76 - Washington, D.C.
The man is losing it, Homeland Security Director Paterson thought. I’ve never seen the President like this. Gen. Paterson was in the White House Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing. Also present were the acting Attorney General, a man named Harrison who Gen. Paterson had never met; Air Force General Cruz, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the FBI director, and various aides and assistants. The President’s legal counsel, Carol Cabot, sat at his right.
“The face recognition software used proprietary algorithms to match sixteen facial features with ...” the FBI director was directing a laser pointer at a chart projected onto a screen at the far end of the long table. He recited the words on the screen in a droning voice a hair more human-sounding than a telephone answering system. Gen. Paterson struggled to pay attention to the man, wondering how such an insect of a personality could have risen to the position he’d held through three Presidents’ terms. He must keep some very good files on some very important people, he thought.
All eyes in the room were directed at the screen.
Gen. Paterson glanced toward President Quaid. His eyes widened in horror. The President’s head was tilted far back. He stared at the ceiling, apparently focusing his entire attention on his right index finger, which was inserted into his right nostril and was twisting to snare a gob of hardened snot under his fingernail.
The Homeland Security director saw Carol Cabot, sitting to the President’s right, turn to look at her boss, then quickly jam her left elbow into his side. The President’s finger retracted from his nostril and he turned to look at the screen, but not before glancing at his fingertip to see whether he’d extracted anything of value.
President Quaid looked up to see Gen. Paterson staring at him. The President abruptly interrupted the FBI director with an angry shout.
“You couldn’t even take the guy into custody without killing him,” President Quaid shouted. “And what do you recover from this guy? What? A bomb? A pile of uranium? All you got was a pair of radioactive fucking gloves? I want heads to roll, big heads, maybe your head.”
“Yes sir,” the FBI director replied meekly, adding, “for the record, though, Mr. President. It wasn’t my men who killed the Israeli. It was a New Hampshire trooper who shot him, sir.”
The President’s face turned red with anger. He looked around at the table in front of him, saw a yellow legal pad, picked it up and threw it at the FBI director, sending it flying over the man’s left shoulder, just missing his face. The rest of the people at the table turned their faces away, embarrassed at what they had witnessed.
“That trooper shot the Jew after he kicked your agent in the ass and stole your men’s car, with handcuffs still on. And now the guy’s dead and we have no idea where that bomb is or who he was working with.”
The President paused, making an effort to control himself.
“Do we know we killed the right guy at least?”
Nobody spoke. President Quaid glared at the FBI director. Finally, the man spoke up.
“Well, Mr. President, we can’t be sure, sir,” he said. “The photo we had was pretty blurry, not to mention old. The video camera setup at the toll plaza was slick, but it was an overnight job and it wasn’t rigged to record the images it processed, it just received them and ran them through its computer.
“And, well, sir, it seems that trooper was the state police marksman of the year or something. He fired four shots, through the windshield, at a moving vehicle, sir, and, well, they pretty much destroyed the man’s face, sir.
“My forensics people say they can’t make a positive identification, sir.
“But, sir, he did have radioactive gloves in his back seat, sir.”
The President looked for something else to throw. Carol Cabot, who had known Lawrence Quaid longer than anybody else in the room, placed her hand on his arm to calm him. Quaid sat back in his chair and let out a deep sigh.
“I’m looking like a horse’s ass,” he said. “These Jews are making fools of us. Let me review things, just in case anybody here misses my point.
“We made a strategic decision not to send troops into the Middle East after the first bomb there. Things looked bad at first, but they settled down damn quickly there. Learn the lesson of Iraq, right? The UN will send relief workers to those camps and we’ll give them a billion dollars and make things there not so bad. We all know that.
“But then the Israelis had to go and blow up Damascus, killing a hundred thousand innocent Arabs in one shot. After that, there was no way we could have supported them. We would have had the whole Muslim world against us, I should say, even more against us, if we’d lifted one finger for the Israelis after Damascus. Besides, after Iraq I’m not sure our guys would have boarded the planes to fly over there. I don’t know if their parents would have let them go.
“OK, so what do they do to us next, these Israelis? First those two boats show up in Boston out of the blue. No way we could let them in. Besides the Arabs being all over us, every immigrant group in this country would have rioted if I’d let white, European immigrants in after we’d booted every illegal Mexican and Chinese family out of the country.
“Then we have a virtual military insurrection in Boston by our own citizens, well, a selected group of our own citizens. And it turns out that besides starving refugees on those ships, there were commando teams, armed to the teeth. Now why was Israel trying to sneak commando teams into Boston, I ask you that?
“Then, to top it all off, we have proof positive that they’ve smuggled an atom bomb here, an atom bomb, maybe like the one they dropped on Damascus.”
President Quaid held up his left hand and ticked off points on his fingers, one after another.
“First, these are people who have demonstrated their willingness to use their nuclear weapons.
“Second, they infiltrated trained military personnel into our country.
“Third, American Jews have shown which side they’re on and that they’re willing to break the law to protect their own people.
“Fourth, they’ve killed American military.
“Fifth, we know they’ve brought one of their nuclear bombs into our country, our country for God’s sake, and ...”
The President ran out of fingers.
“And now they’re setting off bombs in shopping malls.”
Gen. Paterson hesitated before interrupting the President’s rant. He looked around the table, then directly at President Quaid.
“Mr. President,” he said quietly, unsure of the wisdom of stepping in front of this Presidential freight train. “There are some indications that the shopping mall bombs weren’t set off by Jews after all. A couple of Muslim teenagers are missing. Their cars are at the two malls. They made some suspicious credit card purchases just before the bombings. And . . .”
“Bullshit. Class A fucking bullshit.” The President’s roar shocked even General Paterson. “Don’t you think the Jews would be clever enough to plant a diversion like that? What are your people, children to fall for something like that?”
Paterson looked at the table as he spoke softly. “I was about to add that a case of TNT is missing from a construction company, a company owned by one of the boys’ fathers. But I’d better not confuse you with evidence, sir, so I’ll just listen to what you have to say.”
All eyes at the tables pivoted away from the Homeland Security Director, who stared down at the table top in disbelief, and toward the President, now standing.
“Gentlemen, ladies, this country is under attack. And the enemy has a fifth column, a huge fifth column spread all over our nation. They’ve shown their willingness to strike, both the foreign ones and the domestic ones. Those mall bombings are just the start, I predict.
“Congress gave me the authority I asked for, the same authority Bush the Second got from his Congress after September 11. I’ve got the authority now to do whatever I damn well decide best protects this country. I’ll be holding a press conference this evening. I’m gonna sign today’s legislation. And then I’ll put in place a Presidential directive to protect this country from so-called citizens who place their interests above the interests of the United States of America.”