No one in his right mind wanted to be in Washington on that merciless, glaring weekend when it seemed as if a giant DeVilbiss humidifier was spraying hot, wet air over the city. Exhausted tourists took suffocating steps as they waddled along avenues the lengths of which they had tragically misjudged. Establishments with air-conditioning were passionately sought ice islands adjacent to sidewalks like barbecue grills.
The White House, however, was nicely cooled. With the president in residence, anyone of ambition was at work, especially now in wartime and crisis. The president, who privately likened Camp David to a “1920s resort for Polish meatpacking workers,” preferred to stay at 1600. That meant frequent trips to the Situation Room. That, in turn, meant passing through what he called Piccadilly Circus, the West-Wing business end of the White House, at the entrance and exit for the people who did the work—from photographers’ assistants to the secretary of state. When the president had to go through it, he passed large numbers of staff who wanted to see him and to be seen by him or by the important people, their bosses, who were always careful to walk some steps behind him unless he wanted to engage them in conversation. Even then, they made sure not to get ahead of him other than to hold open a door.
The Secret Service officer who sat at a little counter at the entrance seemed very much like a British Empire policeman standing on a raised traffic island in the middle of a frantic third-world intersection. He greeted and checked—if only glancing at badges or familiar faces—everyone who came in. Elevators and stairs dead-ended here, and the way to the Navy Mess and, beyond it, the plebeian mess, led off parallel to the Situation Room entrance. The Situation Room itself was flanked by a warren of staff, support, and video conference rooms.
Now, even in the dead of a summer weekend, black SUVs were lined up outside like loaves of overdone pumpernickel, and the Secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, plus the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Advisor, the DNI, and the DCI were waiting at the long table, with select deputies who attended them backed up against the walls like footmen and footwomen. It was lunchtime, and the “circus,” as the president called it, was packed with people on their way to the plebeian mess. But a path opened for him, and he was swallowed into the very rooms he hated most, because it was there that no matter what he said or did or didn’t do, someone was going to die (or maybe many, many someones), and, no matter what he said or did or didn’t do, one way or another he was going to take a hit.
The vice president was already there, his military aide (a Navy captain who unbeknownst to anyone was Rensselaer’s classmate at Annapolis) standing in back of him. It was understood—it had to be understood—that in a room so full of people of such high rank and occasional or feigned expertise, only that which concisely forwarded the stream of business could be spoken. If everyone pirouetted, the meeting would last five days, so pirouetting was strictly forbidden. Showing off meant keeping other people not only from critical business but, later, from baseball, baths, and beer, so it was the kiss of death. Except, of course, for the president, who, if he wished, could speak for hours and numb the most powerful collection of behinds in the Western Hemisphere. Sometimes he did this, sometimes not. Especially on hot summer weekends his short attention span was further shortened because he knew that, hidden in the hedges, the White House pool was powerfully close and sparkling in the sun.
As an accurate sign of his irritation, the first thing the president said upon entry was, “Who left the vice-presidential seal up on the wall? I’m the president. He,” the president stated, pointing at the vice president, “is the vice president. When I’m in the room, my seal goes up. Not his. His down, mine up. Got it?” An aide rose to make the switch.
And then the president, clearly in a foul temper, asked, “Why the crappy furniture? These chairs must be from the Eisenhower Administration. Okay, they’re new, but I mean nineteen-fifties style. And the five-legged base is the kind of thing that would support an elephant. Why does the table bow out in the middle? That just takes up space. The ends, where I sit, are narrower. Why is my end narrower? Is it assumed that I have less stuff than someone who works for me? No corporate office would be a tenth as clunky, and this is the goddamned White House.”
No one was expecting this, and the room was plunged into oxygenless silence. Then the National Security Advisor spoke up. “That can be fixed, Mr. President.”
“Is that an answer to my question?” the president returned, angrily.
“No, sir.”
“Does anyone have an answer?”
Only the vice president had the standing to speak. “Economy.”
“Right,” said the president. “Economy. Just like Jimmy Carter’s sweater. Dignity, not luxury. You!” He barked at a bespectacled twenty-something kid sitting away from the table.
“Sir!”
“Answer the following question.”
“Yes sir.”
“Am I the king of Saudi Fucking Arabia, or am I not the king of Saudi Fucking Arabia?”
The kid was too frightened to speak. Two generals flanking him said quietly under their breath, “Not. Say not.”
“No, sir,” the kid said, still terrified. “You are not the king of Saudi Fucking Arabia.”
“Right. That’s the point. That’s why we have crappy furniture. Napoleon wouldn’t have had crappy furniture, but I’m not Napoleon. This is a democracy. All I am is an employee of the people. That’s all I am. Right? Yes. That’s all I am. Now, let’s get on with it.”
*
First came detailed situation reports on the war itself: how many targets were hit and of what kind; how many planes lost, people killed; the expenditure and accessible reserves of munitions; enemy transport and communication links broken; shore batteries eliminated; small attack boats and larger vessels sunk or remaining.
The president said, “If we know how many this or that are remaining, they should be hit. The only this or that, that should remain should be the this or that, that are unknown. That’s what I want to see.” None of his subordinates was sure of what he meant, but they pretended that they were.
Then came distillations of Iranian communications garnered from intercepts of the Supreme Leader down to walkie-talkie transmissions between corporals and privates. Everyone was watching Russia and China. Russia could use the American engagement as a pretense to move against the Baltic Republics. China could let the dogs out (assuming they hadn’t been eaten) in North Korea, or create an incident in the South China Sea.
In addressing what China and Russia might do, the National Security Advisor said, “One can never be sure, but China and Russia know that the invasion of South Korea or the Baltic Republics is more of a concern for us then Iran’s blockade of the Gulf. They know that, having destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities already, we would let Iran ride while we transferred all our assets to their primary AORs. To boil it down, they understand that those are primary, Iran is secondary, and we would act accordingly.”
