6

Slideware

WASHINGTON, D.C.

President Vaccaro returned to the Situation Room after addressing the nation from the Oval Office. The speech had been short and to the point; just the facts as she knew them, which weren’t many, yet.

As she now sat through an onslaught of PowerPoint briefings containing nothing new, she quickly grew to despise the process the previous administration had left in place to deal with national emergencies.

But then again, America had never before been hit by a nuclear weapon and faced the threat of more attacks within a week, so in a way Vaccaro was blazing a new trail here. And that meant all her leadership and combat experience, all she had read, listened to, and learned—all had led to this moment.

She was the first combat-experienced president in a while, the last two being George H. W. Bush and John F. Kennedy. And as such she had read all she could about the men, their lives, and especially how they handled the First Gulf War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, respectively.

For example, Vaccaro learned that in 1962 the White House staff under Kennedy totaled the grand sum of sixty-two people. Since she had been elected, she had yet to get a precise answer as to how many staff there were in the current White House. But John Wright was closing in on the numbers, which already exceeded two thousand.

Hearing and seeing these briefings, she thought each of the two thousand had prepared a slide for today.

Ridiculous and counterproductive, and at the most critical time in recent memory.

How the hell could she trust the information she was getting? How could she see the battle? How could she lead and make things happen if she had to work through this massive bureaucracy?

She had learned long ago the major law of all bureaucracies: they were self-sustaining, making work, and always justifying their existence.

Vaccaro needed information now; she needed to make things happen, decisions that would start activity—almost any activity but sitting here for another second listening to briefers, directors, generals, advisors, and occasionally her vice president.

The CIA and the DIA had already confirmed the Ibrahim al-Crameini video as legit. She knew that ISIS was responsible for the detonation as well as the diversionary ground attack. America, Afghanistan, and many other nations had lost sons and daughters. All in the room also knew that the death toll could have been much higher. And on top of all the death and destruction there was the toxic fallout to be dealt with. She found it interesting that in the middle of this terrorist crisis, the only presentation she found informative—and productive—was the one from the EPA administrator. In addition to having already located the precise areas affected by the fallout in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the EPA chief had taken the initiative to dispatch cleanup crews to both countries to work in coordination with local crews to mop up the mess.

Everyone else today had simply told her what she already knew.

The American chief executive strongly suspected that there had to be more bombs out there heading in her country’s direction. She knew demands had been made public. She also knew that in order to get this crisis under control, she and her country would have to be nimble, agile, very deadly, and right—most of the time.

Vaccaro stood the moment her EPA administrator wrapped up his pitch, which caused everyone in the room to look at her and stop what they were doing.

She thanked him for taking the initiative, used him as an example of what she expected from everyone else in the room, and announced, “Let’s take a fifteen-minute break.”

She walked into an adjacent conference room followed by John Wright, her chief of staff, and Lisa Jacobson, her national security advisor.

Wright closed the door and pressed a button that fogged the large window overlooking the hallway.

“John,” she began, “we don’t have the luxury of time to spoil me up on what the hell I am hearing in there. We need information now, and we need to act on that information immediately. What I’m seeing in that room, with the exception of the EPA, is inertia. Well intended, caring, even competent, but all inertia. We cannot have another second of what we just did—no more talk and no more briefings. This is combat on a world scale and most in that room do not get that.”

Vaccaro then turned to Lisa Jacobson, who had ten years of experience with the CIA and ten more as ambassador to a half-dozen countries in the Middle East. She knew the dark corners of both the intelligence and diplomatic worlds.

“Lisa, I need you and John to pull together a team that can provide intelligence on the ground without having to go through that bureaucracy. We also need individuals that we can task directly to act on that intelligence. The people we need will have to have presidential authority, tons of money, and the ability to tell government officials to do things. They will need world-class transportation, communications, and the intelligence conductivity to be able to task satellites and move Special Operations units around as needed.”

“Madam President,” said Wright, “this is a dangerous thing to do. We have a system that works well. We have over two hundred years of combined combat experience in that room. We know how to move people and things to places and blow them up. If you take this power and give it to a few, the checks and balances of our Constitution will be gutted, and your presidency will have a permanent stain on it … Why in God’s name do you want to do this?”

“I do not want to do this, John,” Vaccaro replied. “I am doing this. By the way, if this leaks, one of us leaked it, and that really means the two of you and whomever you pick. I want everyone in that room to keep doing whatever it is they do, but I want the control stick right here in my hands.”

“Madam President,” Lisa replied, “no one here or anyone we select will leak this. John and I will have the names in front of you before the end of the day. There is precedence for what you want to do. During the Clinton Administration, the president granted emergency powers to the director of FEMA after the disastrous state and federal response to Hurricane Andrew.”

“That’s correct,” said Wright. “In addition, we will need a separate and secure means of communicating between us and those in the field. Plus we will also—”

Vaccaro held up a hand. “Lisa, John, the world will not care how we do it. It will really only care that we actually did it … so let’s get it done.”

*   *   *

Momentarily alone in the Oval Office five minutes later, Vaccaro stood behind her desk looking at the manicured lawn beyond the bulletproof glass of the windows flanked by the American flag and the flag of the president of the United States.

Her gaze dropped to the framed photographs crowding the table in between the flags, staring at the history in those old images while searching for strength; the faded image of her dad and his platoon buddies on leave in Manila posing shirtless to showcase the matching tattoos over their hearts; her pregnant mother in black at her husband’s military funeral at Arlington; Vaccaro in her flight suit and aviator sunglasses conducting a preflight of her A-10 at Kandahar Airfield; her wedding picture with the strapping Greg Ochoa, the man who’d managed to sweep her off her feet shortly after she had arrived at the nation’s capital as a newly minted Senator—before cancer shrunk him to the ghost she buried a year and a half ago.

She ran a finger over Greg’s broad smile before staring at her framed war decorations at the end of the table, including two Purple Hearts, the Air Force Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, and above them, the award that brought back so many painful memories: The Medal of Honor.

Vaccaro had been in the thick of the fray back then, shot down in the middle of Taliban country for the sake of those stranded Marines. But someone, perhaps her father, had been looking down on her, like a guardian angel, encouraging her through those difficult days as she evaded and even killed some of the insurgents closing in—when it looked like the only way out was to follow in her father’s example and fight to the death rather than letting herself get captured by those savages.

And just when she had seen no option but to press her Colt’s muzzle under her chin, Captain John Wright had battled his way into that cave.

Exhaling heavily, the president turned around, leaving the past in the past when she heard someone entering the room.

It was John Wright in his tight business suit holding his stopwatch and his ever-present tablet computer. But for a moment she saw him just as he had materialized in that cave, dusty and sweaty after fighting his way from the rescue chopper.

“Madam President? Is everything okay?”

If Vaccaro were completely honest with herself, she would admit that the past would never be quite in the past as long as John Wright stood by her side.

But she was okay with that, just as she was okay with Wright marrying his college sweetheart after his last tour, or that he had two wonderful young boys—or the fact that the same John Wright was back in her life as her Chief of Staff.

Those were just the cards that she had been dealt, and President Laura Vaccaro was very okay with them.

Slowly, she gave this man who would always hold a very special place in her heart a slow nod.