Ralph Peters (21 page)

President Waters wanted a cheeseburger. It seemed unreasonable to him that so trivial a desire could haunt a man in an hour of grave discussions and fateful decisions. But, he told himself, the body could go only so long without fuel. Countless shots of coffee and some scraps of doughnut, even cut with the spice of adrenaline and nerves, could carry a man only so far. And now, faced with the prospect of Clifton Reynard Bouquette, whom he could not abide, and his sidekick, who was as nerve-rackingly intense as she was genuinely good at her work, the President wished he could just put everything on hold for fifteen minutes of quiet. Spent alone. With a Coke and the sort of monumental, dripping cheeseburger that his wife went to great lengths to deny him, in the interests of the presidential health.

But there was no time. And, the President reflected, you could hide behind a cheeseburger for only so long, in any case. Then you would have to return to this obstreperous, all too violent world, where the very best of intentions seemed to have no power at all.

He had dreamed of going down in history as the President who taught his people to join hands, to understand one another, and to go forward together. He wanted to be the President who spoke for the poor, the ill-educated, the badly nourished, the men and women whom the streets had educated to make the worst possible choices, and he wanted to speak for them in a voice that did not threaten, but that softened life's harshness—for all Americans. His vision had been of a great returning home—by all those socially or economically crippled citizens who lived as exiles in the land of their birthright. He valued, above all, kindness—generosity in spirit and in fact—and peace. But the world demanded a man with the strength to order other men to kill, to ruin, and to die. In his gestures and words President Waters took great pains to remain firm, strong, commanding. But, in his heart, he wondered if he was a man of sufficient stature for the hour. He had even taken to praying, in private, for the first time since the age of fifteen, when he had watched his father die unattended in a hospital hallway.

He smiled slightly, wearily, dutifully, greeting Bouquette and his assistant. Bouquette looked so damnably pleased with himself. Waters had first met the Bouquettes of the world at Yale, and he had been forced to recognize their genuine importance, their utility. But, even though he suspected it might be owing to sheer jealousy on his part, he had never learned to like them—even as he had laboriously taught himself to imitate their dress, their choice of words, their confidence. . . .

His smile grew genuine for a moment, as he considered the reaction he would get if he asked Bouquette to run along and fetch him a cheeseburger.

Bouquette was already bent over the audiovisual console, feeding in the domino-sized ticket that held the classified briefing aids. Momentarily, the monitor sets perched above and behind the conference table flickered to life.

"
Just a second, Cliff,
"
the President said.
"
I've got some critical business to attend to before you begin.
"
He turned his attention to Miller, the lowest-ranking man in the room.
"
John, would you mind sending down to the kitchen for some sandwiches? I suspect we're going to be here for a while. Call it a working dinner.
"

Miller stood up. Ready to go and do his president's bidding.
"
The usual for you, Mr. President?
"

Waters nodded. The usual. A small
chef's
salad, crowned with a few shreds of tuna packed in water and, just to be daring, some tidbits of low-cholesterol cheese. No dressing. Two pieces of whole wheat bread. And grapefruit juice.

"
Oh, and John,
"
the President said,
"
remind the chef that there is ... no urgent necessity for my wife to hear
about our doughnut orgy at lunchtime.
"
He laughed slightly, and the members of the National Security Council were careful to laugh with him. Just enough.

Miller disappeared. Bouquette stood erectly, portentously. God only knew what new disasters the man held ready on his tongue. The turbulent, seemingly unpredictable course of military operations baffled Waters. By comparison, the world of post—Chicago School economics, in which he specialized, seemed simple, orderly. Like most American males of his generation, President Waters had never served in the military, and for the first time in his life, he regretted the omission. He knew the generals and admirals tried to simplify things for him. But so much of it simply did not seem logical. The dynamics did not correspond directly to the laws of physics. The very vocabulary was arcane and forbidding.

Commander-in-Chief. During his presidential campaign, the title had simply been another term among many. Now he wished in his heart that he might pass off this responsibility to another, better-prepared man.

Well, perhaps the election would see to that. Waters did not expect to win this time around. Only his wife and a handful of men and women who had welded their careers hopelessly to his still spoke of reelection with even hollow confidence. Certainly, there was a part of him that wanted to remain in office, to complete the real work so barely begun. But he had no special desire to sit for one unnecessary moment in this chair of blood. If he could have, he would have created a dual presidency—one for the master of distant wars and interventions, another for the builder of a better nation. But there was only one presidency, and despite the natural, indescribably powerful urge to hold on to the office, to its delicious power, Waters had made himself one promise: He would in no way attempt to exploit the present situation to electoral advantage. To the best of his abilities, he would make the decisions that were correct for the United States.

Waters sat back in his chair, tugging at the already loosened collar that felt so inexplicably confining today.

"
All right, Cliff. Let's hear what you have to say.
"

Bouquette nodded.
"
Mr. President, we have a great deal to cover tonight. We've trimmed it down to the minimum—
"

Just get going, Waters thought. Speak of the things that matter.

