The General's President (40 page)

The president wasn't sure how long the captain would have talked if he hadn't interrupted. "You people handled things very professionally, captain," he said. "I'm very proud of you all. Tell your men for me at muster."

Then he hung up, chuckling. It had been a long time since he'd been as excited as the captain seemed to have been. And excited was a great condition, when you handled it well.

***

Unless he had an NSC meeting in the morning, Jumper Cromwell usually read the news as soon as he'd finished the daily intelligence and situation summaries. The Joint Staff had people who looked through some twenty newspapers each night and morning, clipping news articles, editorials, and columns, pasting them on large sheets and photocopying them for senior officers.

Today the news ran heavily to the night's attack on the White House. There were pictures of the dead assassins, masked in black, and a couple with masks removed. Cromwell grunted. The frigging newspapers seemed thrilled to be writing about actual ninjas. The marines who'd shot their asses off got almost no space, at least in the clipping sheets.

The editorial pages still were fixated on the president though, and on his speech of two nights before. As Cromwell read, his usually mild temper heated. When he finished, he reached for his phone, drew back, then with a move of abrupt decision dialed the White House. It wasn't a confidential matter, so he went through the White House exchange, the operator there putting him through immediately to the president's secretary.

"Just a moment please, general," Martinelli said. He waited. Seconds later, the president's face popped onto his phone screen.

"Good morning, Jumper. What can I do for you today?"

"Have you seen the papers this morning, sir?"

"The usual: read a summary that included some Xeroxed excerpts. Two of em: yesterday's and today's."

The usual.
It seemed to Cromwell that the president would have read more than that, with so much attention being given to his speech.

As if he'd heard the general's unspoken thought, or read his expression, the president went on, "I'm not as interested in what the editorial writers think as I am in the reaction over on Capitol Hill. Most of Congress is lawyers, you know. What in particular bothered you in the papers this morning?"

The general suddenly realized that Haugen was grinning! It occurred to him that perhaps the people who put the summaries together might be shielding the president from the worst shots.

"How does this sound?" Cromwell said, and began to read. " 'It is abundantly clear that the president has no intention of returning the government to normal constitutional processes. President Donnelly, apparently under extreme pressure from the Pentagon, turned the government over to a man he'd never heard of—General Cromwell's president who, under the ill-advised Emergency Powers Act, has made himself the dictator of America. This would have been bad enough if he'd been content to preside over the normal, proper organs of government.

" 'But Dictator Haugen is trying to redesign government according to his own strange notions, and has overturned some of the most basic precepts of American democracy.

" 'No reasonable person can claim that the emergency still exists. The only significant violence today grows out of public outrage at his presidency. It is time for Congress to impeach, to throw out, this amateur president with his perverted and un-American ideas, before he does more damage.' "

Cromwell shifted his gaze to Arne Haugen's image on the screen. Haugen was looking calmly back at him. "Mr. President," said Cromwell, "I'd say it's time to exercise the sedition act."

"Against Mr. Sanders?" Haugen asked.

It was Sanders' column, though Cromwell hadn't said so. "You'd already read it then," he said.

"Yep. They included it in full, in the summary. Said it was pretty representative of what they called "the more irate" segment. But it's not actually seditious; he doesn't advocate revolt or disorder.

"I thought Eichmeier's syndicated column was a lower blow than that. According to him, I'm practically guilty of manslaughter because Chief Justice Fechner had his stroke listening to my speech. You knew he died yesterday, I suppose." The president paused. "At least I'll have a chance to appoint his replacement, someone who doesn't seem, hostile to me."

Cromwell nodded. "Did you see the
American Daily Flag
?" he asked.

"Just the last paragraph or so of an editorial. It ended something like, 'The American People could be forgiven, or even congratulated, if they rose up and threw this tyrant out.' That does come fairly close to sedition, I'll have to admit."

"Are you going to do anything about it?"

