The General's President (42 page)

"Are you up to date on Gurenko?" Haugen asked. "Is he still commanding officer of the GRU?"

"He was as recently as January fourth. If there'd been any change, I would probably have heard."

Haugen studied the Russian thoughtfully; Bulavin sat quite relaxed through it, studying him in return. Then the president made a decision.

"Colonel Schubert, what's your given name these days? Not Nikita I suppose."

The Russian laughed silently. "Kurt. Even on the Joint Staff, I pass as German-American. In this identity, my family is Baltische Deutsch, from Narva. That explains my occasionally odd English and non-standard German."

The president was surprised to see a twinkle in Bulavin's eyes. "Did I say something that amused you?" Haugen asked.

The Russian shook his head. "No. It was the discussion of my new identity. Working for General Cromwell was a marvelous hiding place for me. In the Soviet Union, no one would imagine a defector being made an aide to the chief of the general staff."

Haugen nodded. "I suppose not. Not many Americans would imagine that, either. I'll tell you what: I'm going to call Jumper and have him arrange to borrow you. For me, although we won't tell the Joint Staff that. Then I'm going to get him over here today, along with LaMotte and Barry for their data and contacts. You and LaMotte will find or create a secret communication line to Gurenko, if at all possible, and see if you can interest him in carrying out a coup in the Kremlin."

His eyes found Bulavin's and held them. "Does that sound at all possible?"

Bulavin sat quietly for a long several seconds. "Mr. President, a year ago I'd have said no. Not remotely possible. Either making contact with him or getting his interest. And assuming that by some miracle we did both of those, I could not even have conceived of his actually carrying out a successful coup. Not even as chief of the GRU. I'd have said that the chance was absolutely zero, and I'd have been right.

"But now, with things as they are there, I can conceive of it." Bulavin grinned. "Just barely, I can conceive of it. And to try—That would be the challenge of a lifetime!"

"Good." The president reached for his phone. "Then we might as well get started."

THIRTY-SEVEN

The president burst out of bed to the high-pitched sound of an alarm—not the building alarm—that continued for several long seconds, punctuated midway by a bang a little distance off. Lois was sitting up, staring at her husband crouched in the darkness.

"What is it?"

He straightened. "I'm not sure. Did you hear the explosion? The instruments on the roof may have picked up something, maybe a rocket, and used the ECMs to blow it up." He took his bathrobe from a chair beside his bed. "I'm going to go find out. Do you think you can get back to sleep?"

She got up. "I think I'll read till you come back. Then you can tell me about it."

He left thinking what a cool head she had, and took the stairs to the third floor command room. The first lieutenant in charge of the watch was startled to see the bathrobed president come in.

"What happened?" Haugen asked.

"Sir, a rocket was fired at the White House. We shot it down. We also got a read on the origin, and sent a gunship; I haven't heard them shooting though. The enemy may try again later; do you want to evacuate?"

"No. How loud does your alarm need to be?"

"It's more than loud enough now, Mr. President."

"Right. How loud does it
need
to be? I presume the watch on duty is always awake."

"Yessir! Always!"

"Then what's the function of the alarm?"

"Well, sir, it lets us all know and—it galvanizes us."

"Umh. I see. How loud does it need to be to do that? You galvanized me, too, and when you're going to bed in the morning, I'll be going to work."

"I see your point, Mr. President. I'll set the volume down to—how would a third be? If there's time to evacuate, we'll hit the building alarm anyway."

"Okay, try it at a third. And thank you, lieutenant, for your good shooting. I'm glad you and your men are here."

He strolled out on the third-floor promenade then. The night was still and overcast, the temperature up around forty. Some civilian staff were out too, gathered in a loose group, gazing across the city. He joined them.

"A little excitement, eh?" he said.

"Yes sir," one of them answered.

"I told them to cut back the volume on their alarm. No need to shock everyone in the building unless we need to head for the shelter."

