Future Weapons of War

work and late nights and bad food—once he had gotten here to the White House, he had forbidden chicken to be served in any way at any dinner, private or state-related—but here he was. Top of the heap. Ol’ numero uno. POTUS and king of all he surveyed.

And he couldn’t get his goddamn computer to work.

He traced the plastic keys one more time, and then shook his head and looked back at his desk.

He picked up the phone and this time, no dial tone. Nothing. So there was definitely a problem. A dead phone. Then how come no one had told him? And where was Rogers, his chief of staff? Damn it, the man was sometimes so close to him that the cartoonists—and especially that new bastard at the Post—drew cartoons that showed him and Rogers, joined to the hip, moving merrily along. Sometimes the two of them were walking in aimless circles, and other times they were walking over a cliff. He picked up a pen and started doodling aimlessly on a fresh legal pad. One of the perks of office. Fresh legal pads on your desk, every morning. But days like this, he sure could have used some of the old perks.

Like the ones R.N. was able to use, back when he and his knuckle-draggers ruled the roost. Ol’ Nixon was probably the last one with the cojones to use the FBI and CIA and IRS as his personal Praetorian Guard and enforcers, and he sure could have fun using that kind of power. Have that cartoonist bastard at the Post get an audit, go through seven years of his financial records. See if his pen inked so straight after that little adventure.

He put his pen down and leaned back again in his chair. This was too much. Where was everyone? He glanced down at the underside of his desk and the tiny red pressure-plate marked on the side, within easy reach. Just a second of pressure there by his knee and the room would be filled with Secret Service agents. That would sure get someone’s attention. The radios would be crackling with code words, saying that he had signaled that he was in danger. Code words. Let’s see, Reagan had been Rawhide and Carter had been Deacon. Nice choices. Those SS guys always had a quirky sense of humor. And Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger… who the hell knew? His own code name was Tailor. His father had been a tailor and he himself enjoyed fine clothes, and the name was okay. Of course, some of his best critics—like that smarmy economics professor who wrote a column for the Times—said his code name often meant that he tailored his opinions and objectives to whichever way the wind was blowing. Which hurt, in a weird way, though he had tried to make up for it lately at… what was the place?

Sprat. Something Sprat.

And look where that had gotten him.

He stood up from his desk and paced around the Oval Office, wanting to stretch his legs some.

No, he won’t be triggering the panic switch. Love to see that incident in the next day’s Post! He stopped by the fireplace, leaned back on the mantelpiece. The first time he had been here, during some governor’s delegation visit to the previous POTUS, he had taken it all in and had come away with two impressions. First, that the Oval Office was a hell of a lot smaller than he had thought. And second, well, he knew it was kind of crazy, but the room sort of spoke to him. In a friendly way. Something like, ol’ man, the next time you’re in this place, you will be The Man, and it will be yours for four years, eight if you’re lucky, and we’ll be seeing you. And he had whispered—real crazy times, now—he had whispered, “You bet.” And thought with a brief moment of terror that one of the escorting Secret Service guys had heard him, and he giggled with relief later when he realized the agent hadn’t.

He looked up at a clock on the fireplace’s mantelpiece, a warm gift from the people of some African country that had successfully bamboozled him out of a few million dollars of foreign aid last year in exchange for pretending to cooperate in the latest version of the war on terror. It was a bit ugly but it worked, and it told him that it was 10:30. The morning almost halfway shot, and he hadn’t spoken to a single person since getting here! What a waste of a day!

