The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America

by Michael Kurland

  “I follow, Clem. I hope I’m not that transparent to the rest of the world.”

  “Tell me what you want to when you want to,” Moor said. “You can trust me.”

  “I believe you,” MacGregor said. “Give me one of your cigarettes, Clem. I’m trying to stop smoking, but it can wait.” He took the cigarette and lit it and took one deep drag from it. “I hear you’re going back on the Guam, Clem; is that right?”

  “Right. Next week. We’re going on a training cruise.”

  “Before you go I’d like you to take a run up to Washington,” MacGregor said. “Meet a friend of mine. His name is Adams, Professor Aaron B. Adams. He lives in Chevy Chase. Give him a call.”

  “I will, Tank. What sort of thing is he interested in?”

  “I think you’d better let him ask the questions,” Tank said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d better get to bed.” MacGregor got up and left the room. General Moor heard his steps going up the stairs toward the guest room.

  Moor lit a new cigarette and stared into the smoke for some time before turning the lights off and heading up the stairs himself.

  Brigadier General Landau, Commandant of the Eighty-Second Airborne Division, leaned back in his swivel chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Just what do you mean, Captain?” he demanded. “Can you be more precise?”

  “No, sir,” Captain Willits said. “I mean, it’s hard, sir.” He shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come, sir, only I felt it was my duty.”

  “No, no; you did right, Captain. Sit down and try to give me something more specific. When you say Colonel Green is talking treason, what, precisely, do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s sort of sounding out the officers under him in the regiment, sir. Very subtly, sir. Determining their loyalty to the President, sir. Like what we think of the IC camps, and whether we think he had a right to suspend the elections.”

  “Have you mentioned your suspicions to anyone else?”

  “No, sir. I thought I should come directly to you.”

  “Very good. I need honest, reliable officers like you, uh, Willits, to keep tabs on what’s going on in my command. You just keep your eye on your CO, and make up a weekly report for me on what he says. If it begins to sound like he, uh, has anything in mind, notify me right away.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “It’s our job, Willits, to keep the Army out of politics. The President is our commanding officer, and we must obey his commands, whatever we think of them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The room, buried deep in the bowels of CIA’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters, was furnished like a model living room out of Architectural Digest. From the Remington reproduction on the far wall, balanced by an antique bric-a-brac cabinet opposite a French-tile-framed fireplace, the room smelled of conservative good taste. Closed curtains at one end of the room, with just a hint of light glowing through, suggested the obligatory picture window. Pleasant, innocuous classical music drowned out the ever-present hum of the air conditioning. It was designed to make you quickly forget that you were two stories underground, surrounded by rooms full of computers, code machines, analysts, area experts, photo interpreters, psychological warfare experts, interrogation experts, armed guards, and locked doors.

  The man in the impeccable gray suit sat on one corner of the sectional tan couch, his yellow pad across his knees. “You realize,” he told Aaron Adams, “that you’re not here and we aren’t having this conversation.”

  “Who was logged in?” Adams asked, amused.

  “A house name,” the man said. “Usually used for Eastern European contacts. That’s why you’re down here in the debriefing area. Also because, by the nature of the process, you’re automatically escorted in and out without anyone else seeing you or knowing you’re here.”

  The man facing Adams was Robert Sims, a CIA career professional who occupied a position in the hierarchy that in private industry would have been called middle management, or in regular government service, entrenched bureaucracy. He was one of the men who had been on the outside feeding information in, and was now on the inside shuffling papers to see that the information was somehow utilized. An earnest, self-important man who had years ago forgotten how to smile, he nonetheless did his work well, and honestly felt that what he did was worth doing.

  Sims was a member of the Policy Coordinating Committee, which took the directives handed down by the Director and his top aides and turned them into working orders that could be implemented by the various semiautonomous directorates of the Agency. In practical terms the committee acted as a buffer between the political demands instigated at the top and the pragmatic operations conducted by those who did the work.

  “All right, Bob,” Adams said. “Let it be that I’m not here.” He dropped into an armchair opposite the couch and pulled his pipe from a side pocket of his tweed jacket. “What aren’t we talking about while I’m not here?”

  “You’re laughing,” Sims said. “I’m trying to save your hide, and you’re laughing.”

  “I wasn’t aware that my hide required saving, Bob.”

  “Come off it, Aaron. I’ve know you for twenty-odd years. Let’s not play games about this.”

  “No game, Bob,” Adams said. “Don’t try to lead me on, because I won’t be led. If you know something, spit it out. If you’re on a fishing expedition, at least dangle some bait in front of me. Don’t just tell me ‘all is discovered,’ and expect me to drop my pants.” Adams tamped a plug of tobacco into his pipe.

  “I really am trying to help you,” Sims said. “The Company can’t do anything, you understand. Not with people handpicked by the President in the fourteen top slots. You’ve no idea how much time is wasted in keeping their hands out of the works.”

  “I know the system,” Adams said, slightly impatiently.

  “The recording devices for this room are turned off, Aaron,” Sims said. “We know you’re planning a coup.”

