Power Curve (14 page)

“Noreen,” Turner said, “behave yourself. Don’t be fooled by the act, Robert. Noreen is not what she seems.”

The strident black activist, inner-city facade, that Coker presented for public consumption slipped away. Underneath was an educated woman with a future in national politics. “General, we need to hear from the military. Don’t be afraid to speak out. Otherwise, there’s no good reason for you being here. You give us balance.”

Bender sat in one of the straight-back chairs at the end of the facing couches. William, the butler, offered him a cup of coffee and then withdrew. At first, he thought he was caught in a coffee klatch, but the conversation turned serious the moment Turner mentioned tax reform. Maura said little as the group hammered the issue and created a philosophical framework. It was obvious that they were not in agreement, yet all respected the others’ opinions. He was amazed how rapidly Turner pulled it all together. She knew how to run a meeting.

“Sam, I want you to take the lead on this. Work with Richard and put together a policy team. It’s time to get it on paper. I want something concrete for the staff to chew on, say, right after the new year.”

“That’s asking a lot,” Parrish said. “But we should have a point of departure by then.”

The meeting was rapidly drawing to a close. “Well, child,” Noreen Coker said to Bender, “why haven’t we
heard from you? Don’t go telling me that you’re in over your head.”

“When it comes to taxes,” Bender said, “I am. But I can tell you, you’re in for the political fight of your lives.”

“We didn’t know this?” Coker scoffed. “And it’s ‘us,’ child, not ‘you’ who are in this.” Bender felt his face blush. “Now don’t go playing the innocent virgin.”

“You, we,” he corrected, “need to know the opposition early on. In military terms, it’s called a
threat estimate
. What have they got, who have they got, and where have they got it? Who’s going to lead the fight against us? What intelligence do we have on them? What are their weaknesses? What are their strengths? How will they attack?”

Turner had never approached politics from a military point of view, but she saw the logic. “Who should be working this part of the problem?”

Bender thought for a moment. “Mrs. Coker and Mr. Shaw.”

Coker’s laugh filled the room. “Me in bed with Shaw? Oh, Lord, what would my mother think?” She shook her head. “Well, this is Washington—it had to happen sooner or later.”

“Senator Leland,” Shaw said, “may I introduce Lieutenant General Robert Bender.” The two men shook hands and sat down in Shaw’s office, which had been stripped of all Christmas and New Year decorations. “I apologize for the delay, Senator. We’ll be going in to the president in a few minutes.”

“It’s quite all right, Patrick,” John Leland said. His voice had the rich rolling tones of an accomplished orator, and he possessed the full head of gray hair and jowly cheeks the public expected of one of the most influential senators in Washington, D.C. John Leland’s political career in Washington stretched over thirty years, and he was widely regarded as the city’s leading rainmaker. With a few well-chosen phone calls, he could change the political weather of the capital overnight and blow whatever legislation he wanted through the Senate. Because Leland was the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the
acknowledged leader of the opposition party, Shaw always made the appropriate groveling sounds whenever Leland called and kept the door to the Oval Office wide open.

The senator studied Bender for a moment. “This was a very unhappy Christmas for my family,” he said. “I was saddened to learn that we have both suffered a deep personal loss. Chris was my nephew.”

“Yes, I know,” Bender replied. “Thank you for your concern. You have my deepest sympathy, and please extend our condolences to Captain Leland’s family.”

“General, have you had a chance to read the accident report?” The senator’s voice had gone flat.

Bender shook his head, wondering what had happened to Shaw’s promise to get him a copy. He shot a look at Shaw. There was no reaction. “I am concerned about the veracity of this report,” Leland said. Before Bender could reply, Alice Fay announced the president was ready for them, and the three men walked into the Oval Office.

After the usual exchange of New Year’s greetings, Leland came right to the point of his visit. He snapped open his briefcase and extracted a thick document printed on oversized paper with a green cover. “Madam President, have you read the accident report?”

“No, I haven’t,” Turner replied. “Patrick, Robert, have either of you?”

Shaw shook his head. Actually, he had read it the night before, and his copy was in his office at home, where it would stay.

