Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 09 (4 page)

 
          
“Governor,
Senator, we. . . we'd better hurry,” Chief Justice Thompson stammered, still
not believing what he had seen with his own eyes.

 
          
“No
hurry, Mr. Chief Justice," Thom said. “We have lots of time.”

 
          
“But
it’ll take at least ten minutes to get to the Capitol, even with an escort, and
at least ten more minutes to get up to the—”

 
          
“We’re
not going to the Capitol,” Thom said. The Busicks and the Thoms were out the
door, led by Secret Service agents scrambling to clear the way. They bypassed
the elevator and headed right to the ancient stairway.

 
          
“You’re.
. . you’re
not
going to the Capitol?” Thompson asked in shock. But he,
too, had to hurry to keep up with the family.

           
“The ceremony there is to honor
President Martindale and Vice President Whiting, Your Honor," Thom said.
“The people elected me to work for them, not to give speeches or put myself on
parade,"

 
          
“But...
but the Congress, the other dignitaries, the invited guests, hundreds of
thousands of citizens from all over the country—they're all waiting for you at
the Capitol. What are they going to say when you don't show up?"

 
          
“Same
thing as they would if I did show—maybe kindlier, since they won’t have an
inaugural speech to pick apart," Thom said, “No matter. Your Honor."

 
          
“
You
’re not giving an inaugural speech ? ”
Thompson cried in
stunned amazement, “You’re joking, of course." He knew he wasn't.

 
          
“I’ve
got work to do. I’ve got a cabinet to get confirmed, several dozen federal
judges to appoint, and a government to run. I promised the voters I’d get right
to work, and so I shall."

 
          
The
Thoms and Busicks marched downstairs, across the ornate lobby of Blair House,
and right across Pennsylvania Avenue past the barricades and the District of
Columbia Police to the security gate at the White House, The crowds were thin,
more than the usual number of tourists and passersby on the pedestrians-only
street, but most of them were still along the parade route. In a few moments,
however, a small crowd was gathered around them. Thomas Thom shook a few hands,
but he remained purposeful as he and his vice president-elect marched their
families up to the security gate.

 
          
The
Secret Service agents radioed ahead as fast as they could, but the group was
still stopped by angry and confused Park Police. “What the hell is going on
here?” the guard asked.

 
          
“I’m
reporting for duty," Thom said confidently. "Open up.”

 
          
“What?”
the guard shouted. “Who the hell are you, bub? Back the—" and his jaw
dropped as recognition began to dawn.

 
          
The
chief justice stepped up.

 
          
“I
am Joseph Thompson, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States
. I have just administered the oath of
office to these two gentlemen. Governor Thom and Senator Busick...” The chief
justice looked at his watch—it was now twelve-oh-two. . . “I mean,
the
President and Vice President of the
United States
wish to enter the White House and begin
their work.”

 
          
By
that time, the Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail had responded,
moving the crowd back, clearing the way, and providing the proper
authentication to the startled and shocked Park Police and uniformed Secret
Service officers. The security guard couldn’t believe it was happening, but he
buzzed open the gate and admitted the new President and Vice President of the
United States
and their families onto the grounds of
their new home.

 
          
“Mr.
President, are you sure you want to do this?” Chief Justice Thompson asked
again, as urgently as he possibly could. “This is ... certainly unprecedented.”

 
          
“There
is nothing in the Constitution that directs me to have an inauguration
ceremony, give a speech, parade through the streets of
Washington
, or put ourselves or our families on
display,” Thom said. Thompson quickly scanned two decades’ worth of studying
and teaching the U.S. Constitution, and he realized Thorn was right: there was
no Constitutional mandate or public law that said there had to be any sort of
ceremony.

 
          
“Our
inauguration is not a victory celebration, Mr. Chief Justice,” Thom went on.
“We’ve just been given an important job to do—nothing more, nothing less.
There’s nothing to celebrate. I’m disrupting my family life, putting my dreams
and aspirations on hold, and opening myself to all sorts of public scrutiny,
doubt, and danger—all to do the people’s business. I see no reason to celebrate
anything but the peaceful transition of power in the world’s greatest
democracy. If anyone should celebrate, it’s the voters who chose to exercise
their right to choose their form of government and to choose who should lead
it. As for me, I’ll get right to work.”

 
          
Chief
Justice Thompson could say nothing else. He held out his hand, and Thom shook
it warmly. Thom and Busick shook a few more hands, and to cheers and chants of
“Thom,
Busick! Thom, Busick!
” led their families forward to the White House and
marched into history.

