13
PROCESS
Why did I ever accept this job?
Roger Durling was a proud man. The upset winner of what was supposed to have been a secure Senate seat, then the youngest governor in the history of California, he knew pride to be a weakness, but he also knew that there was much to justify his.
I could have waited a few years, maybe returned to the Senate and earned my way into the White House, instead of cutting a deal, and delivering the election to Fowler… in return for this.
“This” was Air Force Two, the radio callsign for whatever aircraft the Vice President rode on. The implicit contrast with “Air Force One” made just one more joke that attached to what was putatively the second most important political post in the United States, though not as earthily apt as John Nance Garner's observation: “A pitcher of warm spit.” The whole office of Vice President, Durling judged, was one of the few mistakes made by the Founding Fathers. It had once been worse. Originally, the Vice President was supposed to have been the losing candidate who, after losing, would patriotically take his place in a government not his and preside over the Senate, setting aside petty political differences to serve the country. How James Madison had ever been that foolish was something scholars had never really examined, but the mistake had been corrected quickly enough by the 12th Amendment in 1803. Even in an age when gentlemen preparing for a duel referred to each other as “sir,” that was something that pressed selflessness too far. And so the law had been changed, and the Vice President was now an appendage instead of a defeated enemy. That so many Vice Presidents had succeeded to the top job was less a matter of design than happenstance. That so many had done well — Andrew Johnson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman — was miraculous.
It was in any case a chance he would never have. Bob Fowler was physically healthy and politically as secure as any President had been since… Eisenhower? Durling wondered. Maybe even FDR. The important, almost co- equal role for the Vice President that Carter had initiated with Walter Mondale — something largely ignored but highly constructive — was a thing of the past. Fowler did not need Durling anymore. The President had made that quite clear.
And so Durling was relegated to subsidiary — not even secondary — duties. Fowler got to fly about in a converted 747 dedicated to his use alone. Roger Durling got whatever aircraft might be available, in this case one of the VC-2oB Gulfstreams that were used by anyone who had the right credentials. Senators and House members on junkets got them if they were on the right committees, or if the President sensed a need to stroke their egos.
You're being petty, Durling told himself. By being petty, you justify all the crap you have to put up with.
His misjudgment had been at least as great as Madison 's, the Vice President told himself as the aircraft taxied out. In deciding that a political figure would place country above his own ambition, Madison had merely been optimistic. Durling, on the other hand, had ignored an evident political reality, that the real difference in importance between President and Vice President was far greater than the difference between Fowler and any of a dozen committee chairmen in the House or Senate. The President had to deal with Congress to get any work done. He didn't need to deal with his Vice President.
How had he allowed himself to get here? That earned an amused grunt, though the question had occurred to Durling a thousand times. Patriotism, of course, or at least the political version of it. He'd delivered California, and without California he and Fowler would both still be governors. The one substantive concession he'd gotten — the accession of Charlie Alden to the post of National Security Advisor — had been for naught, but he had been the deciding factor in changing the Presidency from one party to another. And his reward for that was drawing every crap detail in the executive branch, delivering speeches that would rarely make the news, though those of various cabinet officials did, speeches to keep faithful the party faithful, speeches to float new ideas — usually bad ones, and rarely his own — and wait for lightning to strike himself instead of the President. Today he was going out to talk about the need to raise taxes to pay for the peace in the Middle East. What a marvelous political opportunity! he thought. Roger Durling would outline the need for new taxes in St Louis before a convention of purchasing managers, and he was sure the applause would be deafening.
But he had accepted the job, had given his word to perform the duties of the office, and if he did any less, then what would he be?
The aircraft rolled unevenly past the hangars and various aircraft, including NEACP, the 747 configured as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, known as “Kneecap,” or more dramatically as “The Doomsday Plane.” Always within two flying hours of wherever the President might be (a real headache when the President visited Russia or China), it was the only safe place the President might occupy in a nuclear crisis — but that didn't really matter anymore, did it? Durling saw people shuffling in and out of the aircraft. Funding hadn't been reduced on that yet — well, it was part of the President's personal fleet — and it was still kept ready for a rapid departure. He wondered how soon that might change. Everything else had.
“We're ready for departure. All buckled, sir?” the sergeant-attendant asked.
“You bet! Let's get this show on the road,” Durling replied with a smile. On Air Force One, he knew, people often showed their confidence in the aircraft and the crew by not buckling. More evidence that his airplane was second-best, but he could hardly growl at the sergeant for being a pro, and to this man Roger Durling was important. The Vice President reflected that this made the sergeant E-6 in the U.S. Air Force a more honorable man than most of the people in politics, but that wasn't much of a surprise, was it?
“That's a roger.”
“Again?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, sir,” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
“Okay, give me a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ryan finished off his coffee and walked off towards Cabot's office. He was surprised to see Goodley in there again. The youngster was keeping his distance from the Director's cigar smoke, and even Jack thought that Marcus was overdoing the Patton act, or whatever the hell Cabot thought he was trying to look like.
“What is it, Jack?”
“C AMELOT,” Jack replied with visible annoyance. “Those White House pukes have bowed out again. They want me to join in instead.”
“Well, are you that tied up?”
“Sir, we talked about that four months ago. It's important for the people at the White House to—”
“The President and his people are busy on some things,” the DCI explained tiredly.
“Sir, these things are scheduled weeks in advance, and it's the fourth straight time that—”
“I know, Jack.”
Ryan stood his ground. “Director, somebody has to explain to them how important this is.”
“I've tried, dammit!” Cabot shot back. He had done so, Jack knew.
“Have you tried working through Secretary Talbot, or maybe Dennis Bunker?” Jack asked. At least the President listens to them, Jack didn't add.
He didn't have to. Cabot got the message. “Look, Jack, we can't give orders to the President. We can only give advice. He doesn't always take it. You're pretty good at this, anyway. Dennis likes playing with you.”
“Fine, sir, but it's not my job — do they even read the wash-up notes?”
“Charlie Alden did. I suppose Liz Elliot does, too.”
“I bet,” Ryan observed icily, ignoring Goodley's presence. “Sir, they are being irresponsible.”
“That's a little strong, Jack.”
“It's a little true, Director,” Ryan said, as calmly as he could.
“Can I ask what C AMELOT is?” Ben Goodley asked.
“It's a game,” Cabot answered. “Crisis-management, usually.”
“Oh, like S AGA and G LOBAL?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. ”The President never plays. The reason is that we cannot risk knowledge of how he would act in a given situation — and yes, that is overly Byzantine, but it's always been that way. Instead, the National
