Eighteen Acres: A Novel (16 page)

After the movie, she read a set of news clips and talked with the reporters who had been on previous trips to the region.

“When we land, it’s like a scene in a movie,” one of the wire reporters told her.

“We land in a corkscrew to avoid sniper fire,” another added.

Dale was getting excited. The other reporters took Ambien and slept, but Dale didn’t want to be groggy, so she reclined her seat and plugged in her iPod. She reviewed the questions she’d prepared for her one-on-one interview with Charlotte. She’d tracked down the family members of an entire unit serving in Afghanistan and planned to ask Charlotte questions they had proposed. Her eyes started to grow heavy, and her thoughts turned to Peter as she finally drifted off to sleep.

When one of the flight attendants came through with coffee and breakfast, Dale felt as if she’d only just shut her eyes, but she’d actually slept for four hours. She sipped her coffee and picked at a blueberry muffin.

Before they began their descent, they were told to put on their bulletproof jackets so they could get off the plane and onto their assigned helicopters quickly. Air Force One would be moved to another location after they deplaned so that insurgents couldn’t find it. They landed just as the other reporters had said they would—in a fast, dark corkscrew.

Afghanistan was more mountainous than she’d envisioned, and as the first glints of sunrise started to brighten the dark hills around them, Dale thought about how strange it was that she and Charlotte were in this faraway place together and Peter was thousands of miles away. She couldn’t wait to get on the ground. Dale felt a thrill she hadn’t experienced since her early reporting days.

This is just what I needed,
Dale thought as she hurried off Air Force One and toward her assigned helicopter.

Charlotte

As Air Force One sped toward the front lines of the war in Afghanistan without any lights or radio communication, Charlotte felt peaceful for the first time in weeks. She was glad she’d asked Dale to ride to Andrews Air Force Base with her and Roger. What was it they always said about acceptance? Awareness is the first step to forgiveness? Or forgiveness is the first step to acceptance?

Facing the truth about Peter and Dale was on her long and growing list of things to deal with. Most of the time, she didn’t have the time or the energy to contemplate what it would mean for her and the twins, not to mention the impact it would have on her political future. And she knew Peter wouldn’t push it.

She had known about Peter and Dale for a while. She had detected a change in Peter as soon as he’d returned from a trip to Africa during her first year in office. The trip was designed to draw attention to the plight of young women living with AIDS, and Peter was accompanied by several of his star athletes and a handful of celebrities. Dale Smith was part of a press contingency that was assembled to travel to Africa with Peter to report on the group’s efforts. Her coverage of the young African women had been so powerful that she’d won an Emmy for her reporting. After the Emmy was awarded, the network rebroadcast Dale’s one-hour special. Charlotte had been on her elliptical machine
in the residence when it came on. As she’d watched the images of her husband and Dale walking through the clinics and hospitals fill the television screen, the chemistry between them was obvious. The way they’d looked at each other during the sit-down interview was so intimate that Charlotte was surprised she’d been the only one who noticed.

Charlotte’s suspicious had been confirmed by subtle but marked changes in Peter after the trip. He didn’t sulk or complain anymore about relocating to the East Coast, and he’d stopped trying to engage Charlotte on any topic other than the kids. In some ways, it had been a relief. Her inability to give him any of the things he needed was no longer something she had to feel guilty about. But the reality of having a husband who was in love with another woman was something she never discussed with anyone. She knew Peter well enough to know that she was correct, but she didn’t feel the need to share her knowledge with anyone else. She didn’t tell Roger, Melanie, Brooke, or Mark, and she convinced herself that she simply disliked the tone of Dale’s coverage of her administration, when the truth was that Dale’s was hardly the toughest coverage the White House received.

One of Charlotte’s gifts was the art of extreme compartmentalization. After the ride from the White House to Andrews that night, she’d contemplated Dale Smith from an objective perspective and decided that she was a good fit for Peter. Charlotte could see how he’d have been attracted to her. She wasn’t self-important like so many of the other White House reporters, and she seemed smart.