“No, ma’am,” Bender answered. “This is the first time I’ve seen it. Senator, may I?” Leland handed Bender the report, and he quickly thumbed through to the relevant findings. “As I expected, pilot error combined with a mechanical failure.”

Leland ignored him and focused on Turner. “Madam President, forgive me, but my staff has fully digested this report and claim that it is a cover-up by the Air Force.”

“Robert?” Turner asked.

“I’ve just seen the report,” Bender said. “I need to read it before I can—”

“Did you know your daughter was pregnant?” Leland demanded. “What was she doing flying?”

Leland’s words drove a cold spike into Bender, ripping and tearing at his emotions. He felt his heart race, and he forced himself to breathe. “Your daughter was pregnant” rang in his mind, drowning out everything else. How could he tell Nancy, especially after going through Christmas without Laurie? But he would have to. Their relationship was too deep and trusting for him to hide it from her. “Please give me a few moments,” he finally managed.

“I understand,” Leland said kindly. He and Turner exchanged a few words, circling in on the reason for the senator’s visit.

Bender forced his mind to focus and buried his emotions. He would keep them there, forever hidden. While they talked, he turned to the front of the document and read the names of the officers who were on the board. He only knew the president by reputation. No problem there. Then he quickly scanned the document, looking for the telltale omissions and phrases that announced a cover-up was in play. Nothing. He scanned through the appendixes and slowed to read the flight surgeon’s testimony. Then he read the hard part: the cause of death.

“At first glance,” he finally said, “it appears to be very straightforward.”

“Are you sure?” Shaw asked from his end of the room. “It was your daughter they killed.”

“
They
didn’t kill Laurie or Chris,” Bender said. “Pilot error in conjunction with a mechanical failure killed them.”

“Chris was a good pilot,” Leland said.

Bender’s mental alarm went off. He had lost his situational awareness and should have caught the signals earlier. Was his own grief getting in the way of doing his job? “I would have been very proud if I had a nephew who flew fighters,” he ventured.

“I followed Chris’s career very closely,” Leland said. “That’s why I know he was an excellent pilot.”

Bender flipped through the report, gaining time to think. He read the appendix that detailed Chris’s and Laurie’s training. All the pieces were there. He wanted to ask the senator how he knew Chris was a good pilot. Had he ever flown with him? Leland’s words came at him in bunches.
“…Chris was an accomplished pilot…There was no pilot error involved…I am fully aware of maintenance and contracting problems…an airplane with known problems.”

Bender’s warning system was now in full alarm. He had commanded a wing of F-15s and flown over 500 hours in the jet. “What problems?” he asked, almost conversationally. “The Eagle is an old aircraft and is a well-known commodity. It doesn’t have any problems that I know of.”

Leland ignored him. “Madam President, Chris was a victim of military incompetence and bungling. How can I tell his parents that his death will go unpunished?”

Bender was reading the report and listening at the same time, not the best way to carry on a discussion with a U.S. senator. “Sir, I want to know the truth of the matter as much as you do. But so far, I haven’t found anything in this report that suggests a cover-up.”

Leland gave him a cold look. “I want this man Martini relieved from duty and court-martialed.”

Turner moved from her desk and sat beside the senator. She placed her hand on his. “We will find the truth. I promise you.” They exchanged the customary words ending the meeting, and Shaw escorted the senator to his waiting limousine.

Turner leaned back against the edge of her desk and crossed her arms and ankles. “Well, Robert? What do you think?”

“I’ve seen it before, Madam President.”

“Must you be so formal? Robert?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. President, but it’s my nature. I’m much more comfortable—”

She nodded. “You were saying?”

“It
is
very hard to accept the death of a loved one, especially a young and healthy son or daughter. It’s natural for Chris Leland’s family to believe he was a victim. And if there’s a victim, there’s got to be someone who was responsible.”

“Was he a victim?” she asked, coming to the heart of the matter.

“Yes.”

Turner was shocked by the answer. “I know it’s hard
for you to criticize the Air Force,” she said, “especially in front of a senator.”

