Knowles looked at Livingstone. ‘Bob, what do you think?’
Livingstone nodded quickly. ‘That’s fine,’ he murmured.
‘What’s fine? What Roberta said?’
Livingstone nodded again. He had lost track of the discussion. He was finding it hard to breathe.
The president watched him. The secretary of state didn’t say anything else.
‘Walt,’ said Knowles to the vice-president, ‘do you want to say anything?’
Stephenson raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, it’s a tough one.’ He toyed with a pen, getting ready to deliver his opinion. ‘We’re going to have to face them down on this, but maybe Roberta’s right. A little magnanimity the day before Christmas puts us on the moral high ground. On the other hand, if we’re going to have to match them in the end, do we lose anything by waiting? Maybe we do. I don’t see there’s a right and a wrong answer here.’
The president watched him for a moment. ‘Thanks,’ he said eventually.
He considered the problem a little longer.
‘Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to go with Roberta’s idea. I’ll make a statement along the lines Roberta suggested.’
‘And then what?’ said Oakley.
‘Then … we’ll see what comes back. Like Marty says, what else can they throw at us? Let them chew on it for a few days. Maybe then we try to make contact and see if they want to talk about it privately. We can still take action if we need to, but this gives us time to think it through a little more. Marty and Susan, you want to work up a plan for that? And let’s have the full numbers for the impact on us and the impact on them. All that stuff. We need to know it. I’m sorry to be asking you to get this done over the holiday. I guess you’re going to have a few people who won’t get much of a Christmas. Tell them I appreciate it.’
They nodded.
Rose and Oakley glanced at each other.
There was silence. One other thing was on the president’s mind. It was still early on Christmas Eve. Dewy and Montez were still somewhere in Sudan. Time was running out, but it wasn’t impossible. He turned to Hale. ‘Any chance of anything happening with our guys, General?’
‘It could happen any time, sir. It just takes one sighting, one loose piece of communication, and we’ll find them.’
‘Admiral Pressler will let me know as soon as he thinks there’s a chance to go in and get them, right? Any time, night or day.’
‘Yes, sir. As soon as he thinks there’s a situation that meets the operational requirements, it’ll be your call.’
‘Okay. It’s just if we could somehow manage to–’
There was a thud. The president looked around. Bob Livingstone’s head had hit the table and he was in the process of sliding off his chair. He fell sideways against the vice-president.
The vice-president stared at him. For an instant no one moved. Then General Hale jumped up and hauled the secretary of state down on the floor and thumped his chest with a fist. Roberta Devlin grabbed a phone and called for the duty physician from the White House Medical Unit. Three minutes later a doctor and a nurse ran in carrying a portable defibrillator and a bag of drugs. They tore open Livingstone’s shirt and shocked him three times on the floor of the Situation Room, pumping on his chest until a stretcher arrived.
They were still pumping on his chest as the secretary of state was wheeled out.
IT WAS A dark, sobering Christmas. Tom Knowles couldn’t remember one like it.
Bob Livingstone had been pronounced dead in the emergency room of George Washington University Hospital, where he had been taken from the White House. Tom phoned Alicia Livingstone when he heard. Sarah phoned her as well. That afternoon Tom and Sarah flew to Camp David. Tom gazed at the bleak, bare Maryland countryside below him. The landscape matched his thoughts. He thought of Harley Gauss’s widow. It seemed a long time ago now that the airman had died and he had promised to bring his remains home. He hadn’t done it. He thought of that poor young woman in Jacksonville facing up to her first Christmas without her husband. He thought of Pete Dewy and Phil Montez, the two men who were somewhere in Sudan, and what their families must be feeling.
At Camp David, Steve and his family were there to meet them. He gave Steve a good long hug. He put his arms around the twins and hugged them both at once. Tom felt a tear in his eye and struggled to keep it back.
By Christmas Day, the date of the funeral had been fixed for the 28th at the National Cemetery in Jefferson City, Missouri. Tom and Sarah had been planning to fly to Nevada on the 27th to spend New Year at their ranch in Elko, but decided to stay on at Camp David before heading to Missouri for the funeral and go to Nevada from there.
They were dark days. Reflective. The daily CIA briefing continued to take place. The Chinese government hadn’t responded to the statement that Dean Moss had issued in Knowles’ name late in the afternoon of the 24th. Knowles spoke to Gary Rose a couple of times, to Ed Abrahams, to Susan Opitz. Not much. The bare minimum. He spoke with the British prime minister, who called him Christmas Day to offer his condolences over Bob Livingstone’s death and to discuss the statement the president had released. Knowles kept the conversation short. After that he made himself unavailable for any other foreign leader unless President Zhang decided to call up.
He read. He had hardly got a chance to do that for months. He played grandpa with the twins. He went for walks through the icy grounds of Camp David and did a lot of thinking.
He called up Dale Lambert, the ex-Idaho senator and presidential candidate who had been a formative influence in his political development. They had a good discussion about all kinds of things, including China. Dale said that he had to do what he had to do to protect American interests. If it meant facing China down, then that’s what it meant. It wasn’t going to be easy, but then that wasn’t what he had been elected for, to do the easy things.
