Hellfire

By the time she reached the Oval Office, she had heard the same news reports that the president had and had an idea why she’d been summoned. Things big enough to get her summoned to the White House just didn’t stay quiet that long.

Just as the helo touched down, the details became available on the radio. “We have just learned from the Coast Guard station in San Diego, California, that there has been a major disaster at sea involving the SS Montego Bay. A luxury cruise liner, the Montego Bay was making her normal run between San Pedro and Hawaii. According to preliminary reports, the cruise liner has suffered some sort of casualty. The situation remains unclear, and there is no word on deaths or injuries.”

A cruise liner. So what had happened — hostages? A collision? Please, not one involving our Navy.

Montego Bay—she hadn’t been aboard her but had been on a sister ship years ago. How many years ago — twenty, perhaps? She remembered the ship had seemed so very glamorous at the time.

“Come right in, Madam Ambassador,” the president’s chief of staff said as he met her outside the Oval Office. “He’s waiting for you.”

He was behind his desk, scribbling through some papers, but looked up as she walked in. Relief flashed across his face and then the worried lines reappeared. “It’s breaking now,” he said, pointing at the TV in the corner. A newscaster was flashing up what appeared to be file photos of the SS Montego Bay, a chart with her current location on it, and then brief bios of the captain and crew. All this background information meant only one thing — they were stalling, killing time until they could figure out what the Coast Guard reports meant. Or, better yet, until they could get their people on scene. As a last resort, if any ship in the area were in cell phone range, they would settle for a very informative and highly unauthorized cell phone call from some sailor to the mainland.

“Three hours ago,” the president began, “the Russian aircraft carrier opened fire on Montego Bay. Or, to be more precise, the Admiral Kurashov launched a surface attack missile at Montego Bay. It struck near the stern, causing massive damage. The captain wisely elected to execute an immediate abandon ship, and probably saved a lot of lives that way.”

“The Russians fired on a cruise liner?” Wexler repeated, stunned. “That doesn’t make sense. What possible reason could they have for doing that?”

The president shook his head. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Not a clue, Mr. President. Not a clue. Casualties?” she asked.

“All the passengers have been taken aboard the USS Jefferson. A complete tally is still pending, but it looks like there are a number of people missing, presumed dead. Primarily crew members that were belowdecks, either off shift or working near the engineering spaces. There are probably more.”

“How many passengers?”

“Four hundred and twenty seven. Two hundred crewmen. As of the last report, five hundred and forty-three people are accounted for.”

“Dear God.” Wexler said a silent prayer, stunned. “And what do the Russians have to say about it?”

“I haven’t talked to them yet.” The president’s voice was impassive.

“You haven’t — why in the world not? You’ve got to, don’t you? That’s the whole point of the hotline and of all the arrangements made for immediate communication between the two of you.”

“The Cold War is over, Sarah.”

“But — Mr. President, surely you can see this makes no sense. You’ve got to talk to them. Something like this can get out of hand so fast that there’s no controlling it.”

Wexler stopped, aware that she was starting to babble. It wasn’t that she wasn’t making sense. She was, and she had worked with the president too long to believe he didn’t understand her point. So why hadn’t he called the Russians? What possible reason could he have?

As she studied him and saw him look away from her, saw a faint line of red creep across his jaw, she knew. With a heartsick lurch in her gut, she knew. He had proved himself beyond this before, but evidently he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

“There’s a problem,” he said finally. “Evidently one of our cruisers fired anti-air missiles at the missile launched by the Russians, intending to intercept and destroy it before it could hit anything. It may— may—have intercepted the other missile in the vicinity of the Montego Bay.”

So that’s it. You are pretty sure the Russians are at fault, but you can’t prove that our missile didn’t hit the cruise liner. And right now, that’s got you more worried than the people that died.

“What do you think the public perception of this is going to be?” she asked, careful to keep all traces of horror and disgust out of her voice. “How is the best way to approach this?”

“It’s hard to say,” he said neutrally, but it was too late. She had already seen a flicker of relief on his face as he decided she understood what his concern was. “On the face of it, it appears completely outrageous. But it’s dangerous to work off first assumptions without a complete report. For now, see what you can find out from their side. I’ll talk to their president soon, but I’d like to be a step ahead of him when I do.”

“I understand, of course,” she said. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

The president stood and the ambassador followed suit. He came around the desk and laid one hand on her shoulder as he escorted her to the door. “Thank you, Sarah. Let me know as soon as you can.”

As she stood in the hallway outside the Oval Office, Wexler wondered just what was going on.

After she left, the president stared down at the papers in front of him, trying to concentrate. There would be nothing critically important in the pile — officer appointments, routine matters, a few personal letters his chief of staff had decided he should sign. Anything of substance, such as legislation, would have been hand-carried in to his office by the appropriate action officer, and he would have been rebriefed on the importance of it before he signed it.

Not that everything of importance got signed in front of his staff. Much as they might not like it, the president did have some matters pending that his staff knew nothing about. Oh, they’d caught hints that something was afoot, but he’d managed to deflect their suspicions, and for the most part, his staff believed that Betty Lou was entirely more human than she was.

“Mr. President?” his chief of staff asked. “Admiral Magruder is here.”

“Send him in. And keep everyone else out,” the president said, holding up his hand to forestall protest from his chief of staff and from the Secret Service. “Just do it.”

“Admiral,” the president said warmly as the senior Magruder entered the room. “Thank you for coming.”

“I am always at your disposal. You know that.”

“Sit.” The president waited until Magruder was seated, then said with a sigh, “That satellite business. It’s not going to stop there, is it? The Russians have really screwed the pooch on this one.”

“It was a risk,” Magruder conceded. “We knew that from the start.”

“I know, I know. Still, now that things are hosed up, what do you recommend?”

“We do nothing,” Magruder said promptly. “After all, we haven’t yet evaluated the Russians’ information, have we? And until we do, there’s no point in second-guessing ourselves on allowing them to take out the satellite.”

“That’s true. So when will we know something about their quid pro quo?”

The senior Magruder smiled, a wintry expression settling in around his eyes. “In a few days Mr. President. In a few days. We’ll also know more about what happened with our missiles and theirs and the Montego Bay. But even if we had final answers to those questions, I wouldn’t want to move until we knew the rest of the answers.”

The president sighed. “I know you’re right. But I’m going to be getting a lot of pressure here real soon.”

“I know. Let them think you’re just worried about the election. Or that you’re having some sort of illicit relationship with this Betty Lou.” Magruder stopped, seeing the look of distaste on the president’s face. “Just stall, Mr. President. Just for a few days.”

“Okay. I can do that. But get back to me as soon as you can on the other stuff. If they’re feeding us disinformation, I’m going to haul their asses into international court over that satellite.”

After Magruder left, the president forced himself to concentrate on the innocuous papers still needing his