The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America

by Michael Kurland

  The blonde woman who answered the door was in a housedress with her hair up in curlers. She looked surprised to see him. “Why, good morning, Tommy. What are you doing here at this hour?”

  “I have a message for Captain Beddow, ma’am. Is he up?”

  “Yes. He’s in the kitchen,” she said, now thoroughly puzzled. “Come on through.” She closed the door and took Tommy through the living room and into the kitchen. “You have a visitor, Frank,” she called.

  “Well,” Captain Beddow said, as his young visitor came to something approximating a position of attention in front of him. “Hello, Tommy. What can I do for you? Does your father need something?”

  “My father sends his respects, sir,” Tommy Green said. “He asked me to tell you that this is Jubilee morning, sir.”

  “Oh!” Beddow said. “I see. Well, thank you very much, Tommy. Tell Colonel Green that I understand.”

  “Right, sir,” Tommy said. “Thank you, sir.” And with that he turned and raced out toward the front door.

  “What was all that about?” Mrs. Beddow asked her husband as he poured himself a second cup of coffee. “Why didn’t the colonel just call if he had a message for you?”

  “That was a classified message, Betty, my love,” Beddow told her, smiling broadly. “Not to be transmitted by unsecure channels.” He climbed up on a kitchen chair and began fishing for his .45 in the overhead cabinet where they kept it to be sure it was out of reach of their five-year-old.

  “Oh, no,” Betty Beddow groaned. “Not another one of your war games! You’ll be gone for two weeks.”

  Beddow stepped down off the chair and buckled the holstered .45 around his waist. “Probably not that long,” he said. “But I might be away for a few days. Why don’t you take the boy and go over to your mother’s until this is over. I’ll give you a call.” He took the automatic from his holster, pulled the clip, then worked the slide a few times. “I love you, Betty. Remember that.”

  Betty Beddow looked at her husband intently for a long moment, and then reached out almost shyly to touch his shoulder. “I’ll pack a bag,” she said.

  At 0630 General Moor was on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Guam with the ship’s captain, Commander Halberstrom. All around them men in fatigue jackets and men in dungaree jackets were busy fueling up and checking out the big Chinook helicopters of the Forty-First Marine Helo Squadron, Reinforced, that filled the Guam’s flight deck. The air was full of the sounds of engines and pumps, and the smells of oil and AVGAS mixed with the smell of the sea.

  “We’ll be ready to start feeding your men in less than ten minutes,” Halberstrom said. “Should have the last shift out by seven-thirty. By which time we’ll be just off Assateague Island, right where you wanted.”

  “Very good, Captain,” General Moor said. “If you’d be good enough to call all NCOs and officers of the battalion to the briefing room, I’d appreciate it. And have your armory crew break open the magazine and begin bringing the ammo up to the distribution area on deck. We should be out of your hair by oh-eight-hundred.”

  “I’ll see to it, sir,” Halberstrom said. He stuck his hand out. “Good luck,” he said.

  General Moor took the hand. “Right,” he said. Behind him one of the Chinooks roared into life, as the mechanic continued his preflight checkout on the big copter.

  Major Connor Fitzpatrick strode out to the front of the assembled three companies that made up the 404th MP Battalion. “Good morning, men,” he yelled.

  Close to six hundred men yelled back something incoherent, but probably obscene.

  “I thank you all for responding so promptly to the alert,” Fitzpatrick bellowed, “and apologize for making you give up your Sunday.

  “I think you’ll all appreciate this more when I tell you this is not a drill. We’re about to hop into our vehicles and drive off to downtown Washington. In fifteen minutes sharp, at oh-seven-hundred, our little caravan will start.

  “Remember, this is very serious. Strange gentlemen in various uniforms may come up to you and request you to cease what you’re doing. Some of them may be driving tanks. You will not listen to them. This will anger them, but as long as you do your jobs as we’ve practiced, they can’t get at you, so don’t worry about it.

  “This could be your moment of glory, boys. I’m counting on you. Don’t fuck up.” He saluted his men, and then turned and strode back into his office.