He felt that with those few quiet days he was able to gain some distance, to step back from the madness and the frenzy that had engulfed him over the last few weeks in Washington. Soon, he knew, they would engulf him again, which made these days all the more precious. The things that Bob Livingstone had said in that last meeting in the Situation Room stayed with him. In two years, he had barely once rung Bob for advice. Yet now that Livingstone was dead, he found himself wishing he could call him up and hear what he had to say.
Tom Knowles had doubts. He was deep in confrontation with China, and that was the last thing he wanted. Yet all anyone around him seemed to be able to do was take him further in. Those quiet days, those long walks, seemed to make that clear. Tit for tat didn’t work, he knew that. Tit for tat had to end somewhere. But now you were in, how did you get out without looking weak? No one seemed to be able to tell him that.
He wondered if President Zhang was wondering the same thing.
The next time he sat down with Gary Rose and his other advisors, he decided, that was the question he was going to ask. How could he stop the tit for tat? How could he bring it to an end without looking as if he had backed down?
He had three full days in Camp David. Then early on the 28th he and Sarah were taken back to Washington and flew out to Missouri for Bob Livingstone’s funeral.
IN MANHATTAN, MARION ELLMAN had spent Christmas thinking as well. Livingstone’s death had put a lot of things in perspective. As had spending time with two young children for what seemed like the first time in months.
She reread Joel Ehrenreich’s book. It impressed her even more the second time around. She thought a lot about what Liu had said to her. Neither side, the American or the Chinese, was better than the other, she thought. Neither side, she believed, wanted to be in the position in which they found themselves, and yet here they were. No better than two screaming, grasping children. She watched her own two children, and she found herself, for the first time, fearing for them. Really fearing for them. Not the familiar, quotidian fear that every mother feels for her child when they’re out of her sight, when any of the things that can happen every day in this world could happen to them, but fear for the kind of world they were going to inherit.
Who was going to stop it? Bob Livingstone hadn’t been able to. Doug Havering, acting secretary of state while the president sought another nominee, toed the White House line. Inside the White House, as far as she knew, no one was in opposition to the president’s thinking. Certainly not Gary Rose, and she doubted anyone else was. They were all egging each other on in there, she knew. They had to be.
She spent a lot of time thinking about her position. Every spare minute, it seemed, when Ella and Ben weren’t grabbing her attention. Late at night, she talked to Dave. There was nothing much he could say apart from the obvious. He listened over long glasses of wine and helped her say it for herself.
She would probably have to resign. She wasn’t sure about the timing. Resigning in the middle of a crisis never looked good. But what did it matter? It would be the end of her public career. She wouldn’t come back from that.
But how could she continue to serve when she felt the president was so wrong? He had cocooned himself away from anything that challenged his thinking, and there was no one who had both the will and the opportunity to put that right.
For three days, she mulled things over. By the 28th, she had made up her mind. Only the question of the timing remained.
That morning, in the frigid air before dawn, she boarded a plane. She was going to Bob Livingstone’s funeral as well.
IT WAS A raw, unyielding day. Snow lay on the ground. The air was a cold, bone-chilling mist. Rows of headstones ran down a slope under the silhouettes of leafless trees.
The chapel was crowded. A marquee had been set up in front of it to take the overflow. Family, friends, former associates from Bob’s days as a lawyer, senatorial colleagues and State Department officials had come to pay their last respects. The marquee was underheated in the freezing air and people shivered. The president gave a eulogy in the chapel. So did Alvin Burr, Bob Livingstone’s closest friend in the Senate. Bob’s eldest, Robert junior, had spoken first. He was Robert junior no longer, he said. He wished he still was.
Then they all came out into the mist and walked over the snowy ground, through the headstones, to the open mouth of the waiting grave.
The president and first lady stood alongside Alicia Livingstone and her three sons. Bob’s casket rested on the ground as the last words were said. Tom Knowles’ Secret Service detail tried to look inconspicuous. Two stood immediately behind the president, others in the crowd, others off amongst the headstones, constantly scanning the cemetery.
Marion Ellman gazed at Bob’s casket. Slowly it was lowered.
She glanced at the president. He stood with hands clasped, a grim frown on his face.
Alicia and the three boys stepped forward and each dropped a lily into the grave. The gentle tap of each one as it hit the top of the coffin was audible in the stillness.
Alicia stood over the casket for a last moment, then turned away.
The president took her arm, and said something, and Alicia nodded, wiping with a tissue at her tears. The first lady said something to her as well while the president spoke with each of the sons, solemnly shaking their hands in turn.
Others waited to say a word to the widow. For a couple of minutes the president shook hands with the mourners nearby. As Marion waited her turn to speak with Alicia, she saw Knowles turn. His security detail closed up around him and the first lady. The crowd made way as they began to move off.
Marion watched him for a moment. Suddenly she stepped out of the crowd and called out.
