The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  “I think he digs you,” Dillon said.

  “Oh, he does not,” Molly said.

  “He wants your phone number for professional reasons,” Dillon said, grinning. “You cannot be that naive.”

  “You believe all men think about is women. I, for one, will give him the benefit of the doubt until I have a reason not to.”

  “Come on, let’s get some wine.”

  They went to the bar and were offered a glass of Pinot Noir. They touched their glasses together, unaware of the other people in the room.

  “You really do look pretty, Molly.”

  Molly stood close to him. “You’re moving pretty fast, Mr. Dillon.”

  “I like you,” he said, almost casually.

  “We’ve had our differences lately, haven’t we?”

  “Time to move beyond that. A mere speed bump.”

  “A lot could still happen—”

  “Molly!” came a voice from behind her. She immediately recognized it and fought to control her expression. She turned. “Well,” she said, “Arlan.”

  Arlan Van den Bosch, the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, leered at her.

  “You know Jim Dillon, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I know Mr. Dillon. How are you, Jim?” He said “Jim” with a little too much emphasis on the “J.”

  “Hello, Mr. Van den Bosch,” Dillon said as he lifted his wine to his lips.

  “So,” Arlan said, turning his entire attention to Molly. He looked her up and down. “I see you are sleeping with the enemy.”

  “Excuse me?” Molly said, stunned.

  “I said,” Van den Bosch said, leaning toward her, a little too close, “I see you are sleeping with the enemy.” Van den Bosch glanced over at Dillon, who was staring at him.

  “I’m not sleeping with him or anyone else!” Molly replied angrily. “And even if I was, that is none of your business. You are way out of line, Arlan!”

  Van den Bosch tried to calm her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I guess I should have said … cavorting. I see you are cavorting with the enemy. I meant it as a figure of speech, a play on a title of a movie—”

  “I know exactly what you meant, Arlan, and I don’t appreciate it.”

  “Cavorting, as in being friendly with, hanging around with,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” Molly said, turning to go.

  “Is it the enemy part you don’t agree with?” Arlan said more loudly.

  “I disagree with everything you have said tonight,” Molly replied. “Jim is not the enemy.”

  “Your judgment is clouded,” Van den Bosch said. “He’s hypnotized you, Molly. You’re in love. You can’t see what he is doing. Do you doubt he is the enemy?”

  “Is this necessary, Arlan? Here?” she said harshly.

  “You’re damned right it’s necessary, Molly! This is the man who came up with the Letter of Reprisal that went to the Supreme Court! He is the one who is responsible for the impeachment the House is ginning up against the President! Yeah, I know about the impeachment. I see you do too. How did you learn about it? From your inside source here?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “He’s the one who carried the Letter of Reprisal to the Navy battle group in Indonesia resulting in the death of one hundred seventy people or so. Yes, Molly, he is the enemy,” Van den Bosch said, looking directly into Dillon’s eyes.

  “Is the President a pacifist, Mr. Van den Bosch?” Dillon fired back.

  “You know the answer to that,” Van den Bosch said quickly. “What kind of an irresponsible charge is that?”

  “You’re the one throwing around irresponsible charges, accusing me of being the enemy. I’m just a staffer on the hill, Mr. Van den Bosch, I can’t do anything. I can’t pass a law, I can’t overturn a law, I can’t order anybody to do anything. I think you and the President should look in the mirror before you start accusing other people of being irresponsible.”

  Arlan turned to Molly again. “Did you know, Molly, that we offered to dismiss the lawsuit challenging the Letter of Reprisal as unconstitutional?”

  “When?” Molly said, only mildly interested.

  “Before it ever went to the Supreme Court, before things went too far. I visited Mr. Dillon’s boss and offered to drop the suit if he would back off. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it. This isn’t about policy and right or wrong, this is about destroying the President and your … boyfriend is the one primarily responsible, Molly. Don’t forget it. Whether you realize it or not, you are in the enemy’s camp.”

  As Arlan and Molly exchanged angry stares, Jean DeSalle approached them from Dillon’s right. “Excuse me,” he said, realizing he was stepping into something deeper than an average conversation. “May I present Mademoiselle Christine Salain, the daughter of the French ambassador. She is studying at the Sorbonne and is here for a few days. Mademoiselle Salain,” he said, “may I present Mademoiselle Molly Vaughan, Deputy White House Counsel, Monsieur James Dillon, Special Assistant to the Speaker of the House, and Monsieur Arlan Van den Bosch, Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.”

  “Good evening,” she said with virtually no accent, holding out her hand first to Molly, then to the others.

  “So, how is Paris in late February?” Molly asked.

  “It is very rainy and cold,” she said, smiling.

  The President stepped to the podium in the White House for the press conference he didn’t want to give. He was tired and annoyed. He waited for the continuous noise to die down without raising his hand. The press corps picked up on his change of mood. He spoke when they were silent. “First, I’d like to make a statement. Then there will be a limited time for questions.” Manchester held both sides of the podium, hunching his shoulders slightly. “As you know, this has been a turbulent time in Washington. There’s been a challenge to the power of the presidency by Congress. That is being dealt with by a lawsuit that I filed on behalf of my office, and it is now wending its way through the courts in its ever slow way.” The press corps chuckled appropriately but was mindful of the drastically serious look on the President’s face.

