by Doug Norton
Like other politicians, Rick Martin had acknowledged his faith, taking care not to give offense to anyone. He regarded religion as no more than one of several sources of inspiration, guidance, and optimism.
Until this moment.
The words of a familiar scripture, one he had intellectually acknowledged as expressing profound distress but never thought about, much less felt, now pierced his soul.
Desperately, he knelt and said, “Lord, let this cup pass from me!”
Alone in his hideaway, Rick felt those words erupt from his soul. Though he knew the words, he didn’t have the courage to finish the passage.
He stood up. Somehow, I feel better, no longer alone and beyond any help or comfort. I’m probably tricking myself, but I feel buoyed by something.
Chapter 47
In the Presidential Briefing Room, Rick prepared with fatalistic intensity to learn the recommended target for annihilation. Unsuccessfully, he tried to block images and voices of Las Vegas. “Find them, Mr. President. Punish them for what they did here!” No, he thought. This is about protecting, not avenging. But I don’t know if this will protect; all I know is it will kill a lot of people who had nothing to do with Las Vegas. Maybe I’m just tired of the strain of trying to find a way without more killing. Maybe if I keep looking, I’ll find it.
Secretary of Defense Easterly spoke, the volume of his first words and the pause after them signaling that he was pulling Martin back from wherever he had gone.
“. . . We recommend the city of Sinpo for our demonstration attack. It’s on the east coast of the DPRK, near the widest part of the Sea of Japan, and about equidistant from the Chinese and ROK borders—roughly a hundred miles from each, and about one fifty from Russia. Our best estimate—guess, really—is a population of about one hundred fifty-eight thousand.”
Martin, usually chatty with his briefers, was silent. Easterly glanced from his notes to the president. Poor bastard! I don’t think he wants to know much about Sinpo.
Bart Guarini, ever conscious of how his boss and friend would appear to history, tried unsuccessfully to will Martin into engaging, probing, questioning the choice.
Silence.
At last Guarini said, “Eric, tell us why you chose Sinpo, rather than a military target.”
“It really came down to geography. We want to have as little effect on the DPRK’s neighbors as possible. Most of the North Korean army has moved into positions close to the ROK border, the DMZ, and the ROKs have a large force facing them. They’re pretty close together, too close to be confident the ROK troops wouldn’t be affected if we put neutron bombs on the North Koreans. Plus, northern soldiers who weren’t killed outright would probably come storming south, into the ROKs, starting the land war we’re trying to avoid.
“There are two other army concentrations. One is in and around Pyongyang and the other is along the Chinese border, probably to keep Kim’s dear people from fleeing. Since we don’t want any impact on China and don’t want to hit Pyongyang on this first strike, we can’t hit those troops.
“Bottom line? There are no military targets right now for the neutron weapons.”
“OK, go on,” said Martin flatly, a forefinger repeatedly tracing the rim of his coffee mug.
“Sir, since the neutron bombs have never been tested in the atmosphere, we have only an approximate idea of their kill radius. In order to be certain of inflicting heavy casualties, three weapons are assigned. They’ll be delivered by cruise missiles. Time on target will be mid-morning in Sinpo.”
Rick tasted bile. I’m sitting here planning to kill thousands of people, just blot them out in the midst of an ordinary morning. How can I do this? Horror fought exhaustion for dominance of his mind. Then he heard a gargling voice and knew it spoke from a mass grave in Nevada. “Don’t let us down, Mr. President!”
“And how many people am I going to kill at mid-morning in Sinpo?” he said dully.
Guarini was appalled that Rick Martin, once the master of “we” and the passive voice, was now taking all this upon himself. Hurriedly, he said, “It’s we, Mr. President. We all believe we must do this to protect Americans and enable our society to recover.”
Martin nodded, stone-faced, awaiting Easterly’s answer.
“It’s impossible to say for certain—there are too many unknowns—but surely tens of thousands. Say, fifty to seventy-five thousand.” Easterly shrugged, frowning.
“And after I sign that order, it happens? How fast?”
“We can have the cruise missiles on target within an hour, or you can specify a time. As I said, we recommend mid-morning Sinpo time.”
Jesus! Like having pizza delivered! Martin’s finger, the one tracing the rim of the coffee mug, began to twitch. He didn’t notice as he sat in silent contemplation of piles of Korean bodies covering up piles of American bodies. Desperately, he told himself that he was still pursuing other options, that until he actually signed the order—maybe even for a few minutes after he signed—one of them might work. Ming, or even Kim, might see reason and he, Rick Martin, would not become a mass murderer.
He realized the three were staring. “OK,” he said in a hollow voice, rising from his chair like a zombie, knowing he had moved another step toward becoming the evil he was fighting.
MacAdoo and Easterly watched as he left, followed protectively by Guarini. “My God!” said Easterly. “Did you see that?”
Chapter 48
Ray Morales walked toward the White House through the tunnel from Treasury, met by a silent, impassive Secret Service agent whose one moment of human contact was to look him in the eye and say, “Semper Fi, sir!”
Morales responded automatically but proudly, “Semper Fi, Marine.”
