Roddy told him briefly about Yuri Shumakov and how he had tracked Major Romashchuk to Mexico. He also described Yuri's dying phone call.
"That's a shame," said the President, shaking his head sadly. "Did he say where he was calling from?"
"Uh, no, sir," Roddy said. "When I talked to him a little while before that, he was planning to call Belarus and warn his people."
"I had better get Brad Pickens to work on this and find out who the hell these people were."
"I'm not so sure that would be a good idea, Mr. President," Burke said.
"Why not?"
"They just may have done us a favor. Tilman Suskind told me there are already demands to bring in the Army and mobilize the National Guard to seal the capital tight."
"That's true. They're afraid these terrorists will strike again."
"That's what I mean," Burke said. "With all the panic that's been stirred up, if word got out about this cleanup operation, it could make things a helluva lot worse."
"I see your point."
There was a knock at the door and Suskind stuck his head in. "Mr. President, you have an urgent call from the Ambassador in Minsk. Hill and the Colonel can wait out here while you take the call."
"Never mind," said the President. "It probably concerns what we've been discussing." He picked up the telephone. "Hello, Bob? What's going on over there?"
"I've just talked with Chairman Latishev," Ambassador Robert Markum replied. "He has ordered the arrest of General Nikolsky, the assistant chief of staff. It seems he was plotting with some hardliners to take over the CIS meeting this morning. It apparently involved leadership of the Commonwealth Coordinating Committees all over the former republics."
The President hung up after a few minutes and looked across his desk. "Ambassador Markum effectively confirms what you two had already learned. Chairman Latishev has initiated a roundup of some of the plotters, including General Nikolsky. He wants me to make an announcement that the United States is prepared to come to the aid of the CIS if necessary."
"Will you?" Burke asked.
"I should convene an emergency meeting of the National Security Council first and discuss it. It will certainly be interesting to hear what some of my stalwart advisers have to say about tonight's events." He stood up, signaling it was time to move on. "I appreciate more than I can say what you two did tonight."
"We had a very good reason," Burke said. "Both of our families were in that audience at the Capitol."
They had just left when another urgent phone call came in to the Oval Office. This one was from Bernard Whitehurst in Colorado.
"I see from the television that you have had quite a rough time in Washington tonight," Whitehurst said in a remorseless voice.
"It could have been worse," the President said. "And almost was."
"In what way?"
"I just had a briefing from Burke Hill with Worldwide Communications Consultants. He tells me the nerve gas came from a chemical mortar shell. There were two others ready to fire."
"Did he offer any proof?"
"He and a Colonel Warren Rodman repulsed the attackers. Then all of the evidence, including bodies, weapons, everything, was confiscated by what appeared to be a paramilitary group."
"That sounds rather implausible, don't you think?"
"Unfortunately, no."
"Did he say who might have hired them?"
"Possibly the people behind the plot."
"The Shining Path?"
"No. Former Soviet hardliners who want to take over the Commonwealth of Independent States."
Whitehurst's voice turned skeptical. "Hill said that?"
"Colonel Rodman. He had learned about it through an investigator from Minsk. I just had it confirmed by Bob Markum, our ambassador to Belarus. Chairman Latishev has ordered the arrest of some of the ringleaders. He wants me to announce that we'll come to the aid of the commonwealth if it becomes necessary."
"Surely you aren't going to do that. We shouldn't be bailing out a failed system," Whitehurst said. "The so-called 'hardliners' are right, you know. There is too much dissention over there, too much infighting, too much ethnic violence. They need a firm hand at the helm. It is in our interest to have a unified government we can deal with. We may not like their politics, but we know what to expect from them and how to do business with them. The Roundtable Board and the Council of Lyon have thrown their support behind a group known as the New Party Committee. They can consolidate power and provide the stability that is needed. It will be in the best interest of the American foreign policy establishment, as well as the American people. I urge you, back off and let it happen."
