May 8
12:20 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (7:20 a.m. Arabian Standard Time)
The Oval Office
The White House
Washington, DC
“David, I think you should go to bed.”
David Barrett, the President of the United States, sat at the Resolute Desk. Although he was quite tall, well-built, and very nearly movie star handsome, somehow he looked like a small child behind there.
“I want to kill them all,” he said.
“I know that,” his Chief of Staff, Lawrence Keller, said.
Keller sat across from him, watching his boss carefully, analyzing him, assessing him. The desk, which had been a gift from the British people, was too big for David.
Not physically, no. But Franklin Delano Roosevelt had sat at that desk when dealing with the fallout from the Great Depression, the Pearl Harbor Attack, the darkest days of World War Two. John F. Kennedy had sat at that desk during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and also during the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Ronald Reagan had sat at that desk during the nuclear face-offs with the Russians of the 1980s.
David Barrett was too small for the desk. He was too small for the job. He was too small for the moment. Keller had always known this about him. Their relationship was a marriage of convenience—David had stumbled into the presidency through a confluence of family connections, money, good looks and grooming, and some rather glaring misplays committed by the opposing party. Their own party had installed Keller as David’s Chief of Staff, with the hope that Keller could guide the man through the minefield of his own lazy mind and awful instincts.
“It’s a crisis, Lawrence,” Barrett said. He held his head in his hands, propped up on his elbows. His dress shirt was rolled back to his forearms. Until a few moments ago, he had been crying for a little while.
Keller nodded. “Yes. It is. And we’re doing everything we can to manage it and see it through to a positive conclusion.”
Barrett looked up. His eyes were red.
“They’re killing me, do you know that? The press. They are killing me. My daughter is gone. The terrorists have paraded her on TV like a captured animal, making her say terrible, hateful things about me. They’re going to kill her. I know that. You know that. If they’ve…”
He shook his head, unable to speak for a moment. “If they have hurt her in any way, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Keller was calm. “Sir… David… You can rest assured that when this crisis is over, there is going to be hell to pay. I am already in touch with every single decision maker who matters in the Pentagon, with the CIA, with the NSA, and a host of other organizations who safeguard our security. You do not have to worry about taking your revenge. I am going to take it.”
Barrett nodded and began to cry again. “I know. I know. You’re a good man. I trust you. If they hurt her, I want the entire world set on fire.”
“And it will be,” Keller said.
Barrett gritted his teeth. “And this media. My God, Lawrence! Can’t we stop them? My daughter, my beautiful daughter, is under threat of death, and all these bastards can focus on is my military record. They’re making me into a damn laughingstock. I hate them so much. I would bomb them, too.”
Keller shook his head. There was nothing anyone could do about the media, or about David Barrett’s military record. The man found it convenient to take five straight draft deferments during the height of the Vietnam War. At one point, during a period when his draft status was unresolved—meaning the Army felt he should report for duty, and his father and grandfather were frantically pulling strings to make the Army change its mind—David had spent four months in the French Riviera.
Keller himself felt no sympathy about this, or about the skewering a few of the newspapers were giving him. Keller had done two tours of Vietnam as a United States Marine, had been wounded on three occasions, and had seen many, many people die. He had fought street to street during the Battle of Hue. Afterward, his reward—his downtime, as it were—was to spend a year patrolling the DMZ between North and South Korea.
No. He didn’t feel much sympathy for David and his military record.
The loss of his daughter was profound, and terrible. Keller would resolve that, if he could. But David being teased by a handful of resentful reporters? So be it.
“David, you should go upstairs to bed. Okay?”
“The things they’re saying about me, Lawrence… it isn’t fair.”
“David!” Keller said, sternly now. “As your friend, not as your Chief of Staff, I’m telling you. I’m commanding you. Okay? Go to bed. Yes, Elizabeth has been taken. Yes, it is terrible, terrible news. But thousands of people are working around the clock, the best people on Earth, to save her life. Meanwhile, Caitlynn hasn’t been taken, and she’s still with you. And Marilynn is up there in bed, crying herself to sleep over the loss of her daughter. Be a man. Be her husband. Be strong for her, go upstairs and comfort her, and tell her that everything is going to be all right.”