Semper Fidelis . . . Always Faithful. After The Corps, many Marines gravitate to positions where, at some point, they’ll be required to stand firm. Perhaps that’s why there are so few of us in politics. The Art of the Possible isn’t a high calling after Always Faithful. When the fact that something looks impossible justifies inaction, what have you got? The best of my congressional colleagues accept responsibility, but none of them even understands duty, much less embraces it.
Trudging behind the agent, Morales shook his head. And now I’m on my way to meet the president of the United States. I have no idea what he wants. Ella wouldn’t tell me, just said she can’t help him and she’s praying I can.
He entered the private office, and Martin rose from a small desk, hand outstretched.
“Thanks for coming right away, Ray.”
“Mr. President, when the bell rings, old fire horses feel the same adrenaline as young ones. Pavlov was right.”
The president smiled, although it was clearly strained, and gestured to the chair.
“Ray, you haven’t been in the White House loop, but I’ll bet you know what I’m dealing with these days.”
“Yessir. As my Marine buddies would say, you’re deciding how big a can of whup-ass to open up on North Korea or, as my congressional colleagues would put it, you’re searching for the most appropriate combination of carrots and sticks.”
“You got it, Ray.
“Can we agree that this meeting is in strictest confidence, entirely between the two of us?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Ray, could you stop calling me sir? I need your frankness much more than your deference!”
“You’ll have my frankness, sir, but you’re The Man. When I was a brand new second lieutenant, my Marines always called me sir. They also let me know when I was being a dumb-ass. I’ll be frank, I promise you . . . sir.”
Yessir, nosir, three bags full. I wonder if this meeting Ella insisted on will be a waste of time. But after all, this man is the only JCS chairman ever to resign on a matter of conscience—and he was right. No, Ray Morales isn’t just a Clint Eastwood poster.
“Ray, what’s it like to kill someone? What’s it like to give orders that kill a lot of people?”
Jesus! thought Mo
rales. Are we going into psychoanalysis?
“That’s quite a question, sir! Under what circumstances?”
“In the military, in doing your duty.”
“Well, sir, depends a lot on who’s getting killed. I never had second thoughts about plinking some bastard trying to kill me or my Marines. I’ve had many second thoughts about orders I gave that got Marines or civilians killed.”
“But every time you ordered an attack, usually Marines, or civilians, or both were killed. How can you carry a burden like that?”
“Because what I meant was, killed unnecessarily, killed because I made a mistake, because I missed something or because I just fucked up.”
“So killing is OK with you when it’s not the result of a mistake?”
“Depends on what you mean by OK, sir. It’s never OK in a cosmic sense. God doesn’t like it. I’ll have to answer for the killing I’ve done. But it’s also part of being human. We’ve got a lot of good in us, but we’re also weak, confused, greedy, jealous, cruel, the whole nine yards.”
Morales’ voice rasped from deep inside: “So I’ve killed because it seems to me that in this world as it is, a group that doesn’t protect itself will be killed—or enslaved. God help me, I’m willing to kill to prevent that happening to me, my family, my friends, my country!”
My country, thought Rick, leaning forward. That’s how Ella puts it; if only it were that simple! If we can’t see beyond country, the world will never have peace.
He forced himself to back off. “I’m sorry, Ray, I just started firing questions at you. Would you like some refreshment? I don’t mind saying I could use a taste. It’s been a long day.”
“Sounds good, sir. Can the White House come up with a Miller?”
After the steward had delivered their drinks and withdrawn, Morales said, “Sir, why’d you ask me to come over tonight? I’m flattered, but I know I’m an ex-general who’ll probably serve only one term in Congress. I’m the most junior member of the House Armed Services Committee. And I’m a Republican, to boot.”
Well, here goes, thought Rick.
His words tumbled out: “Ray, I’ve never knowingly harmed anybody in my life and now I’m being urged to sign an order that will kill at least fifty thousand people!”
“And?”
“I don’t know if it’s the right thing and I don’t know if I can live with myself if I do it, even if it is right!”
“So how do I fit into that situation?”
“I don’t know exactly, but Ella insisted I speak with you about it.”
“You know that Ella and I . . .”
“Are way over it. But she respects you. Frankly, I don’t know whether she respects me any longer.”
“I’m not a marriage counselor.”
With a scowl and a dismissive wave, Rick said, “That’s not why you’re here!
“Look, the only other president who ever used a nuke did it after six years of bloody world war had conditioned him and this country to killing and death just like they were conditioned to the weather! It was part of life. It couldn’t be predicted exactly, but it happened each day and you lived with it.”
“Sir, the bulldozers are still scraping trenches in the desert to bury our dead. We’re damn lucky they’re not also at work in Maryland! And somewhere out there those bastards are pulling together another attack. Look, if eighty thousand dead—and civilians at that—isn’t bloody warfare, what is?”
“Ray, nobody but Himmler has ever—ever—signed an order to kill fifty thousand human beings in cold blood, and even he couldn’t do it in a single moment, like Zeus throwing a thunderbolt. That’s what they tell me I should do, but how could I?”
