by Larry Bond
He handed them back to Blake without a word and swiveled his chair around to look out the rain-streaked window toward the White House Rose Garden. Blake and the admiral exchanged glances. Now what?
The President swung his chair back around to face them. “Okay, gentlemen. That bastard lied to me. And I signed something I shouldn’t have. I certainly wouldn’t have done it if I’d seen your analysis first. So what can we do about it?”
Blake looked back at him. “The best thing, sir, would be to push Congress to repeal the sanctions. And as soon as possible.”
The President shook his head. “Impossible. The House and Senate have gone out of regular session for the election, and the new Congress won’t assemble until early January.”
Simpson nodded his understanding. “But you could call a special session — after the election.”
“Not on your life, Admiral.” The President studied the wall behind the two men for a moment before continuing. “How do you suppose I’d look going back begging Congress to lift sanctions I could have vetoed in the first place?”
Neither Blake nor the admiral answered him, but he must have read their thoughts in their eyes.
“Yeah. I’d look like a clown. Like a regular Jerry Lewis stand-in.”
The President snorted, “Okay, maybe that’s too damned close to the truth for comfort. But I’m not going to do something that would just about kill my chances to accomplish anything else in this term. Clear?”
They nodded.
“So. Short of making myself look like a walking jackass, what are my options?”
Blake and the admiral had come prepared to answer this question. The trouble was that they didn’t have a hell of a lot to offer.
Blake got up out of his chair without thinking. His days as a student teacher had taught him to feel more comfortable talking on his feet. “Well, sir, Barnes and his legislative strategists have crafted a very tightly written bill. It doesn’t leave much at all to your discretion.”
“I’ve seen the legal analysis, Dr. Fowler. Now tell me something I don’t know.”
“Yes, sir,” Blake said patiently. The President might have heard some of what he was going to say before, but it was vital that he realize just how limited his options were.
“Essentially, the sanctions on South Korea’s exports are practically set on automatic pilot. They’re almost certain to go into place because there just aren’t any loopholes in the legislation for us to wriggle through.”
The President interrupted him with a question. “Isn’t there a possibility, however slim, that Seoul will make the political and economic reforms we’re looking for before the sanctions go into effect?”
“Anything’s possible, Mr. President. But our analysis rates that as the least likely outcome.” Blake started to pace.
“Basically, the South Korean government rests on a very narrow knife’s edge between two small, but powerful, factions. On one side they’ve got a hard-line element in their military. The current Seoul government had its origins in a military coup, so they know what can happen if the armed forces aren’t happy with what’s going on.” He turned and walked back past the President’s desk.
“Now on the other side of the equation, you’ve got a small hard-core group of radical students. Most of them aren’t communists, but they are socialists and they want things that the military and South Korea’s industrial conglomerates would find intolerable — virtual unilateral disarmament and reunification with North Korea.”
The President nodded his understanding. “So they’ve got no maneuvering room. The token reforms that the hard-liners in the military would accept won’t be enough to placate Congress or their students. And the reforms demanded by Congress won’t be acceptable to the military.”
“Yes, sir, exactly. What’s worse, they probably wouldn’t even keep the students out of the streets anyway.”
“Shit.”
“In a nutshell, Mr. President.” Blake started another circuit past the President’s desk. “The odds, then, are that South Korea’s booming economy is going to come to a crashing halt over the next couple of months as their exports dry up. That’s going to polarize the apolitical middle portion of the South Korean population. Some are going to side with the military hardliners, and some are going to break over to the left-wing students.”
He shrugged. “Where South Korea’s internal balance of power will wind up is anybody’s guess.”
“And we can’t do a damn thing to stop any of this?” The President’s question was almost plaintive.
“Not this year. Not without a special session of Congress.” Blake came to a halt. “The best we can hope for is that South Korea will muddle through until sometime next year. Then you might be able to make a good case for lifting the sanctions on humanitarian grounds. By then, people here will have seen a lot of TV pictures of unemployment lines in Seoul, and they’ll have started missing Hyundai cars and Samsung televisions.”
The President nodded slowly. “Yes. We’d still face an uphill legislative fight in Congress, but at least I’d hold the moral high ground.”
Blake glanced at Admiral Simpson.
The admiral took his cue. “There’s one thing wrong with that scenario, Mr. President.”
The President looked at Simpson. “What’s that, Phil?”
“It assumes that there will still be a South Korea left to concern ourselves with next spring.”
Simpson paused and the President arched an eyebrow. “Go ahead, Admiral. You’ve got my attention.”
“Yes, sir. You see, while all of this is going on in the South, we’ve got to worry about what’s going on up in North Korea. Kim Il-Sung and his generals are going to be rubbing their hands over the prospect of a badly weakened South Korea. And they’ve been piling up the hardware to do something about it.” The admiral handed McLaren’s latest intelligence assessment to the President and waited while he skimmed through it.
“Jesus, these people aren’t fooling around, are they.”
“No, sir, they’re not. Without our forces along the DMZ as a trip-wire deterrent, they just might be tempted to use some of those brand-new tanks, planes, and artillery pieces.”
