So he palmed the note and remained quiet.
As soon as he was back in his chair, Ben casually unfolded the note, careful not to attract attention.
Beware Ruiz
, it said.
He’ll do anything to get our troops out
.
Down at the bottom, in smaller writing, Ben saw a postscript:
Ask about Apollo
.
The sun god? The corporation Ben used to work for, way back when?
What did it mean?
Ben glanced up at Rybicki and made a curt nod. Rybicki returned nothing. Ben really wanted to ask a follow-up question or six, but he got the distinct impression Rybicki would not welcome it. If he had wanted to chat, he wouldn’t have passed a note.
Rybicki wanted to be helpful without anyone else knowing about it.
Interesting.
What was going on in this cabinet? Was Ruiz another dissident who was not really friendly toward the president? How many others like him and Swinburne were there, people working with this president but more than willing to bring him down given the opportunity?
In a way, Ben was almost sympathetic; he had opposed the latest Iraq war and he had always believed he would do anything to get the troops out. But did that include undermining the commander in chief? In effect, a political coup? Plus Kuraq was not Iraq. What Zuko proposed in Benzai was genocide, pure and simple, and there was little doubt about what would happen to the people who’d gone down in that helicopter if Zuko found them first. Should Kyler be deposed because he didn’t want to see those people slaughtered?
Somehow, that just didn’t seem right, even if the ultimate goal—saving the troops—was understandable.
Ben’s reverie was broken as Swinburne called his next witness. “Your honor, I’ll call Michael Ruiz to the stand.”
Ben couldn’t help wondering about the coincidence—or was it?—as he watched the man take his seat on the makeshift witness stand. First Rybicki had warned him about Ruiz—and now he was being called to the stand. Had Rybicki known he would be next? If so, how much more did he know? Had there been a conversation of import in here while Ben was in the other room?
Swinburne began with an abbreviated run-through of Ruiz’s qualifications. It was even briefer than Albertson’s. Although some of the cabinet members might not have known the president’s doctor, they all knew the secretary of state. Most of them had worked with him at one time or another. He had been in Democratic politics for most of his adult life, had served four years as an ambassador to the Court of St. James, and had briefly served as national security advisor for the last Democratic president. There was no question—when it came to foreign policy, Ruiz knew what he was talking about.
“I’m sure everyone reads the newspapers,” Swinburne said, “and is aware that Kuraq is currently a hot spot of unrest, but they may not know all the salient points about that nation and its dictator, or their relationship to the United States. Could you please give them all a quick and dirty primer on the situation? Sort of a
Kuraq for Dummies?”
Ruiz smiled slightly, then complied. “Kuraq is located in the Middle East, with one border on the Gulf of Hormuz. Although a relatively small nation, it is a major oil producer and a member of OPEC. It ships millions of barrels of oil each year into the world market via tankers traveling out of the Gulf. This export has made it important to the global economy, not only to the United States but also to Russia, China, and many other nations.
“Unfortunately,” Ruiz continued, “like all too many of the nation-states in this region, its importance to the world economy is accompanied by a perpetually unstable government. Kuraq has been buffeted through a series of different leaders going back to the fifties, many of them theocrats. Diplomatic relations with the United States have varied depending upon the reliability of the government in question.”
“If you would, sir, please give us the essentials about Colonel Zuko.”
“Zuko is a military leader who managed to take over the country from the previous Sunni religious leader. Like Osama bin Laden and so many other honchos in this region, he fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s against the Russian invasion, with the United States. Yes, that’s right. He was on our side back then. His later enmity toward us has nothing to do with Israel and nothing to do with oil. It’s all about Afghanistan, specifically the way the United States abandoned Afghanistan after we won there against Russia. And let’s face it—the man has a point. What we did in Afghanistan was shameful. We left the nation in total disarray. No infrastructure whatsoever. No educational system, no working economy. Our attitude was, as long as the Commies aren’t invading, we’ll take our money and go home. Millions were left destitute, hungry. This tumultuous situation gave rise to groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, many of the strongest terrorist enemies of the United States.