  “Other things are also in the works, however. The most critical item, and one that I have not spoken about before, is that the president of an American mining company and his wife were abducted from their home in Irian Jaya. He was with the South Sea Mining Company, which had a contractual arrangement with Indonesia to operate a gold mine in Irian Jaya, in eastern Indonesia. They were abducted in the middle of the night and there was substantial loss of life to the company’s security guards and damage to the mining operation. We do not know where they’ve been taken. We hope they are unharmed. We have been contacted by the kidnappers who have demanded certain terms for the release of the two individuals…” A hum went up from the journalists, several of whom started shouting out questions. Manchester put up his hand. “Please, there will be time for questions.” He continued, “We do not yet know who abducted them. We believe they may be related to the group that attacked the Pacific Flyer in Jakarta…” He stopped as several reporters stood, trying to get his attention. He ignored them and went on. “We do not yet have a means of communicating with them. But even when we do, I’m not going to discuss the nature of those communications or the nature of their demands.”

  One of the reporters who had stood up yelled, “Mr. President, don’t the American people deserve to know what their demands are?”

  “Please, sir, sit down. I said there would be time for questions. If you insist on asking questions in the middle of my statement, I will simply terminate the statement.” Manchester surveyed the group coldly. They became quiet again.

  “Let me continue,” Manchester said, glancing at his prepared statement. “We will take whatever means are available to us to free the Americans who have been abducted. We are doing what we can to locate them, to discuss the options with those who have abducted them, and to free them. We will not do any
thing rash, nor will we accept any intolerable situation.” He paused for effect. “The perpetrators of this crime should not underestimate the resolve of the American people. This will be dealt with appropriately.

  “Lastly, as you all know, the trial of Admiral Billings is scheduled to commence in Pearl Harbor. He will answer for the charges against him, and on that I have no comment, nor will I answer any questions. That is all I have. Now, I will entertain very few questions as my time is limited.... Yes,” he said, picking one of the journalists in the center of the room. The others grew quiet.

  “Mr. President,” she said shrilly, “if this is the same group that was involved in the Pacific Flyer attack, isn’t that the same group that is now in custody in Hawaii?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Then I take it there are more of them than were captured on the island.”

  “That would follow,” the President said.

  “There weren’t any left on the island when the Marines pulled out, were there?”

  “Not to our knowledge. They scoured the island very thoroughly, and unless they were hiding in a cave or some other location that was undiscovered, then they weren’t all on the island when the attack occurred.”

  “Is it possible those in Hawaii were not the group that attacked the Flyer?”

  The thought hit him like a baseball bat. “I don’t know. I don’t believe that is the case, but I suppose that is possible.”

  “Let me follow up. How big a group is this that we’re dealing with? Where are they located, other than the island on which they were found?”

  “We’re not sure. We’re exercising all of our intelligence assets to try and ascertain the exact nature of this group and its extent. More than that, I cannot tell you at this time.” He pointed to the journalist next to her.

  “Sir, is another military attack like the one conducted by Admiral Billings a possibility?”

  “We’re not ruling out anything.”

  “If I may follow up, Mr. President, I believe that’s what you said last time that caused Congress to take matters into their hands. Have you personally ruled it out? Are you willing to send the military if called for? Are you a pacifist?” He asked all three of his questions without stopping, knowing if he did he would never get the other two out, even with another “follow-up” ruse.

  The room grew very still as the President prepared his answer. His Chief of Staff regarded him nervously from the corner. “I said we haven’t ruled anything out and that means just that. As to whether or not I’m a ‘pacifist,’” he said, indicating quotation marks around the word “pacifist” with his fingers, “I’m going to address that at the appropriate forum.”

  “But you could lay it to rest right now.”

  The President chuckled. “Yes, well, I could do a lot of things right now. But I will not answer charges simply because they are made. It is as simple as that. An accusation does not force someone to defend himself. If I responded to all the accusations about me I would have time to do nothing but deny rumors and innuendo. Next question, please.”

  “When did the abduction occur?”

  “Yes, I meant to mention that. It was in the afternoon Washington time, day before yesterday.”

  “Why have you taken so long to disclose this to the public?”

  “We were hopeful they would be immediately released and this would not need to be made public. Exposing such an event to the public is not always in the best interests of those involved. We make those decisions on a case by case basis. I know that you wish I would tell you everything I’m doing every minute of the day, every decision I’m making. It simply doesn’t work that way, nor can it. Okay, last question.”

  “Mr. President, to what do you attribute your low ratings in the polls? You have the lowest approval rating of any President since President Nixon just before he resigned.”

  Manchester gave a martyr like shrug. “I attribute it to not responding to political bait, but doing what I believe is right. Sometimes the public doesn’t understand that immediately and only realizes it after it has had time to reflect on it. Not enough time has passed for the public to properly reflect on what’s happened recently. That’s the cause.”

