The South Lawn Plot (26 page)

T
HE PRESIDENT LOOKED AT HIS WATCH
. His lunch would be just about ready. If so, it would be the first thing to go off without a hitch in at least a week.

He glanced around. The White House staff members and his Secret Service detail were looking busy, preparing for the landing on the South Lawn. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He wanted to tell them all to relax but knew that would be a waste of time.

William Packer liked to make people feel easy around him. It was his nature. But the job kept getting in the way. So they fussed and fidgeted as he looked on, just the slightest hint of amusement on his sun-lined face.

Marine One was second in line of the three-helicopter flight. In a few seconds, Packer knew, the lead chopper would make room for his machine to make the final approach, across the Mall, over the waving crowds and across the last few yards to the touchdown point on the green sward at the back of the executive mansion.

The crowds of tourists were moved from the White House railings every time the president took off or landed. It had been so since September 11. Packer had argued to allow folks return to the railings at all times, but the Secret Service had opposed the idea. What difference, he had argued, were a few yards?

As in just about all matters dealing with presidential security, the Service had prevailed. It had thrown up lines of defense that had to do with bullet range, line of sight and angles of fire. So the folks would stay corralled behind a line of barriers roughly forty yards from the black railings.

Packer's unhappiness with the reality of the post-9/11 presidency and its even more stringent security rules, were, however, of less importance now than the possibility of the United States and China going at each other's throat in the seas off Taiwan.

It was against the backdrop of this apocalyptic scenario that he had made the latest trip to Camp David. Packer didn't quite see the point of the journey,
but he had acquiesced with the views of his top advisors that movement itself could send necessary and desired messages to the Chinese and the American public. The president huddling in the Maryland hills with his Cabinet would be just one more public strand in America's deadly serious warning to the Chinese.

The problem was that the warning would ultimately prove to be just that. The United States had no intention of going to war on behalf of the Taiwanese. At the same time, of course, the trick was to convince Beijing that the reality was otherwise; hence the massive show of force of recent days, three carrier task forces and a fourth on the way.

Packer was not given, as so many of his predecessors were, to ruminating on what past occupants of the nation's highest office would have done in the kind of tinderbox situation that he himself was now facing. He was not a presidential historian, not the type of president who would stand in front of portraits of former occupants of the White House silently asking them for sage advice, or a tip on how to get out of a political jam.

Lately, however, Packer had been thinking about John Kennedy. He had asked to see records of the meetings presided over by the young president in the heat of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In those dusty minutes he could clearly see how close the human race had come to annihilating itself. The problem was that Packer now found himself playing the role of the Russians. It was he who was bringing the missiles on ships into someone else's backyard. It was the Chinese who were looking at an offshore island with a view to what they felt was necessary regime change.

But, already, the Chinese were much more advanced down the road to conflict than the U.S. had ever been in 1962. Packer was uncomfortable with what he felt was his country's weak hand, even during the present bluffing stage. He wondered constantly if the Chinese had correctly read Washington's intentions even before the first task force had reached the Taiwan Straits.

He was all too aware of Beijing's plan. It had sent a shudder right through his body when the CIA document had been placed on his desk just a few weeks and a lifetime ago. At first he had trouble believing it, wanted to hear it straight from the mouths of the people over at Langley.

And so he had listened, impatiently, to the story behind the intelligence, the assembling of the grand conclusion from so many snippets and trickles, rumors and hard intelligence that had been pulled together over many months, some of it with the help of allied intelligence agencies such as the British
MI6 and even the French SDECE, an outfit that seemed able to work its way into some corners of the world a lot less obviously than the Brits or the Company.

The Chinese had decided that one nuke dropped on a military base as far from Taipei as possible would be enough to bring Taiwan to heel without blowing it completely into the skies. Beijing had calculated that the United States would not retaliate with nuclear weapons and would immediately shy away from a conventional war because it would simply be un-winnable.

For one thing, there was the matter of where such a war could be fought. Not on mainland Chinese soil, for sure, and not even on Taiwan. The Chinese would not land troops on the island in advance of surrender by the Taiwanese. They would simply sit back after their one nuke, brace for the global uproar, ultimately ignore it, watch the Taiwanese economy collapse, face off against the US Navy, suffer the loss of some ships if need be so as to allow Washington, ironically, a little Asian-style face saving, and then simply threaten a second nuclear attack.

