The President

by Parker Hudson

  “They’re staying at the Trenton, I think it is.” The location suddenly dawned on her. “Right on the Battery!”

  “We’ll send the Secret Service to get them.”

  “William, Rebecca’s there, too.”

  “Rebecca?”

  “Yes, I talked to Katherine last night. They ran into her at the airport. She’s trying to stop someone from having an abortion up there. Oh, and Hugh’s there, too, on his ship.”

  “The Fortson is in New York now?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “What timing. My family is all here within range of a nuclear bomb!”

  “You’ve all got to leave.”

  William was silent for a moment. “Carrie, yes. Pray for us. I’ll do everything I can to get the women on helicopters. But Hugh is on a ship—maybe they can help somehow. And I...well, I’m not sure I can leave.”

  She closed her eyes and sat down on the bed. “William...” was all she could whisper.

  He filled the silence. “We’ll see. We’re taking each minute as it comes. I’ll talk to you again. We need your prayers. Then get back to the White House, and I’ll see you there.”

  “Yes...Oh, William, I love you.”

  “Carrie, I love you more than you’ll ever know. Now I’ve got to go. God bless you, dear.”

  “God bless you, William.”

  Mary, Katherine, and Sarah had returned upstairs after their breakfast to prepare for their testimony, scheduled for eleven. As they sat and read their notes, Mary said, “I know New York is a big city, but I’ve never heard so many sirens!” Then there was a knock on their door.

  Standing outside was Secret Service Agent Tyler Blevins, one of the team assigned to Katherine. He was calm but insistent. “Mrs. Prescott,” he said, as he entered their living room, “we’ve just received word that there’s a nuclear bomb on a ship just there off the Battery.” He pointed in the general direction. “I’ve been ordered to get you to Central Park, from which the presidential helicopters are going to leave in an hour. We’ve ordered a limousine for you, so please put whatever valuables you have in your purses—leave the rest for now—and let’s go downstairs.”

  Sarah said, “Is the hearing canceled?”

  Blevins smiled. “For the time being it is. But when this all gets straightened out, I’m sure it’ll be rescheduled. Now please, let’s hurry.”

  “Do we have time to change into our jeans?” Katherine asked.

  “If you really hurry,” Blevins said, noticing their conservative suits and high heels. “I’ll wait outside. But they’ve pulled the other agents up to Central Park, so I’m the only one with you now, and we’re supposed to be in the park in fifty-five minutes. Please, let’s roll.” He turned and left as another message came across his earpiece.

  The young ensign standing watch on the quarter-deck of the Fortson was the first on board to hear the news, when one of the longshoremen on the pier yelled it up to him, as sirens wailed past the head of the pier. He phoned both the captain and the executive officer. Two minutes later several officers were watching a news report on the wardroom television when Captain Robertson came through the door.

  “Richard,” he said, addressing the executive officer, “we’ve just received a Flash Aim High message to stay where we are and to shut down everything that could give away our identity as a United States Navy ship. Thomas,” Captain Robertson turned to the operations officer, “pull the plug on every radio transmitter and search radar, even the surface search, to be sure no one turns them on by accident. Hugh, the same goes for all your fire control radars. I want this pier cleared of civilian personnel and an armed patrol posted at the end. Mount our machine guns at the railings and don’t let anyone or anything come near us, from the pier or from the river. Until someone tells us otherwise, we’re handling this just like a war. Prepare to be underway on five minutes notice, and we’ll shift into port and starboard watches.”

  “If we’re shut down, how will we communicate?” Dobbs asked.

  “We can still receive the satellite broadcast,” the captain answered, “and I imagine within an hour there’ll probably be live TV coverage from the harbor. If we need to talk to somebody, they’ve given us two phone numbers at the Pentagon.”

  “You mean we use a pay phone on the pier to report?” Dobbs asked.

  “You got it,” the captain replied. “And in fact, that’s a good thought. Put two of your radiomen at the pay phones now and call these numbers. When they get through, tell them not to hang up. We’ll keep an open line back to Castle. Now, everyone, let’s move, and be quick about it.”

  While Eunice packed, Rebecca phoned Amtrak and booked two seats on the evening train to Atlanta. As Eunice put her final things in the suitcase, the sirens and the noise outside the hotel finally caused Rebecca to turn on the television. There on virtually every station was a slightly out-of-focus picture of a ship surrounded by water that appeared to be blood red. They listened with growing concern to the newscaster while the picture of the ship bobbed up and down, indicating it was being viewed through a powerful telephoto lens.

  After ten minutes of watching the news, Rebecca and Eunice knew almost as much as the generals in the Pentagon.

  “What should we do?” Eunice asked.

  “I guess do our best to get to the train station. Hopefully trains will still be running. Or maybe they’ll have extra trains.”

  Eunice looked at her suitcase. “Think we’ll get a cab?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’d better take out some—”

  Rebecca never finished her sentence, because just then Eunice’s water broke.

  HARRISBURG—The news from New York began to pierce the calm and quiet of this day before a national election, when all of the country’s congressmen and a third of the senators were home fighting the most unusual campaign anyone had ever seen.

