Arc Light (44 page)

Lambert waited, but the President did not complete the sentence. “Yes, sir?”

The President stared off into space again. “I'm just afraid.”

Lambert licked his lips and asked in as soft a voice as he could muster, “Of what, sir?”

The President's gaze returned once again to Lambert, who sat directly in front of him. “Those missiles—the submarines in the Bastion.”

Lambert struggled with his personal rationalization as to why he wasn't worried about that, why nobody screamed out the alarm. Finally, he shrugged. “General Razov would have nothing to gain by firing those missiles at us. We'd just fire our submarines' missiles at his country; he knows that.”

“I didn't say anything about Razov firing those missiles. This whole thing was an accident. Who's to say it won't happen again, only this time it's the real thing, the one from everybody's worst nightmares?”

Lambert had no answer, and the President rubbed the palms of his hands on his pants legs. “Well, anyway, what I wanted to say to you was that I want you to do what you can. I know Costanzo has said he would keep you and the rest of the national security team around if . . . if it happens, and I quite intentionally wanted to burden you with that fear, Greg, with the fear that I've borne ever since I first heard the word Bastion on the night this all started—because I trust you. You're an honorable man.” Livingston looked down and shook his head. “Bastion—the word itself, I don't know, it just sounds . . . medieval, like the dark ages we came from.”

Lambert was at a loss. He knew the President needed someone to help share his burdens, but all he could think to say was, “All we can do, sir, is pray.”

“To whom?” President Livingston asked, looking up at Lambert as if he had touched upon something of importance, something troubling. “Pray to whom, Greg? I can't help feeling that all the gods are dead. All the gods are dead except the gods of Armageddon.”

“Hear ye, hear ye!” the sergeant at arms read as he looked down his nose through his reading glasses at the three-by-five card. “The trial upon the Articles of Impeachment of Walter N. Livingston, President of the United States of America, shall now come to order! The Right Honorable William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, presiding.”

Lambert watched as the Chief Justice gaveled the trial to order from his bench hastily erected where the large underground chamber's speaker's podium had been. “Will the sergeant at arms please read the Articles of Impeachment.”

As the man read the now familiar charges, Lambert's eyes strayed across the room. The Senators—the jury—were crammed into their seats, three at each desk meant for one to make room for the “gallery” filled with Congressmen, the press, ambassadors from several dozen nations, and other luminaries who had trekked down to the subterranean facility for the historic proceeding. Down in front were counsels' tables. The House “managers,” six Congressmen chosen to prosecute the charges contained in the Articles of Impeachment approved by the House of Representatives—three Democrats and three Republicans—sat at the table on the right with their constitutional scholars and lawyers. The President's men—the Attorney General, who had resigned that morning to lead the defense, and several other defense lawyers—sat at the table on the left.

Lambert sat in the front row on the far left, along with General Thomas and numerous other potential witnesses, including even the Secret Service agents who had accompanied the President on the night of the nuclear attack. Lambert had been told, however, that few of the witnesses could be expected to be called to testify. The
facts were not in dispute, and the normal evidentiary procedures of a court trial were not strictly applicable.

The sergeant at arms completed his reading and took his seat below the Chief Justice's bench. “Let it be shown,” Justice Rehnquist said, “that the Senate has received these Articles of Impeachment and that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was so informed. Let it also be shown that the Senate duly served a summons on the President of the United States, Walter N. Livingston, reciting the Articles of Impeachment and requesting an answer to the charges. The President has chosen not to appear at this trial in person, but be it noted that he has answered and is represented by counsel.”

The former Attorney General stood and nodded at the Chief Justice, and the cameras turned to him and then back to the bench. Lambert knew the President, his family at his side at Mount Weather, would be watching now as Chief Justice Rehnquist rummaged through the papers on his desk.

“Would the Senators present please stand and raise your right hands?”

There was the sound of movement and scraping chairs as ninety-seven Senators rose. The ninety-eighth, Senator Clark, lay gravely ill of radiation sickness as of the latest report. Lambert looked up at the men and women, rising up in the auditorium-style chamber to his right to stand with right hands raised.

“Do you solemnly swear to well and faithfully discharge your duties as Senators of the United States and to do impartial justice in the proceeding that will follow?”

“I do,” was heard from the many voices nearly all at once.

“Please be seated.” Again the sounds disrupted the quiet but then quickly died down. “Because a state of war exists between our country and the Republic of Russia”—a man in blue jeans with a minicam ran quickly to stand right in front of Lambert and General Thomas, the red light on his camera blinking on—“many of the rules of this body governing the conduct of an impeachment trial have, out of a desire to expedite the proceeding and resolve the issues raised, been suspended by previous vote of the Senate.”