He looked over at his desk, and got a little chill that started at the base of his skull and which dripped down his back. Funny, from here, you could see what it looked like on television. He frowned as he remembered the last time the in-house TV crews had trooped in here and had set up the lights, microphones and TelePrompTer. He was sweating and his legs were trembling under the desk, and had needed a pep talk from Rogers before going on national television. It was the first time since high school—since he was a teenager for God’s sake!—that he had actually experienced stage fright. His hands were so moist that they were making wet marks on the paper sheets of his speech, the one on his desk in case the TelePrompTer shit the bed, and he knew that the others in the office could smell the fear about him. Rogers, Gillian and a bunch of aides were all staring at him, and in one corner was an angry-looking Corcoran, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, glaring at him with contempt. That look had frightened him. The head of the most mighty military in the World was staring at him with hate,and something else… yes, something else. Fear. There had been fear on the face of that old foot soldier, fear that the trillions and trillions spent over the decades, in building up the greatest force the world had ever seen, fear that… He shook his head. Refused to think about Corcoran any more.

And what was it that Rogers had said, just before that speech? “They need to be reassured,” he had said, almost plaintively, a warm hand on his shoulder, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “They need to see that, sir, in your voice and mannerisms. They need to know everything will work out, that everything will be fine.”

There were questions he wanted to ask, more questions, but then the red light over the main television camera went on and he went into autopilot, and said the words written for him as best as he could. He read them and part of him was far away, wishing he was up at Camp David or the summer White House up in the Adirondacks, phones off, television off, everything off, and just getting drunk and sitting around and reading paperback mystery books. That’s what he wanted to do, more than anything else in the world, and instead he had been sweating in an office that really didn’t belong to him, talking to millions of people who were his countrymen, and lying the best way he knew how.

The President shook his head in distaste at the memory and strolled back to his desk. Again, he switched the computer off and on, and the screen was still blank. Well, time for some action. He went across the office and then stopped, thinking he had seen something. He looked out the murky green windows. There. Just over the trees. Some smoke. Something was burning, and it didn’t look like the D.C. fire department had the sucker under control. Of course, anything that the government of D.C. ran was invariably out of control, but that was an opinion he never shared, even with some of his warhorse buddies from New York State. Votes were votes, and you tried not to screw over those friends of yours when you could.

Out of the office door and into the secretarial area. Nothing. The desks were empty, plastic dust covers over the terminals. His Secret Service detail wasn’t here. The military officer with the briefcase that held the launch codes, also known as the football, wasn’t sitting at his usual post. Spooky. Could everyone have called in sick today? Was it possible?

Or maybe they were just out of the building. In training or something, or one of those loony empathy or encounter training groups the Department of Labor was pushing, where people had to play role games and be the oppressed or the oppressor or something. God, that was something he would have to put the squeeze on, and soon. Election day was just over a year away, and problems, man, he had problems that he didn’t need to add to. He made a mental note to ask his Secretary of Labor to put a halt to some of the more loony programs. He had the loony left on his side. Had to make sure you didn’t piss off the muddling middle.

He went to one of the secretary’s desks, ran a hand over the smooth plastic. He supposed he could have taken off this dust cover and then sit down and work at this desk. Then he could log on, check his e-mail, check the overnight wire reports, and then do a little… Well, just for a while, to relax his mind. His mouth was dry at the thought. Could work now, couldn’t it? But as he started tugging off the dust cover, he stopped. That wouldn’t do, not at all. The President of the United States couldn’t be seen typing at someone else’s desk. That was unseemly. He was a bit of the man of people but he also knew what Reagan and his crew had worked with. A little pomp and circumstance was something the people craved. So no saxophone playing, no jogging and no boxers versus briefs for this Chief Executive. And no being alone with any goddamn female interns! And he’d hate to see the kind of gossip that would come around if he had been at this desk, and the entire section trooped back in and saw him here. Nope. Wouldn’t do at all. Not very presidential.

He went down the hallway and then slowed and stopped. Damn, it was quiet. No phones were ringing, no voices, nothing. Where was everyone? He was in the southwest corner of the West Wing, known as the Rectangular Office, which belonged to his chief of staff. He poked his head into his chief of staff’s office. Empty. Through the windows of the office he could make out the gothic ugliness of the old Executive Office Building. Damn it, if the man