Charlotte stretched her arms above her head and looked around her cabin on Air Force One. She’d logged a lot of hours on the plane, and it was one of the only places where she felt protected from the mounting threats to her political and personal well-being.

Charlotte appreciated that Dale had done her homework on Afghanistan. She knew about the setbacks the Afghans had experienced over the years in taking on the Taliban and dealing with Pakistan. In another part of her mind, Charlotte hated Dale for having the energy and the time to give her husband the things he needed and obviously wanted, but she pushed those feelings aside. Melanie had arranged for Charlotte to do a sit-down interview with Dale to be shared with
all of the television networks. Charlotte had made a mental list of the points she wanted to make to help the generals get the funding they needed from Congress for more training and equipment.

She’d just kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the couch when Roger entered her cabin—without knocking, as usual.

“What will you do the day you barge in here and I’m half-naked?” she scolded.

“Do I have to answer that, or can I take the Fifth?” he said, grinning.

She made a place for him on the couch and handed him the plate of cookies that her personal steward had placed in her cabin. He took two.

“I know it didn’t go over well at home, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do this trip without you,” Charlotte said.

“And I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it,” he said, brushing cookie crumbs from his sweater. “What was Melanie so worked up about before we left?”

“I’m not sure. I bet she’s getting heat from some of her press contacts. I feel bad for her—for all of them, really. They think that if they come up with the right message or policy or line of attack, they can turn things around and get my numbers up. But it’s not that easy. Sometimes circumstances dictate an outcome that you can’t escape, you know?”

“If the voters are stupid enough to vote for Fat Frankie, then fuck them. Let them have her. She’d fuck things up so royally she’d be impeached in six months. Stupid cow,” he said, shaking his head in disgust.

Frankie was Senator Fran Frankel, Charlotte’s likely opponent in the November election. She was a former Miss Texas who, at fifty-two, was more than twice the size she’d been in her beauty pageant days. Roger and Melanie had given her the nickname “Fat Frankie” to make Charlotte smile. It worked.

“Can you imagine her over here?” Charlotte smirked.

“No, and neither will the voters once they sit down and think about it. Just be patient,” Roger said.

“I’ve got nothing but time,” Charlotte said, smiling and stretching out her legs so her feet touched Roger.

Roger took her feet into his lap and leaned back. “We should get some rest,” he said.

Charlotte closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The crew woke her up an hour before landing for a final briefing in the conference room on Air Force One.

“Madam President, there’s a lot of fighting around the U.S. bases and the polling stations we were planning to visit, so we’re going to cut two or three of the stops from the itinerary,” said Albert Dawson, her deputy national security advisor.

“Doesn’t that send the wrong signal? If the polling station is too dangerous for me to visit, how do we make the case that the Afghan people should feel safe to exercise their right to vote?” Charlotte asked.

“The truth is that in parts of the country, it actually
isn’t
safe, Madam President,” said the intelligence briefer who traveled with her.

“You guys really think we need to scrap that much of the trip?” Charlotte complained. “I hate to do that.”

“It’s the only way to be in the country without taking unnecessary risks,” Albert said.

“Bullshit,” Roger said, looking up from the intelligence report. “The fighting is unchanged from two days ago, two weeks ago, and two months ago, and if the president was going to fly to Afghanistan to spend her whole time in heavily fortified bases, I would have told her not to waste her time. This trip is about being on the ground for their first real election—the first one that isn’t tainted by corruption or intimidation. She needs to be seen moving all around the country if the people are ever going to trust us.”

“Roger, we understand the objectives for the trip, and we did the advance work for all of the stops you specified, but we’re getting intelligence that suggests a real uptick in chatter and activity since we left Washington,” warned the CIA briefer.

“Can I see some of the actual intelligence reporting?” Charlotte asked.

