Madam President (27 page)

Marguerite nodded.

“Maybe we should plan to touch base when the news breaks in the press about Warren,” Peter suggested.

Dale smiled weakly. “Yes,” she agreed.

“Call me if you need anything before that,” he offered.

“Marguerite, let’s catch up in my office,” Dale proposed.

She stood for the first time in what felt like hours and felt so light-headed that she had to grab Marguerite for balance.

“Do you want to sit back down?” Peter asked.

“No. I just felt dizzy for a second. I think I need some fresh air.”

Dale held on to Marguerite as they moved slowly toward the press office.

“Marguerite, fill me in. Are our guys driving you crazy?”

“Evan wrote a nasty hit piece on his blog about the homeland security secretary being clueless after the briefing. She sat in my office crying for half an hour.”

“Jesus, I’m so sorry you had to deal with them by yourself.”

Marguerite spoke without stopping to breathe as they walked back toward their offices. Dale felt reassured about her decision to return to work. The sheer volume of requests for information and interviews would help numb her from her own pain for a while.

It wasn’t until she was settled at her desk, catching up on the latest news articles, that she realized she hadn’t thanked Peter for breaking the news to her and taking care of her afterward.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Charlotte

M
adam President, we need to reach a consensus in here about how we manage the news about the Chicago and LAX bombers being U.S. citizens,” the FBI director implored. “We are in the process of moving the alleged attackers’ families into custody for questioning and protection,” he added.

Charlotte nodded. They’d gone around and around the question of whether and when to release the identities of the bombers for the last forty-five minutes. The early theory on the attacks from the intelligence community was that all of the attackers were living in the United States and were coached by someone from ISIS or Al Qaeda to launch a lethal multicity attack on soft targets.

Now the suspects’ apartments would be searched, computer hard drives would be examined, e-mail and text records would be reviewed, and the story would probably be a familiar one. The difference between this investigation and the others that had occurred on Charlotte’s watch was that this group had managed to elude law-enforcement and intelligence agencies during the planning and implementation phases. One of the theories presented to her in the meeting was that they’d communicated on the “secret Internet.” A senior intelligence analyst had recently done an entire presentation on secret Internet messages and transactions at one of the recent
national security meetings. He’d explained that it was of particular concern because of the difficulty of monitoring the encrypted material. Charlotte wondered if that analyst would be on television the following morning claiming to have been waving a red flag at her national security team.

One thing was clear to Charlotte. The bombers had innovated beyond the government’s ability to watch and protect and prevent. The suspects detained in Miami offered the greatest opportunity for intelligence gathering, but it could be weeks before they talked.

“Where are we on the Miami suspects?” Charlotte asked.

“They’re being moved to a federal facility.”

“Gitmo?”

“That’s TBD. Most likely Gitmo for security purposes and a host of other legal and logistical reasons.”

Charlotte had requested a private briefing with the attorney general for nine
P
.
M
. to revisit the enhanced interrogations that had been utilized by previous administrations. She remembered being asked about torture during the presidential campaign. At the time, Charlotte had said she’d take a careful look at the issue and had assured the interviewer that she’d never do anything to endanger the lives of American soldiers fighting abroad. But now the debate about enhanced interrogations seemed ludicrous. She’d do anything to find out who was behind the deadly attacks and to make sure no other attacks were planned.

“If there are no security issues, I leave it to Craig and the lawyers and communications folks to make the determination about when we release the bombers’ IDs.” Charlotte stood to leave.

“Madam President, is it something you’d like us to save for your speech to the nation?” the CIA director asked.

“I don’t want anyone to do anything when it comes to releasing information to the public for the purpose of my speech. Understood?”

Heads nodded. Charlotte walked out of the Situation Room alone and rushed upstairs.

She hadn’t been able to reach the Carmichaels yet. Sam had tried several times before the NSC meeting, and the calls went directly to voice mail. Charlotte didn’t want Sam to leave a voice message ask
ing them to return the call. She couldn’t imagine receiving a message like that about one of her children, and she wasn’t about to put them through any more anguish than what they were about to endure.

“Sam, let’s try both of their numbers again,” Charlotte called from inside the Oval Office.

She heard Sam pick up her phone and was surprised to hear her say, “Mrs. Carmichael, please hold for President Kramer.”

Even though she’d been thinking about it since the moment she learned that Warren had been killed, she still didn’t know what she was going to say to his parents. Charlotte wanted them to know that their son was a hero and that she’d found him indispensable. She’d tell his mother and father that their son was kind, humble, funny, and wise beyond his years and loved by all—especially her. Charlotte would make sure that they knew that he died helping others and that she would make sure that the individuals behind the attack were brought to justice. But those things seemed inconsequential. In Charlotte’s eyes, Warren was a man in the prime of his life, but Charlotte knew that if the news were being delivered to her about Harry or Penny, her thoughts would be on the baby she’d brought home from the hospital. She would think about the first steps Penny and Harry had taken, the first words they’d uttered, and the way she’d celebrated their first days of school, Christmas mornings, and birthdays. How did you tell a mother that the boy she raised to do the right thing and help others and live a life of service had died in the line of duty? How did you tell a mother that the son she prayed for every day while he served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan had died in an attack in Washington, D.C.?

Charlotte took a deep breath and walked around her desk. She picked up the phone slowly.

“Mrs. Carmichael?”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Melanie

T
he plane was starting to feel claustrophobic, and Melanie worried that her perspective on the attacks might be too insular for her to be guiding so much of the president’s decision making and shaping her public posture. She hadn’t seen an instant of news coverage yet, and she wasn’t sitting in the room with the rest of the president’s national security team. She was stuck at forty thousand feet.

