CHAPTER THREE
The engines reverse thrusters roared, slowing the plane as it hurled down the runway. It was overcast and there was a light rain in Washington, D.C. Pinchon from his window could see no other plane landing or taking off from Andrews Air Force Base. He glanced at his watch, it read 4:42 a.m. EST., they must have had a tailwind. At the end of the runway the plane turned onto a taxiway and proceeded towards a group of hangars. Suddenly the doors on one of the hangars opened and the plane turned again and pulled in... the engines shut down and the cabin lights came on. Pinchon could see out the window that the hangar doors had shut again as soon as the plane's engines had stopped. Two black SUV's and a sedan pulled up to the plane.
Melman was again talking into his headset.
"Sir, we have arrived at Andrews, and need to disembark. Transportation awaits and they are in a hurry to leave."
Pinchon snorts, "Are they going to throw me in the back seat again and bump my head on the door frame?"
"No Sir," Melman says, "we are sorry about that."
Pinchon retorts, "Well I certainly don't have to retrieve any articles from the overhead bin, or go to baggage claim, I don't seem to have any bags. Oh yes, I remember, I was grabbed off the street and hustled to the airport. Perhaps in the future your travel service might consider that passengers would have baggage, if they knew they were going someplace."
"Yes Sir," Melman replied. "Please head to the exit and go down the steps and walk to the car."
Pinchon gets up and follows Melman down the plane's aisle. The two men who were at the back of the plane are standing and watching, and the two others who were in the front have already de-planed. The cockpit door is still shut and the pilots remain out of sight, and the steward is standing silently in the rear of the galley. Melman motions with his arm towards the plane's door, and then follows Pinchon down the steps. Melman points towards the black sedan, and says,
"This is for you."
Another well dressed man with a lapel pin jumps out of the driver's door and quickly walks around and opens the back door for Pinchon. Melman heads for the front passenger door and gets in.
As the General settles in the rear seat he sees there is another fellow occupant. The distinguished looking man appeared to be about eighty years old, was wearing a tailored black suit, starched crisp white shirt, a solid light blue colored silk tie, with a matching handkerchief in his breast pocket. Pinchon noticed the man didn't have a lapel pin like Melman and the others.
"Who are you?" the General bluntly said. It appears that I have come a long way to see you. Tell me that you do not work for some TV news company."
"No Sir," the man said, in a patrician, Boston brogue; "I do not report the news, I work for a man who makes the news. I am Charles McKinley Adams, and am Senior Special Counselor to President Woods."
Adams presses an intercom button and tells the driver: "The White House please, with speed, just do not drive so fast as to call unnecessary attention to us."
The hangar doors again open, and the car drives out, Pinchon notices a lone car lurking, about two hundred yards away. Its lights are off, but its windshield wipers are working. It appears that there are two occupants. Meanwhile, the SUV's take up their position ahead and behind the sedan, and drive along an airport laneway and then out a gate, exiting Andrews. Traffic is light at 5:01 a.m., it is still dark; the rain has picked up.
"Senior Special Counselor to the President," Pinchon says, thinking out loud. "I don't remember President Carr having you, did you work for her too, or are you new, with President Woods."
"I am quite new," Adams replies. "The President appointed me three days ago. General, you probably do not remember me, but I worked for two different administrations about twenty-five years ago, one Republican and one Democratic, and then returned to corporate life. The new President finds me useful for now, because I have personal relationships with most of the leaders of both parties in Congress. I know who is likely to be helpful to the President and who is not. I also know where some political skeletons are buried in this town. That can be useful on occasions."
"Political games!" General Pinchon replies, "political games are what go on in this town. I don't believe in political games, I believe in integrity, honor, service to the nation, and getting things done."
"Ah yes," says Adams, "but what you call political games, others call getting things done. Serving the nation sometimes means getting others too, to be motivated to also serve national interests; even if they originally do not want to, or do not agree as to objectives. That too is honorable. General, you will need to remember that the way forward does not always appear as clear or simple to those who have the responsibility for governing, as to those on the outside who do not, but instead have the luxury to complain."
