by Eikeltje
"But there's another component to this," Hood told him.
"There's the cumulative psychological impact of disinformation. What if
plausible deniability and bureaucratic confusion aren't the reasons the
president was misled? What if there's another reason?"
"Such as?" Herbert asked.
"What if disinformation isn't the end but the means?" Hood said.
"What if someone is trying to convince Lawrence that he's losing his
grip?"
"You mean, what if someone is trying to gaslight the president of the
United States?" Herbert declared.
"Yes," Hood replied.
"Well, it's going to take a lot of convincing before I buy that,"
Herbert said.
"For one thing, anyone who tried that would never get away with it.
There are too many people around the president--"
"Bob, we already decided that this is something Jack Fenwick would not,
probably could not, do on his own," Hood said.
"Yes, but to make it work, he'd need a small army of people who were
very close to the president," Herbert said.
"Who?" Hood asked.
"The chief of staff?"
"For one," Herbert said.
"He's privy to most of the same briefings the president receives."
"Okay," Hood said.
"Gable's already on my list of unreliables. Who else? Who would be
absolutely necessary for a plan like this to work?" Before Herbert could
answer, his phone beeped. He answered the call and was back in less
than a minute.
"Don't tell me, "I told you so,"
"Herbert said.
"Why?" Hood asked.
"A high-level official at the CIA in Washington got the intel about the
Harpooner from the NSA," Herbert told them.
"The NSA didn't have anyone in Baku, so they notified the CIA. The CIA
sent David Battat."
"Whom the Harpooner knew just where to find," Rodgers said.
"Instead of killing him, the Harpooner poisoned him somehow. And then
Battat was used to bring out Moore and Thomas at the hospital."
"Apparently," Herbert said.
"Paul, you asked a question a moment ago," Rodgers said.
"You wanted to know who else would be necessary for a psyops maneuver to
work against the president. That's a good question, but it's not the
first one we need to answer."
"No?" Hood said.
"What is?"
"Who would benefit the most from the mental incapacitation of the
president?" Rodgers asked.
"And at the same time, who would be in a perfect position to help make
some of the disinformation happen?" Hood's stomach was growling now. The
answer was obvious. The vice president of the United States.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 11:24 p.m.
Vice President Charles Gotten was in the ground-floor sitting room of
the vice presidential residence. The mansion was located on the
sprawling Massachusetts Avenue ; grounds of the United States Naval
Observatory. It was a twenty-minute drive from here to the vice
president's two offices: one in the White House and the other in the
neighboring Old Executive Office Building. It was just ' a short walk
from the mansion to the National Cathedral.
Gotten had been spending more time than usual at the
cathedral. Praying. An aide knocked and entered. The woman told the
vice president that his car was ready. The vice president thanked her
and rose from the leather armchair. He entered the dark, wood-paneled
hallway and headed toward the front door. Upstairs, Cotten's wife and
children were asleep.. My wife and children. They were words Gotten
never thought would be part of his life. When he was a senator from New
York, Cotten had been the ultimate lady's man. A new, gorgeous date to
every function. The press referred to these younger women as "Cotten
candy." There were regular jokes about what went on below the Gotten
belt. Then he met Marsha Arnell at a Museum of Modern Art fund-raiser in
Manhattan, and everything changed. Marsha was twenty-seven, eleven
years his junior. She was a painter and an art historian. She was
telling a group of guests about late-twentieth-century art and how the
work of commercial artists like Frank Frazetta, James Bama, and Rich
Corben defined a new American vision: the power of the human form and
face blended with landscapes from dream and fantasy. Gotten was
hypnotized by the young woman's voice, her ideas, and her vital and
optimistic view of America. They were married four months later. For
nearly ten years; Marsha and their twin girls had been the foundation of
Charles Cotten's life. They were his focus, his heart, and their future
was never far from his thoughts. They were the reason the vice president
had conceived of this plan. To preserve America for his family. The
fact was, the United States was at risk. Not just from terrorist
attacks, though more and more those were becoming a very real threat.
