Power Curve (6 page)

“We haven’t had a chance to talk in quite a while,” Turner said as she sat down. Bender didn’t answer.

Shaw stood aside and let the secretary of state, Clement Murchison, and the national security advisor, William Rawlings, enter. One of Shaw’s strengths was his ability to read the emotional clues people transmit in their actions or words, and he caught every single one coming from Turner.
She likes this guy
, he thought.
That’s why she keeps him around. The most uptight, rigid asshole in the whole fuckin’ U.S. Air Farce, she likes
. Why had he missed the signs before?

Instinctively, Shaw focused on Bender, his delicate antennae tuned to every nuance.
My Gawd
, he thought,
he does look like a general, lean and mean, unbending, hungry for command
. Was he a lever to control Maddy Turner? Just as rapidly, he discarded the thought. Not because of Turner, but because of the signs coming from Bender. Bender did not like the president. But why? Shaw filed it all away and found a seat next to Rawlings, the national security advisor. He hoped the briefing would not take too long.

“Well, Robert,” Turner said, “what do you have for us today?”

Shaw heard the warmth in her voice.
Damn
, he thought,
a woman talks like that to me and I’m all over her like a bear on honey
. Another thought came to him.
Has she deliberately let her guard down to show me something?

“Madam President,” Bender began, “this is the briefing you requested on the current situation in the Far East. It is essentially a summary of the briefing book in front of you.”

What briefing book?
Shaw thought.
Damn, I haven’t seen a new briefing book
. Then he remembered the earlier conversation he had had with the general. He had been distracted and let it slip through the cracks. Bender had been straight with him.

Shaw listened while Bender ran through the basics.
Nothing new so far
, he thought. It was the standard Pentagon line: an expansionist China was rapidly increasing its military strength and was now a threat to its neighbors and world peace. Next came the scare tactics. Something about the delivery of six Xia-class missile submarines ahead of schedule; a naval task force centered on China’s first aircraft carrier being operational; and finally, a long discussion on China’s nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare capability. According to the Pentagon’s current analysis, the biological agents developed by the Chinese were far more deadly and sophisticated than any nerve gas toxin.
Where did all that come from?
Shaw wondered.

Turner liked the way Bender ran through the briefing: fast, articulate, and well organized. Out of habit, she flipped the pages of the briefing book, reading as he talked. But she could read much faster than he could summarize the main points and was well ahead of him.

Her head came up. “General Bender, skip ahead to, ah, the topic on page 67.” She looked at Shaw. “Patrick, check outside and send Jackie back to her office. Make sure the guard is down at the far end of the hall by the stairs and no one enters the corridor. Then lock the door.”

“We’re secure in here, Mizz President,” he said. The look on her face drove him out of his chair to do as she ordered.
What the hell?
he wondered. Bender said nothing until he had returned to his seat. Bender cycled the slides forward. The words “The Beijing Pact” flashed on the screen. “What the hell is the Beijing Pact?” Shaw muttered.

“We’re about to find out,” Turner said. Shaw’s head jerked at the sound of her voice. There was something
new in her tone, and National Security Advisor Rawlings looked like he needed to make an urgent trip to the restroom.

“In this business,” Shaw whispered, sotto voce, “never pass up a men’s room to take a precautionary piss. You never know when you’ll get another chance.”

“Madam President,” Clement Murchison, the secretary of state, said, “this is not the time nor place to discuss this issue. I must protest.”

“Yes,” Turner replied, “I imagine you would. General Bender, please continue.”

“On Thursday, August 2,” Bender said, “sixteen days before President Roberts died”—the camera clicked, a remote sound from behind the screen that echoed over them, and a slide of a gray Boeing 707 landing flashed on the screen—“an unmarked Air Force KC-135 landed in China at Shahe, a Chinese air base approximately an hour’s drive north of Beijing.”

Click
. A grainy slide of Rawlings and Murchison getting off the same airplane flashed on the screen. “This photo was taken from over a mile away and had to be computer enhanced.”