The President had received substantial financial support from the Whitehurst family during his campaign. A number of other influential Roundtable members had contributed heavily. He knew that he could not totally ignore their wishes without some peril. But the campaign was long past. He also had to consider those two hundred and fifty million people out there that he represented. They might be reluctant to send their tax dollars over to bail out ailing economies, but they would not stand by docilely and watch the re-enslavement of people who had only recently won their freedom.
"I'm sorry," he said, "this might be in the best interest of the leadership of the Roundtable, but I don't believe it's what the American people would want. If I tell them how nearly half a million people at the symphony concert had a close brush with death tonight, and I will if I have to, I'm positive what their answer would be. That was a despicable thing, Bernard. The more I think about it, the less I'm sure your hands are totally clean. Did you know the families of Burke Hill and Colonel Rodman were in that crowd?"
"Did Hill suggest that I had something to do with this?"
"No," the President said. "Should he have?"
"I think you will live to regret this decision, Mr. President. I am quite sure that Burke Hill will."
As soon as the President got off the phone, he called in his key staff members and got to work on an announcement for the news media. The White House press secretary soon issued a statement that investigators were pursuing reports connecting the disaster behind the Capitol with former Soviet hardliners. Then, at midnight Eastern Daylight Time, an hour before the CIS meeting was to convene in Minsk, the President appeared in the White House briefing room to announce that, if requested by leaders of commonwealth states, the U.S. would send military forces to help them maintain their independence. Unstated was the fact that he did not expect to be sending any troops or aircraft. Naval vessels were already in the area. He had communicated directly with Chairman Latishev and was convinced that the threat would be enough to stave off any action on the part of remnants of General Zakharov's hardliner plot.
79
The statement coming from the television in the Brackins' recreation room in Falls Church was cheered by the group who watched. Besides the Drs. Brackin and the elder Hills, it included a properly patched up Roddy Rodman and a happy, smiling Karen and Lila. Burke had picked them up in Alexandria as he and Roddy drove back in Walt's Blazer.
Walt passed around glasses of champagne, which he had uncorked to celebrate the successful conclusion of what had been a living nightmare.
Roddy proposed a toast. "To Yuri Shumakov," he said, raising his glass, "who laid his life on the line and paid the price to save us all."
"Hear, hear," the others replied as they turned up their glasses.
"I intend to tell his family what he did," Roddy added, a determined look on his face. He glanced over at Burke. "Do you really think we're safe now?"
"From Adam Stern, yes. Bernard Whitehurst can control him. But I've come to realize that nobody is really safe with Whitehurst and his fellow megalomaniacs out to run the world. If it suits their purposes, they won't hesitate to foment a war or trigger a depression or support isolated disasters like the one that almost took place here tonight."
Three days later, with the dress shop opening postponed for a week and the charges in
Mexico quietly dropped, the newlyweds, Roddy and Karen Rodman, boarded a flight for Minsk, Belarus. They spent their honeymoon visiting with Larisa, Aleksei and Petr Shumakov and attending Yuri's funeral. He received a hero's burial attended by Chairman Latishev and General Borovsky, the service conducted by his mother's priest.
Note from the Author
After following a snake-like career path that writhed about from newspapers to magazines to speechwriting to advertising to PR to association management, I settled on novel writing after retirement. I'm having a blast. My PI characters do things I'd never dare attempt. As for the Post Cold War Political Thrillers, they grew out of my love for spy stories I devoured throughout the Cold War. I did a mountain of research while writing them, which occurred when I first turned to fiction in 1989. When they didn't sell, though I had a succession of agents, I laid them aside and went on to other themes. In 2011, after my second Sid Chance mystery was published, I decided to resurrect them, polish them up with what I'd learned in the past twenty-plus years, and try the publication route again. Most of my stories are drawn from life, from all the weird and wonderful things that go on around me. Since I've been observing this for nearly 88 years now, there's no shortage of stuff to draw on. You can learn more at:
http://www.chesterdcampbell.com
Overture to Disaster (Post Cold War Political Thriller Trilogy Book 3) Page 51
