The Threat (36 page)

He stood wondering where he was supposed to be during the address itself. Finally he went over to a solemn older gentleman in old-fashioned tails, who bowed gravely as Dan approached. “May I be of service, sir?”

He introduced himself, and asked. Said he needed to stay close, but not necessarily up front.

The old man said gravely, “In this House, sir, the president does not make the rules. You will remain on the House floor, standing, during the address. Behind the dais and out of sight of the television cameras.”

*   *   *

He felt like a Christian entering the Colosseum. First the narrow corridor. Then a portal, and waves of sound like the crashing sea. Gold-and-blue carpet, polished mahogany, an expanse of warm air. The audience were already on their feet. Party stalwarts. The Senate and House leadership. The Joint Chiefs, standing in the front well. Behind them stood rank after rank of the Senate, the women members' suit dresses like flowers amid the dark tones of the male majority. The galleries rippled with the flutter of clapping hands.

Light ignited. He blinked as blurs of lambent fire pulsed across his vision. Thirty feet ahead De Bari beamed, lifting both arms in his trademark missing-fingered salute. Then followed the Speaker up the multitiered ziggurat of the podium.

Dan found a place where he could watch both the exit and the president. He unsnapped the security bracelet and went to parade rest.

De Bari's opening words rolled out over the waiting faces.

“We meet here tonight at a time of challenge … and opportunity.

“America is great because it is free. It is strong because it desires not domination, but peace.

“For the first time since World War II, a president can report to Congress on the state of a Union that is threatened by, and threatens, no other nation of the world. Because of this breathing space after great exertions, we have a historic opportunity. A chance, given only once in two or three generations, to shape the century to come.”

Dan tuned out the next few minutes. For some reason this chamber seemed even more august and solemn than the Oval Office. Maybe he'd spent so much time around Bob De Bari, knew him so well by now, that neither the man nor the office impressed him anymore.

But here was the sovereign the founding fathers had envisioned, rooted in storefront offices and Rotary dinners and voting booths across a continent. Maybe it wasn't as wise as they'd hoped. Not as farsighted. But was anything human perfect?

His thoughts were broken by applause. But not the storm that had greeted the president's entrance. This sounded doubtful, half voiced. And some were not applauding at all.

He began to listen again.

“America is safer, more prosperous today, with more opportunity for more of its people, than ever before in our history.

“But we cannot remain at peace while a third of the world—disadvantaged, famine-stricken, largely illiterate—is a breeding ground for war.

We must extend the helping hand of America to those peoples who have been left out of our century's progress toward development and democracy. Nations and regions unable to cope with drought, disease, famine, civil war—the Four Horsemen of the oncoming Apocalypse. I call it Plan 21—America's plan for the twenty-first century.”

Dan felt a prickle run up his spine. De Bari was flinging the words past his murmuring audience, into the cameras.

“There are two types of states in the developing world. One, though not wealthy yet by our standards, is on the road to democracy and development. These nations act responsibly in the world community. The others lag behind, cursed by capricious dictatorships, lack of human rights, but above all, by poverty and ecological stress. These are the havens for terror. They will be the source of war and unrest in the century to come. For strangely enough, it is when human beings have nothing … that they act as if they have nothing to lose.

“We can react to crisis after crisis, piecemeal and without making real progress—or we can take a giant stride.

“We must work with other nations to forgive the debt that asphyxiates development in so much of the Third World.

“We must strengthen the capacity of local governments to provide basic social, medical, and economic infrastructure, and build a robust international effort to address such growing risks as drug-resistant malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.

“We must address the impending disaster of global warming, with its concomitants of drought, rising sea levels, and weather disturbances. This gradually accelerating catastrophe will first destroy those peoples already on the brink. But make no mistake: Unaddressed, it will reduce us all to a desperate struggle for shrinking resources. Till our children's children, heirs to all our greed, wander starving under a burning sun, and curse us for what we took from them forever.”

Now Dan saw the puzzlement on the faces before him turning to something else. In some, to delight; in far more, to open anger. But De Bari kept on.

“As part of Plan 21, we must also resolve that dispute that has for a long time now been the most dangerous reality in the Mideast: the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian over the land both claim, both with justice, as their birthright.

“The time has come to permanently settle the problem. To this end, I have acceded to requests from both sides to post American troops as a peacekeeping force between Israel and the new Palestinian state. This will be followed by a level of aid aimed at bringing the Palestinian people to a standard of education and living fully equal to their Israeli neighbors.”

The buzz climbed, then fell away. Dan had never seen a group of human beings so breathlessly attentive. Though he could not tell yet what they thought of what they heard.

“I have prepared a comprehensive message recommending the legislative measures necessary to meet the requirements of Plan 21. I urge that this be made the first priority of this Congress.”

Dan could not believe it. De Bari was proposing a massive aid program. To Palestinians, Sudanese, central Africans, Bangladeshis. And some unspecified but also no doubt massive program to combat greenhouse warming. But where would the money come from? The speechwriters, of course, had anticipated that very question.

“Plan 21 will be funded by further reductions in military, space, and intelligence establishments still bloated by cold war–era requirements. It may be said this will leave us unready in a dangerous world. I believe it will not. The world's peace, as well as our own, depends on our remaining strong. But neither can we depend on military strength alone.”

Dan couldn't help glancing at the Chiefs, in the front row. Stahl and the others listened in somber concentration.

“It may be said that this task is too big for us,” De Bari said. “That it's too idealistic. Or just too hard.

“But as we look back, those years that stand out in our history are those in which the administration and Congress, working together, had the foresight to seize those initiatives for which the nation was ready—and in which they
acted
.

“This is such a moment. Perhaps the
last
moment in which we can realize the age-old dream of a world without widespread and recurrent famine. War. And ecological degradation.”

