Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

The President of the United States, William Jefferson Lee Iv, sat straight up in bed. It had been the nuclear nightmare wherein some unidentified country had launched missiles on the United States and he had to decide at whom to strike back. It was not the first time.

Will wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his nightshirt, then tried to get out of bed without waking his wife. He was halfway to the bathroom when he remembered that Kate, who for the past four years had been director of intelligence, head of the CIA, had left for work two hours before, after an urgent phone call in the early hours.

Will stared at himself in the bathroom mirror while he waited for the water in the sink to get hot for shaving. How was he different from four years before? Considerably grayer, but Kate thought that lent him gravitas. His face was relatively unlined, still, and he took some pride in the fact that his waist size had not changed, in spite of only sporadic efforts to exercise.

He ran hot water onto the shaving brush, lathered his face, and began shaving while reviewing the high points of the day to come. Most important was a nine a.m. with the vice president, George Kiel, and he thought he knew what the meeting would be about.

Forty-five minutes later, dressed in a standard chalk-striped suit and a red-and-blue-striped necktie, Will walked through the door of the White House family quarters to be greeted by the young naval officer who carried the “football,” the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear launch, and two Secret Service agents, who escorted him down the hallway and into the elevator.

Will had become accustomed to never being alone outside the family quarters and, sometimes, the Oval Office; he also had become accustomed to traveling to the airport in a large new helicopter, and from there in an outrageously well-equipped Boeing 747 with a bedroom and shower and conference room and telephones and Internet hookups and everything else that the minds of electronics experts could conceive. It had been harder to become accustomed to constantly being the most looked-at person in any room, up to and including Madison Square Garden. He had learned never to scratch his nether regions, because the video would be on the Internet within seconds.

The elevator reached the lower floor, and then, instead of being walked to the Oval Office, Will was walked to the press room in the basement of the White House. No preparation had been necessary, because the press had not been invited. Instead, the auditorium was filled with White House staffers.

Will stepped to the lectern. “My God,” he said, “who’s answering the phones?”

Tim Coleman, his chief of staff, stood up in the front row. “Nobody, Mr. President,” he said, then sat down again. Everybody laughed.

“Well, good morning to you all,” Will said. “As I expect you may have heard, I’m headed for New York today to accept the nomination tonight, and I wanted to say just a few words to you before I go.” He looked around at the happy faces. “It may surprise some of you that I got the nomination.” Everybody laughed again. “But I guess being the incumbent helps. What was even more of a help was the successful nature of our first term, and I use the pronoun advisedly. The people in this room had as much, maybe more, to do with that success than anyone else, and I wanted to thank you, personally, for that help.

“Now, assuming that I win a second term for us-and that’s only an assumption at this point-I’m going to be faced with being called a lame duck for the next four years. It’s my fervent hope that you will all be here to face that with me, but I understand that practically all of you have served for the past four years at a considerable financial sacrifice and that the call of the private sector, as the Republicans like to call the defense contractors and the Washington lobbying firms, will be ringing in your ears.

“It’s my hope that you will all be here during the campaign, because somebody has to run the White House, and that you’ll be here early in the next four years to help break in your replacements-should you choose to leave. I know, of course, that the last year of the next administration the rats will all be swimming for shore, and I can’t blame them. I just want you to know that every one of you here has proved your value to the White House and to your country, and I would be delighted if you all decided to stay on for another four years.

“That said, be sure to tune in to the convention tonight to learn if any of your suggestions made it into the speech. Bye-bye for now.”

Will walked off the platform and was followed by Tim Coleman and Kitty Conroy, his director of communications. These two had been his aides when he was in the Senate, and they were closer to him than anyone else on the staff.

Will walked through the reception room outside the Oval Office. His secretary, Cora Parker, spoke up. “Mr. President, the director of Central Intelligence and the deputy director for operations of the CIA are waiting in the Oval Office.”

This was a surprise. “Please send the vice president in when he arrives,” he said. Kate and her DDO, Lance Cabot, were waiting for him, and they both stood as he entered. Will waved them to their seats and hung his coat on a stand by the door.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Mr. President,” Kate said-she always addressed him formally in meetings with others-“we have a report that a Taliban group, possibly aided by Al Qaeda operatives, have captured a missile site in northwestern Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border.”

Will stopped in his tracks. “A nuclear missile site?”

“Yes, sir,” Kate said.

“Are the Taliban able to fire the missiles?”

“They also captured most of the technicians alive.”

“So it’s possible they could fire at something?”

“Just possible,” Kate said. “Not likely, but possible.”

“Have they made any demands?”

“No, but we’re expecting that shortly.”

“Has the story broken?”

“Not yet. The Pakistani president has clamped a tight lid on it, but I don’t think we can count on that for long. When the occupiers of the site start making demands, they’re very likely to make a lot of noise about it.”

“Why are there no military people here?”

“They’re on the way, sir,” Kate replied. “Their departure from the Pentagon was delayed by what they hope is new information coming in.”

Cora Parker ’s head appeared from behind a door. “Mr. President, the vice president and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army chief of staff are here with their aides.”

“Send them right in,” Will said, then stood up to receive the group. There was not a happy face among them.

Cora came back in behind them. “Mr. President, President Mohammed Khan of Pakistan is on the phone.”

Will walked to his desk. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, “I’d better take this. Maybe he’ll have something new.”

Will picked up the telephone and pressed the flashing button.

“President Khan?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I understand that a nuclear missile site has been taken by the Taliban.”

“That is correct, sir.”

“And that Al Qaeda may be involved?”

“We expect so.”

“How can we help?”

“I am meeting with my military staff in a moment, and I hope to have an answer to that question afterward.”

“I understand that most of the technical staff were captured at the site?”

“Yes, that is true, I’m afraid.”