At this point who would disbelieve them? Not the Americans. They would be facing the horrifying option of having to drop a nuclear missile on Chinese soil, and that, the Chinese leadership well knew, was not going to happen.

Yep, Packer had said to himself after digesting the CIA document, the bastards have us well and truly screwed.

Packer's legacy instincts kicked into overdrive. He could not appear to be weak-willed or spineless in the face of Beijing's naked aggression. So he had ordered the greatest concentration of US naval forces since the Pacific islandhopping campaign of World War II. He had gone on television talking tough and reassuring the American people that the United States would stand behind the integrity of Taiwan.

Naturally, commentators had immediately jumped on this presidential play with words. The president had stated “integrity” of Taiwan, not its sovereignty. Packer had simply ignored the press and had begun the late night meetings and shuttle trips to Camp David.

At the same time, Packer had ratcheted up several of the arguments he had been having with Congress. As much as possible, his inner team had repeated over and over, try to keep at least part of public attention on domestic issues, even as the nation was seemingly marching, or sailing, to the brink of all out war.

“How about I juggle half a dozen golf balls and eat fire at the same time?”
had been Packer's retort. But he knew they were right. And so he had shuttled back and forth on Marine One. Unknown to the American public, he had used Camp David to catch up on much needed rest as much as planning for the supposed defense of a longtime American ally.

He was exhausted, unable to switch off his mind or block out the crescendo of thoughts, mostly dark ones. The clearest thought of all was of little comfort. He should have been a country lawyer like his father.

He barely noticed the bump as the helicopter landed and the “Excuse me, Mr. President, you're home,” from the aide to his left. Home was not the White House right now. It was back in Oklahoma with his beehives. The early days of the Packer administration had been dominated by headlines containing the word “buzz,” allusions to the new president being as busy as a bee and suggestions from columnists aligned with the other party that his Secret Service codename should be “Drone.”

He had smiled then, wondered how the press could be so obvious with its little puns. It seemed like a million years ago. And it was. The word of the moment wasn't buzz anymore. It was bomb.

Packer unclipped his seat belt and slowly stood. He instinctively stooped in the helicopter's cabin, reserving the full stretch of his six feet three inches until he walked through the door, saluted the Marine Corps guard at the bottom and waved in the general direction of the small crowd of greeters out back of the presidential mansion.

It was a ritual that had been in place for as long as the president had used helicopters. It was staple filler on the evening newscasts. It was a moment to be president without any complications. But it would be just a moment. Inside the White House, he knew, would be yet more jarring reports from the other side of the world, more decisions to be made or not made, more meetings and preparations for a full presidential news conference two days hence.

The only silver lining was lunch. He had made it known that he wanted his favorite pork chops, done just the way he liked them: medium. How he ate his pork and steak, it had lately occurred to Packer, was just about the only medium aspect to his life. All the rest was raw or overcooked.

He moved to the door, hesitated a second, activated a smile and stepped into the bright sunlight. He waved, tried to put a bit of a bounce in his step as he alighted from the helicopter, made another wave and then pointed his finger. Just in time, Packer noticed that there was nobody in his finger's line of sight, so he adjusted it slightly and allowed it rest on what was obviously
a group of Secret Service people, all familiar, except the woman in the blue business suit.

Yes, of course, he remembered, the new agent.

Packer, despite his differences with the Service over the barriers beyond the South Lawn railings, felt a deep respect for those whose lives were on the line for his. He had teased members of his detail from time to time. “Sure you would want to take a bullet for a guy like me?” he quizzed more than one agent, usually when they had been freshly assigned. The blandness of the replies had never ceased to amaze him. They never went much beyond “Yes, Mr. President.”

One agent had replied, “Absolutely certain, Mr. President.” Stew Lewis was now his principal protector. Packer had noticed Lewis making a flanking move to his right as he walked deliberately across the grass, trying to add seconds to this neutral, consequence-free presidential moment.

Lewis was now standing with the service greeting party. Packer knew now to make a, well, beeline for it. With just a few feet to go, just before Lewis introduced the newest member of the presidential security detail, President William “Bud” Packer reached by far the most indisputable conclusion of the day, indeed all the recent days.