Barrett was shaking his head.
“But what if it’s not going to be all right?”
Keller shrugged. “If that’s what you believe, then lie to her.”
Barrett stared at him.
“That’s right,” Keller said. “It’s a time for comforting lies.”
Finally, Barrett nodded his head. “Okay. I can do that. I lie all the time. I have to. It’s part of the job.”
Keller nodded, but didn’t answer directly.
“Do it for her,” he said. “Make her know that you’re going to be a man for her. Try to get some sleep, and in the morning… I promise. This isn’t going to look nearly as dark as it does right now.”
“I can take a pill,” Barrett said. “I can sleep some.”
Keller nodded again. He stood, and now Barrett stood as well. Barrett was much taller than Keller. The two men shook hands.
“Promise me you’ll go right now,” Keller said. “I can see myself out.”
Barrett nodded. “I will. I promise. And thank you, Lawrence. You’re my rock. I don’t know how I would ever get through any of this without you.”
“It’s my honor to serve this office,” Keller said.
* * *
It was just after 1 a.m.
Lawrence Keller sat in his car, a black BMW 325i sedan, which he had bought new last year. It was a nice car, and he was proud of it. He was proud of what it said about him, as well. A lot of people with high-level Washington jobs—and Keller had one of the highest of the high-level jobs—were driven everywhere.
But not Lawrence Keller. He wouldn’t hear of it, partly because he was self-reliant to an extreme, and partly because drivers witnessed things. They saw things, and they overheard things. Washington, DC, was not a town where you wanted people to know what you were up to. The more people who knew, the more people who could (and almost certainly would, if the price was right) take you down.
Keller was parked in the south end of Georgetown. Now and then, a car rolled slowly past on the quiet streets. Keller liked Georgetown. Disasters came and went, scandals came and went, famous men and women sparked through the sky like Roman candles and then flamed out, entire governments ruled the city and the country for years only to see everything they worked for undone by the next group in power… all of that happened, yes. But Georgetown was eternal.
In his hand, Keller held a small Radio Shack digital recorder. He had been listening to the playback for the past twenty minutes or so, fast forwarding and rewinding to certain parts he wanted to hear again and again.
He listened to the President of the United States abjectly weeping in the Oval Office.
He listened to the President speaking certain lines, lines that were gold:
“I want to kill them all.”
Keller had marked the spots that he liked best. He could go straight to them, with just the press of a button. He went to another one now.
“They’re killing me, do you know that? The press. They are killing me.”
And then another:
“All these bastards can focus on is my military record. They’re making me into a damn laughingstock. I hate them so much. I would bomb them, too.”
Those ones were all good. Together, they painted a picture of a small-minded man who was coming apart at the seams. Here was a person in command of the greatest armed forces the world had ever seen, with his finger on the nuclear button, who was sitting in the Oval Office crying, and who was expressing an urge to kill many people.
He was also almost laughably self-absorbed during a major crisis, worrying about his reputation, and the things the press were saying about him. And the self-incriminating things he said only got worse. The hole he dug only grew deeper.
For example, there was this:
“If they have hurt her in any way, I don’t know what I’m going to do. If they hurt her, I want the entire world set on fire.”
Keller nodded and smiled. David Barrett sounded unhinged, a man going through a personal tragedy, who was rapidly becoming a threat to everyone on Earth. Plus there was this:
“I lie all the time. I have to. It’s part of the job.”
The man seemed to believe that part of his job was to lie. Of course, this was true, but it wasn’t something the American people would like to hear. And then there was this, a small subtle statement that was perhaps the most damning thing of all:
“I can take a pill. I can sleep some.”
The President, who was weeping, raging about the media, and threatening to set the world on fire—something that was well within his power to do—was also dependent on medication to sleep.