 
          
Prizren,
Kosovo
,
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
That same time

           
“Usratta mozhna!
That
cowardly bastard did not even have the guts to attend his own swearing-in!*’
Chief Captain Ljubisa Susie, chief of the Prizren Federal Police Force, Kosovo,
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, laughed at the television with glee. He prided
himself on his excellent knowledge of Russian, especially obscenities. “At a
time when the eyes of the whole world are upon him, he decides to hide in the
White House and play with his vice president’s meat pole,
on igrayit z dun
*kay kulakovay!
”

 
          
Susie
was in his office, staying late so he could watch the satellite TV broadcast
available only in the headquarters building. Here in his office he had peace
and quiet, the television picture was reliable and relatively clear, he had maraschino—
strong, expensive Serbian cherry brandy—and he had his pistol, which he was
required to carry while on the base but forbidden to carry outside. That was
another example of the idiotic rules he had to follow because of the NATO
occupation of Kosovo: he could carry a weapon when he was surrounded by a
hundred heavily armed guards, but when he was on his own outside the
headquarters compound, he had to be unarmed for fear of inciting unrest and
fear in the civilian population— most of whom would gladly put a bullet in his
head or a knife in his back.

 
          
Prizren,
in the southern section of the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, was the
headquarters of KFOR MNB (S), or Kosovo Force, Multi-National Brigade—South,
the NATO- sponsored, United Nations-sanctioned peacekeeping force composed of
fifty thousand troops from twenty-eight nations around the world, including the
United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Russia. KFOR was set up to patrol
Kosovo and attempt to minimize any more ethnic confrontations while the world
community tried to find a solution for the problems associated with the
disintegration of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
.

 
          
And
there were plenty of problems. There was a
Republic
of
Kosovo
provisional government, sanctioned and even
funded by the United Nations, which was scheduled to become the de facto
government of the semi-autonomous republic in less than four years. No longer
illegal, the Kosovo Liberation Army was more active than ever, with a force now
estimated at more than fifty thousand men, equaling the size of the NATO,
United Nations, and Russian peacekeeping forces combined. The KLA was supposed
to have disarmed years ago, but that had never taken place—in fact, they were
now reported to have heavy weapons such as antitank rockets and man-portable
antiaircraft missiles, supplied by
Iran
,
Saudi Arabia
, and other Muslim nations.

 
          
The
KLA advertised itself as the heart of the soon-to-be independent nation of
Kosovo’s self-defense force. It wasn’t true in the least. The KLA was composed
mainly of ethnic Albanians, mostly Muslim, and clearly did not treat all Kosovo
residents alike. They hated ethnic Serbs and Orthodox Christians, , but also
discriminated against any foreigner and most other ethnic minorities inside
Kosovo, such as gypsies, Romanians, Italians, Jews, and Greeks. Although not
sanctioned by the United Nations or NATO, KLA soldiers had begun wearing
uniforms and carrying weapons, touting itself as the one and only authentic
native Kosovar police force.

 
          
In
the meantime, Kosovo was still a
province
of
Serbia
, supposedly subject to Serbian and
Yugoslavian federal law. Susie had the unfortunate task of trying to enforce
the laws in a region where lawlessness was the rule rather than the exception.
Prizren
Airport
was still operated by the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
as a national and international airport,
and it had to be secured and operated in accordance with Yugoslavian and
International Civil Aeronautics Organization law. Its radar installations,
power generators, communications links, satellite earth stations, warehouses,
and fuel storage depots were also essential to Yugoslavian sovereignty and
commerce. No one in NATO or the United Nations had offered to do any of these
tasks for
Yugoslavia
. But the KLA was making that mission almost
impossible.

 
          
The
NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo was in complete shambles, NATO allies Italy
and Germany still had peacekeepers in-country, but were constantly squabbling
over their role: Italy, with its eastern bases overloaded and closer to the
fighting, wanted a much lower-profile presence; Germany, fearful of losing
dominance over European affairs, wanted a much more active role, including
stationing troops in Serbia itself.
Greece
and
Turkey
, NATO allies but longtime Mediterranean
rivals, had virtually no role in peacekeeping operations, and it was thought
that was the best option.
Russia
also wanted to reassert its presence and
authority in eastern European affairs by supporting its Slavic cousins,
counterbalancing
Germany
’s threat.

 
          
And
then there was the
United States of America
, the biggest question mark of all. What
would the new president do? He was such an enigma that few analysts. American
or foreign, could hazard a guess. The
United States
had twice as many peacekeepers stationed in
or around Kosovo as all the other participants combined, easily outgunning both
Germany
and
Russia
. But this relegated them to the role of
baby-sitter or referee. The Americans seemed less concerned with keeping peace
in Kosovo than with reducing hostilities between European powers.

 
          
“This
new president is either a nut or a coward,” Susie added. The television on the
all-news channel showed thousands of people outside the American Capitol
milling around, as if undecided about what they should do. “Look at them—
standing around with their thumbs up their asses, because their New Age
retro-hippie president is back hiding in the safety of the White House.” Other
remote camera shots showed presidential advisors—not yet Cabinet members, because
the United States Senate had not confirmed them—arriving at the White House to
confer with the President. ‘‘How embarrassing. Do you not think so, Comrade
Colonel?”