The danger facing the United States was that it was on the verge of
becoming irrelevant. Our military could destroy the world many times
over. But other nations knew that we would never do that, so they did
not fear us. Our economy was relatively strong. But so were the
economies of many other nations and alliances. The Eurodollar was
strong, and the new South American League and their SAL currency was
growing in power and influence. Central America and Mexico were talking
about a new confederacy. Canada was being tempted to join the European
economy. Those unions, those nations, did not face the kind of suspicion
and resentment that greeted America the world over. The reason? America
was a giant everyone wanted to see brought down. Not destroyed; they
needed us too much for international policing. They simply wanted us
humbled and humiliated. We were a meddling thug to our enemies and an
overbearing big brother to our supposed allies. These were not concerns
that bothered other nations during times of international depression or
world war. It was all right to invade France to free the French of
Hitler. But it was not okay to fly over France to bomb Libya, the home
of a different despot. It was all right to maintain a military presence
in Saudi Arabia to protect the nation from Saddam Hussein. But it was
not all right to fly jets from Riyadh to protect American troops in the
region. We were not respected, and we were not feared. That had to
change. And it had to change long before Michael Lawrence was scheduled
to leave the White House in three years. That would be too late to act.
The problem had not been caused by Michael Lawrence. He was simply the
latest bearer of the torch of arrogant isolationism. When he was in the
Senate, Cotten had felt that there needed to be a United States that was
better integrated with the world. The one that Teddy Roosevelt had
described. The one that carried a big stick and was not afraid to use
it. But also one that knew how to speak softly. An America that knew
how to use and exert diplomacy and economic pressure. One that had the
resolve to use quiet assassination and blackmail instead of mounting
very public and unpopular mini wars W
hen the senator was tapped to share
a ticket with presidential candidate Michael Lawrence, Cotten accepted.
The public liked Lawrence's "I'm for the people" slogan and style, his
perception as a man who had come back from the political wilderness to
serve them. But he had wanted to balance his relatively up-front and
independent manner with someone who knew how to work the back rooms of
Congress and the corridors of power abroad. Cotten left the mansion and
slid into the car. The driver shut the door for him. They rolled into
the dark, still night. Cotten's soul was on fire. He was not going to
enjoy what he and his allies were about to do. He remembered when he
had first approached them and others individually. Seemingly casual
remarks were dropped. If they were ignored, he let the subject drop. If
not, he pursued it with more pointed remarks. Cotten realized that was
what it must be like for a married man to ask a woman to have an affair.
Go too far with the wrong individual, and everything could be lost. Each
man had become involved for the same reason:
patriotism. The creation of an America that led the world community
rather than reacted to it. An America that rewarded peace with
prosperity and punished warmongers not with a public pummeling and
credibility but with quiet, lonely death. Lawrence was not willing to
cross the line from legal war to illegal murder, even though lives would
be saved. But the dawn of the twenty-first century was not a time for
warfare. It bred short-term misery and long-term hatred. The world was
becoming too small, too crowded for bombs. As distasteful as this was,
a change had to come. For the nation and for the sake of its children.
For the sake of his children. The car moved swiftly through the empty
streets. Washington was always so deserted at night. Only the spies and
plotters were afoot. It seemed strange to think of himself in that
capacity. He had always been a straight shooter. If you felt
passionately about something, you spoke your mind. If you didn't feel
passionately, then it probably was not worth doing. But this was
different. This operation had to be kept very quiet. Kept only among
those who were actively involved in its planning and execution. Now this
was it. Gotten thought. The last leg of the operation. According to
the president's staff, announcing a UN intelligence initiative that did
not exist had seriously rattled Lawrence. It had shaken him more than
the other canards Fenwick and Gable hail led him and subsequently
denied--usually during a cabinet session or meeting in the Oval Office.
"No, Mr. President," Gotten would say softly, seemingly embarrassed for
the confusion of the president, "there was never a Pentagon report that
Russia and China exchanged artillery fire over the Amur River. Sir, we
had not heard that the FBI director had threatened to resign. When did
this happen? Mr. President, don't you recall? We had agreed that Mr.