Click
. Murchison following Rawlings into a black sedan. “They were then driven to Beijing.”

Click
. Rawlings and Murchison entering a house. “Where they met with the premier of the People’s Republic of China, Lu Zoulin.” The screen went blank. Bender’s voice carried over the room, his words clipped and sharp. “This meeting was held in the utmost secrecy and a mutual accord was reached, which, for lack of a better term, we are calling the Beijing Pact. We do not know the content of the document, but we do know its effect.”

Murchison stood up as if to leave. “Sit down,” Turner said. He did.

“Saint Peter shit-a-brick,” Shaw whispered. This was one of those times that cemented the special bond he felt existed between himself and the celestial gatekeeper. It was all in the job description. “The devil done got inside.”

“General Bender, why are you the one telling me this?” Turner asked.

“Because, Madam President, the CIA does not know about it and the Pentagon only became aware of it since President Roberts’s death. To the best of our knowledge, the only two people in your administration who do know about it are sitting in this room.”

“Again, Madam President,” Murchison said, his voice breaking at the edges, “I must protest. This issue is beyond the purview of the military.”

“Is it?” Bender replied. The screen came alive. “This is a transcript of a telephone conversation between President Roberts and General Overmeyer on Thursday evening, August 16, two days before the president died.”

G
ENERAL
O
VERMEYER
: Sir, the Chinese are massing opposite Taiwan. We need to brief you on the situation ASAP and I want to increase the DEFCON.

P
RESIDENT
R
OBERTS
: Don’t worry about it. Return to normal readiness and stop all internal posturing. Do it immediately.

Shaw had to read the words twice to fully believe them. “Does this mean—” His voice trailed off and he couldn’t finish the sentence. He was having the political equivalent of a religious experience.

Bender could have been a college professor explaining a simple problem in calculus to a very thick student. “It means, Mr. Shaw, that the president of the United States, with the collaboration of the secretary of state and his national security advisor, cut a secret deal with the Chinese, giving them Taiwan.”

The politician in Shaw kicked in. “The quid pro quo?”

“We don’t know what the quid pro quo was,” Bender answered. “We can only guess, and the military is not in the business of guessing. You’ll have to ask these two gentlemen.”

Rawlings and Murchison started to speak, but Turner flicked her hand up, a short gesture silencing the room. She finished reading the briefing book as the men waited. “Please run the rest of the slides,” she said to Bender. He clicked through the slides. “Yes, I see,” she said, standing up. “Patrick, work the problem. Don’t come out
of this room until it’s solved.” She picked up the briefing book. “General Bender, please come with me.”

“I need to get the slides, Madam President.” She nodded and waited while the Marine guard unlocked the door to the projection room and Bender retrieved the slides. She never took her eyes off him. Then she was a step in front of him, still carrying the briefing book as they climbed the stairs and walked to the Oval Office.

Jackie was waiting by the door. Turner handed her the briefing book and Bender’s slide tray. “Please destroy these immediately. Do it personally—this is important.” Jackie nodded and disappeared down the hall. “Please sit down,” She told Bender, motioning to one of the couches. She picked up a phone, not sitting down. “Trish, tea and coffee please.” She dropped the phone into its cradle, turned to face Bender, and leaned back against the front edge of her desk, her arms folded.

They waited in silence. Bender pulled into himself, thinking. He had expected a more emotional reaction, perhaps even tears, and was surprised that she was so calm and collected.
Maybe she doesn’t fully understand what it all means
, he reasoned. He looked at his president. There was no doubt she was a very attractive woman.
Nancy would love that suit she’s wearing
, he thought.
But I doubt if she would look that good. That’s it. Turner is mostly appearance. Put up a good front for the troops
. Another thought came to him:
She likes giving orders
. Bender was convinced he had her measure.

“Robert, we need to talk.”

Shaw was enjoying himself. It wasn’t often he had a chance to disprove the old political adage that you could kill someone in politics, but you couldn’t kill them dead. “Gentlemen, have you ever attended an autopsy?” His voice was friendly and quiet with only a soft trace of his southern accent. “It is not a pretty sight.”