"Nope. The media reaction overall was really pretty mild; some of it was actually friendly. And as far as the Flag's concerned, ninety-five percent of the people who read it were already saying that, or worse, or at least thinking it." He paused.

"And consider just how far I went in that speech, Jumper. Now
that
was extreme!"

Cromwell didn't speak at once, but it was clear from his expression that he was forming a response. Haugen waited.

"Mr. President, you have the basis for a counterattack that has nothing to do with the sedition act or prosecutions of any kind. You have my report on the long-term activities of the Holist Council executive board. And now you have their bible—the Archon book; that damns them with their own words. Why don't you just read parts of those in a fireside address?"

"I probably will, when the time comes. But not now. For one thing, it would be a red herring. Almost none of the editorial writers or columnists or TV news analysts have ever heard of the Archons. Probably none of them have. I'm sure that most of them don't know much about the Holist Council either, and very few of them are connected with it. They're expressing their own views, whether we like them or not.

"I talked to Okada last evening after I got back from Texas, and again this morning. We discussed a statement he'll be giving the media today. In front of the TV cameras. He'll be saying the right things back at them. Like, it would be interesting to know who was willing to spend the kind of money it took to hire, equip, and fly in the ninjas. And to import a nuclear bomb. Okada'll probably sound harder than usual; he was really pissed by Sanders and Eichmeier, too.

"Meanwhile, tomorrow Morrisey and Spencer will start another survey, this one on public response to my legal reform. I'm looking forward to that. It'll be a lot more useful to me than TV or the papers. Or even than the letter tally we'll be getting over the next few days."

Cromwell felt a little better: The president was a remarkably deliberate man, and so far his judgments had been damned good.

The president changed abruptly to a different subject. "D'you know one of the troubles with this job, Jumper?" he asked.

The shift took Cromwell by surprise. "No. What?"

"There's so little direct action. A president hardly has any hands-on involvement; I work through proxies almost entirely. I have to; it's the only practical way. But sometimes I feel like I'm half spectator and half manipulator." He laughed. "And half worrier; it's a job and a half. I'm never out where it's happening; no time for it."

His voice changed, became brisk. "I need to hang up, Jumper. I've got another call flashing."

Haugen disconnected, and touched a key on his security phone. Dirksma's face appeared on the screen. "What have you got, Peter?" the president asked.

"Mister President, we've found a connection between Blackburn in his secret, private practitioner persona, and a financially prominent person.
Very
prominent. Under the name 'Dr. William Merriman,' Blackburn had done occasional work for Paul W. Massey. We don't have details yet, just the connection. We got onto it from a bug that General Cromwell got installed, illegally I suspect, in Massey's residence. Except for a couple of underworld names that were mentioned, no one here paid much attention to it—not until we learned Blackburn's alias.

"Of course, we couldn't use any evidence acquired this way in a court action, but it's certainly giving us some leads to follow."

"I know about the bug," the president answered. "I approved it under a provision in the Emergency Powers Act. But I agree that we shouldn't use it in court, if it comes to that."

He paused to jot on a note pad. "I'll send you photocopies of a couple of things today: a report Jumper had prepared, and a copy of something sent by the person who installed the bug for Jumper. Neither is clear evidence of criminal activity, but they give perspective to a lot of things. Including the connections you just mentioned."

Haugen stopped. A chainsaw had started just outside. "Peter, I need to see about something. Are we done?"

"I believe so, sir."

"I'll hang up then. Thanks for the information."

The president disconnected and strode out of his office and into the yard, followed by two concerned-looking Secret Service men. Nearby, a man with a hardhat was about to make a notching cut in one of the trees on the White House grounds.

"Hey!" shouted the president, "what're you doing there?"

The man turned, saw who was coming, and cut the ignition on his saw. He wore coveralls with a Parks shoulder patch. Awkward, not sure what to do, he saluted. The president saluted casually back.

"What're you doing?" the president repeated, this time with no trace of indignation.

"Mr. President sir, we're supposed to cut all the trees around here."

"How come?"

