Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (64 page)

 
          
Edward
Kercheval shook his head in undisguised disbelief. “I’ll get right on it, Mr.
President,” he said, and he departed. There was no secret of their almost
continual policy disagreements—their debates, sometimes emerging as outright
contradictions, were legendary. But their disagreements served two purposes:
One, that Thomas Thom didn’t hire yes-men to serve him in his Cabinet; and
second, it showed that Thom was firmly in charge. Edward Kercheval was
considered one of the world’s most respected political and foreign affairs
experts—and for him to continue to serve under Thomas Thom, a relative foreign
affairs rookie, was a sideways tribute to both Kercheval’s and the President’s
personal integrity. No one understood how it worked, but it did.

 
          
After
he departed, Goff looked at his longtime friend and waited for him to say
something; when he didn’t, and the aggravation factor built up to the point he
couldn’t contain it any longer, he asked, “So, what are you really going to do,
Thomas?”

 
          
“I
already said what I want done.”

 
          
“You’re
really
going to do nothing? What if
Libya
really does attack
Egypt
? Could we stand the political heat and
world condemnation if we received a credible warning directly from the Egyptian
president but did nothing?”

 
          
“I’m
not doing ‘nothing.’ I’m going to independently assess the situation ...”

 
          
“I
heard what you said. But you’re not going to call Zuwayy? You don’t want to
position a few more bombers over in the region, say, in
England
or Diego Garcia?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
Goff
nodded knowingly and smiled. “I get it. You want me to find out where McLanahan
and his forces are— maybe give them a heads-up?”

 
          
“I
especially
don’t want you to do
that,” Thom said firmly. “In fact, I’m going to direct the Justice Department
to shut Sky Masters down. I want all their planes grounded. And if McLanahan
and the Night Stalkers are in the country, which I believe they are right now,
I want them detained.”

 
          
“You’re
serious?” Goff asked incredulously. “You really don’t want to get involved in
this thing at all, no matter how covertly we try or no matter how much it might
cost you politically?”

           
“That’s right,” Thom said. “You
know, Bob, I’m really impressed with McLanahan and his bunch. They got their
teeth knocked in pretty good from what we can tell, and they still fought like
badgers. Their aircraft acquitted themselves pretty well, if all the reports
about attacked Libyan bases and destroyed airfields are all attributed to them.

 
          
“But
that’s precisely the reason we need to put a muzzle on them: They’re
too
good. They did so well that Zuwayy
of Libya might attack
Egypt
with nuclear weapons. That’s why we need to
shut him down. Unless I can somehow bring him and his people under control
again, he’s got to be shut down.”

 
          
“That’s
easy,” Goff said with a wry smile. “Ask him to join your Cabinet. Make him your
national security adviser. Make him defect from Martindale’s team and join
yours.”

           
“You’re my national security
adviser, Robert—I don’t need another one.”

           
“I’m not your national security
adviser, Thomas—I’m your national security
nudjen
,”
Goff said. “I haven’t told you a thing in twenty years. You need a guy like
McLanahan to tell you when you’re wrong.”

 
          
“I
want McLanahan in jail, Robert, not in the White House,” Thomas Thom said
stonily. “He’s a loose cannon. I want him shut down and shut off.”

 
          
“O-kay,”
Goff said. “So . . . that means you’re not going to ring him up on your little
subcutaneous walkie-talkie, then?” Thom scowled at him, then turned back to his
computer. Goff smiled and got up to leave.

 
          
“I’ll
be very interested,” the President said as Goff was leaving, “to find out whom
Susan Salaam calls next.”

 
          
Goff
paused, then nodded. “Yeah ... me too,” he said. “Me too.”

AKRANES
,
ICELAND

A FEW HOURS LATER

           
“Well, well,” Pavel Kazakov said.
His initial anger at being awakened in the middle of the night vanished in an
instant.

           
“Madame Susan Bailey Salaam, the
esteemed president of
Egypt
, calling me personally? I’m flattered.”

           
“Let’s cut to the chase, Kazakov,”
Susan said angrily. “We all know you are the puppet master behind Jadallah
Zuwayy. He got the neutron weapons from you; you’ve been arming him with
hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons over the past several months;
you talked him into blowing up Mersa Matruh. . . .”

 
          
“I
don’t know what you’re talking about, Madame,” Kazakov said. “I’m a prisoner, a
witness for the United Nations, not an arms dealer.”

 
          
“I
said, let’s cut to the chase,” Susan said. “Zuwayy wants his filthy claws in
Salimah—but so do you. You want back into the world oil game, and Salimah is
your latest target. Fine. Help me stop Zuwayy, and you can have Salimah.” Pavel
Kazakov was fully awake now. He buzzed for Ivana Vasilyeva, his aide. “I’m
listening, Mrs. Salaam.”

           
“Shut down Zuwayy—I don’t care how,”
Susan said. “Order him, bribe him, kill him—it doesn’t matter to me, just stop
him from blowing up my oil fields and killing the workers. You take Zuwayy’s
shares.”

           
“What will that give me? Thirty
percent of a graveyard in the
Sahara
?”