The sound of her own voice startled her. In the frigid air, it sounded too loud.
The president looked around. Everyone was watching. He smiled when he saw who it was. His security detail didn’t. Two of them were coming towards her.
He told them who she was. The two men backed away, still eyeing her suspiciously.
Marion went closer. ‘Sir, I need to speak with you.’
‘Now?’
Marion nodded.
‘Go ahead.’
‘It’s sensitive, sir.’
The president glanced around. ‘Let’s go over there.’
They headed out into the snow amongst the gravestones. Marion was conscious of the crowd of mourners still watching them.
Knowles stopped. He looked at her expectantly.
Now that she was at the point, she hesitated. She hadn’t even imagined doing this. It hadn’t been rehearsed, not even in her head. She was shaking.
‘Cold, huh?’ said the president, noticing her trembling. ‘Hell of a day. My God, one hell of a day.’
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
‘About Bob. He was a good guy, wasn’t he?’
Marion nodded. Bob Livingstone had told her that you couldn’t just
tell
Tom Knowles anything. But Bob was dead.
She drew a deep breath. It came out freezing in front of her.
‘Mr President, what you’re doing is wrong. Your approach, your strategy. They’re wrong.’
Knowles looked at her in bemusement. ‘What I’m doing about what?’
‘About what’s happening. About China.’
‘You think so, do you?’
‘Mr President, maybe it’s not my place but someone has to tell you. You’re taking us into confrontation with that country and it is not a confrontation either side is going to win. Not us, not them. You’ve misjudged them. You’re giving them no option but to come back at us every time you say something. You’re escalating this and you’re leading us and them into a trap and if you keep going pretty soon there’s going to be no way out.’
The president stared at her.
‘You can ask for my resignation. I don’t care. I’m going to resign anyway.’
‘Whoa! Hold up. Let’s not make any hasty decision.’
‘It’s not a hasty decision. Someone has to tell you, sir. Someone has to make you listen.’
‘And you think resigning’s going to do that?’
‘No, resigning’s going to stop me having to act in a way that I think is the exact opposite of this country’s best interests. Resigning is going to allow me to speak publicly. We’re in a lose-lose situation. We have to get out of it.’
The president folded his arms. ‘What would you do if you were me?’
‘We need to be actively seeking collaboration. We need a different approach. We could have done that over South Africa but we didn’t.’
‘So could they.’
‘True. I’m not saying they’re better. They’re as bad as us, sir.’
‘As bad as us?’
‘This isn’t a temporary, tactical situation we’re in. Things have changed in our world, Mr President. We’re going to keep beating each other up unless we change as well.’
‘Do you think that’s what they think?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Bob said you’d had a conversation with the Chinese ambassador.’
‘That’s true. I sent you my report. My impression is that Zhang’s under pressure.’
‘What kind of pressure?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re not afraid to admit when you don’t know, are you?’
‘Do you prefer people who are?’
The president smiled for a second. ‘No. I don’t.’
‘Sir, there’s someone I think you should meet. His name’s Joel Ehrenreich. He’s just written a book that is one of the best analyses of US–China relations that I’ve read in the last several years.’
The president frowned. ‘Not sure I recognize the name.’
‘He’s at Yale.’
The president looked at Ellman thoughtfully. ‘Marion, no one’s telling me I’m wrong.’
‘I am.’
‘But no one else is.’
‘And that’s your problem, sir. That, in a nutshell, is your problem.’
Knowles looked away over the headstones. ‘Why haven’t I heard any of this from you before?’
‘Ask Gary Rose. It’s not for want of trying.’
Knowles was silent.
‘Mr President, you should meet Joel Ehrenreich. You should listen to what he has to say. Now. Today. Before you do anything else.’
The president glanced at his security detail. They were watching him. He looked back at Ellman. ‘Marion, I don’t think this is the time to be talking to academics. You can send me the book.’
‘No, sir. Normally I’d agree with you. But there are times when someone who’s outside the fray – someone whose perspective isn’t over the course of a year or an election cycle but takes a generational view of things – sometimes there are times when that’s a good perspective.’
The president gazed at Ellman. ‘Send me the book,’ he said, and turned and walked away.
‘Mr President!’
He stopped and looked back at her.
Marion Ellman had nothing to lose. The timing, she realized, had decided itself.
She came closer to him. ‘You asked me what I would do. I haven’t been involved in your discussions. But if I had to guess, I’d guess you’ve spent an awful lot of time talking about what we want the Chinese to do.’
The president nodded.
She pointed at him, right at the chest, like a teacher to a pupil. ‘You need to spend some time thinking about what the Chinese want from us.’
THERE WAS SILENCE in the car on the ride back to the airport. Sarah gazed out the window. The president pondered the conversation he had just had with the UN ambassador. It had reared up out of nowhere and kicked him in the teeth.
But he didn’t have time to reflect on it. The ride to Air Force One was a short one. Almost as soon as he had boarded the plane for the flight to Nevada a call came through from General Hale.
‘Mr President,’ said the general, ‘we know where they are.’