“Sit,” Melanie mouthed at her communications advisor, who had appeared in the doorway while she was holding for the chairman of the joint chiefs. She wanted to give the chairman direction about the plans that Charlotte would expect from them. He came on the line and listened quietly while Melanie outlined what she needed. When she finished, he launched into a long response about the fruitlessness of drafting plans that he couldn’t recommend in good conscience to the president.

“Bud, of course you can put your finger on the scale in terms of the final outcome, but she is going to want to understand her choices at a very detailed level. She’ll want to know what each option would involve regarding troop strength, coalition possibilities, and logistical pros and cons. She will not rule out the harbor-and-support doctrine, and she will not want to rule out some extremely targeted military strikes.”

Melanie listened as the chairman laid out a handful of reasons why the sort of war planning that she was looking for was complicated by
the fact that Congress had been balancing the federal budget on the back of the military for the last five years. She listened patiently and then reiterated her request.

Something in his voice made Melanie pause.

“Bud, is there something that you’re worried about that we haven’t discussed?”

“Madam Secretary, folks around here are shaken. The last time this happened, we were pulling bodies out of our offices. This brings all of it back.”

Melanie prided herself on being in touch with the morale in her building, but in this instance, she’d underestimated the emotional trauma that another attack on the capital would cause for everyone working at the Pentagon.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t need you to tell me that. Being trapped on the plane is impairing my capacity to appreciate how everyone there must be experiencing this day.”

“No apology necessary, Madame Secretary. People understand that they have a job to do. I’ll get a team together right away to start tweaking the plans that exist already for your review later tonight.”

Melanie hung up and turned her full attention to her spokesman. “What are you hearing?” she asked.

“We’re starting to get calls about our coordination with allies and intelligence sharing.”

“Send all of that to State and CIA today.”

“I did.”

“What else?”

“Our press is asking if you will come to the back of the plane and read out some of your meetings and calls.”

“Not now. I’m crashing on the president’s speech, and I have something that I need your help with.”

She wanted her spokesman to be prepared to release the statement she’d worked up from her and on behalf of the Pentagon that could be released as soon as the news broke about Warren’s death.

He took out a pen and a pad. “Madam Secretary, there’s something sensitive that I’m going to need your guidance on.”

“In that case, you go first.”

“The first thing you need to know is that this didn’t come from our traveling press. It came from the CBS Pentagon producer back in D.C. My deputy passed it along.”

“What is it?”

“Patty Siebel, the off-air, said that she is hearing that the president, quote, stormed out of the PEOC earlier today against the advice of the Secret Service, end quote, and
while
the continuity-of-government plans and procedures were still in place.”

Melanie nodded.

“And that she refused to relocate to a more secure location even after the Secret Service and her husband urged her to do so,” he added.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“OK.”

“How do you want me to handle this?”

“Don’t do anything. Let me make a couple of calls.”

The leak would be extremely damaging to the president. As Melanie had warned Charlotte hours earlier, it would make her look emotional and unprofessional. While it was debatable that what she’d done constituted storming away, it was a fact that she’d left the bunker at a time when the Secret Service would have preferred her to stay in the PEOC or relocate to a more secure place than the White House.

“How did Patty describe her source?”

“ ‘A senior administration official familiar with the goings-on in the PEOC,’ ” he read from his notepad.

“The source isn’t claiming to be a witness?”

“Not explicitly. She just said ‘familiar with the goings-on.’ ”

“Give me a minute.”

“Thanks. What did you have for me?” he asked.

“It can wait.”

He turned to leave, but Melanie stopped him and closed the door to her cabin.

“The president did leave the PEOC for a few minutes early in the day. No attacks were under way, but it was premature for her to leave the safety of the PEOC. She returned after spending about ten minutes in the Oval Office.”

“Thank you for telling me,” he replied.

As soon as he left her cabin, Melanie called Sam. “Is she there?”

The president picked up immediately. “I was about to call you. The Carmichaels were unbelievable.”

“I need to ask you about something first. The CBS Pentagon producer just got a tip from a senior administration official that would suggest that we need to tighten the circle of participants for future NSC meetings.”

“What kind of tip?”

“A senior administration official told someone at CBS that you may have violated security protocols by leaving the PEOC while the continuity-of-government plans were still in place.”

“Why would someone discuss my movements with the press today, of all days?”

“I’m not sure. It’s probably some deputy assistant secretary trying to show a reporter how in the loop he is. Why don’t you have Sam send me a list of all of the participants, and we’ll get the agencies to submit participant lists, too. Maybe some jackass at the State Department is trying to become famous.”

“I thought the call came from a Pentagon reporter?”

“It did, but it’s a rookie-leaking tactic to call a reporter who doesn’t cover your principal.”

“What do you really think is going on?”

“I’m not sure, but I’d like your permission to limit the number of people who get a draft of the speech and who participate in the next NSC meeting.”

“Yes, of course. Is there any way to figure out who it was?”

“It’s more important that it doesn’t happen again.”

“I agree.”

“I’m going to handle it, Madam President. Don’t worry. I’m going to call Dale now to enlist her help.”

“Is she up for it?”

“I’m about to find out. I wanted your permission to take the lead.”

“Permission granted.”

“Thank you, Madam President. I’ll call you back in a few minutes. I want to hear about the Carmichaels.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Dale

M
arguerite!” Dale called from her office.

Marguerite appeared in her doorway.

“Where are Lucy and Richard?”

“They were broadcasting from the North Lawn about forty-five minutes ago.”

Dale flipped through all of the stations to make sure she hadn’t missed them. “They’re not there now.”