"I guess that is why I stayed a retired General. In the last election, both parties were after me to work for them and back their candidates. I just don't play those games; I am not a politician, and would not be a good one, or want to be. Generals are take charge kinds of guys, we give orders, we shake things up, we are not interested in consensus building or negotiation. If somebody stands in the way of our assigned objectives, well we 'motivate' them to change their mind or get out of the way. No, I am not a politician, and will never be one, and I am glad for that."
Adams' phone rings; "Excuse me," he says, "I have to take this call." Adams talks in clipped phrases, guarding his words. "Yes Sir," he says, "I have the package. ...No Sir, not until the White House, and we are ready for the meeting. ...Are you going to be there too? ...Good, and bring your friend. ...Do not come to the White House. ...Go to the EEOB, we will meet you in the conference room, you remember which one. ...Good! ...Yes Sir, if you and your friend could be there in forty-five minutes, that will give us time for our first meeting. ...No Sir, conditions do not allow for you to come to that other meeting too. ...The General and I will go to that meeting and then discuss the situation with you. ...Thank you Sir."
Adams closes the phone. "Melman," he says, "How much further?"
"We will be at the White House in five minutes," Melman replies.
"Why are we going to the White House?" Pinchon asks. "Isn't it a little early to meet anybody?"
Adams replies, "When the President wants something, it is never too early."
"Well, who does the President have me meeting with?"
"General, you are meeting with the President; he is the one who set these events in motion, that is why you are here."
The General asked, "What does he want from me, why all the secrecy?"
Adams says, "The President will tell you that himself, we are almost there."
General Pinchon mulls in his mind the events of the past twelve hours. He is a soldier, he has fought the nation's wars, serving under multiple Presidents. Never has he experienced anything like this. The car enters the White House gateway, an agent looks in the car window and then quickly opens the gate. The sedan pulls up to the door, and Adams and Pinchon exit the car and go past the Marine Guards into the White House.
Pinchon asks, "Are we meeting the President in the Oval Office? I have been there before you know, I briefed Presidents several times."
"No," Adams says, "we are meeting him in his private quarters."
They then go down the hallway and take the elevator up to the family floor. Secret Service agents are standing at their posts throughout the hallways.
Pinchon says, "I didn't know the Secret Service were so protective even in the White House private areas. They don't look like they trust anybody."
"That is their job," Adams says, "and especially in these days they better not trust anybody."
Adams nods to an agent standing in front of a door, and tells him, "I have a package for the President."
The agent steps from in front of the door, and Adams lightly knocks, opens it, and says to Pinchon, "Follow me."
Immediately on entering the room Pinchon
realizes that this meeting is not going to be a conversation over breakfast. The room smells like a hospital, and that is what it looks like, an intensive care ward. The room has two doctors and three nurses tending President Woods, who is laying on a hospital bed, in a light blue hospital gown that was pulled down from his shoulders, revealing his chest, which had monitors attached to him seemingly everywhere. Tubes were dripping liquids in both arms. The President was receiving oxygen, and breathing heavily. Pinchon has seen soldiers in battlefield hospitals in all sorts of conditions, but this situation was not at all what he had expected.
Adam's stepped up to the bed and leaned over it and said, "Mr. President, I present you General Bull Pinchon."
Turning to Bull, Adams says, "General, President Woods wants to speak very briefly with you. As his speech is weak would you lean down for him, and listen carefully."
President Woods slowly raised his right hand and extended it, and Pinchon took hold of it and the two men gently clasped hands. The President's hand was not strong. The President said, "General Pinchon, I am glad you agreed to come see me. Let me be clear, I am dying; I have an inoperable brain tumor. I did not know I had it. I just had some headaches during the election campaign, but after election day the headaches stopped for a while. Then the night before our inauguration they came back, and grew more severe. The doctors ran every test and took every scan and discovered one day after the inauguration, that I had an advanced and very aggressive brain tumor.
