Barry Eisler - The Detachment

The president stepped back. A few reporters shouted questions, but the president ignored them. Horton stepped forward and took the lectern.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he said, surveying the crowd. “I will be brief.”

Maybe it was the solemnity of Horton’s expression-itself, I suspected, the product of the heavy knowledge of his daughter’s predicament. Maybe it was his erect military bearing, or his baritone, or that cultured southern accent. Whatever it was, even through the television, I could sense the collective attention of the press corps focusing, cohering, anticipating.

“As the president just told us,” Horton said, “even as we speak, National Guard units have been deployed to major American cities. The president also spoke of a state of emergency. And while I believe he is correct to use this term, I also believe his application was mistaken. You see, the emergency we currently face is far less from any terrorist threat than it is from our government’s overreaction to that threat.”

I thought, What the fuck? And couldn’t process anything beyond that.

There was silence among the reporters. They were staring at Horton, their bodies seemingly frozen. No one was taking notes. I looked at the president, who was standing a few paces behind Horton and to the side. His face was a mask of poorly concealed shock and rage.

“After all,” Horton went on, “in America, what is a federal government-declared ‘state of emergency’? There is no constitutional basis for such a concept. What does it consist of? When does it end? And while these questions would be problematical enough were they merely rhetorical, they do have answers. I can tell you that today, in the corridors of power in this country, men are seriously contemplating and even planning for the suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law. Our so-called ‘state of emergency’ is intended to act as a bridge to that suspension and that imposition.”

The onlookers in the Rose Garden were still completely silent. On our end, even Dox was apparently at a loss for words.

“Today,” Horton went on, “I would like to ask of all Americans a simple question. If the terrorists told us they would go on with these attacks until we tore up the Constitution and surrendered our liberties, what would we say? I submit to you that we would rightly tell them they could go to hell. And yet, we’re willing to do these very things as long as we believe it’s of our own volition. In the end, though, what’s the difference? Either way, the Constitution is destroyed. Either way, our cherished liberties, which our forefathers have fought and died for, which I and members of my family all the way back to the Civil War have fought and died for, are cashed in and gone for good.”

Still total silence, bordering on shock, coming through the television.

“I have therefore wrestled with the president’s invitation to serve his administration. I ask myself, what should I do? Anyone who tells you that proximity to power, especially during a crisis, is not tempting, is a liar. So the temptation, naturally, is to serve. And why not? After all, I have served my country my entire adult life. The problem, I have come to realize, is that today, I cannot serve our nation by serving the president. Today, service to one would be antithetical to the other. The service the president requires of me could and doubtless will be capably fulfilled by someone else. What’s needed instead, and needed urgently, is an example, and I hope others will follow mine.”

He paused. No one moved. The attention of everyone, there and in our motel room, was riveted on Horton.

“Therefore,” he said, “I must resign my position in this administration and my commission in the United States Army, effective immediately. And I encourage all service personnel who are asked to destroy the Constitution in the diabolical guise of saving it to follow my example. I encourage all Americans, of every stripe, to resist the government’s current attempt to pervert and subvert the constitutional guarantee that our government can only be of, by, and for the people. And I encourage all people who cherish their safety more than their liberty to move to North Korea, where they can live in a society more closely aligned to their preferences than the one we have created here in the United States of America.”

He paused, then said, “It may be that none will heed my call. I am at peace with that. Because I’ll be damned-I will be damned-if I allow any group of cave-dwelling, hate-filled, fanatical losers who have nothing more to offer the world than cowardly attacks on innocent civilians, to coerce me into surrendering the liberties I cherish, that I love, and that I am determined to bequeath to my children just as my parents bequeathed them to me.”

He looked out at the faces of the people assembled before him, then pivoted and walked toward the White House, his head high, his posture erect. There was another moment of stunned silence, then the reporters leaped to their feet and began shouting a cacophony of questions. For a single second, the president looked utterly flustered. Then he, too, turned and strode back toward the White House.

We all stared at the television. Finally, Dox broke the silence.

“What the fucking fuck?” he said.

I got up and turned off the television, having no desire to listen to the inevitable feeble-minded cable news commentary. I turned and looked at Larison, Treven, and Dox. “What the hell was that?”

Dox nodded. “Is it just me, or did that sound to anyone else like a man running for high office?”

“It did,” I said. “But what office? If they get what they want, I don’t think these guys are planning on holding an election any time soon. And, by any time soon, I mean ‘ever.’”

No one spoke. I said, “I mean, did that sound like a guy who’s trying to launch a coup? Who had the president’s counterterrorism advisor killed so he could take the dead man’s position?”

“You think we could have been wrong?” Dox said. “About what Horton was really up to? About who sent those unfortunates after us in D.C.?”

“But who else could have known we were there?” I said. “Unless Horton had told someone, someone who…I don’t know, had his own reasons for wanting us taken out.”

“No,” Treven said. “Hort would never have breached operational security unless he wanted us removed.”

Larison inclined his head toward Kei, who was sitting on one of the beds, one wrist flex-tied to a bedpost. “And besides,” he said, “what about the two men who were trying to protect her?”

“Could someone else have sent them to make it look like Horton had?” I said, thinking aloud.

Larison shook his head. “That’s getting a little far-fetched, I think. Parsimony suggests we’re right about Hort’s goals. But I agree, his tactics are…surprising. On the other hand, Hort never does what you’re expecting him to do. He always has an angle. The question is, what’s his angle here? You think he thinks this will save her?”

Dox glanced at Kei. “She’s not going to actually need saving, all right? We just need her father to think she will.”

It was a stupid thing to say in front of Kei. Yes, it was true, but we were counting on her fear that we might harm her to make her more cooperative. But he’d said it, and she’d heard it. Arguing with him wouldn’t change that.

Larison looked at Dox. “It doesn’t matter what we might or might not do to his daughter. It’s Hort’s perspective that matters. And I promise you, he doesn’t doubt me.”

There was a slight emphasis on the last word. To defuse another confrontation, I said, “We’ve demanded two things. The diamonds, and that he call off the dogs. The question is, how does his stunt pertain to any of that?”