My God, he thought, his eyes resting on Cleo Conway, a goddess is protecting a mere mortal.

O
N THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED Packer's return from Camp David the political situation deteriorated even as the water of the Taiwan Strait became more churned up with the vessels of war.

As the fleets assembled, the politicians and military leaders in Beijing and Washington became increasingly concerned about an accidental exchange occurring before any irreversible decision to launch a strike was even contemplated. For its part, the United States was kept busy trying to discourage those of its more vigorous allies, especially old Warsaw Pact nations eager to prove their fealty to the West, from sending troops to the crisis zone.

The British, of course, were allowed to show up and promptly did so in the form of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and a supporting battle group. The Australians, too, got a pass into the strait and sent a destroyer and, even more ominously, a hospital ship.

The French and Italians put to sea but wisely stayed well over the horizon, mostly in the eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean. The Russians didn't put to sea at all, and there were barbed comments in news reports that the Russian navy's larger ships were still too much of the rust bucket variety, this despite a much publicized effort to bring back some of the blue water capability of the Soviet era.

Moscow's statements to the United Nations Security Council carried a distinct preference for Beijing's point of view, but mostly the Russian envoy indulged in rather smug and self-congratulatory speeches about peace and world order. The Americans and Chinese envoys largely ignored him, concentrating instead on mutual condemnation.

The Chinese delegation, at certain moments, unleashed lines that sounded to some of the older U.N. hands like hand-me-downs from Chairman Mao. The Taiwanese strutted vigorously. Troop convoys drove up and down the island and navy patrol boats rushed back and forth along the island's coastline, especially that which faced across the strait to the mainland.

Taiwan's normally raucous politicians were, by contrast, unusually quiet.
There were no fiery speeches about throwing the enemy back into the sea. One or two members of the island's parliament came out with rather sappy speeches about the glories of Chinese history, no distinction made with regard to where those glories actually took form.

The mainland media enthusiastically replayed these pronouncements from the renegade island with commentators proclaiming that the speakers reflected the true feelings of the Chinese people of Taiwan, as opposed to people who called themselves simply Taiwanese.

There was a brief uproar, admittedly of the sideline variety, when Chinese television broadcast a story apparently showing happy tourists from Taiwan visiting the Great Wall. This, the commentator stated, was a clear signal that the Chinese people of Taiwan fully supported Beijing's assertion that there was only one China, even as Beijing was gearing up to back reality with military force.

After a few days a report came out in a German newspaper that the footage was over a year old and that such a visit to the mainland by Taiwanese was now impossible anyway because Taipei had placed a ban on all nonessential travel to the mainland about two weeks before the Great Wall outing had allegedly taken place. The footage duly vanished from Chinese television screens. But there was no correction or clarification.

As the early summer in the northern hemisphere grew warmer, the prospect of a real fight over Taiwan grew hotter. In Britain, the bookmakers were offering odds on a conflagration. One pledged to pay out even in the event of nuclear Armageddon. The prices of many basic goods in the high street supermarkets began to soar.

In the
Post
newsroom, on a day when the Chinese stormed out of a Security Council meeting with a particular flourish, throwing briefing papers at the Americans, Henderson was contemplating an idea for the following morning's front page. It entailed using a mushroom cloud photo of an atomic blast along with a graph to illustrate the sky rocketing prices of the usual basic goods, bread and milk.

“Nobody drinks milk anymore,” Bailey said as he stood just a couple of feet from Henderson's desk. “All the kids get these days is fizzy junk. Milk costs too much, and people think it's full of hormones.”

Henderson was silent for a moment. “I drink milk,” he growled. “And just because people are too stupid to take what's good for them doesn't mean that its price is no longer important. Milk stays in the mushroom cloud.”

“What are you going to use for bread then? A baguette, panini? Nobody in their right mind would buy that sliced rubbish.”

Henderson had summoned Bailey to his desk, though not for a lecture on British eating habits in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

“Mr. Bailey, if you want to retain any hope at all of getting on board a plane and flying to America, landing in Washington at the time that a Chinese missile hits the Pentagon, and sending back your very last story on God's earth, then I suggest that you take that seat there in your grubby hand and plonk your bloody arse in it. Now.”