Doctors now tell me I could die within a very few hours to a few days, and I believe them. President Carr, when she was originally told of my tumor, was as shocked as I was. She offered me her support. I encouraged her to immediately begin looking for a man or woman she could later nominate to become Vice President. That way, a reasonable time after my death, she could send that name to the Congress for confirmation.
You know that our nation has suffered multiple calamities. Our President was horribly murdered, and I succeeded to presidency, tumor and all.
I have to try and provide for a reasoned and good succession. I do not believe President Carr was killed by a crazed killer. I believe she was assassinated because someone wants to overthrow the Constitution. Why I believe that to be true, Charles Adams and others will explain to you shortly. I am going to die, probably within days. General Pinchon, I called you here because I want you to become the President of the United States! I have signed a letter and sent it to the Secretary of State, that says I want you to be President."
President Woods pushed himself up just slightly and said, "This is my solution for the nation, it is why I sent for you. If you do not take this office, it will be too late for me to ensure a successor. Sir, will you serve your nation again?"
General Pinchon, briefly steadied himself, gripping the railing of the bed. "Mr. President, I did not know and am shocked at your condition. I am so sorry. This is a calamity in a time of peril and distress. I will always be ready to serve the nation in any way I can, but how can I become the President of the United States! It is not possible, Mr. President. There are already Constitutional successors for you. There is no vice President, true, but there is the Speaker of the House, he will become President, and if he cannot, the President pro tempore of the Senate would succeed to the office."
President Woods rallied his strength and said with emphasis, "No, it is necessary for you to become President. If we can constitutionally do it, and in time, will you agree to serve?"
Pinchon shuddered and said, "Mr. President, if it can be done constitutionally, and lawfully, I will agree. However, I do not know how this can be done."
Woods spoke again and said, "Mr. Adams here will guide you through the process. ...And Mr. Adams, begin that process now and with all speed. I shall do my best to live another day or two. Go quickly."
Charles Adams spoke and said: "Thank you Mr. President, for your service, and for this service. ...General, we must go quickly, come, now, we have business to do."
Pinchon saluted, and turned and followed Adams out of the room. He was about to speak in the hallway when Adams said: "Wait, not here, hallways have ears; wait until we go to where we can speak privately."
Adams and Pinchon took the elevator down, and then walked rapidly through some further hallways and down staircases. Finally they came to a Marine guard again, who opened a door, and they entered a tunnel. Adams said, "this runs to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the EEOB. We will meet with some of my friends, and work to bring about President Wood's plan."
Pinchon, in his mind, is in denial, and thinks, how can this be? How can he lawfully be made President of the United States – today! He surely cannot be elected. He could be nominated to the office of Vice President under the twenty-fifth amendment to the Constitution. However, both houses of Congress, the House and the Senate, would have to hold hearings and then vote to confirm such a nomination. That process could not be accomplished in a day, or even a few days. Such confirmation would take some weeks.
Moreover, because of the present distress over the assassination, and also the huge political malice and venom that was seen before it; Pinchon doubted any confirmation process would be viable for the foreseeable future. The extremists of both sides were raging at each other, and refusing any compromise. They would each demand a vice Presidential nominee that would agree to their agenda and reject the other's. They also might demand that a future Vice President and President-to-be, swear loyalty to their ideas.
Pinchon knew that he would never be anybody's puppet on a string. He would never agree to be such a weak man, let alone weak President. The nation, right now, desperately needed a strong, capable head of state, who would lawfully lead the nation out of the political, criminal, and perhaps treasonous morass that it was in.
Clearly President Woods did not have enough time left to get a new vice President. Equally clearly, the President was deluding himself into thinking there was anything different that could happen, than that the Speaker of the House of Representatives would succeed to the Presidency. This had never happened before, but it was constitutional, and it was authorized by the law. The Speaker of the House would surely become President.
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Four Days In February Page 3