  “What—”

  ”We got onto it through one of those chains of circumstances that nobody can control, so don’t waste time denying it—or looking for the traitor in your organization. One of your people deposited a large sum of money in a Swiss bank, and we found out and wondered why. So we started watching him. He led us, in a tortuous route, to you.”

  Aaron nodded. “No point denying it if you’re convinced,” he said.

  “The word is ‘Jubilee,’ Aaron,” Sims said. “Like with cherries.”

  Aaron lit his pipe with the Zippo lighter he’d been carrying since the Battle of the Bulge. His hands were steady. “What do you intend to do with this theory of yours?”

  “We intend to do our best to see that it doesn’t get out,” Sims said. “Not that we’re going to aid you in any way, you understand.”

  “I understand.”

  “But we want to know the time and date of execution.”

  Aaron smiled. “I wasn’t intending to be executed,” he said.

  “Everything we’ve got about Jubilee is in a protected file,” Sims said. “If you guys blow it, the file gets shredded and dumped.”

  “You’re not helping or hindering, you’re just ignoring it and covering your ass. Is that it?”

  Sims leaned forward. “Several of our mutual friends in this organization are very interested in your, ah, project and its outcome. But they won’t take a chance on being seen with you. I’m instructed to inform you that, after this meet, you’re to avoid coming to this building or contacting any CIA personnel in any way. If any Company people are in this with you—and I’m not asking—they are to withdraw. Now.”

  “So that’s it,” Adams said.

  “On the other hand,” Sims said, “we can’t neglect our obligation to the government—to this country, if you like.”

  “Very patriotic,” Adams said dryly.

  “That’s why we’re asking you to give us the date and time of your operation.”

  “As you should very
well know,” Adams said, “I’ve no idea of the date and time of my operation. There are a thousand things that could delay it—or advance it. When the stars are in their right conjunction and the entrail readings are favorable, then we march on Rome. But not before.”

  “I understand,” Sims said. “That’s why we’re giving you a special phone number to call in when you know.”

  “And a reason,” Adams said. “You still haven’t given me a reason. Just for old times’ sake isn’t good enough.”

  “There are certain foreign governments that are sensitive to the internal, ah, politics of the United States government. They must be warned, or in some cases reassured, that this is purely an internal matter which doesn’t concern them.”

  “That has occurred to me,” Adams admitted. “Are you saying that the Company will undertake to perform that function?”

  “It’s our job,” Sims said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “You realize that if we blow it, it’s bound to come out that someone in the Company knew something about it. One of those foreign governments is bound to mention it to someone.”

  “It seems probable. Do your best not to blow it.”

  Adams puffed on his pipe and watched the little clouds of gray smoke get sucked up by the air conditioning. “What’s the number?” he asked.

  “Here,” Sims said, handing him a piece of paper. “Memorize it and burn it in this ashtray. Your code word is Kingfisher. Say it, followed by a date and time. Try to give us at least five hours’ warning. Cancel code will be just ‘Kingfisher Off,’ I guess.”

  “Kingfisher?”

  “Taken from a random list,” Sims said.

  “Sure.” Adams lit a match to the phone number. “Be talking to you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Mrs. Fleischer, Uriah Vandermeer’s private secretary, put her ear to the door of his office and listened intently, “You’d better wait a minute,” she told St. Yves, “I don’t want to disturb him now.”

  St. Yves chuckled an ingratiating chuckle. “Don’t tell me, Mrs. Fleischer, that Billy has a young lady in his office at this hour.”

  “Mr. St. Yves!” Mrs. Fleischer did her best to sound shocked, although the halls of power had few surprises left for her. Then she dropped the pretense and shook her head. “A young lady,” she said. “Maybe that’s what he needs. He’s in there by himself, he is. Talking.”

  St. Yves’ eyes widened slightly. “Talking? You mean he’s on the phone?”

  “No, sir. It started when his daughter was killed in that awful bombing. He walks around the room talking to himself.”

  “What does he talk about?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Mrs. Fleischer said, and her mouth closed to a thin line. Whether or not she could say, it was clear that no power on earth would make her.

  “Has he seen anyone about this? I mean, a doctor?”

  “No, sir. When it started I was very worried and I talked to my daughter’s brother-in-law, who’s a psychiatrist in Baltimore. He said it was nothing to worry about, just a standard grief reaction. He said it would disappear with time.”

  “I see.” St. Yves nodded thoughtfully. “Thank you for trusting me, Mrs. Fleischer. Let me think on this and see if I can come up with something helpful. I’d better go in now.”

  “Thank you, Mr. St. Yves. I had to tell someone. You won’t say anything, will you—I mean, to him?”

  “Of course not.”

  Mrs. Fleischer buzzed the inner office and announced St. Yves, who winked at her and went through. As the office door closed behind him, he relegated Mrs. Fleischer’s concern to his mind’s inactive file. If Billy Vandermeer wanted to spend his spare time arguing with himself, that was his business and none of St. Yves’. But it was St. Yves’ concern to see that the office staff was reassured, which he had done. A pity about Kathy, St. Yves thought fleetingly, she was a lovely girl.

  “Good morning, Ed,” Vandermeer said, nodding a greeting from behind his desk.

