Cauldron

A careless accident? Sabotage by environmental extremists? Who can say? But one thing is very clear according to the experts. This disaster could have been worse. Much worse.”

Desaix was delighted. The TV journalist’s commentary might almost have been written by his own staff.

“If North Star had been in port when she blew up, Gdansk itself would have been utterly destroyed. Tens of thousands would lie dead or dying in the rubble — far more than the hundred or so who died three days ago. And a hellish fire storm fed by natural gas and oil would be sweeping across northern Poland, blackening the skies above all Europe.

“One thing more is clear. Poland and the Czech and Slovak republics cannot be allowed to put us all at risk for their own selfish aims. The time for nationalism is over. Europe must stand united as a single, strong force for peace and prosperity. Or else surrender in shame to those who would exploit us for their own profit.

“This is Raoul Peree, reporting live from Gdansk…”

Desaix used a remote control to turn off the small television. After checking his watch, he punched a special code into his secure phone.

The head of the DGSE was still in his own office. He answered immediately. “Yes, Minister?”

“Fine work, Morin. A most satisfying operation. Congratulate Commander Regier and his men for me.”

“Of course, Minister.”

Desaix hung up, confident that Poland and Eastern Europe would soon submit and join the new European order. Their vaunted independence had fallen prey to a single, well-timed explosive charge.

CHAPTER 11 Confederation

FEBRUARY 23 — CAMP DAVID, MARYLAND

Falling snow blanketed the steep, wooded Maryland hills surrounding Camp David, drifting down out of a slate-gray sky. Soft white flakes settled gently across the mountainside presidential retreat. Wisps of steam rose from an outdoor heated swimming pool, glowing brightly in the light thrown by flood-lamps dotting the compound. Beyond the shining mists, men moved in the darkness growing beneath the nearest trees — Secret Service agents on guard duty.

Dogs barked in the distance — faint and far off. The snow hushed all sounds and made all the world seem at peace.

“Ross? Are you all right?”

Huntington turned away from the window. The President, Harris Thurman, and the others crowded into Aspen Cottage’s small wood-paneled parlor were staring at him. Damn. He’d let his mind wander when he should have been paying attention. The President needed an advisor who could give cogent advice. Not a daydreamer wrapped in his own weariness.

He forced a tired smile. “I’m fine, Mr. President. Just a little short on sleep is all.”

That was a half-truth hovering on the edge of being a full-fledged lie. Constant travel, stress, and gnawing worry over what he saw happening in Europe were taking a serious toll on his health. For the first time since he’d left the hospital two years ago, Huntington felt warning signs from his heart — warning signs he couldn’t easily ignore. An aching right arm and jaw. Trouble breathing after almost any unexpected exertion. Even climbing a single flight of stairs too fast left him winded.

He knew it showed. His wife was starting to look scared again. She wanted him to go in for a checkup, but he’d been putting her off.

A doctor would probably order him to slow down, to take some time for himself. And he couldn’t. His time belonged to the United States and to the President. As long as the nation’s chief executive found his efforts and counsel valuable, personal considerations had to be put on the back burner.

Crap, Huntington told himself. He reined his ego in before it soared out of control. The real truth was that he didn’t want to quit. He’d felt lost and useless after that first heart attack shoved him into early retirement. Gaining the President’s trust had helped him regain his own confidence, Settling for enforced idleness at home or on a golf course somewhere would mean surrendering to boredom and quiet despair all over again.

Besides, he couldn’t give up. Not now. Not when a crucial part of the foreign policy he’d helped shape seemed close to total collapse.

Political shock waves from the LNG tanker explosion were still echoing around the globe. Aided and abetted by the French, environmental extremists were using the North Star disaster as a rallying point for further, more radical opposition to tanker traffic in the Baltic. Even the region’s moderate, unaligned governments — Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic republics — were under increasing pressure to openly oppose the U.S.-and-British-led energy supply effort.

The administration itself was sharply divided over the wisdom of continued oil and gas shipments to Eastern Europe. An uneasy coalition formed by the Secretaries of Energy, Defense, and State still backed the program. But its cabinet-level critics were growing bolder, buoyed by polls that showed public opinion sliding their way. So far the President’s clear determination to help the Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks had kept a lid on the debate. Policymakers sparring over the shipments were keeping their disputes out of public view. All that could change overnight if any of them sensed their leader’s resolution weakening.

Huntington knew how easily actions could be misinterpreted. Rightly or wrongly, the officials who opposed the President’s energy aid program saw him, Huntington, as the “evil genius” behind it. So if he threw in the towel and went home, even for medical reasons, he might take the cabinet’s shaky consensus with him. All their bickering and bitterness could break out into the open and onto the front page. And isolationist vultures in both Congress and the media were already circling — ready to pounce the first time the administration wavered.

That was the deciding factor.

France and Germany were waiting in the wings. Waiting for a cold-war-weary America to abandon the Eastern European countries to their tender mercies. Well, Ross Huntington would be damned before he’d walk away and watch that happen. Not without one hell of a fight. This wasn’t just another memo-riddled skirmish between factions scrapping for control over the administration’s agenda. There were bodies in the Gdansk morgue to prove that. For all practical purposes, whoever had planted the bomb aboard the SeaTrans North Star had declared war on the United States.

The President shared his view of the situation. Which explained this emergency meeting at Camp David.

Huntington studied the men grouped together near the parlor’s stone fireplace. As always, Harris Thurman stood closest to the President, wreathed in the smooth-smelling tobacco smoke curling from his favorite pipe. Despite that, his lean, patrician features were tense. As the Secretary of State, a lot of the political flak lobbed at the oil supply effort was coming his way. In contrast, Clinton Scofield, the Secretary of Energy, looked considerably calmer. He leaned against a wall with his arms folded comfortably in front of him. The Secretary of Defense, John Lucier, stood beside Scofield, shorter by several inches than anyone else in the room. His intelligent brown eyes gleamed behind thick horn-rimmed glasses. The final member of the group, Walter Quinn, head of the CIA, perched on an armchair pulled up next to the fireplace. From time to time the CIA chief mopped sweat off his high, balding forehead, but he stayed right where he was. Caught between a desk job, a slow metabolism, and an aversion to exercise, Quinn carried enough extra weight to be far more comfortable sitting down than standing up. He’d learned how to cope with heat during half a lifetime spent suffering through Washington’s sweltering summers.

All of them were dressed casually, sporting a mix of jeans and corduroy trousers, sweaters, open hunting vests, and unzipped ski jackets. And all of them supported the President’s decision to aid the Eastern European republics.

The White House press office was telling reporters they were at Camp David for a day’s cross-country skiing, but every one of them knew that was pure bullshit. Calling the day-long gathering a ski trip gave the cabinet officers who hadn’t been invited up the mountainside a way to save face. In reality, the President wanted to reassess events in Europe without sparking another clash between those who wanted to help the three small countries and those who’d just as soon ignore them.

Huntington moved closer to the fire and away from the window. He didn’t see any point in giving his exhausted mind more chances to roam free. He was here to explore policy options, not to stare out at the falling