“If they had information about 9-11 and didn’t tell us, what would we think of them as allies?” Corrine said.
“We can stop T Rex,” said Slott. “Right, Ferg?”
“If we figure out who he is.”
“The President is going to have to make the call,” said Corrine. “He has to have the final say here.”
Fifteen minutes later, Corrine knocked on the door to the Oval Office and then went in, waiting while Pres. Jonathon McCarthy finished up a phone call with a congressman who was opposing McCarthy’s health-care reform package. The chief of staff, Fred Green-berg, stood near the desk, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his nervous energy a sharp contrast to the President’s laid-back country-boy expression.
“Well,” said the President finally, drawing out the word in the over-pronounced Southern style he liked to use when making a point. “I do hope you will consider my points, Congressman, just as seriously as I am going to consider yours. And you know I take them
The President put the phone back on the hook.
“I’ve owned mules that weren’t half as stubborn,” he said.
“We’re sunk,” said Greenberg.
“Now don’t go giving up the ship when we have only just spotted the iceberg,” said McCarthy. “We still have a few moments to steer the rudder and close the compartment doors. Wouldn’t you say so, Miss Alston?”
“On a difficult issue like this, it may take some time to win over votes,” said Corrine. “Perhaps you should delay the vote.”
“Spoken like a true lawyer, used to billing by the hour.” McCarthy laughed. “You have something you need me to address?”
“Yes.” Corrine glanced at Greenberg.
“I have to go answer a couple of e-mails,” said the chief of staff. “I’ll be right back.”
When McCarthy and Corrine were alone, he folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.
“We are going to lose this one, I’m afraid,” he told Corrine. “We just do not have the votes. But sometimes it’s important to keep the horse in the race.”
“Sometimes.”
“What would you think of talking to Senator Segriff for me about this? He might be persuaded to come around. He is not an unreasonable man.”
“Wouldn’t it be better coming from you?”
“Sometimes a young filly can succeed where an old craggy nag will fail.”
“So I’m a filly now, am I?”
McCarthy laughed and sat upright in his chair. “Deah, if I offended you, well then, I am just going to have to apologize. I assure you that I do not think you are a horse, young or otherwise.”
“I hope not.”
“Now what is so important that my chief of staff has to answer his e-mail personally, which I believe he has not done in six or seven months.”
“Italy and Special Demands.” Corrine gave him a brief summary of the phone conference.
“If the assassin is planning an attack in a public square, we have to notify the Italians,” she told him. “We can’t let an attack like that go off without warning them to take steps. If the situation were reversed, we’d want blood.”
McCarthy tore off the top page of the notepad he had on his desk and rose. “I don’t suppose Tom Parnelles likes the idea very much.”
“He didn’t voice his opinion.”
“That would be the answer right there, I suspect.” McCarthy crumpled the paper and tossed it into the basket.
“Ferguson — the lead op on the First Team — is worried that if we bring the Italians in on it, we’ll tip off the assassin he’s supposed to capture,” said Corrine. “He argued against it.”
“I’m sure Mr. Parnelles and Mr. Ferguson are on the same page on this,” said McCarthy. “There is an argument to be made there.”
“It’s overweighed. Think of a hundred people dying in Minnesota or Omaha because the Italians wanted to capture a person they thought killed one of their intelligence officers. We wouldn’t stand for it.”
“No. We wouldn’t. This would make the rendition flap look like a Sunday school debate over the devil’s favorite lie.”
Corrine nodded.
“The Director feels personally responsible for his officer’s murder,” continued the President. “Do you remember the incident, Corrine? No, actually you wouldn’t, as it was just before you came on board,” said McCarthy, answering his own question. “You hadn’t joined the intelligence committee staff yet, had you? Well, Mr. Parnelles had just been appointed as chief of the CIA when his man died, and he took it almost as a personal insult. I believe the officer who was killed had had some association with him earlier as well. I believe he may have worked for him at one time, if memory serves.”
“I think he feels responsible for his people,” said Corrine. “I think that’s natural.”
“Yes, dear, that is natural, but you see, there are sometimes more important things to consider.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell the Italians. Find a way to do it while preserving our operation. And please, take care of this personally.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
McCarthy drummed his fingers on his desk. “The wording on the Iran finding — have you finished it?”
“It’s ready,” she said, mentally changing gears. “We’re not on the strongest grounds, Jonathon.”
“Hopefully we won’t need it. Secretary Steele continues to assure me that the Iranians are about to sign the treaty and give up their weapons, just as North Korea has done. It is a solution I much prefer. I just wish that the Secretary of State would get them to move with a little more
Several weeks before, McCarthy had decided that the Iranian nuclear program had progressed to a point where it would have to be dealt with decisively. While his administration had been working behind the scenes to get the Iranians to abandon their program, Iran’s Sunni neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had concluded that they needed nuclear weapons to counterbalance their traditional Shiite enemies and had secretly begun to work on a bomb together. If they developed one, McCarthy believed, the odds of nuclear war in the Middle East or of terrorists obtaining the weapons would be astronomical.
The President had therefore decided to force the issue — he would offer aid to Iran and a full normalization of relations if they dropped the project. If they didn’t, he would destroy the infrastructure that supported it.
Estimates by the CIA indicated that the program was still vulnerable to coordinated air strikes but would only remain so for a few more months; the President had set an internal deadline for an agreement at the end of the month, a week away. He’d asked Corrine to draw up a legal argument supporting a first strike. “Something a little more thoughtful than might makes right,” he’d said. McCarthy greatly preferred a peaceful settlement, since an attack would bring very serious and not necessarily predictable repercussions; nonetheless, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East was an even worse choice.
“I can have the draft on your desk in an hour,” Corrine said.
“No, no. I only want to make sure it’s ready.” Ever the poker player, McCarthy was thinking about using the finding as a way of forcing the Iranians to ante up — if they balked at Steele’s proposal, he’d have the finding leaked to convince them he meant business.
And if that didn’t work, then he’d have no alternative but to go ahead with the attack.
“Have you been following the situation in Iran?” McCarthy asked.
“Not as closely as I should,” said Corrine. It was a defensive answer; she had actually been reading every report and briefing available.
“There continues to be resistance to the agreement, especially among the Revolutionary Guard. Talk of a coup.”
“No one seems to think that’s serious.”