"
—but that still leaves a lot of ground to cover. I'll lead off with the counterintelligence update, then Miss Fitzgerald will cover the events on the ground in the Soviet Union.
"
Bouquette looked directly into the President's eyes, a veteran of many briefings.
"
First, you may already have seen the story in today's
New York Times.
"
At the intonation of
"
New York Times
"
the monitors instantaneously exhibited the inside-page story about which Bouquette would speak. The headline read:

WHERE IS THE
SEVENTH CAVALRY?

"
No, I haven't seen it,
"
the President said. He turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see how alarmed he should be. But the general's face remained noncommittal.

"
Well,
"
Bouquette continued,
"
the good news is that there's no evident suspicion as to the real location of our forces at this time. The planted stories about secret training in northern Canada seem to be holding. But the
Times
's piece doesn't read well. They're a bit too interested.
"

"
Any reaction from the Japanese?
"
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs asked.

Bouquette shook his head. Businesslike.
"
Nothing we've picked up as of yet. They've got their hands full. And they seem relatively confident that we've got our own hands full south of the border.
"

"
What got the
Times
interested?
"
the secretary of state asked.

"
Let me handle that one, Cliff,
"
the secretary of defense said. But he did not speak directly to the secretary of state. Instead, he addressed the President.
"
Sir, we've been tracking this one. We didn't consider it of sufficient importance to bother you with it, but since Cliff's brought it up, I might as well give you the background myself. As you know, we constructed the Seventh Cavalry—which is a 'heavy' unit—and the Tenth and Eleventh cavalries— which are 'light' units of the sort we used to call Military Intelligence—as very special organizations. We carefully sought to fill those units with unmarried men. Of course, that's not always possible, especially with officers and senior NCOs. But we tried to avoid the private-with-six-kids syndrome. We wanted to be able to deploy these units on short notice, with as little bother as possible. We went through the personnel files carefully. We designed spouse support and education programs. Above all, these are basically volunteer units—very few soldiers come down on orders without first requesting to join. We wanted to kill the old commissary-PX grapevine, where you could learn more about a unit's activities in the checkout line than in the ops office. And we think we've done a pretty good job. We even made it policy not to tell the majority of the officers and men their destination until they're wheels-up— and we do not permit personal communications from the combat zone. So, all in all, we've been successful.
"
The sec-def paused, leaning back as though to take a deep breath.
"
But this sonofabitch from the
Times
has been phoning up the Building, prying. He smells something. And you know why? Because some little girl in Manhattan, Kansas, wants to know where her boyfriend is. She claims she's engaged to a corporal in the Seventh Cavalry, and she wants to know what we've done with him.
"
The sec-def smiled, waving his chin at the absurdity of it all.
"
So, in a way we're better off with this sudden speedup in the commitment of our force. From an operations security standpoint. We've had a hell of a run of bad luck. But nothing lasts forever.
"

For a moment, President Waters was filled with a terrifying vision of how very, very fragile everything was. He had never considered that the success or failure of a military mission in the middle of Asia might depend on a lonely, angry girl in Kansas.

"
As a nation,
"
the President said,
"
we've never been very good at secrecy. And, in many ways, it's been a blessing to us. But, all things considered, I think we might want to keep our current activities quiet just a while longer. Bill,
"
he said to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a great bear of a man,
"
why don't we just get that soldier to write his girl a letter saying he's fine and that he'll be home soon. Make her happy.
"

"
And make her keep quiet,
"
Bouquette said anxiously. His briefing had been taken away from him too quickly, and he wanted to get back into the game.
"
We could even get it postmarked from somewhere up in the Canadian wilderness. Let our friend from the
New York Times
dust off his snowshoes.
"

"
We can do that, Mr. President,
"
the chairman said.
"
But I think we have to be prepared for further inquiries from the media, now that the
Times
has made an issue of it. I'm just afraid that somebody's going to put two and two together. The situation in the Soviet Union is front page and lead story, every day.
"

President Waters was uncertain how to respond. He wanted these men to provide him with assurance, not with additional worries.
"
Well,
"
he said,
"
we'll just hope our luck holds a little longer. Now let's move on. Cliff, what's next?
"

"
Staying with counterintelligence, Mr. President... the Soviets continue to be exceedingly cooperative. As you know, we have key elements of the Tenth Cavalry, the intel boys, on the ground in Moscow and elsewhere, supporting the combat commitment of the Seventh. And the Soviets have brought us in on almost everything—joint technical exploitation, interrogations, sharing of information. We're learning a great deal about their system, how it works and so forth. I must say, they've surprised us a few times. Their country may be in a sorry state, but they're still devilishly good at certain kinds of intelligence work. Bad at others, though. Their battlefield intelligence system is in the process of breaking down completely. At the strategic level, we've got a better picture of their tactical and operational situations than they do. In a few moments, Miss Fitzgerald will cover those developments for you. But, the good news is that the Soviets do not appear to be running a serious, comprehensive operation against us. We do know that General Ivanov, their senior man in central Asia and western Siberia, has orders to police up the wreckage of one of our M-l00s, if possible. But that's to be expected. They tell some little lies to save face, but all in all, they're playing it remarkably straight with us. Or at least they appear to be.
"
Bouquette looked
around the table.