The President kept paging through the assessment of North Korea’s order of battle. “I don’t see what we can do about it. The Barnes bill is damned specific there, too. No political reforms, no American troops. We’re going to have to pull them out.”
Blake tensed. This was the crucial moment. He spoke softly, “Not necessarily, Mr. President. At least not until you’ve had a chance to reverse the sanctions in the next Congress.”
The President’s head snapped up. He stared straight into Blake’s eyes. “Just what are you proposing, Dr. Fowler?”
Blake chose his words with great care. “Simply this, sir. Unlike the trade provisions in the bill, there is a small opening in the legislative language requiring us to pull our forces out of South Korea. An opening that you might be able to exploit to keep our protective umbrella up long enough to try convincing Congress to find alternatives.”
He stopped for a moment. The President’s eyes didn’t move away from his face. “The bill doesn’t set a specific timetable for our withdrawal, Mr. President. Instead, the language calls for a pull-out to be carried out, quote, as expeditiously as possible, unquote.”
This was it. The President leaned forward in his chair. “So how does that language give me the leeway I need, Dr. Fowler?”
“I suggest that you interpret that demand as loosely as possible, sir. After all, withdrawing more than forty thousand combat troops, support personnel, and all their equipment is going to be a logistical nightmare. It’s bound to take time — several months at the very least.”
Blake paused again and then pressed ahead. “And a discreet suggestion from you to the commander responsible for carrying out the move, General McLaren, could ensure that those months were stretched to at least a year. A lot can happen in a year, Mr. President. At the
very least we’ll have bought time for the South Koreans to adjust to a very different strategic equation.”
Blake finished speaking and sat back down in his chair, surprised to find that his hands were trembling slightly. He looked up to see the President studying him closely.
“You are aware, Dr. Fowler, that you’ve just proposed that I twist the wording of a law beyond all recognition. That I tell a senior military officer to ignore its clear meaning?” the President said in a low, even tone.
“Yes, sir. I know that.”
The President turned to Admiral Simpson. “Phil, what do you think of this young man’s plan? You know that there are people in Congress who’d love the chance to crucify me if this thing leaks out.”
Blake could see the admiral weighing his answer. “Mr. President, both of us have sworn to uphold the Constitution. And both of us have sworn to defend the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. What Dr. Fowler proposes seems to me to fall into a gray area between those two responsibilities.”
The admiral continued, “I can’t make this decision for you, sir. But I believe that it’s a risk worth taking.”
The President sat quietly for several minutes after the admiral had finished speaking. Then, suddenly, he looked over at Blake.
“Did you vote for me in the last election, Dr. Fowler?” he asked.
Startled, Blake never even considered lying. “No, sir, I didn’t.”
The President smiled thinly. “Hell. If you can be that honest, I guess I can trust you on this.”
He slapped a hand down on his desk. “Very well, gentlemen. I’ll take your advice. Somebody gave me bad advice, worse than bad, and I made a mistake. We’ll delay our pull-out from South Korea as long as we possibly can, and use that time to try and correct the error.”
He stared hard at them. “But I don’t want a single goddamned thing about this on paper. You understand? No memos. Nothing on disk. Got it?”
They nodded.
“Great.”
Simpson looked curiously at the President. “What about Putnam? If you take any action against the lying bastard, his congressional patrons may guess that we’re up to something they’d want to know about.”
The President smiled grimly. “Don’t worry about Mr. Putnam, gentlemen. We’ll keep him on in his old job — at least as far as he and the outside world are concerned. But I’ll be goddamned if I ever believe a word that man says from now on. He’ll attend every national security meeting, but when he speaks, I’m not listening. If I want to know something about this Korean situation, I’ll arrange a little private get-together for just the three of us. Clear?”
They nodded again.
The President turned to Blake. “You know, Dr. Fowler, while this whole troop withdrawal thing is playing out, you’re going to have a keep treating Putnam as though he were still your trusted, all-powerful, all-knowing boss. Is that going to be a problem for you?”
Blake shook his head.
“Okay, then. That’s settled.” The President picked up the phone. “June, I want you to put together some travel arrangements for a member of my staff: Blake Fowler. Yes, I want him in Seoul by tomorrow, if possible.”
He hung up and smiled again at Blake. “No need to look so surprised, Dr. Fowler. I’m making you my go-between with General McLaren on this thing. You’re going to be in it up to your neck.”
Blake couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Yes, sir. I sure as hell will be.”
OCTOBER 25 — EIGHTH ARMY FIELD HQ, SOUTH KOREA
The clattering, ear-splitting roar of the Cobra gunship’s rotor hammered through McLaren’s helmet as he looked out through the front windshield.
The Cobra skimmed low over rice paddies as it raced toward a jagged ridge flanking the multilane Main Supply Route. Then it climbed, following rising ground in a smooth curve to the left just fifty meters above a hillside orchard. Fallen leaves caught in the helicopter’s downdraft swirled high into the air in its wake.