“Colonel Zuko didn’t resort to terrorism, at least not initially. He had lived in the West. Been educated at Oxford. It’s possible this gave him a different perspective on geopolitics. At any rate, he preferred to work with the military and to strengthen his home nation from within. His plan was to build Kuraq up first, then go after revenge against the United States. It was a smart plan. He was one of the first to use the army he controlled domestically to shore up struggling businesses and maximize oil production. As Kuraq’s economy became more robust, so did his control. By the onset of this decade, Kuraq had one of the strongest economies in the region. That was when Zuko decided it was time to control more than just the military. He staged a coup, planned so effectively and efficiently that it was almost bloodless. He removed the religious leaders and took over, though careful the whole time to do so in the name of ‘the one true religion.’ In a sense, he didn’t replace the theocracy. He simply replaced the previous ayatollah with himself. The only difference is, this ayatollah has an iron grip on the army.”
Ruiz looked up. “So you can see the difficulty. When one guy controls a booming economy, the military,
and
the religious establishment, good luck getting rid of him.”
“Do we want to get rid of him?” Swinburne asked.
“Certainly the president would like to do so.” Ben noticed that Ruiz was looking up and to the right—careful not to let his eyes wander anywhere near the president of whom he spoke. Was he one of the cabinet members not all that attached to their commander in chief? “He’s been obsessed with the desire to topple Zuko almost from the first moment he took office.”
“Objection,” Ben said. “The witness is, at best, expressing an opinion. Not stating facts.”
Cartwright nodded. “The court would appreciate it if the witness would limit his testimony to what he has actually seen and heard.”
Ruiz nodded obediently. “Yes, your honor.”
Swinburne resumed. “Can you tell us the first time you recall the president addressing the subject of Kuraq or Colonel Zuko?”
“Of course. I’m sure you recall that just a few days after the president took office, an unidentified terrorist bombed our marine headquarters in Lebanon. No one took credit in the immediate aftermath, and we were scrambling to determine what had happened. We were getting intelligence reports from all over the world, most of them contradictory and inconclusive. But when it came time for the first briefing and planning session, the first day after the incident, the president sat down and immediately said, ‘Tell me what Zuko has to do with this.’”
“What did that question suggest to you?”
“What it suggested was that the president had already determined that Zuko was responsible or, worse, that he wanted to pin it on Zuko regardless of what really happened. I found that appalling. We were trying to find out what happened, but the president didn’t seem to care. He just wanted Zuko’s head. As you know, in the weeks that followed, his rhetoric against Kuraq only increased. First he applied the most extreme economic sanctions. Insisted upon a total embargo of the country, which resulted in short- and long-term shortages of food and medicine within the country. Soon thereafter we were sending troops and positioning them just outside Kuraq’s borders.”
“Excuse me,” Swinburne said, “but weren’t those troops sent in response to the Kuraqi occupation of the Benzai Strip?”
“That was the official explanation. Whether you want to believe it or not is another matter.”
“Is there any reason to doubt it?”
“As I already mentioned, the president seemed strangely preoccupied with Zuko and his country. And there was nothing new about their claim to the Benzai Strip.”
“Moving in troops was new, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But Zuko’s explanation was that he needed to seize their food and medicine stockpiles to help his own people, which is understandable under the circumstances. Outside aid was still reaching Benzai, but not Kuraq.”
“What about the alleged genocide?”
“I would put a heavy emphasis on the word
alleged
. A few people were killed during the struggles relating to the initial occupation, but we haven’t confirmed any deaths since. We hear rumors of Zuko’s genocidal plans—but so far there has been no known attempt to actually start a massacre. That’s why the president has been unable to get support for a UN resolution against Kuraq.”
“They haven’t found any evidence of genocide, either?”