  About a third of the incumbents running for reelection had declared themselves to be supporters of the biblical worldview, including Congressman Trent Patterson. But his delayed announcement led many to wonder if his decision had been based more on reading the direction of the wind in his home district than on any personal sense of commitment to God.

  At any rate, he and William had continued to support each other, and he had just arrived at his office after a breakfast fund raiser when his secretary told him that there was trouble in New York. Trent went into his office, hung his coat behind the door, and turned on the television. He watched for a few minutes. Then his private phone rang.

  He left the television on and walked around his desk to answer the ring.

  “Hello, Congressman.”

  “You? Why are you calling me here?”

  “Because it’s where you are, and I want to talk to you,” Wafik said.

  “Where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” In fact, Wafik was in his observation post in the World Trade Center, watching the harbor with binoculars as he spoke. He was using a relay through a radio transceiver and a seemingly out-of-order pay telephone booth to make tracing difficult.

  “What do you want?”

  “Please, a little more patience. Have you heard of the demands of the group with the bomb in New York harbor?”

  “Yes. They just played them on television.”

  “Good. We want you to support them. Quickly and vocally.”

  “What? Hey, are you behind this...this bomb threat?”

  “It doesn’t matter whether we are or we aren’t. The demands seem reasonable to us, and we want one of our key friends in Congress to support them, starting now, to help build a groundswell.”

  “But that’s almost treason! And I’ve been supporting the president’s candidates. I can’t switch now.”

  “Yes, we noticed your lapse a few months ago. But you did continue to support our initiatives, so we let it go. Now, however, there’s no time for that luxury. Both our nations need you to be a peacemaker, to help heal wounds.” Then he said more sternl
y, “We want you to cancel your appointments and fly back to Washington now, call a press conference, and say that it’s in the best interest of the United States to agree to these demands. Call other congressmen and encourage them to do the same. Start with the ones who have supported your views on the Israeli withdrawal. Do whatever you have to do to erode the president’s position and to build credibility for the Palestinian alternative. I’m sure others will then rally to you.”

  “But that’s impossible! There’s a bomb threatening ten million people. I can’t undermine the president at a time like this. He’s my friend, and he’s in New York himself!”

  “Please listen very carefully,” Wafik said, and pressed a button.

  At first Patterson couldn’t make out what he was hearing, but then he recognized his own voice in the drawing room at Wafik’s villa outside Paris, laughing and thanking Wafik for the cash. As he listened, his breathing grew labored, and he sat down.

  “How?” he whispered.

  “Good technology, don’t you agree?”

  There was silence. “You want me to sell out my country, and you’re prepared to ruin me if I don’t.”

  “That’s very harsh, my friend. Let’s just say we want you to continue the enlightened leadership you’ve provided for the past several months where a more rational policy toward our people is concerned. That’s all. And it’s good for your nation, as well.”

  There was a long silence. Finally Wafik asked, “Are you still there?”

  “All right...God help me. But no more, Wafik. This is it!”

  “Of course,” Wafik replied. “If this goes well and the right people are elected tomorrow, we won’t need any more of these, shall we say, extra incentives. You’ll be off the hook, as you say.”

  “I should hope so.” And the congressman hung up. He turned to the open door of his office and said, “Cheryl, I have to go back to Washington to help deal with this thing in New York. Please book the next flight and then call all of today’s appointments and tell them what’s happened.”

  His secretary came to the door, obviously concerned. “Yes, sir. Was that the president on the phone?”

  Trent stopped loading his briefcase. “No, not the president,” he said, feeling a sudden hollowness in his chest.

  “Well, good luck.”

  “Thanks. I’ll probably need it.”

  WASHINGTON—Thirty minutes later the vice president and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs arrived in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. Patricia Barton-North was in the city for a rally planned that afternoon on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, supporting those candidates who opposed the president’s Twenty Points. The secretary of state, Lanier Parks, whom she had not seen face to face for several months, had called her in her Capitol office a little before ten, just as the news was starting to break, and asked her to join them in the White House to chair their deliberations until William could return.

  Also present were Sandra Van Huyck, Ted Braxton, Michael Tate, and several of Vince Harley’s aides, including an air force general and a navy admiral. Patched in by speaker phone were the President and Jerry Richardson from the Park Empire Hotel in New York

  Once they were all seated around the conference table, William spoke over the speaker phone, which had been placed in the center of the table. “Is there anything new, Vince, from your folks?”

  The general leaned forward toward the device, “Only that we’ve again confirmed the serial numbers and photos with Moscow. Unfortunately, this one is the real thing. Were getting men in position all around the harbor to watch everything that happens, using high-powered videos. We should have live pictures in a few minutes. And we’ve scrambled the Delta Force, who are on their way east from San Diego in case we decide to take the ship by force.”

  “What do you hear from here?” William asked no one in particular.

  Ted Braxton spoke up. “It’s pretty bad and may be getting worse. The police have tried to secure the Battery, but, if you can believe this, there are people standing wall to wall, looking toward the Bright Star. The streets are a sea of jammed cars and people. It’s almost impossible to move. The subway is no better. There are reports that already three people have died because they were accidentally pushed off platforms in front of trains. What can you see from your room?”