McLaren kept his eyes focused on the small valley they were rushing toward at a hundred and twenty knots. Without looking, he held up his right hand, palm forward. The chopper pilot obeyed his signal and eased back on his collective, slowing the gunship as they flew by the valley’s tree-lined entrance.
McLaren studied the ground carefully, first with unaided eyes and then with a pair of binoculars as they orbited past the valley again. Nothing. Not a single radio aerial in plain view. Good, there weren’t any telltale signs that might reveal his camouflaged headquarters to an airborne enemy.
He pulled his head back into the cockpit and cut in his throat mike. “Okay, Jim. You can take us down now. I think I’m getting airsick.”
The pilot grinned at him and sketched a mock salute before pushing the stick over to send the helicopter into a long slide up the valley toward a small clearing. They settled in to land in a hail of rotor-blown dust, small pebbles, and dead grass.
McLaren slid down out of the gunship, bent low holding his helmet, and scuttled out from under the slowing rotor blades. He straightened up and strode past a headquarters detail waiting with the netting to conceal his personal chopper from prying eyes.
He returned their salutes and kept going down the path toward the tangle of tents and M577 command vehicles that marked his army’s “bare-bones” field headquarters. Bare bones, my ass, he thought, looking at the crowded vehicle park. Still, it was smaller than his predecessors’ traveling circuses. Doctrine said an army-level field HQ needed dozens of trucks, command trailers, and personnel carriers to operate properly. But McLaren knew that doctrine didn’t mean diddley-squat if it made you a big, juicy, and obvious target for an enemy airstrike or artillery barrage. He preferred to travel light.
His staff looked up when he walked into the main command tent but then bent back down to their work. He’d made it plenty clear early on in his tour that he didn’t have time for a lot of meaningless saluting and ass-kissing — especially not in the field.
His aide came up to take his helicopter crewman’s headgear. McLaren shrugged it off and took his old-fashioned steel pot in return. He didn’t like the new, plastic-armored “Fritz” helmets prescribed by Army regulations. He’d seen the studies showing they were more effective at keeping out fragments, but there was something unsettling about them nonetheless. He’d told Doug once that a man needed to have steel on his head to feel secure under an airburst. “Damn it,” he’d barked, “plastic’s only good for two things — model airplanes and some bimbo’s shopping trip.” He remembered that his aide had smiled gamely and packed McLaren’s new-style helmet away for good. Humoring him, no doubt. But what the hell, he was a general and rank should have some friggin’ privileges after all.
McLaren settled the steel pot on his head and looked back at his aide. “That fella from Washington get here yet?”
“Yes sir, about half an hour ago. I’ve got him waiting in your trailer. Do you want me to send for him?”
“Nah. Muhammad will go to the mountain this time. Keep an eye on things here for me, will you?”
McLaren climbed the steps to his command trailer and looked in through the door. The President’s highly unofficial “emissary” stood. McLaren liked the look of him. Tall, rangy, and with an open, honest face. Smart enough not to wear a suit out here, too.
He nodded his head toward the hillside rising above the camp. “Let’s take a walk.”
McLaren and Fowler hiked up through the tall grass far enough to be out of earshot of anyone else in the HQ. McLaren pulled his helmet off and turned to face Blake. “Okay, Dr. Fowler, what gives?”
Blake filled him in, speaking quickly at first but then slowing to emphasize each word as he got closer to the President’s “suggestion” that McLaren delay his planning for the congressionally mandated withdrawal from South Korea.
When he’d finished, McLaren stood silently for several minutes, looking out across the hill to the north — toward the DMZ. Then he sho
ok his head in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, Dr. Fowler. I’ve never heard anything like that in my whole friggin’ Army career.”
Then he grinned. “But I’m damned glad I finally got the chance to.”
Fowler grinned back at him. The general had reacted just the way Admiral Simpson thought he would.
“Just one question. Are we going to let the South Korean government in on this little secret?”
“No. The President doesn’t want any leaks on this. And he doesn’t want to blow any chance that the government here just might make the reforms Congress is insisting on.”
“Okay.” McLaren settled his helmet back on his head. “You go back to Washington and tell the President that he can count on the most screwed-up evacuation planning process he’s ever seen.”
They shook hands and headed back down the hill toward the headquarters of the Eighth Army.
CHAPTER 15
If at First…
NOVEMBER 2 — LOGISTICS CENTER, YONGSAN ARMY BASE, SEOUL
Tony felt like an idiot. It was foolish to feel this way, of course. He had traveled all the way to Seoul to get a second chance at being rejected by Anne Larson. Why should he feel foolish?
He knew she worked at the logistics agency as a computer programmer. The logical thing to do was go up to the headquarters building and ask where the computing facility was. Strangely enough, it worked. The corporal had looked at his out-of-place Air Force uniform a little strangely, then given him directions to building A34.
He walked out of the headquarters with a mix of excitement and anxiety he hadn’t felt since his last blind date in high school. Of course he had acted like an idiot in high school.
The base’s buildings were old-style brick, obviously designed by a Westerner. They looked a little odd after all the Korean architecture he’d seen, but normal enough in this little island of America. The place was really jumping, with people and vehicles almost filling the sidewalks and the streets.