“You have to know how to read the report,” he told her. “It lays it all out.” He paused, fighting to regain his composure.
This is Laurie you’re talking about
, he thought. “The primary cause of the accident was pilot error in combination with a mechanical malfunction. Both had to happen simultaneously for the crash to occur.” He hesitated. This conversation was tearing him apart. “That’s a fact, pure and simple. There is a contributing factor: supervisory error.”

“Is this part of the cover-up?” Turner asked. She was like a bulldog, unable to let go of the idea.

He shook his head. “There was no cover-up.”

“Then what is there?” she asked.

“Senator Leland trying to unload his guilt. He desperately wants to do an ‘off me, on you.’”

“Guilt for what?”

“For Chris Leland being there in the first place.” The look on her face was ample warning that she did not understand and that he was on dangerous ground. “Chris Leland was a victim of the system. What did the senator say? ‘I followed his career very closely.’ The Air Force plays politics like any government agency and if a senator, who happens to be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is interested in a nephew’s career, that kid is going to get every break in the book.” He handed her the mishap report and pointed to Leland’s training record. “Chris was a below average pilot who was carried through the system because of the senator’s political influence.”

Turner was with him. “So this supervisory error was Martini caving in to political pressure.”

Bender nodded. “Indirectly, yes. Leland may have been below average, but he was qualified to fly the jet. So when a decision had to be made, he got the benefit of the doubt—every single time because of his uncle. If Chris had been totally unfit, it would have been an easy decision. But he wasn’t.”

“Then Martini should be court-martialed.”

“For what? For living with the sins of the system? I would have done the same thing if I was pressed for pilots.
And Martini was. He had been in command ninety-three days at the time of the accident and had inherited a weak pilot because of circumstances beyond his control. He knew it, addressed the problem, and had teamed Leland with one of his strongest backseaters.”

“Who was your daughter,” Turner murmured. “How did the senator know she was expecting? Is that in the report?”

“I folded the corner of the page. It’s near the bottom.”

Turner found the page and read how the autopsy revealed Laurie Bender was two to three weeks pregnant. “She probably didn’t even know,” Turner said. She returned to her chair, putting the wide expanse of her desk between them. “Maybe Martini should be court-martialed. Perhaps I need to send every commander in the armed services a message not to play at politics.”

“Should you be impeached for Roberts’s sellout of Taiwan?” Turner stared at him, shocked by his words. No one, not even Maura or Shaw spoke that frankly to her. Not now, now that she was the president. “Tell the chairman,” Bender urged. “Let General Overmeyer fix the problem. That’s what he’s hired for.”

Turner’s face clouded over. “I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Overmeyer won’t change a thing, and you’re defending the system.”

“I trust the system,” he said. “And until I know otherwise, I trust the people making it work.”

“Even Martini?”

He nodded. “Even Martini.”

Turner exploded. “This is your daughter we’re talking about! She and Chris were sacrificed to the system. Hasn’t that sunk in? Your daughter is dead. Haven’t you got the picture yet?”

Bender stared at her. Hard. He had the picture. “The page that I marked—turn to the next page—at the bottom.” He waited while she read. Her face paled. It was the clinical description of how Laurie Bender had died. “I know what blunt massive trauma means.” His voice cracked. “I’ve seen it.” She could only look at him. He was a man on the edge, fighting for control. “Is there anything else, ma’am.” He was begging to be excused.

“No. Thank you, General Bender.” After he had left, she sat down and spun around to gaze out the window. “Not my son,” she said to no one. “Not while I’m president.”

Shaw knocked at the door and entered. “Cabinet meeting in ten minutes, Mizz President.”

“Patrick, I’d like to know a little more about General Bender’s service record.”

It was late Sunday afternoon and the snowstorm that had descended out of Canada had frozen the capital in a miserable, raw, half-light. High winds and ice had knocked out the power to much of the city, and emergency crews were fighting a losing battle to restore basic services. But the lights in the White House had blinked only twice before the emergency generators had kicked in, sparing the inhabitants of the executive mansion from the problems swirling around them.