‘Forget it,’ Johanne interrupted. ‘My point wasn’t to lecture you in elementary American history.’
‘What was the point then?’ he asked, and tried to keep a friendly tone in his voice.
‘You seemed to think the Americans were prepared. And they are, of course, in many ways. Certainly the television stations are.’
She nodded at Christiane Amanpour, who was having difficulties with her microphone. Behind her, a group of men in dark suits hurried down the slope to Grønlandsleiret. They turned their collars up at the TV cameras and were not to be stopped by the questions shouted by around thirty journalists who obviously had bunkered down for the night. Adam immediately recognised the Chief of Police. Terje Bastesen turned away from the press and pulled his uniform hat down lower than regulated as he strode towards the cars that waited by the road.
‘But the American people,’ Johanne said, focusing on a point far above the television. ‘They’re hardly prepared. Not completely, not for this. Their entire history tells them that when it comes to the assassination of presidents, they have to watch out for confused fellow Americans. I should imagine that the Secret Service has outlined a number of assassination scenarios, mostly involving anti-abortionists, women-haters and the most zealous supporters of the war in Iraq – groups that include Helen Bentley’s most ferocious opponents on the home front, and the sort of environment that fosters the kind of fanaticism that is empirically proven to be requisite. America’s more recent history…’
She paused for a moment. ‘More recent history has, of course, generated other scenarios. Post-nine eleven, I assume that the Secret Service would ultimately like to keep their president in a cement bunker. The US has never been so unpopular with the rest of the world at any time since the War of Independence. And as the concept of terrorism has been extended in recent years, certainly for the Americans, their fears of what might happen to the president have also changed. The fact that she would simply disappear into thin air on a state visit to a small, friendly country was probably a long way off what they anticipated. But…’ The wine glass nearly toppled over as she suddenly reached out for it. ‘… what do I know about that?’ She finished on a light note. ‘Cheers, my love. Let’s go to bed soon.’
‘What’s it like in the real Situation Room at the moment then, Johanne?’
She extracted herself from his arm.
‘How should I know? I have no idea about-’
‘Yes you do. If nothing else, because you’ve got a book that’s actually called The Situation Room…’ now it was Adam who could not restrain his irritation, which was about to spill over into real anger, ‘that’s lying on your bedside table. For Christ’s sake, Johanne, it must be possible to share…’
In one swift movement she got up from the sofa and was on her way to the bedroom. A few seconds later she came back. Her face was bright red.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the title wrong. And if you’re so interested, you’re free to read it. It’s not exactly secret as it’s lying beside our bed. So here you are.’
Her glasses were starting to steam up and sweat was visible on her nose.
‘Johanne,’ Adam groaned, exasperated. ‘For God’s sake, we can’t carry on like this…’
I’m starting to get sick of this, he thought to himself. Be careful, Johanne. I don’t know how much longer I can stand your ambiguity. This transformation of my intelligent, lovely, sensible wife into an ill-tempered creature that rolls into a ball with all its spines out for no understandable reason is wearing me out. Your secrets are too big, Johanne. Too big for me, and far too big for you.
There was a ring at the door.
They both jumped. Johanne dropped the book on the floor, as if she had been caught red-handed with stolen goods.
‘Who could that be?’ Adam mumbled and looked at the clock. ‘Twenty past eleven…’
He was stiff when he got up and went to open the door.
Johanne stayed standing where she was, half turned towards the TV. The images that flickered across the screen were being watched all over the world at this very moment, irrespective of time zone or political regime, religion or ethnicity. CNN hadn’t had so many viewers since the catastrophe on Manhattan, and seemed to be greedily taking advantage of the situation. It was nearly six in the evening on the east coast. Americans, hungry for news, were on their way home from work; they had felt compelled to go, despite the morning’s terrible news. The news programme packed in more reporters, analysts, commentators and experts. They seemed more engaged than tired, as if the knowledge that they were nearing prime time gave them all renewed energy. Solemn men and women with impressive titles discussed the constitutional consequences and national contingency plans, short- and long-term crisis scenarios, terrorist organisations and the vice president’s highly criticised absence. As far as Johanne could make out, he was hidden away either in a plane somewhere over Nevada, or in a bunker in Arkansas, as one of the experts claimed. Another insisted that he knew that the vice president was already out of harm’s way at an American naval base far from the country’s shores. They discussed the twenty-fifth constitutional amendment, and everyone agreed that it was scandalous that the White House had not made it clear whether this had been activated yet or not.
That’s what they’re discussing in the real situation room, Johanne thought to herself.
She could image all the plasma screens on the walls of a cramped room in the White House, somewhere on the ground floor of the West Wing, with red geraniums outside the windows. More than six thousand kilometres away from the semi-detached house in Tåsen in Oslo, a group of people were at that moment working frantically in an uncertain crisis situation, keeping a watchful eye on the same TV programmes as everyone else, while they tried to prevent the world from becoming a considerably changed place the following morning.
Every day, the many departments and agencies connected with national security received more than half a million electronic messages from embassies, military bases and other intelligence sources all over the world. They included warnings of vital importance to the nation’s security as well as insignificant memorandums they would rather be spared. Routine reports came in alongside reports of worrying enemy activity. The CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the Department of State all had their own operations centres that separated the wheat from the chaff in the incessant flow of information. Information of no importance was sent where it would do least harm, whereas important and dangerous information was tapped into messages to those who were there to deal with such matters: the Situation Room staff, a tight-knit core that had the authority to raise or lower the threshold for information, to demand more reports about particularly worrying developments, and who, most importantly, worked directly for the President.
Under George W. Bush, the screens were locked on to Fox News.
But now they once again watched CNN in the Situation Room.
Everyone did. Johanne nodded and sat down again.
The Americans were swimming in a sea of information with undercurrents that constantly threatened to pull them under. Agencies and departments, operations centres and foreign outposts, military and civil organisations – the flow of information in a crisis such as this was unbelievable. The entire American system would be on its knees by now, both domestic and international, in Washington DC and countless other cities and towns. When Johanne closed her eyes and acknowledged the indescribable fatigue that made it impossible to open them again, she thought she could hear a faint hum, like a swarm of bees in summer: tens of thousands of American civil servants who had only one aim, to bring the American president safely back home again.