“Of course, Madam President,” he said, handing her photos of insurgents running up to the perimeter of a U.S. base near Kandahar.

“All of the insurgents were taken out, but two U.S. soldiers were hit in this attack. One died last night in surgery.”

“Roger, this is pretty daunting. They don’t even pretend to be afraid of us anymore,” Charlotte said.

“And they never will be if we land in the country and never see any of it,” Roger said, pounding his fist on the desk for effect.

Charlotte was quiet.

“Madam President, the final decision is yours. Your national security team is divided on this, obviously, and the Secret Service agrees with me that the risks outweigh the benefits, but the final decision is yours,” Albert said.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Charlotte said. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They filed out of the conference room.

“Roger, it seems like a silly risk to take. Why don’t we visit the troops and make one other stop to rub shoulders with some locals and then get out so we don’t give the rest of the team a heart attack?” Charlotte suggested.

“Because, Charlotte, this is exactly what the enemy wants. They want to create a climate that is so unstable, unpredictable, and inhospitable that nothing ever really changes,” Roger argued.

“But the rest of the national security team understands our objectives. They want the same things. And we’ve been here half a dozen times. I’ve never seen our guys this rattled, Roger.” Charlotte frowned.

“Charlotte, you have to go with your gut, but mine says that we execute the itinerary as we planned it. You’re protected by the best military in the world. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

Charlotte looked at the photos of the attack from the day before. She made a note to call the families and then looked up. Roger was watching her.

“Send the guys back in here, will you?” she asked.

They landed quickly in the usual corkscrew. Charlotte liked to watch the landing from the cockpit. They got off Air Force One minutes before sunrise. Charlotte looked around and was amazed, as always, by how green everything was. In the early morning light, it looked almost beautiful.

She proceeded to Marine One to make her first stop at a polling station. The stop was designed to congratulate the Afghans on their
first truly free and fair elections. It had taken years to rid the country of its corrupt leaders, but Charlotte was confident that either one of the two leading candidates for president would be the best partner America had had to work with since the original invasion years earlier.

The next stop was a meeting with local leaders, which went better than expected. Charlotte was feeling good. She was glad she hadn’t abbreviated the schedule. She had involved herself in planning every meeting on her schedule, and these interactions informed her thinking on the overall strategy. Achieving stability in Afghanistan was proving far more difficult than their work in Iraq had been. She relied on her trips to the region to fill out the pictures painted by her various military and diplomatic advisors, as well as the allies that were still working alongside U.S. troops in the region.

From the meeting with local leaders, they traveled to the first of two bases they’d visit to thank U.S. and coalition troops. She gave a rousing speech to the troops and moved to a separate part of the base for her sit-down interview with Dale. She was feeling so good she allowed Dale’s ten-minute interview to go long. She knew that Dale had been affected by what she’d seen so far that day. Charlotte had seen enough reporters make their maiden voyages to the front lines. They either loved it or were too scared to really see it. She could tell that Dale loved it. She’d seen her face when she interviewed the troops, she’d seen her nodding when they spoke about staying until the job was complete, and she could tell that Dale was touched by the soldiers who spoke movingly about their fallen comrades and their loved ones at home. After the interview, Charlotte posed for pictures with Dale’s crew. She was heading to where Roger was huddled with officials from the base when she heard the first shots. Suddenly, her Secret Service agents were at her side.

“Let’s go, Madam President,” they said, surrounding her and half running, half dragging her toward Marine One. They shoved her onto the Blackhawk helicopter like a sack of potatoes.

The agents were still climbing in when Roger started shouting at the pilot to get the helicopter into the air. But Marine One didn’t go anywhere at first.

The propeller was struggling to rotate in the dust that surrounded them. Two of Charlotte’s agents were on top of her to protect her.

“What the fuck is happening?” Roger shouted.

“We had some dust in the prop, but it’s clear now. We’re on our way, sir,” the pilot said as Marine One lifted into the air.