Morales saw agony, indecision, and fear as Martin sat bolt upright in his chair.
“Tell me what happens if you don’t do it.”
“I don’t know of course; that’s one part of the hell of it! But the NSC believes Kim will continue bombing, or furnishing bombs; my domestic advisors believe the country will unravel beyond repair; and I’m certain to be impeached in favor of Bruce Griffith, who will sign that nuclear attack order.”
“What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“How are you going to feel if they’re right about those consequences?”
“Terrible, but not like a murderer!”
Morales nodded. “OK. Look, sir, you’re having to learn in a few weeks what people like me learn to live with over years. That’s hard, really hard, but you’re going to have to. Or, if not, you’re going to have to accept what happens as the price—to others as well as yourself—of protecting your own soul.”
“But, Ray, what’s right? How can killing fifty thousand human beings be right?”
“Let me tell you a story. I was about five years too young for Vietnam. But I got my first Marine officer training—we call it The Basic School, TBS—from men who’d led Marines there.
“In wartime, people get killed. There’s nothing a second lieutenant, or a general, or a president can do about that, until both sides decide to end it. You have an ability to influence how many get killed and who they are, but there’s no course of action in combat that’s free of killing. Marines are taught this from their first day; I imagine most presidents have to learn it.
“One of my TBS instructors called this situation prepping the tree line. It’s a Vietnam story, but it applies to most wars and I think it describes your dilemma.
“Imagine you’re leading your platoon through open ground toward a village in a group of trees on a slight hill. Your job is to occupy this village, today. You know from experience the enemy will be waiting, hiding among the trees and huts, keeping the villagers under guard until you get real close. They may even have a few out in the open doing normal things. As you reach the village, the enemy will open up from cover and kill a lot of your Marines before they can overrun them.
“Unless . . . unless you prep the tree line. That means calling for artillery and air strikes to kill some of the enemy dug in there and shake up the rest, before your guys get within range. Doing that will also kill villagers. And of course, there’s always the chance that there are no enemy in this village today, that it’s just as it appears.
“What do you do? You prep the tree line.”
“How can you live with that, with knowingly killing people who have done you no harm and in fact couldn’t harm you?” Martin asked.
“Duty. Because it’s your duty to occupy that village today. Because you have a duty to your Marines, who trusted you to value their lives and use them wisely and carefully.”
“You sound like Ella. She calls it protecting the tribe.” Morales saw skepticism in his eyes.
“OK—that’s another way to put it, I guess.
“My own combat was Gulf One, and I was a battalion commander. That’s not as personal as leading a platoon or a company, but still I made several of those decisions. Each time, I lost a little piece of my soul.”
“But you were prepared.”
“As prepared as you can get by listening to others. It tore me up inside anyway.”
Rick gazed off, seeing Las Vegas. He thought about Steve Nguyen, who wanted punishment, and the grieving woman, who wanted no more killing. But he was left with Nguyen’s final words, words that had drained the last energy of this life from his soul: “Don’t let us down!”
Seeing Rick’s sight turned inward, Morales waited. After a while, he said, “Sir, is there any better way to do your duty than signing that order, anything your advisors might have overlooked or withheld from you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
Martin picked up an index card and tapped it on the desk, gathering his thoughts.
“Maybe because it’s so personal. I’ve selected a North Korean city for death and I’m going to kill it. I’m going to kill the same kind of people who were killed in Las Vegas—grandparents, infants, kids playing.”
; “Yes, you are. But the words you just said make no connection between those people and the bombing of Las Vegas. I’d say there is a connection. Those eighty thousand Americans were killed by North Koreans. And you’re killing the North Koreans to protect Americans from more of the same—right?”
“Yes, but the North Koreans I will kill have no control over what Kim does. They are as much his victims as the Americans in Las Vegas!”
“I don’t agree with that entirely, sir, but if you’re correct, doesn’t that mean responsibility for what happens to them is Kim’s? You’re going to destroy this city because Kim continues to threaten the people you took an oath to protect, after already killing eighty thousand of them. You’re doing it for no other reason than to force Kim from power before he can bomb again—right?”
“You’re talking as if North Korean lives have less value than American lives!”
“No, sir. You’re not listening carefully or thinking clearly. I believe that, to God, all lives are equally valuable. But you aren’t God. You’re the president of the United States. Didn’t you swear an oath to carry out the duties of president? Don’t those duties include defense of our people and the preservation of the Constitution? Aren’t they both being attacked by North Korea? You’re not some mediator. You’re our leader—and God help us if you refuse to act like it!”
Martin’s eyes flashed. “I don’t have to kill thousands with a nuclear weapon to be your leader!”
“Then what do you have to do, Mr. President?”
“I have to find another way out of this.”
“What else, sir?”
“What do you mean, Ray?”
“What’s the rest of that sentence, the one that begins I have to find another way”
Rick looked away. I know what he means. Can I say it? If I do, I’m back up against it again. I can deflect his question, and if he were a reporter, I would. But he’s not. He’s someone who’s trying to help me. After I asked him to.