  His adjutant turned to the men. “All officers into the squad room,” he called. “NCOs take over your companies!”

  At a few minutes past eight on Sunday morning, Grier Laporte parked his panel truck on Seventeenth Street off Constitution Avenue, right across the Ellipse from the White House. Aaron Adams, sitting in the back of the truck, flipped on the illegal linear amplifier that would boost the signal on their CB rig from the legal five watts to a highly illegal kilowatt.

  A traffic cop pulled alongside them in his car, and was about to tell them to move on when he noticed the neat lettering on the door panel of the white truck: Atomic Energy Commission—Nuclear Emissions Test Truck, and caught a glimpse of Grier and Aaron in their white smocks surrounded by apparatus. He looked over at the broken dome of the Capitol across the Mall, still off limits after all these months, and nodded at the two. “Going to be long?” he asked.

  “I hope not,” Grier told him.

  “This is Jubilee,” Adams said into his microphone. “This is a go, repeat, go! This is Jubilee to Omaha—go, Omaha. Jubilee to Green Leader—go, Green Leader. All units are go.”

  “Jubilee, this is Eire,” came a distant voice over the loudspeaker. “We’re going, even as we speak.”

  Grier half turned to the inside of the truck. “Air?” he asked.

  “Eire,” Adams told him. “That would be Major Fitzpatrick. I didn’t expect any of them to answer me, but it’s good to know someone’s listening.”

  “Everyone’s listening,” Grier grumbled. “Hell, I’ll bet even money that the President’s listening. This isn’t exactly a secure channel.”

  “Of course he is, Grier,” Adams said. “That’s part of the game.”

  The President reached his office at eight o’clock to find Vandermeer waiting for him. “Morning, Billy,” he greeted his Chief of Staff. “You haven’t been up all night, have you?”

  “Good morning, Mr. President,” Vandermeer said. “I arrived here about ten minutes ago. I’ve been down in the Special Situations Room for the past hour, sir. Everything’s ready for Bull Run, and we’re proceeding as planned. The roundup of traitors will begin in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Is the media stuff—the coverage—ready?”

  “I have all three networks standing by,” Vandermeer said. “They’re curious as to what’s going on, but they know better by now than to ask questions before we’re ready to tell them anything.”

  “That’s right,” the President said. “That’s good.”

  “When do you want them notified?” Vandermeer asked. “We should give them some time to set up. They have to have some warning to get their cameras positioned.”

  “Wait till the thing’s under way,” the President decided. “We don’t want it to fall flat at the last minute. Think how stupid we’d look if we show Cronkite how well prepared we are for a coup, and then there’s no coup.”

  “Right,” Vandermeer said. “Although there’s little chance of them backing out now. They’re committed and we’re committed. Colonel Hanes should be on his way in with his tanks by now. There’d better be someone here for him to shoot at, or we’re not going to look too good.”

  The red phone rang, and Vandermeer picked it up. “Vandermeer,” he said. “What’s that? I see. Okay, thanks. Keep it up. Increase the coverage, if you can. We’ll be right down.”

  “What was that?” the President asked.

  “The Comint people in the Special Situations Room have just picked up what they call the go parole for Jubilee. That’s the official go-ahead. They’re using CB stu
ff and their signal is very loud. Probably from somewhere around here. Our boys are trying to get a triangulation on it now.”

  “That’s good,” the President said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Very good, sir. Everything’s going according to plan. I think we’d better get down to the Special Situations Room now. There may be some Jubilee people with access to the White House.”

  “You mean someone who works here is plotting against me?” the President said. “Who? Who in the White House is disloyal?”

  “It’s just a precaution, sir,” Vandermeer said soothingly. “We mustn’t take any chances until we’re sure Jubilee has bought it.”

  “Right,” the President said. “Good thinking. Sock it to ’em. Let’s go to the basement.”

  At 0800 Rear Admiral David Bunt entered the Fleet Communications Office at the Pentagon. “You’re holding a ready-coded message under the code name Widowmaker,” he told the duty officer. “See that it goes out to all ships as soon as you can get it on the net. That includes the VLF sub net.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” the officer said. “On what authority?”