Another man was hurrying over from a panel truck nearby. "Can I help you, Mr. President?" he asked. He was a tall, powerful man, sure of himself.

"Yes. This gentleman tells me you're planning to cut the trees here. Who told you to do that?"

"Sir, Mr. Cambert, my supervisor. He said the Secret Service ordered it."

"The Secret Service!?" The president's voice had raised half an octave.

"Yes sir. They're afraid somebody might use those trees for sneaking up to shoot you. That's what Mr. Cambert said."

The president assumed a serious expression. "I see. Well, I certainly appreciate their concern, but I don't want these trees cut down." He gestured. "You see those marines? They take good care of me. Were you in the service?"

"Yes sir. Airborne sir, like you. Twenty years ago."

Haugen looked at the sawyer. "How about you?"

The man straightened. "I got out of the navy last year, Mr. President. I was on the missile cruiser
Ticonderoga
."

Two other men with saws were standing by the truck, waiting to see what would happen.

"Well, you can imagine then," Haugen said, "that those young marines are pretty darned competent. And we know what they did to the ninjas last night. So what I want you to do is go back and tell Mr. Cambert the trees will have to stay; that the president said so. Tell him I'll take care of it with the Secret Service so there's no squawk."

"Yes sir, Mr. President. I'll tell him that. And the boys and me are glad we don't have to cut 'em. We were just saying what a shame it would be."

The president surprised the two by shaking hands with them. Then he watched for a minute as the crew loaded gear into the truck, before grinning at an embarrassed Agent Trabert. "Glad you guys are so interested in my health," he said, and started back for the executive wing.

***

It was felt in Anchorage as a distinct jar at 0632:21 hours, Alaska Time, followed exactly twenty seconds later by another equally strong. At about that time, those who were looking and had a good view westward saw the explosion, a ruddy flash in the wintry predawn somewhere near the horizon, fading to a faint reddish glow that quickly died. Fourteen minutes later the sound of it reached the city, a boom that woke the sleeping.

Mount Spurr had exploded, blowing more than half a cubic mile of rock to powder and sending it miles into the sky. It also converted some 300 million cubic yards of glacier into vapor and water—roughly 100 million tons of water which, mixed with dirt, roared down mountain slopes and ravines, carrying with it thousands of blasted trees. Seconds after the explosion, Chakachamna Lake, large by most standards and thickly iced over, was hit by an avalanche of incandescent gas and dust, moving at several miles per minute, that instantly burned the deep snow away, opening the ice with an immense snarl of steam, and torched the shock-flattened trees that it touched. Minutes later the water arrived, debouching onto and into the lake, preceded by the booming of great boulders swept by it down the ravines.

Dawnlight came soon after, then daylight. Shortly before 11 A.M., Alaska Time, the leading fringe of the ash cloud arrived at Anchorage on a fair west wind. Ash and a midday twilight began to settle on the city. By twenty past eleven the street lights were on. At noon the prohibition against nonemergency traffic went into effect, and snow-plows moved out, their lights flashing blue in the gloom, to begin the job of plowing ash from the streets. By 2:40 in the afternoon, snow began to fall, muddy snow. Ordinarily it wouldn't have been quite sundown yet, at sixty-one degrees north latitude on January 14. On this day, however, it had been dark for nearly three hours.

There had been no warning. The mountain's innards had grumbled recently, but not alarmingly. Seismographs had noted nothing threatening until seconds before the first shock. The few humans in the mountain's vicinity had had no warning at all.

Sixty miles south, Mount Redoubt erupted too, but not explosively. A fissure or fissures opened in one flank. Glacier burst from steam pressure, lava flowed stinking forth, snow melted, and water and boulders scoured its ravines. The event was trivial, compared to the explosion farther north.

***

When the report reached the White House, President Haugen had just begun swimming laps with the first lady and Father Flynn. Milstead hadn't interrupted him for these presumed acts of God. The chief got little enough relaxation; after lunch would do. Thus the president and Flynn learned of the eruptions while eating to the twelve o'clock news.