“And I object, Your Honor, to such suspension. The President is entitled to due process under the law, and—”

“The Supreme Court has already ruled on your petition and held eight to one that the rule-making power of the Senate is, subject to the few procedures and rights expressly set out in the Constitution, absolute. And let me take this opportunity to make this point clear to you and to all who watch this proceeding, both within this chamber and outside it. This is not a trial under the criminal
laws of the United States. It is a trial under the Constitution. The rules of evidence and of procedure in a criminal trial, and the rights of an individual accused of a crime in this country, do not therefore come into play. The President, were he to be convicted by the Senate in this trial, would then become fully subject to the criminal laws of these United States, but this proceeding will have no precedential value whatsoever as to any such matter. It is a trial to determine
not
whether the President has violated any laws, but whether the nature of the charges brought against him by the House of Representatives in the Articles of Impeachment warrant, in the opinion of two thirds of the Senators present, his removal from office.”

The Chief Justice went on to read the rules. All rules of procedure and evidence were what the Chief Justice said they were, although the full Senate could, by vote, overrule him. Senators could submit questions to be asked by the Chief Justice, who could also ask questions in his own discretion. There would be no debate by Senators during the trial, but shortly before a vote was taken there would be a closed-door session, with public and press barred, during which Senators could debate subject to a fifteen-minute time limit to prevent filibusters.

Lambert forced himself not to look at General Thomas. It was then, during the closed session, that the straw poll would be taken. It was then, if two thirds of the Senators voted against the President, that the war would begin. Lambert's mind reeled with the facts and figures and plans that were being made ready.

The trial began, but Lambert's mind drifted to the details of the job that had seeped into every single second of his existence these last couple of weeks. His eye roamed the battlefields far and wide, seeing the death and great destruction that even now was being stored up like a spring slowly coiled to maximum tension, a spring that would be loosed by the vote of the sixty-six men and women seated around that underground chamber.

“No, Mom, I'm not picking him up too much,” Melissa said, rolling her eyes as she held Matthew and watched the trial on television, the phone pressed to her ear.

“I always thought you'd be one who holds the baby 'round the clock,” her mother said with an annoying laugh delivered, in her mother's mind, Melissa knew, to disguise and soften the criticism.
Melissa ground her teeth. “I know I've told you this before, but if you hold him too much he'll be spoiled. Sometimes it's best just to let him cry. No child has ever had anything bad go wrong from just crying, for goodness sakes.”

Melissa had quit concentrating on the phone, watching instead as the camera focused on the tall blond man, a deeply sad look written all across his face, seated among the generals in the front row of the Senate chamber.

“I just wish the airlines were running so that your father and I could come out there and take care of that poor child.”

“Mom,” Melissa said, fumbling with the remote, “I want to see what's going on in the trial.”

“What?”

“On television. The trial.”

“Oh, that.” She laughed. “You do keep his diapers clean, don't you?”

“Mom, I'll call you later,” Melissa said, as she demuted the television.

“The decision cleared the way for Gregory Lambert, national security adviser, to testify before the Senate in what will surely be the most dramatic testimony of the trial,” the low voice of ABC's legal commentator said as the camera shifted back to the Chief Justice.

“ . . . rash that can be just awful, you mark my words, Missy. Are you listening to me, darling?”

“Bye-bye, Mom.” Melissa hung up, knowing that she would have to pay for the act later.

The Chief Justice said, “On motion from Senator Stern, duly seconded and resolved, this chair calls to the stand Mr. Gregory Philip Lambert.”

“Now,” the Congressman, one of the “managers” from the House whose job it was to prosecute the President, said as he looked at his notes, “you have testified that on the night of June eleventh you were working late at the White House.”

“Yes,” Lambert said, trying to remain unfazed by the glare of the television cameras and the huge bundle of microphones in front of him with network letters and station call signs of various sorts written on them.

“What is your position?”

“I am the Special Assistant to the President for National Security.”

“Now, Mr. Lambert, you have testified that the President telephoned the late Secretary Moore on the night of June eleventh. What did President Livingston say to Secretary Moore?”

“He told the Secretary to inform the Chinese of the impending nuclear attack on their country by the Russians.” Lambert heard the rush of gasps and muted conversations and saw out of the corners of his eyes some reporters at the side of the room dash out through the doors.

Chief Justice Rehnquist hammered his gavel down three times and said, in a loud voice, “There will be order in this chamber or I'll have it cleared!”

When the noise died down, the Congressman said, “Can you recall any of the exact words that the President used when he directed the Secretary of State to forewarn the Chinese of the impending Russian attack?”

“He said ‘I'll not be a party to this,' or something like that,” Lambert said.

“ ‘I will not be a party to this'?” the manager repeated slowly, half-turning to the “jury” of Senators as if this were the county courthouse. Lambert nodded. “And what did Secretary Moore say, if anything?”