  “Here’s my authority,” Admiral Bunt said, taking a sealed letter from his breast pocket. “It’s signed by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence.”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant glanced at the letter and then turned to the CPO at the desk behind him. “Pull Widowmaker and put it on global and subcom,” he said.

  Within minutes the doubly encrypted message was going out to all ships’ captains. It was short and simple, and probably puzzling to most of those who read it. It was a precaution against insanity, against the fear that the Supreme Commander, in his last moments, might start pushing buttons.

  TO ALL CAPTAINS

  FROM CHIEF OF STAFF, NAVY

  TEXT:

  REMAIN ON STATION OR CONTINUE SCHEDULED MISSION DESPITE POSSIBLE MESSAGE TO THE CONTRARY FROM ANY SOURCE. ACCEPT NEW ORDERS ONLY DIRECTLY FROM CINCAT OR CINCPAC OR COSN. IGNORE HIGHER AUTHORITY UNTIL THIS MESSAGE IS SPECIFICALLY COUNTERMANDED BY COSN. END.

  It was pushing eight-thirty when Charles Ober arrived at his office in the Executive Office Building. There might be an attempted coup going on, but after all somebody had to run the government. Let Billy Vandermeer and the President get all the glory, as usual. He was content to stay behind the scenes and see that everything ran in as orderly and correct a fashion as was ever possible to get out of a bureaucracy. That was what government was all about.

  Three men were waiting in his office when he came in: George Masters of the FBI and two other gray-suited men who looked to Obers trained eye like field agents. “Good morning, Masters,” Ober said, smiling grimly. “What can I do for you?” It probably had something to do with the coup, Ober thought.

  Masters pulled his badge case from his jacket pocket. “Good morning, Mr. Ober,” he said. “I’m George Masters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and these are special agents Garber and Wilcox.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Masters,” Ober said, annoyed, “what’s all this formal bull? I know who the hell you are. Now what’s this all about?”

  “We have a warrant for your arrest, Mr. Ober, signed by Judge Bryan Bellows of the Ninth Court of Appeals,” Masters said. “Here it is, if you’d like to look it over. Will you please come with us.”

  Ober crossed over to his desk and sat behind it, acting on some kind of primitive bureaucratic instinct, as though once behind his desk he were safe and couldn’t be dislodged or removed. “Is this a joke?” he demanded. “I’ll see you busted down to flatfoot, you stupid son of a bitch! Who the hell put you up to this? I’m going to launch an immediate investigation. You just stand there, while I call the Attorney General. We’ll get to the bottom of this right quick!”

  “The Attorney General was named on the same indictment,” Masters said. “He’s been relieved of his job and placed under arrest, also.”

  “I’m calling the President!” Ober snapped. “I’m calling Billy Vandermeer!”

  “I have a warrant for Mr. Vandermeer, also,” Masters said. “I don’t expect to get to serve it—at least right now—but I have it. The indictment also names the President as an unindicted co-conspirator. There was some legal question as to whether he could be indicted, so we compromised.”

  “You people are part of the coup!” Ober said, waving a finger in sudden realization.

  “What coup is that, Mr. Ober?” Masters asked politely.

  “You can’t do this!” Ober snapped. “It’s against the Constitution!”

  “That’s very amusing, coming from you,” Masters said. “Come along, Mr. Ober.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Colonel DeWitt Green stood at the front of the small briefing room, facing the assembled officers and noncoms of the Fourth Regiment, Eighty-Second Airborne Division. “Our task is very simple,” he said. “Were going to get into the APCs assembled in the company street and hightail it into the capital. When we arrive at the White House, we’re going to deploy around it and not allow anyone in or out.”

  He sat down on the desk and dropped the pointer he had been holding to his side. “Now here’s the situation as I know it,” he said. “The House of Representatives is going to vote out a bill of impeachment against the President. The Senate is going to vote to accept the bill. The President will be held under house arrest—not by us—until his trial. Our major function there is to see that nobody gets hurt. Our secondary function, but the one that may cause the greatest bloodshed, is to see that no forces inimical to the orderly process of democratic government break through to release the President.