"Yes sir." The man turned to look northward again. "It would have been interesting to see the shooting. They must have blown up whatever it was; I heard an explosion."

"They did. And a marine gunship went after whoever fired it. I'm going back to bed now; the excitement seems to be over. Have a good night."

As he headed back to his apartment, he wondered what form the next attack would take.

***

Seven hours later the president was briefed by Secretary Valenzuela. The Republic of South Africa had stopped their advance in Namibia when the West German squadrons had arrived. But they refused to withdraw unless the United States, Britain, and West Germany recognized their right to pursue raiders north across the borders into the black nations they raided from. And also their right to hit raider staging areas in the black nations. Otherwise the Afrikaner army would stay in southern Namibia.

It was an impasse, and Haugen had no solution to suggest. Unless someone came up with something, the Germans and Cubans both would be unhappy. He half wished now that he'd refused to intervene. But only half wished. It was unlike him to half-do anything; it seemed part of a vaguely depressed feeling that had settled over him at times lately.

He told himself, after Valenzuela left, that he needed to get himself together again. He should feel pretty good about things. The economic recovery was progressing steadily if slowly, unemployment was dropping, public morale was better than anyone had expected, and the repeal bill had failed by a goodly margin in both houses of Congress.

And the new Morrisey and Spencer public opinion survey had come out even more favorable than the one before, though the difference wasn't very big.

He knew one thing that was bothering him; Pavlenko and the eruptions. Suppose the Soviets released a few megatons of energy in the Yellowstone hotspot! That could make Mount Spurr or Mount St. Helens look like cherry bombs.

They probably wouldn't hit Yellowstone though. It had the potential to produce a year without a summer, worse than the legendary year of eighteen hundred and froze to death, after Tamboro Volcano blew in 1815. Something like that would hurt the Soviets worse than it would America, though the ashfall would cause enormous damage in Montana and Wyoming.

And there was always the San Andreas Fault. No one planning a scalar resonance attack would overlook that as a possibility. Or the Juan de Fuca subduction zone off the coast of Washington; if that one had the potential energy many geophysicists thought, a quake there would hit eight-plus, maybe nine, on the Richter scale and wreck Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria... that whole section of coast. There'd be not only the quake, but the tsunami, and the harbor waves trapped in Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Georgia. And if Mount Rainier let go as a side result...

He tried to shake off the thoughts, but they snapped back at once. No one knew for sure whether the Juan de Fuca had built a lot of stress or not: The subduction might be relatively smooth. But even a quake of 6 would be bad news.

He wondered how Bulavin and LaMotte were doing on getting a line in to Gurenko. Or how Gurenko would respond if they succeeded.

He sat back in his chair.
I'm getting nothing done this morning—nothing except wallowing.
Occasionally back home, when necessary to get rid of a fixation, he'd drive out of town and walk in the woods, seeing how many different things he could spot. Bobcat dung, fungal conks on trees, a porcupine half hidden in the foliage of a white pine, fly amanitas sprouting from the forest floor, the chiseled out nest of a pileated woodpecker in a big old balm of gilead ... But here if he tried to walk in the park, the Secret Service would go crazy.

So he got up and walked around his office instead, spotting things in the pattern of his carpet, an assymetrical leaf on one of the plants, the details of the carving on the mantle of his fireplace. He reached out and raised the presidential flag standing next to the Stars and Stripes in his window embayment. He'd never paid attention to its pattern before; now he examined it thoroughly.

After four or five minutes of this, he sat down again to his speech on business and the IRS. Pavlenko and scalar resonance transmitters were still in the back of his mind, but for now they were out of sight.

***

That night there was a 60mm mortar attack on the White House. The first shell missed, landing on Lafayette Square. The second wrecked the East Wing theater; the third hit the North Portico and converted their bedroom windows into granules; the fourth hit a third floor storage room.

By that time two gunships, their crews on ready and on board, their engines warmed up and waiting, had lifted. Flares were fired. But the mortar crew got away. Apparently they'd fired from a roof somewhere, then went inside out of sight. Maybe they'd heard the choppers coming.

