‘Do you have anyone in mind?’
Dan Esposito nodded. He’d already quietly canvassed the idea on the Hill and when he’d put forward Richard Halliwell’s name the response from the Republican heavyweights, already nervous over the war in Iraq, had been overwhelmingly positive. Esposito’s research had revealed that Richard Halliwell had started his career working in CDC’s Level 4 labs as a biochemist. The President’s advisor had noted that it hadn’t been long before Halliwell had been attracted by the bigger bucks on offer in private enterprise. Paralleling the staggering rise of Enron, in a little over three decades, Halliwell had taken a medium-sized biotech and turned it into the world’s biggest pharmaceutical. Halliwell had a reputation on Wall Street for being a ruthless, successful and mega-wealthy businessman and ‘ruthless’ was something Esposito understood and could work with. The Halliwell conglomerate was more than a match for GlaxoSmithKline and the rest of Big Pharma combined, and Halliwell shares had just reached a new high of $141 on the New York Stock Exchange.
There was something else that attracted the politically astute Esposito, who was forever looking for an advantage over the Democrats. Esposito had discovered that Halliwell was a prominent Southern Baptist and a member of one of the largest churches in the country; the Buffett Evangelical Center for Christ could seat 15,000 worshippers. America was overwhelmingly a Christian country and Esposito’s latest research indicated that over 50 per cent of the population were Protestant, 25 per cent Catholic, and another 11 per cent described themselves as Christian without specifying a denomination. Esposito had separate plans for the Catholics, but he knew that with evangelical preachers like Jerry Buffett on side a big part of his next election campaign could be fought from the pulpit. In a country where voting wasn’t compulsory, voter apathy was an ever-present danger but if the evangelical right were convinced a candidate was one of them, several thousand preachers could be brought into play. The growing power of the Christian Right could be harnessed to get over 30 million evangelicals, who were in church on a Sunday, down to the polling booth the following Tuesday.
‘Richard Halliwell,’ Esposito replied, endorsing his candidate without hesitation. ‘I know he would have a lot of support on the Hill, and he would also have the support of Jerry Buffett and a lot of the Reverend Buffett’s colleagues,’ he added, appealing to the President’s relationship with his spiritual advisor. ‘It will be important for your place in history, Mr President, for the country to continue to support the Republican ideals that you’ve set in place.’
‘What about Bolton?’ the President asked, more than well aware of his deputy’s ambitions.
‘He’s a good Vice President,’ Esposito replied carefully, ‘but he’s made a lot of enemies over the years, and frankly, Mr President, he’s carrying too much baggage for an election campaign. The Democrats would re-raise his share portfolio and we’d spend the whole campaign defending him.’ Esposito did not go so far as to air his intelligence from his contacts in Inland Revenue. Should that ever surface the President needed to be in a position to employ the time-honoured defence of ‘I wasn’t told’.
The President looked thoughtful. Esposito was right. Although he wasn’t eligible to run again it would be important that his legacy continued.
‘Halliwell’s smarter than the Vice President and he’s clean,’ Esposito said, sensing he had won the President’s support. ‘For now we’ll need to keep this under wraps. Halliwell’s a pretty good golfer, so I suggest you and I have a quiet round with him and that way any suggestion that we met for other than social reasons will be deniable.’
President Harrison grinned. ‘He’s good,’ he said, ‘but not that good. I whipped his ass the last time we played.’ There was nothing the President liked better than a game of golf. It not only got him away from the war on terror and any one of a dozen other crises that seemed to constantly swirl around the White House, but it was a much more likeable form of combat. On the golf course you could see your enemy and assess his every move.
Dan Esposito allowed himself a smile. He hated golf with a passion but it wasn’t a complete waste of time. Whenever Esposito wanted to get the President’s complete attention on something, he could often achieve far more over eighteen holes than he could in the Oval Office. It was a small price to pay. Richard Halliwell was a man after his own heart, he mused. Yes, ruthless and uncompromising, but the war on terror and a strategy to deal with the raging Chinese required nothing less.
For once Esposito’s research lacked its usual depth and thoroughness. He’d been blinded by Halliwell’s business acumen and membership of the big Southern Baptist Church. If Dan Esposito had carried out his research into Richard Halliwell with the same meticulous attention to detail that he gave the poll data that flooded into his office each week, he might have discovered that Richard Halliwell’s reputation on Wall Street, like his membership of the Buffett Evangelical Center for Christ, was not all it seemed.
CHAPTER 22
T he Captain of the direct service from Atlanta, Georgia to Reagan Airport beside the Potomac River in Washington DC, listened as the direction from the Control Tower crackled in his headset.
‘Delta Flight 1874 you are cleared to descend to 10,000 feet. On leaving level 190, switch to primary approach on 119 decimal 85.’
‘Descending to 10,000 feet. Thank you and have a good day.’ It was a fine, clear morning and the dome of the Capitol building was faintly visible in the distance. A great day for flying, the Captain thought, as he prepared to ease back the twin throttles on the Boeing 737-800 and his co-pilot reached for the radio console to change frequencies.
In the cabin behind them the purser took the intercom. ‘As we’ve now begun our descent into Washington, would you please ensure that your seatbelt is fastened, your tray table secured and your seat is in the upright position.’ The most powerful Christian televangelist in America, the Reverend Jerry Buffet, seated in row 1A, reluctantly obeyed the purser’s directions and pushed the armrest button that controlled his comfortable leather seat. The powerful turbofan engines quietened and the nose of the 737 dipped towards the ground.
Jerry Buffett smiled politely as he accepted the warm face towel from the young flight attendant. Of just average height, the Southern Baptist televangelist was in his early sixties but he looked ten years younger; his tanned, square-jawed face was one of the most recognisable in America. He wiped his hands and face and then turned to look at the countryside below. He had seen the broadcast by Dr Khalid Kadeer and when the President had asked him for his advice he had caught the first available plane that had a first-class seat. Jerry Buffett had no doubt that the threats from Kadeer were real, but as he would explain to the President, the real threats facing America had very little to do with Kadeer’s explanations from a false religion and the Qu’ran. The warnings were in the Bible and the Lord continued to bring these to America’s attention. When Ariel Sharon, supported by the President, withdrew Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, the land that had been promised to Israel, the Lord had felled Sharon with a mighty stroke for daring to divide the Promised Land. The Bible warnings were crystal clear but God’s chosen people in Israel and the United States continued to ignore them.
As the 737 banked away from a distant Chesapeake Bay, Jerry Buffett reflected on the two greatest threats he saw facing the United States, both predicted in the Bible. The coming threat from China was made clear in Revelations 9:15-16. ‘So the four angels were released, who had been held ready for the hour… to kill a third of humankind. The number of troops was 200 million.’ There was only one country in the world capable of raising such an army and Jerry Buffett knew that the CIA fact book on China indicated that the number of men of military service age in China had passed the 200 million mark in 2001.
The other threat, the one from Islam, had already appeared on September 11, and the rise of Osama bin Laden had also been predicted in the Bible over 2000 years ago, when Daniel said that a great Islamic leader would appear. A ‘Mahdi’ who would galvanise Islam against the West. ‘And there shall be a time of trouble as there never was before,’ Daniel had said.
The Reverend Jerry Buffett had warned his massive congregation more than once about the threat from the evil religion of Islam and his mind turned to Matthew’s description of Christ’s time on the Mount of Olives and Christ’s prophecy to his disciples of the world’s coming destruction. ‘What will be the sign of your coming again, and the end of the age?’ the disciples had asked, and Jesus had answered, ‘You will hear of wars and nation will rise against nation.’ Since the end of the Second World War, the number of wars around the globe had increased