  “Now, some of you may think that this is disloyal, that we are staging a coup d’état. It could be looked at that way, but in a larger sense it’s not true. We’re aiding in restoring free elections, and seeing that the continuity of power in the government proceeds as it has since General Washington assumed office in seventeen eighty-nine. Are there any questions?”

  Colonel Green looked around at the sea of clean-shaven faces, and they looked back with varying degrees of interest and intelligence. A few of them had already been briefed; some of them had only a vague idea of what was going on, but would have followed him if he’d suggested three-legged races down Interstate 95; and some of them were trying to figure out how it would look in their service records.

  Finally one hand went up. A young second lieutenant named Grice. “Yes, Lieutenant?” Green said.

  “Ah, it’s about the rest of the division, sir,” Grice said, rising. “Are they involved in this, and what are they going to be doing, sir?”

  “They’re not involved,” Green said. “As far as I know, the division will spend a normal Sunday polishing boots and cleaning rifles. We, Lieutenant, are the lucky ones.”

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, sitting down.

  “Okay,” Colonel Green said. “Just follow orders, and see that your men follow orders, and let me do the worrying. If any of you have any doubts about this politically, remember it’s my ass, not yours. You’re doing what soldiers are supposed to do: following the direct orders of your superior officer. You may get shot at, but that’s what your government has been paying you for all these years. Worse, you may have to shoot back at soldiers in uniforms similar to your own. If you must do so, then don’t hesitate; but for the love of God, don’t use your weapons unless you absolutely have to.”

  Green looked around. “Is that clear?” When nobody responded, he nodded. “Okay. I assume that means it’s clear. If any of you, for whatever reason, feel strongly about not accompanying us on this jaunt, speak up now.”

  An audible silence followed this remark. “Okay,” Green said. “Assemble the regiment, gentlemen; form on the Headquarters Company street and load into the vehicles. Good luck!”

  Captain Beddow, Colonel Green’s adjutant, approached him as the group filed out of the briefing room. “There’s something I don’t like, sir,” he said in a low voice.

 
“What’s that, Frank?”

  “Outside this door, Colonel, in two long rows stretching from HQ Company to Con Mess Three, are all the regimental vehicles, all gassed up and ready to go. Climbing into them at this very moment are all the men of our regiment in full battle dress.”

  “That’s right, Frank. So—”

  ”So, Colonel, why isn’t anyone from Division, or from another regiment, or from anywhere else on this goddamn post even curious about what’s going on here on a Sunday morning, when they must know damn well there are no field exercises or maneuvers scheduled?”

  Green scratched his jaw. “When you put it that way, Frank, it does seem rather odd.”

  “Yes, sir. I think we’ve been set up.”

  “Great!” Green turned around and stared thoughtfully at the big map of Fort Bragg posted on the wall behind him. “I think what we’d better do,” he said, “is get out of here quick, and get out of here in an unexpected manner.”

  “Yes, sir,” Captain Beddow agreed.

  “Okay,” Colonel Green said. “Let’s get going. Pass the word down the line that there may be trouble on the way out; but make sure the men don’t even load their weapons until someone fires on us first.”

  “Right, sir,” Beddow said, stepping back and saluting. “How are we going?”

  “Right through the main gate!” Green said. He patted Beddow on the shoulder. “Move it, Frank,” he said. “I’ll take the lead APC. Give me about a seventy-yard lead, then bring the column on behind me.”

  They went out together and Colonel Green climbed up into the command turret of his APC. “You fellows ready?” he called down.

  “Yes, sir,” his driver said cheerfully. “Just waiting for you, sir.”

  Green’s APC was fitted out as a communications vehicle, and contained an Army command radio specially modified to use the citizens band frequency Jubilee was sitting on. “Plug me in,” Green told the radio man as his driver brought the APC into lumbering motion. “Jubilee Control, this is Green Leader.”