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When the senator was tapped to share a ticket with presidential candidate Michael Lawrence, Cotten accepted. The public liked Lawrence’s “I’m for the people” slogan and style, his perception as a man who had come back from the political wilderness to serve them. But he had wanted to balance his relatively up-front and independent manner with someone who knew how to work the back rooms of Congress and the corridors of power abroad.

Cotten left the mansion and slid into the car. The driver shut the door for him. They rolled into the dark, still night. Cotten’s soul was on fire. He was not going to enjoy what he and his allies were about to do. He remembered when he had first approached them and others individually. Seemingly casual remarks were dropped. If they were ignored, he let the subject drop. If not, he pursued it with more pointed remarks. Cotten realized that was what it must be like for a married man to ask a woman to have an affair. Go too far with the wrong individual, and everything could be lost.

Each man had become involved for the same reason: patriotism. The creation of an America that led the world community rather than reacted to it. An America that rewarded peace with prosperity and punished warmongers not with a public pummeling and credibility but with quiet, lonely death. Lawrence was not willing to cross the line from legal war to illegal murder, even though lives would be saved. But the dawn of the twenty-first century was not a time for warfare. It bred short-term misery and long-term hatred. The world was becoming too small, too crowded for bombs. As distasteful as this was, a change had to come. For the nation and for the sake of its children. For the sake of his children.

The car moved swiftly through the empty streets. Washington was always so deserted at night. Only the spies and plotters were afoot. It seemed strange to think of himself in that capacity. He had always been a straight shooter. If you felt passionately about something, you spoke your mind. If you didn’t feel passionately, then it probably was not worth doing. But this was different. This operation had to be kept very quiet. Kept only among those who were actively involved in its planning and execution.

Now this was it, Cotten thought. The last leg of the operation. According to the president’s staff, announcing a UN intelligence initiative that did not exist had seriously rattled Lawrence. It had shaken him more than the other canards Fenwick and Gable had fed him and subsequently denied — usually during a cabinet session or meeting in the Oval Office.

“No, Mr. President,” Cotten would say softly, seemingly embarrassed for the confusion of the president, “there was never a Pentagon report that Russia and China exchanged artillery fire over the Amur River. Sir, we had not heard that the FBI director had threatened to resign. When did this happen? Mr. President, don’t you recall? We had agreed that Mr. Fenwick would share this new intelligence with Iran.”

The question of sharing intelligence with Iran had been important to the final stage of the operation. Jack Fenwick had told the Iranian ambassador that according to United States intelligence sources, an attack would come from Azerbaijan. They weren’t sure what the target would be, but it would probably be a terrorist attack in the heart of Teheran. Fenwick had assured Iran that if they retaliated, the United States would stay out of it. This nation wanted to nurture closer ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, not stand in the way of its self-defense.

Lawrence, of course, would be pushed to behave in a less accommodating manner. And when he realized where his confused perceptions had taken the nation, he would be forced to resign.

The fact that Lawrence had known nothing about the meeting was irrelevant. At tonight’s meeting with the so-called “Eyes Only Group”—Gable, Fenwick, and the vice president — the men would convince the president that he had been kept informed. They would show him memos that he had seen and signed. They would show him the calendar his secretary kept on the computer. The appointment had been added after she left for the day. Then they would jump right into the current crisis. They would trust and the president would lead. By morning, Michael Lawrence would be publicly committed to a path of confrontation with two of the most volatile nations on earth.

The following morning, with the help of unnamed NSA sources, the Washington Post would run a front-page, above-the-fold article about the president’s mental health. Though the newspaper piece would be hooked to the UN fiasco, it would also contain exclusive details about some of the president’s increasingly dramatic and fully documented lapses. The nation would not tolerate instability from the commander-in-chief. Especially as he was about to send the nation to war.

Things would happen very quickly after that. There was no constitutional provision for the president to take a leave of absence. And there was no short-term cure for mental illness. Lawrence would be forced to resign, if not by public pressure then by act of congress. Cotten would become president. The United States military would immediately back down in the Caspian Sea to avoid a confrontation with Iran and Russia. Instead, through intelligence operations, they would prove that Iran had masterminded the entire operation in the first place. Teheran would protest, but the government’s credibility would be seriously compromised. Then, through diplomacy, the United States would find ways to encourage moderates in Iran to seize more power. Meanwhile, spared a pounding from Iran and Russia, Azerbaijan would be in America’s debt.

After the clouds of war drifted away, President Cotten would make certain of something else. That Azerbaijan and America shared in the oil reserves of the Caspian Sea. The Middle East would never again hold the United States hostage. Not in their embassies nor at the gas pump.

With order restored and American influence and credibility at its peak, President Charles Cotten would reach out to the nations of the world. They would be invited to join us in a permanent peace and prosperity. When their people experienced freedom and economic reward for the first time, they would cast those governments out. Eventually, even China would follow suit. They had to. People were greedy, and the old-line Communists would not live forever. If the United States stopped provoking them, providing the government with a public enemy, Beijing would weaken and evolve.

This was the world that Charles Cotten wanted for America. It was the world he wanted for his own children. He had thought about it for years. He had worked to achieve it. He had prayed for it.

And very soon, he would have it.

THIRTY-THREE

Baku, Azerbaijan
Tuesday, 8:09 A.M.

David Battat was lying on a hard twin bed in the small, sparsely furnished studio apartment. There was a window to his left. Though the blinds were drawn, the room brightened as light leaked through the slats.

Battat was shivering but alert. His abductor, hostess, or savior — he had not yet decided which — was in the kitchenette off to the right. She had been making eggs, sausage, and tea when the phone rang.

Battat hoped the call was brief. The food smelled good, but the thought of tea was even better. He needed to warm himself inside. Do something to stop the trembling. He felt as though he had the flu. He was weak and everything he saw or heard seemed dreamlike. But his head and chest were also very tight. More than from any sickness he could remember. Hopefully, once he had tea and something to eat, he would be able to focus a little better, try to understand what had happened back at the hospital.