 
          
“Not
thirty
—sixty
percent of Salimah,”
Susan said. “Because if you do this, I’ll buy out the Central African Petroleum
Partners cartel and turn over their share of the partnership to you. I remind
you, Mr. Kazakov, that Salimah represents the largest known oil reserves in all
of
Africa
. Zuwayy only wants to rape it or destroy
it, not develop it. You’re smarter than he is. Shut him down, and you can have
a majority stake in the biggest known oil reserves in the world west of the
Caspian.”

 
          
Pavel
Kazakov was virtually shaking with anticipation. This was exactly what he was
hoping for when he first struck this deal with Jadallah Zuwayy: a way to take
control of Salimah without
appearing
to take control of anything. John D. Rockefeller once said that the key to
wealth was “own nothing, control everything”—that’s exactly what Kazakov
wanted.

           
“I’ll try to stop Zuwayy, my dear
Susan Bailey Salaam,” Kazakov said. “But even if that ridiculous pig gets off a
few shots, you will agree to this deal with me. You will ensure that a majority
of shares in the partnership is transferred to me, and I’ll see to it that
Zuwayy moves to that ranch in
Vietnam
he’s always wanted.”

 
          
“You
keep Zuwayy from attacking Salimah, or the deal’s off.”

 
          
“Madame,
I’m not in
Libya
—I’m not Zuwayy’s wet nurse,” Kazakov said. “You’re the one with the
American white knights coming to your rescue—why not call on them to save you
again?”

 
          
“If
bombs fall on Salimah, Kazakov, the deal’s off.”

 
          
“If
you try to cancel this deal, Salaam, I’ll send a transcript of this
conversation to every media outlet in the world—see how long your popularity in
the Arab world lasts then,” Kazakov said. “On the other hand, you give me what
I want, and I’ll make Zuwayy and his goons heel. Count on it.”

 
          
There
was silence on the line for several long moments; then: “I guess I have no
choice. But I want Zuwayy out of the picture. No more threats from him.”

 
          
“I’ll
make you a side deal, Mrs. Salaam—you give me the white knights, and I’ll serve
you up Jadallah Zuwayy.”

           
“What?”

           
“You give me the Americans, the ones
in the electronic battle armor, the ones with the fancy electromagnetic guns
and the jump boots, and you can take control of the entire Muslim Brotherhood.
Zuwayy will be a traitor to all loyal Arabs, and you slide right in as the
leader of the Muslim world.”

 
          
“I
can’t do that if Salimah gets wiped out.”

 
          
“I
can’t help that,” Kazakov said. “But if he does attack Salimah, he’ll be
slamming the lid shut on his own coffin. You, on the other hand, will have
every bit of the power you want. You just have to give me the Tin Man.”

 
          
“How
am I supposed to do that?”

 
          
“You’re
a very beautiful, beguiling woman—you figure it out,” Kazakov said. “I wouldn’t
be surprised if they’re on their way to save you right this minute. If they
come back to rescue you, all you have to do is tell me.”

           
There was more silence on the
phone—but it was shorter this time: “All right,” Susan said. “Do everything you
can to stop Zuwayy, and I’ll do everything I can to bring you McLanahan.”

 
          
“
McLanahan
, you say?” Kazakov asked
incredulously. “That’s his name? McLanahan?”

 
          
“General
Patrick McLanahan.”

 
          
Kazakov
searched his memory. He had heard of that name before . . . where was it?

 
          
My
God... he remembered where he had heard that name. The prisoners ... the
prisoners that he had ordered Zuwayy to segregate from the others before they
were taken to their deaths in Mersa Matruh.
One
of the American prisoners still being held by Jadallah Zuwayy in
Libya
was a woman by the name of McLanahan.
That was too much of a coincidence. It had to be the same ... a
relative? Certainly not a sister or wife? This seemed too good to be true!

 
          
“Why
is that name important to you, Kazakov?” Susan asked. “Why do you sound so.. .
?” And then she stopped—she knew exactly why. “You have her,” Salaam said
breathlessly. “No, not you ... Zuwayy. Zuwayy has the woman named McLanahan.”

 
          
“Who
is she?”

 
          
“She
is your death sentence if Patrick McLanahan finds out she’s alive,” Salaam
said. “She’s the reason he’s fighting this battle—just to get her back. You’re
a captive in a fancy Icelandic jail—you’re easy to get to. I guarantee, Patrick
will move heaven and earth to get to her—and he’ll destroy an entire nation if
she’s harmed.”

 
          
“Call
this General McLanahan off,” Kazakov said, his voice fairly shaking with anger.
“I don’t care how you do it, but call him off. Threaten him, entice him, screw
him— I don’t care.”

 
          
“So
he’s worth something to you, then?”

 
          
“Don’t
try to dicker with me, woman. I can get McLanahan on my own time.”

           
“You don’t sound so sure to me—if
you could get him, I think you would have done it by now,” Susan said. “Perhaps
I should tell him that you ordered her execution, and you’ll find yourself
ripped into pieces by him. I assume you’ve seen his powered exoskeleton and
electronic shock weapons in action? Don’t think your lawyers will stop him.”