’s Federal Detention Center – Randal, Maryland

  “Wellington! Wake up!”

  Trudy had been dreaming. It was a dream she had often had throughout her life. She was on a high green plateau above a shimmering sea. Far away, a herd of wild horses were running, coming her way. The lead horse was white. She could not hear them yet, but she could feel their thundering hoof beats through the ground.

  “Wellington!”

  She opened her eyes.

  She was on her cot in her ten-foot-by-twelve-foot cell. Everything in the room was white, and bare. The walls were bare. The little table bolted to the cell floor was bare. She hadn’t done much to personalize the place. She was never someone who had a lot of personal interests. She had no keepsakes. Her life was inside her mind.

  The things that seemed to excite the other women in here—celebrities, television shows, music, and movies—held no interest for her. Give her a mystery to work through and passwords to a few databases, and she could be happy for days. Since she had no access to such things in here, she spent a lot of her time remembering the details
of old cases. And she spent as much time sleeping as she could, which wasn’t much.

  She tried not to think about what might happen next.

  She looked at the door. It was open. Two guards stood there, one woman and one man, which seemed to be the standard operating protocol around here. They were both heavyset, bulging out of their uniforms. They wore blue plastic gloves on their hands. The woman had dirty blonde hair, pulled back tightly to her scalp, and some kind of skin condition that made her face red and raw.

  Trudy glanced at the nameplate on the woman’s breast.

  FIGDOR.

  All the girls dreaded Officer Figdor. She might be a lesbian. She was definitely a sadist. Her favorite part of the job was body cavity searches for contraband. Her second favorite part was overturning cells in a search for contraband, leaving the small totems and personal items that so many women clung to broken and on the floor. Her third favorite part was verbal abuse and threats. She was a piece of work.

  The magnitude of everything Trudy had lost hit her in a wave. She had been a high-level analyst for an elite intelligence agency a short time ago. She had worked with the best—the best covert operatives, the best analysts, the best technology people, possibly in the world. And she was among them, and accepted by them as also the best. At a moment’s notice, she might have to fly out anywhere in the country to work a case or neutralize a threat.

  Now she was trapped in here, and at the mercy of this ogre. The thought of it made Trudy feel like she might vomit. It was nauseating.

  “Sleeping already?” Figdor said. “It’s not even lights out yet.”

  “I was just dozing,” Trudy said.

  Figdor shrugged. “I think if I was facing the death penalty, I’d try to stay awake all the time. There’s going to be plenty of time to sleep after they give you the needle.”