***

At 0917 hours the next morning, the FBI, backed by a platoon of paratroops, arrested three men who shared a small apartment. The mortar tube, base, legs, and sight were found in a closet, along with two cloverleafs, one empty and one with two remaining mortar bombs. Television newscasters interviewed the angry neighbors who'd turned them in. By midafternoon, an ugly crowd had gathered outside the D.C. jail, demanding to be given what they termed "the bombers." The news shots showed ropes and baseball bats, and no doubt more than a few had knives and razors. Nothing happened though; they seemed to be making a statement and blowing off steam.

The pictures shown of damage to the White House were sobering, the commentary somber and condemnatory, contrasting this action with the progress of national recovery. Domestic staff interviewed were angry, not fearful.

Perhaps, Haugen thought, a corner was being turned. Anger wasn't the highest of emotions, but it was better than fear or despondency.

***

That night an elderly F5-B jet fighter, which had not replied to repeated radio challenges, was shot down over Virginia, approaching Washington from the south. It had worn the American Air Force emblem, but the identification number didn't pass a computer check, and no F5-Bs were stationed in the eastern United States. Its single 500-pound bomb had not yet been armed and did not explode on impact. Examination of the wreckage the next day identified it as a plane reported stolen, perhaps "bought," from the Columbian Air Force by drug lords.

The CIA had reported that something like this was being talked about as a response to the recent destruction and capture of boats and planes carrying drugs to the United States. And to the new policy of searching seamen leaving ships, and of certain cargoes on the docks; and of other actions being taken to reduce the inflow of drugs.

The media treated these things soberly too, and gave time to Coast Guard footage of boats and planes being challenged and searched. And a few firefights. For now, at least, the Emergency Powers Act was not the focus of attention.

The next morning the media had something new to occupy them. The South African government admitted that thirty-seven-year-old Wilfred Mpumelele had died in prison "of undetermined causes." By nightfall, riots unprecedented in South Africa were spreading like fire on oil.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Excerpts from the president's January 20 fireside talk on the economy and taxes.

....A very important part of our economic problems has grown out of government spending. Where does government money go? For decades a very large segment has gone annually to defense. That's unavoidable in these times, if we want to remain a free nation. A larger segment has gone to do things for people which it's been considered must be done, and considered also that they can't do for themselves as individuals.

A third segment of government spending might be termed the slopover of money appropriated for the first two: that slopover which we call government waste. Citizens and the media look around and see—Government waste.

Waste is an inevitable part of government activities, just as waste is part of the activities of businesses and of almost every family above the lowest poverty level. The trick is to keep the amount of waste relatively low. In government, this has been attempted by trying to monitor purchases and payments, keeping track of almost everything.

But to do that, to monitor government expenditures in detail, costs a lot of money. And on top of that, the red tape and paperwork that the monitors demand of every government operation, in order to monitor them, makes it more difficult and expensive to get productive work done.

This is rather like the red tape and paperwork that the IRS requires of businesses in order to monitor their income and expenditures. Which makes it more difficult and expensive for a business to get out its products. But I'll get to that later in this talk.

This effort to control government waste adds greatly to the operating costs of everything from highway construction to the Veterans Administration, from aid to dependent children to NASA and the military. This effort can, and I suspect often does, cost more than it saves, and sometimes screws things up royally in the process.

So we're going to reduce and simplify monitoring. The monitoring agencies and offices are going to spot-check government operations, especially where there are good opportunities for substantial waste or dishonesty. And they will follow up on any substantial waste or dishonesty that they uncover.

Where unreasonable waste is found, three possible whys will be looked for. First, an operating system can be intrinsically inefficient. That is, the way it's set up, you can't run it without a lot of waste. Second, there can be careless waste, the kind that results from not giving a damn. Actually that's a form of dishonesty. And third, there is dishonesty for gain—for the gain of the government employee or a contractor or whatever.