Steven Gore - Absolute Risk

Vice President Cooper Wallace rose from his chair at his kitchen table as CIA Director Casher entered, then shook his hand and directed him to sit across from him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Wallace said. “I’ve always found it easier to do my hard thinking in here.”

Casher had often seen print and television advertisements of the iconic black-and-white photograph of Wallace and his father talking over Spectrum business at their kitchen table in Topeka in the 1970s, but until this moment he thought it had been only a marketing gimmick.

Casher set his briefcase on the floor and sat down.

“What can I get you?” Wallace asked.

Casher pointed at a half-full pot of coffee on the granite counter next to the sink. “That’s fine.”

Wallace poured him a cup and took his seat.

“Before we start,” Wallace said, “I want to thank you for our discussion last week. It’s rare that anyone in Washington wants to talk about what events mean, except in a narrow partisan sense of which party gains and which party loses.”

Casher watched Wallace’s eyes go blank for a moment. He recognized that in recent days Wallace had put himself on trial and found himself guilty of the same offense. His role in both presidential campaigns had been to engage the enemy party in sniping skirmishes away from the central fronts of health care, terrorism, and economic uncertainty.

Wallace blinked, then looked at Casher and said, “We talk policy and implementation, then end up finding ourselves in a political or military or economic wilderness and don’t know how we got there.”

He needs a confessor, Casher thought, someone to guide him through the psychological rebirth he seems to be undergoing. The problem was that Casher could see only two possible outcomes from the experience, and both were nightmares. The first was that Wallace would be paralyzed like a college freshman by the glare of a sudden confrontation with too many questions and possibilities. The second was that he’d choose Reverend Manton Roberts as his midwife.

Wallace half smiled. “I know you didn’t come here to listen to me ramble. You came to talk about financial issues, but I need to ask why you came alone. I expected that someone from the Treasury Department or maybe Milton Abrams would be with you.”

Casher had anticipated the question and so had the president. He leaned forward, rested his forearms on either side of his cup, then said, “The president has been undergoing some medical tests in the last few weeks.”

“I haven’t noticed him leaving for-“

“They were done in the facility in the basement of the White House.” “What have they found?” “A brain tumor-” “Dear God.”

Casher saw in Wallace’s eyes what he and the president feared he’d see: wide-eyed bewilderment. Casher waited until it seemed to pass, then said, “It’s not malignant, but it’s growing and has to be removed.”

“When did he find out?” Wallace asked.

“About two weeks ago he began to suspect that there was something wrong. Vision and balance problems. Headaches. Numbness in his hand. They first thought that he had suffered a minor stroke, but an MRI found the tumor.”

Wallace reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

Casher raised his palm. “This isn’t a good time to call. He knew you would want to and asked me to thank you in advance. He’s explaining to his wife and kids what the treatment will be.”

Wallace set his phone down on the table.

“And that is?”

“Surgery. Preceded by an induced coma.” Casher pushed on before Wallace could react. “He’s less worried about surviving the surgery than about post-operative side effects.”

The president was also worried that in his single-minded pursuit of the office he’d made a bad choice for vice president. But Casher suspected that Wallace already knew that.

“He’s concerned about emotional instability, loss of memory, and impaired judgment, and that he won’t be capable of assessing whether he’s competent to reassume the duties of the office.”

Casher watched Wallace bite his lip. Wallace now understood that soon he would be the acting president of the United States.

“The president recognizes that it will fall to you and the Cabinet to determine whether he’s competent.”

Casher withdrew an index card from his suit jacket pocket and slid it across the table to Wallace.

“This is a list of neurologists and psychiatrists that he’s asked to stand by in the days and weeks after the operation to help you make that determination.”

Wallace fumbled as he tried to pick up the card, squeezed the edges until it buckled up off the table, then gripped it with both hands. Staring at it, he said, “I think he’s the most courageous man I’ve ever met. Who else has the mental toughness to think things through like this?”

“The president would like to meet with you at 8 a.m. tomorrow. That will be followed by a National Security briefing in the situation room and after that a Cabinet meeting at 2 p.m. He’ll make the announcement, then carry on with his schedule in what he suspects will be an unsuccessful attempt to minimize the impact. At 8 p.m., he’ll meet with you, the speaker of the House, and the president pro-tem of the Senate and submit a letter saying that as of six o’clock the following morning he’ll be unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Casher watched Wallace’s face work its way through a kaleidoscope of scenarios: a frown, upper teeth scraping across his lower lip, a squint into the distance, a hand through his hair.

Finally Wallace asked, “Why you? Why didn’t his chief of staff come here to tell me?”

“Because the president knows that I’ll never speak or write about what we say and do here tonight and because he doesn’t want his thoughts and warnings and wishes to be filtered through the mind of a political animal.”

Wallace drew back. “What warnings?”

“Manton Roberts and National Pledge Day.”

Casher watched Wallace flush. He wasn’t sure whether it was from anger or from embarrassment. He hoped it was the latter.

“The president knows that he’s leaving you in a difficult position, but he’s not willing to risk his life by delaying the operation in order to defuse what he considers a temporary political stunt.”

“It’s not-“

Casher raised a forefinger to cut him off.

“At the same time… at the same time, people all over the world are nervous about it. They see it as a kind of mass hysteria, especially combined with Roberts’s ranting about the coming apocalypse and end times. They doubt his motives and suspect that he wants to see the world collapse into anarchy and is trying to push it in that direction.”

Wallace locked his hands on the end of the table. “That’s just hyperbole. No one embraces that kind of terror.”

“If somebody yells fire in a theater, then everybody runs. They don’t sit back and look around and ponder the person’s intentions-but I’m not here to argue. My role is only to communicate the president’s thoughts, and fill you in on some intelligence matters.”

Wallace peered at Casher. “What intelligence matters?”

“Ones relating to China. We think that there are only a few days left in the rebellion, but long enough to do us a lot of economic damage. The president doesn’t know whether it will land in the Oval Office while you’re sitting there, but he wants you to understand the situation.”

Wallace hunched forward.

“The PLA now has dossiers on at least ten U.S. business leaders,” Casher continued, “and on a group of Chinese government and party officials that they’ve paid bribes to in the last ten years. More than enough evidence they’d need to charge them in Chinese courts.”