“What about our allies?” the president asked.
In close concurrence with the National Security Advisor, who nodded as his rival spoke, the Secretary of State straightened in his chair enough so that his seersucker suit made an audible crinkle. His bow tie twitched along with his Adam’s apple. “They are, Mr. President, in various states of approval and protest, depending upon their internal politics and electoral calendars. Japan is solid and distant. The Five Eyes, or rather the four others, are with us. France is with us but must downplay it at home. Germany is trouble as usual. Eastern Europe solidly in our corner. Scandinavia against us—what else is new?”
“The U.N.?” asked the president.
“What would you expect? We use our veto, and we try to bribe—excuse me, incentivize—and influence the multitudes of weirdos and dictators in the General Assembly.”
It took more than an hour to get through all this, with reports on the economy, markets, and U.S. public opinion, but as the doves (birds, not a faction in the administration) began their marvelous afternoon songs in the White House shrubbery and on the Old E.O.B.’s hidden ledges that had not been bird-spiked, elongated silences seem to signal that the meeting was about to come to an end.
The president thought so, hoped so, and started looking from one person to another to confirm it. But there is always one more thing.
“Mr. President,” the National Security Advisor said. “There is one more thing.” The president took in a deep, disappointed breath.
“We have a situation in the Indian Ocean off Africa, sir. ISIS has commandeered a cruise ship with several hundred aboard, executed some in a most brutal fashion, and will execute one every hour.”
The president was visibly shocked. “American citizens?”
“Not as far as we can tell from the manifests, if they’re accurate.”
“American Registry?”
“French.”
“Then let France take care of it. They have the capability.”
“Yes, sir, the French are on their way from Toulon, but it will take several days, meaning scores of executions.”
“That’s horrible,” the president said. “But what can we do? Do they need a plane or something?”
“No sir, but one of our ships is on scene. We left a patrol coastal in the vicinity to take care of the pirates, but this is ISIS, and the circumstances are different. We’ve ordered it to await the French. It’s only a small ship, sir, and there’s little it can do.”
“So what’s the problem? I don’t want to get sucked into something like this when we’re in the middle of a war. It’s too much.”
“The complication is that the captain of the Athena points out that it’s the obligation of mariners to come to the aid of a ship in distress.”
“Not if it’s impossible. Right?”
“Captain Rensselaer believes a way may open.”
“Captain who?”
“Rensselaer, sir.”
“Him? Again?”
“Yes sir.”
“I thought we got rid of him. I thought he was banished to New Orleans. Wasn’t he banished to New Orleans?”
“He was,” the SECNAV interjected. “He was sent to finish the Athena. He did, and when the war broke out he took her to the Gulf.”
“He’s a captain, right? What’s he doing with a little boat?”
“He was restricted to that command.”
“Who did that, for Chrissake!” the president asked, ready to pounce on such stupidity.
The SECNAV hesitated, but had to answer. “You did, sir.”
As much as everyone wanted to, no one laughed. “Don’t tell me what I did or did not do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My days here are numbered,” the president said, “but we’ve got an election coming up, and I want the vice president, our glorious nominee”—he hated the vice president—“to carry on for me.”
The vice president nodded. His expression was somewhat like that of a Pekinese thrown into the back of a limousine. He was more or less forbidden to speak more than a few words in the presence of the president unless bidden.
The president continued. “This is just one more trap that we can’t fall into. Rensselaer. When I used to run at Fort Bliss back in the days when I could run, sometimes a giant mosquito would follow me for five miles and bite me twenty times: undoubtedly Rensselaer’s first cousin. Order him to stand down and wait. And I don’t want this to be part of the war in the Gulf. When the history is written, I don’t want whatever’s happening with ISIS in the Western Indian Ocean to be included. It will mar the narrative.”
“It is a part of the general effort, and falls under Operation Prevent Armageddon,” the Secretary of Defense was obliged to state.
“Wall it off. Call it something else.”
“Do you have a suggestion, sir?” the CNO asked.
“I don’t know. That’s not my job, obviously. It’s your job.”
*
After receiving his orders to stand down and await the French, Rensselaer understood nonetheless that having agreed to accept the ten hostages even were it to mean defying a direct order, he could not suddenly refuse and thereby condemn them to death. In the burst with the order, he had also received notice that Athena’s activities had been sheaved from the main war effort and renamed, and he knew exactly why.
He explained this to the crew over the 1MC, and, with obvious contempt, announced the name of the operation into which Athena had been shoehorned.
A dozen men in the mess, looking at the overhead, heard this and reacted. “Spacious Endurance? What the hell is that?” someone asked.
“It’s one of those stupid names they make up in the Pentagon. Maybe they employ some idiot just to do it and pay him a hundred grand a year.”
“Or maybe they subcontracted to a branding company for a coupla million.”
“We could do better.”
“Yeah, we probably could.”
A blizzard of names followed as they ate. “Dynamic Mongoose,” “Vital Junkie,” “Discombobulated Haberdasher,” “Succinct Worm,” and “Spaced- Out Doorman.” Someone came up with “Portuguese Wombat” and “Pretentious Bazooka.” This was followed by “Narcoleptic Bus Driver.” And, finally, “Crazy-Assed Police Chief,” “Intellectual Rooster,” “Insincere Brazil Nut,” and “Irresponsible Monkey.” There was much mirth among the men in the mess, which served to refresh them when they resumed their duties.
On the bridge, Rensselaer said to Movius, “Spacious Endurance. I can picture it now, some family getting the announcement: ‘Your son has died in Operation Spacious Endurance.’ Despite their grief, I can see them saying, ‘What the hell is that?’”