Lawrence Keller took a deep breath. It was amazing. He and his allies had wanted David out of office from almost the time the tall dope had wandered into it. He was a weak, uncertain President. He was swayed by random conversations—Keller often met with him in the morning, got his stance on a particular issue, and couldn’t be sure that it would still be the same by that afternoon.
It would be good to get David out of there. It would be good to replace him with someone stronger—someone like his current Vice President, Mark Baylor, for example. It would be good for the country, and it would also be good for Lawrence Keller, wouldn’t it? Yes. It would. Being Chief of Staff to a weak President was a good job. Many people would kill for such a job. But it wasn’t the best of all possible jobs, was it?
No, it wasn’t. What was a better job? Chief of Staff under a strong President, certainly. But also, Secretary of State, let’s say. Or Director of National Security. People made jumps like that sometimes.
Lawrence Keller was the type of man who could make a jump like that.
Admittedly, it was an unfortunate set of circumstances that were removing David from office. Keller would never wish anything like this on Elizabeth Barrett—he had met her several times, and thought her a fine young person. Attractive, but probably not beautiful. Smart enough, but certainly not a genius. Just a nice girl from a very rich family whose dad happened to be the President.
Elizabeth had done a very silly thing. And the Secret Service had probably been lax in their protection of her. They had relied too much on the school’s security, and they had underestimated what a bored teenage girl might do to experience a little excitement and a little romance.
Keller hoped that they were able to retrieve Elizabeth safe and sound. But her antics had caused something of a disaster—which by the way, was likely to set off a chain of catastrophic violence that would impact thousands of innocent people, people whom irresponsible young Elizabeth would never meet or even imagine.
And her antics had opened an opportunity to remove from the highest office in the land a man who was unfit to occupy that office. In the end, this was a good thing, no matter what happened to Elizabeth. It was not an opportunity that should be allowed to go to waste.
Okay. That settled it.
Keller climbed out of the car and set out walking at a brisk pace. Within a few moments, he was at the bottom of the hill and crossing the Francis Scott Key Bridge along the pedestrian sidewalk, heading across the Potomac River toward the Arlington neighborhood of Rosslyn.
On the bridge, the six lanes were quiet. Now and then, a car passed. Up ahead, to his south, the tall office towers of Rosslyn loomed. Even this time of night, there were many, many lights on.
Halfway across the bridge, Keller stopped. He pulled out a small cellular telephone and flipped it open. It was a burner phone—he had purchased it anonymously for cash with prepaid minutes loaded on it.
It was breezy out here on the bridge. Someone with a camera and a high-powered telephoto lens could watch him, but it would be very hard for anyone to overhear him speaking. It would also be hard to intercept a phone call that no one was expecting, from a phone that had never been used before. And naturally, it would be impossible to trace from where the call had come.
He dialed a number, one that very few people had.
After a couple of rings, a voice picked up.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” Keller said. “Do you know who this is?”
“Of course,” the voice said. “I was staying up, watching the TV news, and waiting for your call. I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to come.”
Keller shook his head and smiled. “Here it is.”
“Good. What do you have?”
“I’ve got everything we need. It’s all on tape. He’s cracked. This has broken him.”
“Okay,” the voice said. “You know what to do with it.”
Keller nodded. “Right. But none of this comes back to me. Agreed?”
“Agreed. We’ll have someone play the salient parts for him, but he’ll think he was bugged. You’ll have nothing to do with it.”
“Good,” Keller said. “I suggest you have someone play it for him after he’s gotten some sleep, when he’s a little more lucid. When I left him, he was barely making sense anymore.”
“Very nice,” the voice said.
Keller smiled. “Yes. It is.”
After they hung up, Keller dropped the telephone on the ground. He stomped on it, three, four, five times, until it broke apart. He picked up the shattered plastic casing and tossed it over the protective fence and into the river. Then he did the same with the metallic interior, where the sensitive data might be.
He watched the silver metal hit the dark water and then disappear beneath it. Then he kicked apart the last bits and pieces of black plastic still on the sidewalk.
The phone was gone. The conversation had never happened.
And pretty soon, maybe as soon as later this morning, David Barrett would relinquish his duties as President.