The murmur that rose reflected Dan's own questions.
Was
it too much? Could such a self-indulgent and complacent country as theirs had become still rally to sacrifice and resolve?

De Bari's voice rose. “A great American once said, of the generation that made our Revolution: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world again.'

“Have we been doing what America, and the world, expected of us? Have we looked further ahead than the next election? Above all, have we been
acting
? For far too long, we have not. And I bear the responsibility for that, as much as any. I too thought of myself first. I too lost sight of my duty. I too forgot—even with these to remind me—”

And he held up his hand, splayed, so that they all could see the missing fingers—

“That it is our duty, our trust, it is our
job
—that when there's a fire, we get all the people out of the building that we can. And put that fire out.

“But it is not yet too late. With the help of God, who has blessed us so richly, we can and will build lasting peace in the world, with security and freedom for all.”

The vast chamber remained hushed after he finished. Then the applause began. Many sat in disapproving silence, arms folded. Others surged to their feet, shouting wildly, clapping as hard as they could. It went on and on.

De Bari appeared at the bottom of the rostrum, his big flushed face covered with sweat. He looked vacant and shocked and exhausted. Dan picked up his burden and followed him.

*   *   *

In the limo someone turned on a radio. A commentator was saying, “You have to applaud the president for a powerful and visionary State of the Union. But the issues he raises are more complex than they may seem. Is it really in our best interest to give billions to countries who hate us, countries we've been giving money to for decades now with no result other than making the ruling parties richer? And then, throw billions more at a global warming ‘problem' that may not even exist? Especially when average Americans are watching their stocks dwindle, in a market that seems to have no bottom?”

Another station, another speaker. This one, on the left wing, assumed a cutting tone as she pointed out De Bari's proposal was far from selfless. The provisions for tax benefits for participating businesses would transfer millions of jobs to low-wage countries. Plan 21 was a corporate giveaway, subsidizing the export of American jobs.

“So much for lack of an issue,” the doctor said, to no one in particular. Dan nodded. He was still trying to organize his own thoughts. It was as daring a proposal as the New Deal, or the Great Society, or the Apollo program. One that would line everybody in the country up, either pro or con.

But he didn't have to make up his mind. What was he? Only a horse holder. A spear carrier. At most, a temple dog. It all would be decided at a level far above his. And for reasons that had nothing to do with his welfare, or that of the millions of others who believed as blindly as he did that all was for the best, that everything would turn out well.

Sucking in his breath, trying desperately to stem his depression and fear, he gazed out at the passing city.

21

THE WHITE HOUSE

Dan spent the night on the sofa in the aides' office, and got up still seething. His depression had been converted, by some mysterious alchemy, to rage. He could have understood if Blair had called it quits. He wasn't easy to live with. And neither the Navy nor Defense gave you much chance at a normal life. But why couldn't she just have told him. Instead of moving on to someone else?

Even if he was the most powerful man in the world.

*   *   *

He found batteries ripe in the charger, ready lights glowing, and plucked them. Next he checked the monitor, updated from the Secret Service office in the subbasement that located POTUS on the Eighteen Acres. Just now it showed him in the Oval. Unusually early, Dan thought.

Looking out the window, he saw the demonstration had grown again overnight. Now the protesters surrounded the building. Signs bobbed. Someone was shouting through a bullhorn, though Dan couldn't make out the message. Maybe it didn't matter. Now more than ever, you were either for Bad Bob or against him.

The schedule showed De Bari in the Residence that afternoon. No doubt working on his upcoming speech to the UN, to explain why he was sending American troops into the Middle East after pulling them out of everywhere else. Trying to bring peace to a place that hadn't seen any in a thousand years. Or ever, if you took the Old Testament's word for it.

Dan found Major Upshaw next door to the Oval Office, on the chair reserved for the mil aides in the secretary to the president's office. The football was under her chair. As he came in she stood, hand coming up briefly to smooth the front of her jacket. Dan recognized the gesture. Francie liked to carry the Beretta in a shoulder holster, to lighten the satchel. She said it was so heavy it gave her a backache. “He's about to leave. Ready to take it?”

He said he was. She glanced around, then drew the handgun with a quick nervous gesture and handed it over. He checked the safety and tucked it into his belt. Later he'd find a restroom and strap on the holster. Or just stow it back in the case.

Upshaw set the case down on the chair. Keeping her back to him—no doubt out of habit—she dialed in the combination. The lid unsnapped. She moved so he could see, and took out the battery set. He handed over the fresh ones, and heard a click as one seated in the transceiver.

She held out the clipboard with the custody form. He ran his eye over the open case. Spare magazine. Backup charged battery. The radio, its top visible and the stub of its antenna, folded but still capable of receiving the alert signal. The red plastic spine of the SIOP manual, the black spines of the others.

He took the pen and scribbled his initials. “I relieve you,” he said, and saluted. It might look silly to a civilian, but all the aides did it. Then she was tapping off down the corridor. When he took her chair the seat was still warm.

*   *   *

As ever, the detail was first to appear, the agents rolling out ahead of the oncoming Presence like altar boys before a monstrance. The press secretary, then the secretary of defense's Taftesque bulk nearly plugging the hallway. Ringalls, looking shrunken between the overweight SecDef and the none-too-small De Bari. But then they halted. The president's voice was peremptory, cutting. “Don't give me that bullshit, Charlie. Just make it happen.”

Dan was getting to his feet, ready to follow, when he saw Ouderkirk, the shaven-headed sergeant from the counterdrug office, beckoning from the Roosevelt Room. He pointed to his chest:
Me?
The staffer nodded. Dan went to the door. The sergeant gestured again, urgently.