Bailey smiled. “
Jawohl, mein Führer
.”

Henderson shook his head and said nothing for a moment. The newsroom was relatively quiet though it would pick up sharply over the next thirty minutes or so. The interlude would be Henderson's last chance to impart meaningful instructions to his most truculent, and sharpest, reporter.

Bailey braced himself. He knew that Henderson was winding up.

“I was about to say that ordinarily you would not be going on a trip like this at a time like this. In fact, this lunatic gathering at the White House wouldn't be going on at all only the Americans and our people see some good old fashioned propaganda in this crazy rich Taiwanese geezer promising to unleash his riches on the poor old Belfast shipyards that have been little more than a tourist attraction for years.

“Obviously, then, there's a story. It's better again because the ships he wants built are warships that might someday steam into Hong Kong and take it back. That's what he's hoping for anyway.

“Again, there's a story because the prime minister and the president are side by side on the eve of what might be the third world war.”

“What about the Irish prime minister, the, what do they call him?” Bailey interrupted.

“Taoiseach,” said Henderson. “Tee-shock” he added by way of phonetic reinforcement.

“No, he's not going to be there. The Irish are still militarily neutral, not in NATO. Hard to believe, I know, but they don't want their man in a photo-op with the Yanks and Brits as they gear up for the big shooting match. Their Washington ambassador will be there. I hear she's quite a looker. Anyway, your job is to play this up as being an off-the-wall sideshow to the main event. If the war starts while you're within shouting distance of Packer and Spencer,
ask them how we should play this thing. Is it the end, the beginning of the end, or just the end of the beginning? I doubt if they will get the joke. After that, just head for the hills.”

“Do you think it will come down to a nuclear war then?”

Henderson looked straight at his interrogator. “I remember back in 1967, the Six Day War; before your time. They were all talking about how the Arab and Israeli conflict could spread to the great powers, how America and Russia could move from what was a proxy war on their behalf to a direct confrontation with each other. But that's the difference between then and now. It was a proxy war. This time two superpowers are right in the middle of it themselves, and one of them is looking at an island as its own territory. It could well end up with shooting, yes. I only hope it isn't nuclear weapons.”

Bailey said nothing. Henderson, he thought, could well be right. He thought of Samantha Walsh in the same instant. She would be Washington, too. Did the Chinese have missiles that could reach the American capital? He would check it out. Henderson stood and stretched. “Mushroom cloud it is then,” he said. “Maybe we should check the price of mushrooms as well.”

He turned away from Bailey and motioned with his hand. “You've got a couple of days off. Use them well. Pack lightly, Washington's a sauna at this time of year.”

“Yes, boss,” said Bailey, his mind already racing ahead to his rendezvous on the other side of the ocean with an eccentric Taiwanese billionaire, the leaders of the free world, a sexy diplomat, and the copper he was now sure he had fallen deeply in love with.

“Oh, and by the way,” said Henderson, his voice slightly raised as Bailey was walking back to his own desk, “that idiot Mercer in Sydney who's always claiming to be our stringer.”

“Yeah, what about him?” said Bailey without turning around.

“Well, the MOD in its infinite wisdom has allowed just one pool TV crew on board the Illustrious. That leaves the likes of us floundering around on
terra firma
with all the action expected on the waves that we once ruled.”

Bailey nodded as he sat at his desk about twenty feet from Henderson's.

“Well, Mercer, who may not be such an idiot after all, has somehow snagged a berth on that Aussie hospital ship.”

“Really?” said Bailey. “What's its name?”

“Christ, I don't know. HMAS Crocodile Dundee or something.”

Bailey laughed aloud. Henderson of course knew the name; he knew all the names. Perhaps, he thought, the old bastard was easing up now that the end of the world was possibly in sight. Good timing.

“Anyway,” Henderson continued, “the point I'm making is that you are going to have some competition for scarce space. And if you're sending back rubbish on all the
bonhomie
on the South Lawn and he's sending back stories on bombs away, then of course there will be no space at all. For anybody.”

Bailey was not laughing now, not smiling. He wasn't paying any attention to Henderson at all. He was reading an e-mail.

It was just above his e-ticket. He was reading it for the second time, and he was feeling something that he had never felt before in his life. It was cold fear. Nick Bailey was shaking.