“Shaw,” Murchison said, trying to regain control. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”

“The man conducting the autopsy.”

Murchison stood to leave. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s our autopsy,” National Security Advisor Rawlings said. Murchison sat down.

Shaw stood up and plodded around the room like a friendly bear. He stopped behind Rawlings and placed a big hand on his shoulder. He knew who would break first. “First, let’s examine the proximate cause of death. Disloyalty.”

William wheeled a tea cart into the Oval Office. “Would you prefer coffee or tea?” Turner offered.

“Coffee,” Bender answered.

She buzzed her secretary as William left. “Please show Mr. Shaw in the moment he arrives.” She glanced at Bender while she poured his coffee. “Robert, I have two problems: one political, the other with foreign policy. Patrick is solving the first one, but I’ve got to solve the second. Needless to say, whatever I do involves the military. That’s where you come in.”

“Madam President, you should be talking to General Overmeyer, not me.”

“But I want to talk to you about it.”

“Why me? By law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is your military advisor.”

“I will talk to him”—a long pause—“when he’s ready to listen to his president who happens to be a woman.”

“He’ll listen, Madam President, because—”

“Because he’s an officer and a gentleman? Don’t be silly.”

“Because you are his commander in chief.”
He won’t like it
, Bender thought,
but he will listen
.

“Cream or sugar?” she asked, the gracious hostess.

This is bizarre
, Bender thought.
We’re caught in a major crisis and playing tea party
. “Black,” he said. She handed him the cup, almost touching his hand.

“Why didn’t General Overmeyer tell me?” Turner asked.

“Because we—”

“We?”

“The Department of Defense.” He changed his approach. “Because our intelligence operatives didn’t—”

“Your operatives? Spooks like the CIA?”

Stay focused!
he raged to himself. “We call them the boys in the basement.” The puzzled look on her face demanded further explanation. “Certain intelligence agencies fall under the Department of Defense to avoid congressional oversight. It started under President Reagan.”

“Why wasn’t I told about them?”

He wanted to say, because you’re not talking to the right people. Instead, “You’d have to speak to the DCI”—the DCI was her director of Central Intelligence—“and General Overmeyer about that. But to answer your original question: because our spooks didn’t put all the pieces together until a few days ago. General Overmeyer thought this briefing was a good opportunity to—”

“Overmeyer thinks I’m up to my neck in this.”

“I can speak for the general and—”

“Can you speak for yourself, Robert?”

“Loyalty,” Shaw explained, being very friendly, “is a form of currency in politics. You exchange it for power. No loyalty, no power. If someone takes your power away, then you are free to renegotiate your loyalty. So who took your power away? What were you two shit-for-brains thinking of?”

“The agreement was President Roberts’s idea,” Murchison said.

“Always blame the last bastard who left,” Shaw muttered.

“We were acting for him,” Rawlings said.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Shaw conceded. “But you should have been banging on the door of the Oval Office the moment China moved on Taiwan, a full confession on your lips, resignation in one hand, and the gawddamn Beijing Pact in the other.”

“It’s called the Technical Agreement for the Reversion of Taiwan,” Rawlings said.

“Technical Agreement?” Shaw asked, now the confused good old boy. “What did you do? Negotiate it over the Internet?” No answer. “I want a copy. Now.”

A tight smile spread across Murchison’s face. “One of the protocols of the agreement dictates that if either party is removed from power, for whatever reason, the agreement
is null and void and both parties will immediately destroy their copies. Which, with the death of President Roberts, has happened.”

“You are truly beyond redemption,” Shaw said, back to being friendly and enjoying himself, “and suffering from a massive case of brain farts. Why do you think Lu Zoulin moved on Taiwan when he did? Do you think he burned his copy? I can see the press conference and hear the question now. ‘Madam President, what about this supersecret sellout of Taiwan like Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler?’ No way she could’ve answered, ‘I’m glad you asked that question.’ You hung your president out to dry. What kind of loyalty is that?”