  The Chief of Staff gave the cut signal and the President moved back from the podium. “Thank you for your attention,” Manchester said as he walked away.

  Chapter Six

  Harry D. Babb and Rich Franz sat at the conference table in the U.S. Attorney’s office in downtown Honolulu. It was always Harry D. Babb. Not Harry, not Harold—Harry D. He insisted people call him Harry D., which they were always more than happy to do—it matched his quirky personality. Six U.S. Attorneys from the Honolulu office waited for them to speak. Babb and Franz were accustomed to people waiting for them to speak. They too were U.S. Attorneys, but not just any U.S. Attorneys. They were Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the Transnational and Major Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia and specialized in prosecuting cases against terrorists, pirates, and international murderers. Babb in particular was legendary. He was the most feared prosecutor in that office by those who faced him. Babb was dark complected with black wavy hair and light brown eyes. He was intense, but had a sense of humor.

  Babb glanced around at the other Assistant U.S. Attorneys and then at the files before them. He spoke to them all without introduction. “This will probably be the most difficult prosecution of your short careers. This entire thing could go sideways on us in so many ways we can’t even count. Jurisdiction, venue, Fifth Amendment, custody, ID, it’s all here. Worse than all that is, this is probably the most high-profile international case ever brought in Hawaii.” He waited for responses or questions. There weren’t any. He continued, “I want to thank you for volunteering to help with this prosecution. We’re going to take this one step at a time. The investigation reports that we have so far aren’t good enough. We’re going to have to continue the investigation, set up a lineup right away with the captain of the Pacific Flyer.”

  One of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys at the end of the table interrupted. “Harry D., isn’t this kind of a laydown? Other than getting these guys tried sequentially so it’s not quite the gaggle that it might be, what’s hard about this?”

  Babb frowned. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Jeremy. Jeremy Martin.”

  “Mr. Martin, I take it you’ve never prosecuted a case of international terrorism?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “How many cases have you tried?”

  Martin suddenly was defensive. “Five.”

  “My recommendation to you is that you do more listening and less talking.”

  Babb studied the other faces around the table. “There are land mines all over this case. I’m telling you, if we don’t do this exactly right, these guys are going to walk and go right back to Indonesia. I’ve been with Transnational and Major Crimes for seven years. I do nothing but try these cases. That’s why the Attorney General sent us out here.... This can be done, but it is not a lay-down.” He took a deep breath. “Our first issue is whether or not the defendants have been in custody. They were taken aboard a Navy vessel after combat. The Navy has treated them as prisoners of war. Does that constitute custody? Big issue. If it is, it triggers requirements of Miranda rights, presentment before the federal magistrate, lots of things.

  “Since there’s no way to tell who is who from this list, I’m just going to divide these up.” He turned to Franz and gave him a stack of files. “We don’t even have names for most of them, so we can’t even really correlate these files to the people until we get there. Rich, would you hand these out—”

  * * *

  A thin blanket of snow had covered the White House lawn overnight to make it perfectly white and brilliant in the morning sun. Here and there a blade of brown grass poked through. Edward Manchester, the President of the United States, sat calmly at his dining table, admiring the view out the windo
w. His breakfast sat in front of him untouched: a bowl of freshly cut fruit, an English muffin, and various unopened jars of jam. He sipped a cup of hot tea from a blue and white china cup. The Attorney General sat to his right waiting for the President’s attention to return to the room. Finally Manchester looked at him. “You were saying…”

  “Yes, Mr. President, a couple of things I just wanted to go over with you this morning.” He folded back the cover of a file and scanned some notes. “First of all, the court-martial, the admiral.... He is being detained in the brig at Pearl Harbor. If you recall, you wanted them to comply with the normal brig rules and regulations as if he were an enlisted man. No special treatment—”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you said you want it so he can’t even wear his admiral’s uniform. He’s wearing prisoner dungarees and getting no exercise, few visitors, and a lot of sympathy.”

  The President waited for him to go on. “So?”

  “So, I am wondering if we really want to do that. It seems to me that the last thing we want to do is build sympathy for this guy. Plus, I’m told it violates the brig rules—he should be in uniform.”

  “I don’t know if that’s the last thing I want to do, but I frankly don’t care whether people are sympathetic to his situation or not,” Manchester said.

  “What I am thinking is, if he is going to go on trial in a few weeks, if we allow him to strut around and look like an admiral, people will be much less likely to be on his side. But if we continue to squeeze him, it might cause public opinion to move in his direction.”

  “I understand the concept,” Manchester said as he broke open a sealed jar of raspberry jam. “What I am telling you is that it does not matter to me. Public opinion is already against me. Has been ever since this thing started. I don’t care. What’s important is doing what is right. I think an admiral who violates a direct order,” he said, putting his knife down, “of the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, continues with an illegal attack, kills one hundred fifty Indonesians and twenty-something Americans, doesn’t deserve sympathy if he has to sit in the brig—”