55 - Washington, D.C.
“We have a problem, Mr. President,” Robert Jordan said into the telephone. Jordan was head of the Secret Service team assigned to guard the President and his family. Unlike two other Presidents he’d guarded, Jordan both liked and respected President Quaid. It was Jordan’s job to protect his boss from physical threats. Because he liked President Quaid, however, he thought it proper to tip him off to a political threat, too. He’d reached the President by telephone as soon as he’d finished speaking with another Secret Service agent.
“Mr. President,” Jordan said. “I just spoke with Joe Bergantina. Joe’s in charge of the First Lady’s detail. Joe wanted to brief me about the First Lady’s travel plans for tomorrow, Sir.”
“I appreciate the call, Bob,” President Quaid replied. “But the First Lady makes her own travel plans these days. In fact, she makes her own plans for pretty much everything these days. We’ve decided not to coordinate our schedules any more.”
There are no secrets from the Secret Service in the White House. It is their job to know where every member of the First Family is at every moment. The First Lady was referred to in the Secret Service radio code as Fox, a corollary to her husband’s code name of Wolf, which he claimed derived from the way he could make a roast beef sandwich disappear in fifteen seconds. Agent Jordan knew Fox had not spent a single night in what the detail referred to as the Wolf’s Den in several weeks, not since the day she and the Chief of Staff, Bob Brown, stormed out of the White House and camped out in Boston for a week.
Catherine Quaid had returned to the White House, but the Secret Service noticed that the Lincoln bedroom was no longer available for overnight guests because the First Lady claimed it for herself.
Brown returned, too, but only long enough to hand in his resignation.
Bergantina, the head of the First Lady’s protective detail, quietly told Jordan about standing outside the Lincoln bedroom one evening when the President walked past him and entered the bedroom without knocking, closing the door behind him.
“I couldn’t make out the words through the door,” Bergantina told Jordan the next day. “But they were loud, and the President slammed the door on the way out.”
Jordan had carefully considered whether to call the President after the most recent phone call from Bergantina. He didn’t want to get between the President and the First Lady, not ever, but this information was hot and politically sensitive. He decided the President would cut him off if he were stepping out of line.
“Yes Sir, I understand that the First Lady is making her own schedule now,” Jordan said. “And if I’m getting involved in something that isn’t my business then I apologize in advance, Sir. But I thought you’d want to know about her travel plans for tomorrow.”
“OK, Bob, just out of curiosity and not because I seem to have any say in the matter, go ahead and tell me. Where is my wife going tomorrow?”
“She’s informed her detail that she will be traveling to Massachusetts tomorrow, Sir,” Jordan said. “Since it is available, she will be flying on Air Force One. She said she will be traveling with a delegation, a delegation, Sir. To Massachusetts, Sir. On Air Force One, Sir.”
“So what,” President Quaid barked. Recently, any conversation about his wife caused him instant irritation. “So she’s going to Boston on Air Force One, what’s the big deal?”
“Well, Sir. That’s the problem,” Jordan sounded apprehensive. “She isn’t flying on Air Force One to Boston, to Logan Airport. She is flying to some other place else in Massachusetts. Actually, Sir, she is flying to Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. That’s the base where that detention camp, Camp Edwards, is. The one where the Jews, I mean, the Israelis are being held.
“The First Lady is flying on Air Force One to the detention facility for enemy combatants, Sir, with a delegation of Jewish leaders, Sir. She told her security detail that there should be trucks standing by at Otis to transfer supplies, actually Sir, the term she used was ‘relief supplies,’ to the detention camp.
“I apologize for breaking in on you about this, Sir, but I thought you would want to know about this in advance, Sir, rather than learning about it afterwards. If I’ve crossed the line, Sir, just let me know and I promise you it will never happen again, Sir.”
Jordan rarely heard a President swear with as much energy or originality as what he heard in the next two minutes from President Quaid. He waited silently on the telephone for the President to calm down enough to speak.
“No, Bob, no,” the President finally said. “You did the right thing. I want to know about this in advance. This isn’t something I’d want to find out from the six o’clock news.
“Tell me, Bob, do you have a wife?”
“Yes, Sir, I do, three of them, in fact. All ex-wife types, though. Nobody on board at the moment, Sir.”
“Sometimes, Bob,” President Quaid said wearily, “I think an ex-wife could be the best kind to have. But keep that one under your hat, will you please.”
“With everything else, Sir, with everything else. Good night, Sir.”
From the first day of his political career, Lawrence Quaid prided himself on his moral compass. He patted himself on the back for what he believed was his innate ability to know right from wrong and his commitment to do what was right and to oppose what was wrong. Quaid had become increasingly concerned in recent weeks that, after all, this moral compass had not been in his hands all those years, but had been held by his wife, that she, rather than he, was the good person, the righteous person, and that her career was spent guiding him down the right paths and away from what was expedient but wrong.
His compass needle was swinging wildly now and he felt powerless to get it to remain pointing in any one direction.
He knew he was taking actions that history might not view kindly, but the alternatives remained hidden from him. And it didn’t help when Bob Brown bailed out, either. Quaid corrected himself. Brown hadn’t really bailed out, he thought. I booted him out. He’d simply chosen not to return. And come to think of it, Catherine told me which way to go on that decision, too, and I’d chosen not to follow her guidance.
Oh well, he thought, collecting his strength of will, nobody said this job would be easy. I’m committed to a policy now and I am going to see it through, however history treats me for doing so.
President Quaid picked up the phone and asked to have Gen. Cruz located and invited to see the President. As it turned out, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in the West Wing and came to the Oval Office at a brisk walk. He was shown in and the door was closed behind him.
“Mr. President,” he said, slightly out of breath.
“General,” President Quaid said, nodding. “I am very upset to hear about the mechanical problems that have grounded Air Force One.”
General Cruz looked at the President, a puzzled expression on his face. He said nothing, waiting for Quaid to continue.
“The First Lady planned on flying to Massachusetts tomorrow, to deliver relief supplies to Otis Air Base. General, you can imagine how upset I am that she will be unable to make that trip, can’t you.”
Cruz understood instantly. “Yes, Sir, I’ll apologize personally to the First Lady. The Air Force prides itself on maintaining Air Force One scrupulously. This is a major blunder and I take full responsibility for it, Sir.”
“No apology necessary, General. Better safe than sorry, to be trite,” the President said. “So how long do you expect the plane to be unavailable for the First Lady’s use?”
“Sir, Mr. President, for just as long as you say so, I expect.”
“Thank you, General,” the President said. “I see we understand each other. You may leave now, and, General, thank you.”