“No. In the eyes of too many around the world, this looks like another excuse for American imperialism. We come up with excuses for every invasion we’ve made into the Middle East, but in the eyes of many, those excuses are just that—rationalizations for doing what we want to do, even if it amounts to little more in reality than a war of aggression or a flat-out theft of natural and economic resources.”
Swinburne stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Is there any reason the president would be so obsessed with Kuraq?”
“Objection,” Ben said. He suspected this one was not going to do much good, but at the very least it would interrupt the flow of this damaging assault on the president’s credibility. “Calls for speculation about a third party’s motives.”
“Not really,” Swinburne responded. “The question goes toward the president’s mental state. Shows that he may not be exercising the intellectual prowess we would want from our president. That is very relevant to this proceeding.”
“No,” Ben insisted. “The fact that the president may have a different opinion than the secretary of state does not in any way suggest mental instability. Surely we’re mature enough to be able to differ without labeling opposing viewpoints as crazy.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Admiral Cartwright said. “But I think this is relevant. I’m going to allow it. I will caution the witness to avoid speculation, however.”
Ben frowned. This was not going to be helpful. He felt certain Ruiz could accomplish his goals without violating the judge’s rule against speculation—at least not too obviously.
“I think President Kyler blames Zuko for taking away his honeymoon. You know, the first one hundred days or so of a new presidency when the press and the public are still excited and his approval ratings are high and a president can typically start instituting a good deal of his campaign agenda. The bombing so preoccupied political thought that Kyler didn’t get that grace period. But why he assumes that Zuko was responsible and has obsessed on him so, I just couldn’t tell you. It doesn’t seem rational to me.”
“Objection,” Ben said, rising.
“I’m sorry,” Ruiz said quickly. “I don’t mean to testify about the president’s mental state.”
Ben found this apology profoundly unconvincing.
“I’m just trying to understand why I and many others at State were mystified,” Ruiz continued. “It didn’t make any sense. There are worse dictators in the world, and bigger threats to the security of our nation. North Korea. Pakistan. Just to name two.”
“Maybe he’s just being careful,” Swinburne suggested. “Is there any downside to being careful?”
“In this case, yes. Kyler has committed so many of our resources to this region that, in the event that a real threat developed, we would be hard-pressed to mount an effective response quickly. Furthermore, it’s extremely damaging to world opinion about the United States. I just don’t think the rest of the world is going to tolerate another Middle Eastern invasion by American forces. At least not unless we have positive proof that they were behind the bombing. Or that people are being slaughtered in Benzai. And at present we don’t.”
“Have you seen any further evidence that the president is obsessed with some kind of personal revenge against Zuko?”
“Objection, leading.” Ben hated to make so many objections. He knew that excessive objections irritated the jury, who usually would like to hear the answer to any question interesting enough to draw an objection. He could only imagine the effect on a group of cabinet members, people used to getting their information in succinct briefings, and in this case, people who could see the deadline till the next missile launch approaching all too quickly.
Cartwright tilted his head to one side. “Well… it was a leading question, Mr. Swinburne. Do you understand what we mean by that term?”
“I think I’ve got the general idea, judge. I’ll try again.” Swinburne cleared his throat. “Have you observed any indications of what might be the basis for the president’s preoccupation with Kuraq?”
“I think he wants revenge,” Ruiz said.
Ben rolled his eyes. Swinburne had used the inappropriate leading question to tell Ruiz how he wanted him to answer. If he needed cash after his vice presidency, he could have a fine career as a prosecutor.
“Why would he want revenge?”
“The attack could have come during the previous administration. Whoever was behind the attack seems to have purposely waited until Kyler was in office before they made the strike. But there seems to be more to it than even that.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s almost as if there were… some sort of grudge match between Kyler and Zuko. As if the president has personal reasons for wanting to put him down. I’m sorry I can’t explain it any better. But it really does seem to have a personal aspect to it.”