Fenwick would share this new intelligence with Iran." The question of
sharing intelligence with Iran had been important to the final stage of
the operation. Jack Fenwick had told the Iranian ambassador that
according to United States intelligence sources, an attack would come
from Azerbaijan. They weren't sure what the target would be, but it
would probably be a terrorist attack in the heart of Teheran. Fenwick
had assured Iran that if they retaliated, the United States would stay
out of it. This nation wanted to nurture closer ties with the Islamic
Republic of Iran, not stand in the way of its self-defense. Lawrence, of
course, would be pushed to behave in a less accommodating manner. And
when he realized where his confused perceptions had taken the nation, he
would be forced to resign. The fact that Lawrence had known nothing
about the meeting was irrelevant. At tonight's meeting with the
so-called "Eyes Only Group"--Gable, Fenwick, and the vice president--the
men would convince the president that he had been kept informed. They
would show him memos that he had seen and signed. They would show him
the calendar his secretary kept on the computer. The appointment had
been added after she left for the day. Then they would jump right into
the current crisis. They would trust and the president would lead. By
morning, Michael Lawrence would be publicly committed to a path of
confrontation with two of the most volatile nations on earth. The
following morning, with the help of unnamed NSA sources, the Washington
Post would run a frontpage, above-the-fold article about the president's
mental health. Though the newspaper piece would be hooked to the UN
fiasco, it would also contain exclusive details about some of the
president's increasingly dramatic and fully documented lapses. The
nation would not tolerate instability from the commander-in-chief.
Especially as he was about to send the nation to war. Things would
happen very quickly after that. There was no constitutional provision
for the president to take a leave of absence. And there was no
short-term cure for mental illness. Lawrence would be forced to resign,
if not by public pressure then by act of congress. Gotten would become
president. The United States military would immediately back down in
the Caspian Sea to avoid a confrontation with Iran and Russia. Instead,
through intelligence operations, they would prove that Iran had
masterminded the entire operation in the first place. Teheran would
protest, but the government's credibility would be seriously
compromised. Then, through diplomacy, the United States would find ways
to encourage moderates in Iran to seize more power. Meanwhile, spared a
pounding from Iran and Russia, Azerbaijan would be in America's debt.
After the clouds of war drifted away. President Cotten would make
certain of something else. That Azerbaijan and America shared in the
oil reserves of the Caspian Sea. The Middle East would never again hold
the United States hostage. Not in their embassies nor at the gas pump.
With order restored and American influence and credibility at its peak.
President Charles Gotten would reach out to the nations of the world.
They would be invited to join us in a permanent peace and prosperity.
When their people experienced freedom and economic reward for the first
time, they would cast those governments out. Eventually, even China
would follow suit. They had to. People were greedy, and the old-line
Communists would not live forever. If the United States stopped
provoking them, providing the government with a public enemy, Beijing
would weaken and evolve. This was the world that Charles Gotten wanted
for America. It was the world he wanted for his own children. He had
thought about it for years. He had worked to achieve it. He had prayed
for it. And very soon, he would have it.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday 8:09 a.m.
David Battat was lying on a hard twin bed in the small, sparsely
furnished studio apartment. There was a window to his left. Though the
blinds were drawn, the room brightened as light leaked through the
slats. Ba
ttat was shivering but alert. His abductor, hostess, or
savior--he had not yet decided which--was in the kitchenette off to the
right. She had been making eggs, sausage, and tea when the phone rang.
Battat hoped the call was brief. The food smelled good, but the thought
of tea was even better. He needed to warm himself inside. Do something
to stop the trembling. He felt as though he had the flu. He was weak
and everything he saw or heard seemed dreamlike. But his head and chest
were also very tight. More than from any sickness he could remember.
Hopefully, once he had tea and something to eat, he would be able to
focus a little better, try to understand what had happened back at the
hospital. The woman walked over to the bed. She was carrying the phone.
She stood about five-foot-nine and had a lean, dark face framed by
thick, black, shoulder-length hair. Her cheekbones were pronounced, and
her eyes were blue. Battat was willing to bet there was Lithuanian
blood in her. She handed the receiver to Battat.
"There is someone who wishes to speak with you," she said in thickly
accented English.
"Thank you," said Battat. His own voice was a weak croak. He accepted
the cordless phone. He did not bother to ask her who it was. He would
find out soon enough.
"Hello?"
"David Battat?" said the caller.
"Yes--"
"David, this is Paul Hood, the director of Op-Center."
"Paul Hood?" Battat was confused. Op-Center found him here and was
calling him now to ask about--that?
"Sir, I'm sorry about what happened," Battat said, "but I didn't know
that Annabelle Hampton was working with--"
"This isn't about the United Nations siege," Hood interrupted.
"David, listen to me. We have reason to believe that the NSA set you