  Jerry Richardson answered. “It’s difficult to tell, because so much of what we see is Central Park. But people on foot have clogged every street we can see. It looks like everyone’s given up on cars and is trying to walk as far from the Battery as possible. I suspect that helicopters are going to become pretty valuable and may be targets for those who want to move faster than their feet will allow. Our helicopters haven’t been touched, and we’ve got New York police helping the Secret Service guard them. We’ll be sending them off in a few minutes, as soon as the president’s daughter arrives.”

  “Vince,” the president asked, “got any quick ideas on how to deal with the Bright Star?”

  “We’ve obviously got people working on it. We’re looking for plans of the ship and studying every offensive possibility. Our Delta Force teams are trained to take a ship at anchor, but it sounds like these folks may have some pretty sophisticated countermeasures on board—a cut above the usual terrorist threat. We’ll be studying close-ups of their deck and antennas, looking for clues of what they’ve got on there.

  “We could probably fly a smart bomb down the stack from twenty thousand feet, but we’d have to fly overhead and then illuminate it with a laser, and we don’t know whether they’ve got something that’ll detonate the bomb if we shine a laser on them.”

  “If we could blow up the ship, what would happen to the bomb?” William asked.

  “It almost certainly wouldn’t detonate—it takes a particular blast sequence to do that. But you’d have radioactive fallout from the nuclear material all over the harbor and directly downwind. It’d be a mess, but not nearly as bad as a detonation. The best would be to destroy the man or the equipment controlling the bomb, without damaging the device itself. But that probably means putting men on board, and we just don’t know if whoever’s on the ship would have time to trigger it before we could stop him. Or maybe it’s on some type of automatic trigger. We just don’t know.”

  “And so, General Harley,” the vice president said, “you really don’t know what to do or how to do it Is that right?”

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was obviously stung. “Ma’am, we’ve been at this just a little less than an hour. I gave the president a quick assessment. We should have several detailed contingency plans for your consideration in about two hours, at the outside.”

  Patricia Barton-North leaned back, frowning. Then she leaned forward again. “William, when are you coming back?”

  There was a pause. “I’m not sure. There are a lot of innocent people here, including members of my family. Maybe, when we see how things are going, I’ll try to come back tonight. I just don’t know.”

  The vice president continued, “Let me play devil’s advocate. Why don’t we just give them what they want? The first two items concerning Israel are reasonable, anyway. And you know your candidates are not going to win the election tomorrow, so just give in now, sparing New York City. Why shouldn’t we? Why kill more Americans in one instant than the Jews lost in the entire Holocaust? They’ll understand.”

  No one spoke. Finally from the speakerphone William’s voice came through. “Patricia, I almost feel that if I have to explain it, I... But I’ll try. Once you give in to this kind of terrorism, it never stops. No matter what the demands are today, what might they be next time? But we can’t give away Israel’s security—the Golan Heights are part of the land the terrorists want. And as for the election, I won’t give in for the same reason, no matter what I may feel personally, pro or con, about our candidates’ chances. What happens the next time? Who threatens what to get their way at the next election? Patricia, that would be the end of our democracy.”


  “Come on William, this is New York we’re talking about. This will be the end of millions of people. We can patch up all that other stuff after it’s over. It won’t be the end of the world. I say we do as they ask, get rid of this awful threat, and go on about our business.”

  “With you as president,” Jerry Richardson added.

  “That has nothing to do with it! I’m thinking about our nation and the lives of millions of people, including yours and the president’s, I might add.”

  “That’s enough,” the president said. “No more talk about giving in. I don’t want anyone killed or made to suffer. We didn’t start this. But we can’t give in to their demands or our nation—and Israel—will be finished.”

  “So you’re not going to grant their first two requests?” she asked.

  “Lanier and Sandy can talk to the Israeli Prime Minister to see if there’s something we can do short of capitulating—some compromise that will make the terrorists happy. I’m not crazy. I don’t want people to die.”

  “I see,” she said. “And if the American voters tomorrow were by some chance to elect your candidates, it will cost us millions of dead?”

  “Patricia, you make it sound like the bomb is my idea,” the president said. “Some insane people have done this, not us. If we give in, millions more will be threatened in the Middle East. God expects us to do what’s right and to trust him. We don’t always know his purposes, but the quickest way to insure failure is to take a shortcut around his principles. We’ll do the right thing—we won’t give in to threats of violence, no matter how grave— and we’ll keep trusting him, just as the leaders of this nation have done for well over two hundred years.”

  The vice president stood up. “Don’t bring God into everything, William! It’s stupid! We’re talking people’s lives here, not a tent revival! It’s clear to me that our only hope to save New York is for our candidates to win tomorrow, and for us to promise now at least to consider the other two requests. I don’t have time to attend any more unproductive meetings like this—I’ve got to spend every second insuring that sane people are elected tomorrow. William, get out of there as soon as you can, and we’ll save New York at the ballot box for you! Then you can retire and write a book about how God just barely missed his chance to intervene. This, William, is the sound of the vice president leaving.” She walked out and closed the door.