up.” King paused once again and then said, “Yep, put together a dozen questions and call me back in five minutes.”
Pulling the phone away from his face. King pushed the end button and looked to see his boss’s reaction to the speech. Baxter’s expression had turned from one of surprise to a mysterious frown. King asked, “What do you think?”
“We’re fucked,” mumbled Baxter without taking his eyes off the TV
“The press is going to go berserk over this failed raid.”
Looking at his boss. King thought. You think they’re mad about this?just wait until they find out I gave one of them a tour of the building last month. King gathered himself.
“The press will be fine. This story is so big and it’s moving so fast this little speech will be old news by tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t think so,” said Baxter, not yet prepared to look at any upside.
“This little incident has ‘congressional investigation’ written all over it.”
King looked at his boss, who was still staring at the TV with a look of defeat on his face.
“This whole thing, from start to finish, has ‘congressional investigation’ written all over it, and this one incident will be a footnote… Besides, we insulated ourselves from it. General Flood has already taken the blame, and he did it right in front of Director Roach… the man who will eventually investigate the whole thing.”
“I don’t know… It still stinks.”
“The whole thing stinks. You just have to remember, when this is all over, it’s gonna be the guy who stinks the least who comes out smelling like a rose.” King pointed at his boss.
“And I’m going to make sure that guy is you.”
“Dallas”-Baxter grimaced-“I don’t think you’re being realistic about this. All of this stuff is not just going to be swept under the rug. The press is going to want answers, and they are going to want to know if I authorized sending those men in last night.”
King shifted sideways in his seat. He wanted to choke his boss and scream, “If only you had my problems!” Instead in a calming voice, he said for the last time, don’t worry about the press. I can handle them.
You need to get your spirits back up and start acting like the president. We’re going to have to react to this new development, and if the polls come back the way I think they will, we really might have a chance to squeeze our way out of this mess.”
Baxter turned his head toward his aide and asked, “How?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet, but I will.”
Baxter looked away from King and checked his watch.
Then with a sigh, he said, “I suppose I’d better call a meeting with the National Security Council.”
King nodded.
“That would seem to be the next logical step.”
Baxter waved his right hand as if shooing away a fly.
“Take care of it.”
“When and where?”
Twisting his lips, Baxter gazed out the window and said, “Ten o’clock at the Pentagon.”
“YOU KNOW WHAT he’s doing, don’t you?” Rapp sat with the handset of the secure field radio gripped tightly in his left hand. He stared blankly at the wall in front of him while he listened to General Campbell give his take on Aziz’s national address. They had played the speech for Rapp over the radio and had asked if he would like to hear it again. Rapp had declined. He knew exactly what Aziz was up to and didn’t need to waste a second more analyzing it.
Rapp nodded in response to what General Campbell was saying and said, “That’s right. He’s trying to play you guys for patsies.”
“Excuse me,” replied the stern ranger on the other end.
“Patsies,” repeated Rapp, never one to choose his words too carefully.
“He wants Vice President Baxter and all of the other politicians up on the Hill to roll over and meet him at the bargaining table. Then once he gets what he wants, he’ll go back to the Middle East, disappear, and a year from now he’ll be building more bombs and killing more people.”
“What if he seriously wants to make peace?” chimed in Irene Kennedy.
“It’s out of the question,” Rapp replied emphatically.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Irene, don’t play this game with me. I don’t have the time or the patience to sit here and listen to you play devil’s advocate. You know as well as I do that Rafique Aziz could give a rat’s ass about the American people, or his Arab brothers and sisters, for that matter.
Hell… the only Arabs he cares about are the ones that want to wipe Israel off the map. As far as the rest of us are concerned, he’d slit our throats in a second if we got in his way.”
“Then what’s he up to?” asked Kennedy.
Rapp sat back, swinging one of his legs out from underneath him as he thought about it. He looked over at Rielly, propped up in the corner with the blanket wrapped around her. She was watching him intently.
Looking away from her, Rapp said, “He’s trying to find a way out of this without getting his head blown off. We know he’s a meticulous planner.
He thinks everything through from start to finish and prepares multiple contingencies in case things go wrong. As I look at his plan, the one big problem I see is how he gets out of there… how he gets home. We can bank on the fact that he’s thought it through every step of the way in terms of how we’d react. And from that, we can assume he knows there would be a strong contingency in the government that would push hard for an all-out raid. Now, if he had gotten his hands on the president, everything would be a little different. My guess is that he was planning to use Hayes as his bargaining chip to get home, but he blew it, and now he’s been forced to fall back and use a different plan.”
“And what would that be?” asked General Campbell.
Rapp looked up at Rielly while he thought about it. She was still staring at him with those emerald green eyes. He knew she was listening to everything he said, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Rapp looked away and said, “He trying to manipulate the media and sway public opinion. He knows without the president he’s not getting home.
Let’s face it-“ Rapp paused, feeling somewhat awkward about saying the next part in front of Rielly, but there was really no other way. After clearing his throat, he said, “If you look at the big picture, we all know every one of those hostages is expendable, and if we know it, so does Aziz. If he was to continue an aggressive, hostile position, he would eventually force us to storm the place. There is no way we could just sit by while he killed hostages on national TV So by going in front of the public this morning and putting on this bullshit peace-loving attitude, he’s taken the wind out of our sails. Baxter won’t let us take action until an effort is made at peace.”
“I agree,” said Kennedy.
“In the end, he knows every single one of those hostages is expendable.
The president was his trump card, and he didn’t get it.”
General Campbell added, “He’s trying to give the politicians a way out of this mess without firing a shot.”
“Well, that’s not gonna happen as long as I have a say in the matter.”
“Iron Man,” stated Campbell in a firm voice. “I don’t want you doing anything unless you are authorized. The last thing we need right now is you running around half-cocked. Now, Irene and I have to get over to the Pentagon for a meeting, and in the meantime, we want you to stay put.
When we get back, we’ll have a better idea of how we shall proceed. Am I understood?”
Rapp looked down at the floor and held his temper in check. He’d already learned his lesson. Don’t ask a question if you’re not going to like the answer.
“Yes, sir,” was Rapp’s simple two-word reply as he placed the handset back in its cradle. Pausing for a second, he looked at the power switch and debated his next move. After about fifteen seconds of indecision he turned off the radio and looked up at Rielly.
