“Sir, apropos of nothing whatever, I’m sure you will agree that when people lose their tempers, they sometimes act irrationally.”
“What are you driving at, General?”
“I wouldn’t want to be quoted on this, sir.”
“But?”
“While I can certainly understand the President’s anger at having McNab’s people walk out on his remarks. . there are those who might say his reaction to the insult was a bit irrational.”
“I don’t like where this conversation appears to be going, General.”
“Sir, when people. . anyone. . has a little time to think things over, to realize that when they were angry they did some things, said some things in the heat of anger, that they wish they hadn’t done or said.”
“Jumping to the bottom line, you’re suggesting that in a day or two the President will cool off. Okay. He probably will. So what do we do today?”
“When you arrived here, Mr. Secretary, I told you that I would comply with the President’s desires the moment General McNab returned from Afghanistan, which should be in the next few days.”
“McNab isn’t in Afghanistan.”
“He can be on his way to Afghanistan in a very few minutes.” Beiderman looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
“When you call the President, you could tell him that,” Naylor said. “That General McNab is on his way to Afghanistan.”
Secretary Beiderman considered that for a full-very long-thirty seconds, and then said, “Slide me the red phone.”
“Sir, why don’t we wait until General McNab is actually on his way to Afghanistan? That would be thirty seconds after I call him.”
Secretary Beiderman considered that for another-very long-thirty seconds. Then he said, “Make your call, General Naylor.”
Naylor picked up the headset of the red telephone and pushed one of the dozen buttons on its base.
“Put it on loudspeaker,” the secretary of Defense ordered. Naylor said, “Yes, sir.”
The phone was immediately answered: “McNab.”
“General Naylor, General.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Are you alone, General?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Secretary Beiderman is with me, General.”
“Yes, sir.”
“POTUS sent him here with a stack of photographs of Delta Force and Gray Fox personnel at Colonel Castillo’s party in the Mayflower after they walked out on the President’s remarks at Arlington.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Secretary Beiderman has been ordered by POTUS to order me to show them to you, General, and then inform you it is the President’s desire that you immediately request retirement, and that if you do, that will be the end of it.”
“The end of what, sir?”
Naylor hesitated, and then said, “I think it would be best if you heard this from Secretary Beiderman, General.”
Beiderman’s look of surprise-even shock-quickly turned into one of resignation-he had been had, and he knew it-and then into one of hate and loathing.
For a moment, he just sat there, and then he exhaled and leaned toward the red phone.
“General, the President seems to think you are involved in a conspiracy that will see him resign, which would put Vice President Montvale in the Oval Office.”
There was a long moment, and then General McNab said, very softly, “Mr. Secretary, would you please repeat that? I want to be absolutely sure I heard you correctly.”
After a moment, Beiderman repeated, “General, the President seems to think you are involved in a conspiracy that will see him resign, and would put Vice President Montvale in the Oval Office.”
Another pause, and then McNab said, “And you, Mr. Secretary, do you think I have been, or that I am, involved in a coup d’etat such as you describe?”
“No, of course I don’t,” Beiderman snapped. “But that’s what the President apparently believes, and that’s what we have to deal with.”
“First, Mr. Secretary,” McNab said, “let me categorically deny that I am now or ever have been involved in something like that. And with equal emphasis let me say that I have no intention of requesting retirement at this time. The President has-and for that matter, as you well know-you and General Naylor have-the right to relieve me of command of SPECOPSCOM at any time.
“But for me to resign under the circumstances you have laid out would be a tacit admission that I have been involved in a coup d’etat. And that’s treason, Mr. Secretary!”
“Now, calm down, General,” the secretary of Defense said. “No one’s accusing you of treason.”
Naylor began: “General McNab-”
“Treason is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” McNab interrupted him with cold anger in his voice. “I demand a court-martial!”
Naylor thought,
“No one’s talking about a court-martial, General McNab,” he said.
“I am!”
“General, what Secretary Beiderman and I have been talking about is that when POTUS has a chance, over a few days, to reconsider what must be honestly described as an overreaction to what happened at Arlington and the Mayflower. .”
“An ‘overreaction’? It’s insane, that’s what it is!”
“Watch your choice of words, General,” Naylor ordered sharply. “You’re speaking of the Commander in Chief.”
“Yes, sir,” McNab said after a moment.
“As I was saying, Secretary Beiderman and I have been discussing the possibility that, after a few days, POTUS may reconsider and possibly even regret what can only be described as his loss of self-control.”
Beiderman put in: “Get out of Dodge, so to speak, for a few days. Until this thing has a chance to blow over.”
“And where should I go for a few days until this thing, this outrage, this insanity, blows over?” McNab demanded.
“If you were not at Fort Bragg, General,” Naylor said, “if you were not at Fort Bragg when Secretary Beiderman and I arrived with the packet of photographs. .”
“Go to Afghanistan, for Christ’s sake,” Beiderman snapped. “Confer with your people there. Just be unavailable.”
After a moment McNab said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary.”
The flashing LED on the red telephone stopped flashing.
“What the hell?” Beiderman demanded incredulously. “Did he hang up on us?”
Naylor held up his hand and then extended his arm and looked at his wristwatch.
Precisely sixty seconds later, he pushed a button on the red telephone. The LED began flashing.
“SPECOPSCOM,” a new voice come over the circuit. “General O’Toole speaking, sir.”
“This is General Naylor. Let me speak to General McNab, please.”