  “Good morning, Mr. Vandermeer.”

  “What have you got for me?”

  “A plot, Mr. Vandermeer. “We’ve uncovered a plot.”

  “What sort of a plot?” Vandermeer hitched forward in his chair. “Against whom?”

  “Against the government, sir. Against the President.”

  Vandermeer nodded. “Tell me,” he said.

  St. Yves lowered himself into the chair opposite the desk with great care, as though he were afraid it might explode under him. “We ran across it during a routine congressional surveillance. Just a passing reference in a phone conversation. So we sat on the phone, built up a dossier. I didn’t want to bring it to you until we were sure we had something.”

  “And now you’re sure?”

  “Right. Representative Obediah Porfritt of Nebraska. He’s evidently on the periphery of some group that’s plotting to overthrow the government. He’s trying to drum up support with other members of the House to set up some kind of parliamentary cabinet to run the country until elections can be held.”

  “That’s what they all say, you know,” Vandermeer said, drumming his fingers on the desk top. “They just want to take over until elections can be held. But elections never are held.”

  “That’s the pattern,” St. Yves agreed.

  “Porfritt. I remember him. Little man. Probably has a Napoleon complex. Most little politicians do, I’ve noticed. I’ll have to get into the President with his plan so we can set up the best counter to it. Not that I think there’s anything to worry about. What is his plan? How does he intend to take over?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” St. Yves said.

  “What!” Vandermeer stood up. “That’s a hell of a report. What do you mean, you’re not sure? God damn it, you’re supposed to be sure. A lot of money gets funneled through your office for you to use making sure of things like this.”

  “Well, sir, actually we don’t think Porfritt is sure yet himself. There are others involved, but we haven’t been able to determine who yet. The code name for the operation is ‘Jubilee’.”

  Vandermeer walked around the desk. “‘Jubilee,’ you say? Son of a bitch—there may be something here bigger than you thought.” He paced back and forth on the Shirvan rug.

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “We have a report from General Landau of the Eighty-Second Airborne. He suspects one of his regimental commanders of attempting to subvert the others in some kind of coup. The word ‘Jubilee’ was mentioned in the report.”

  “The Eighty-Second is the logical outfit to try to subject, sir,” St. Yves said. “A crack ready-response division, right next to the city. More firepower than anything else around.”

  “We need a report, a study,” Vandermeer said. “Find out what anyone planning a coup would need to do, and head them off at the pass. Get inside the Jubilee thing and use it for our own purposes. Let them try to grab power, and snooker them in the ass after they’ve made their move. Get good TV coverage.”

  “Isn’t that high-risk?” St. Yves asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to grab them before they do anything?”

  “It’s a calculated risk,” Vandermeer said. “But since we’re onto them from the beginning, we can cut the risk factor way down. And a conspiracy to commit treason isn’t nearly as showy as treason itself. We’re heading to get the Twenty-Second Amendment repealed so the President can run again. We can’t keep this ‘between elections’ crap up very long.”

  “We could stage a coup,” St. Yves said. “It would be safer.”

  “You going to stage a trial and execution?” Vandermeer asked, pausing in mid-pace to shake his fist at the air. “No, by God—a real-life coup, that’s what we need! The smell of blood! Let it look like they’ve come dangerously close to snuffing out American Democracy, then step on them!” He resumed his pacing. “We need control, that’s what. Can’t let the thing get out of hand. And have to time it right. Lots of top-flight PR beforehand.”
<
br />   “I think it’s dangerous,” St. Yves said.

  “You’re the man who scoffs at danger,” Vandermeer said. “Come on, Ed, don’t blow your image.”

  “Physical danger is one thing,” St. Yves said. “But the danger I see here is different. How do you know which side the public will be on in a thing like this? Holding up the elections isn’t very popular, no matter how many excuses we keep coming up with.”

  “But that’s it, don’t you see?” Vandermeer said. “We can schedule the elections now. Say, the primaries for April. Then, when the coup attempt is made, cancel them again and focus public attention on the trial while we ram the repeal through the state legislatures.”

  “Supposing they cancel the coup attempt when we schedule the elections?”

  “Not a chance. They won’t believe us. Would you?”

  “Guess not. But what if they do?”

  Vandermeer considered it for a minute. “Then we grab them for conspiracy.”

  “I’ll get the boys right on it.”

  “No,” Vandermeer said. “We’ve got to keep this operation clean. We’ll start up a special unit. Bring in outside people.”

  “What about the FBI?”

  “The last thing we want is the FBI sticking its nose into political stuff. Same goes for the Secret Service. Let them guard the body of the President—throw themselves in front of him when some nut tries to shoot him—that business. We need a new group for political action. A separate group controlled by the President.”

  “I see,” St. Yves said. “You’re thinking in broader terms than just suppressing this coup attempt, then.”

  “Right. There’ll be other attempts. We have to stay on top of it. Set up an undercover police unit. Use them as the nucleus of a national police force. I’ll speak to the President. Who can we get for it?”

  “What about some ex-servicemen, back from Vietnam? That would be good publicity, wouldn’t it?”