“You're welcome, I'm sure.”
He picked up the case. “How's that son of yours getting along? The one who was trying to buy a McDonald's franchise.”
Jackson smiled, “He got the store all right. He's deep in debt, but he's working sixteen hours a day and selling hamburgers faster than they can kill the cows to make them.”
McAlister laughed. “Good for him.”
“Have a nice visit with the boss,” Jackson said.
“That's up to him.”
Five minutes later, passed along by the appointments secretary, McAlister stood outside the door to the Oval Office. He hesitated, trying to relax, trying to get a smile on his face.
On his left, three feet away, the ever-present warrant officer sat on a chair in the hallway. On his lap lay a black metal case, The Bag, the file of war codes that the President needed if he were to start — or finish — a nuclear war. Thirtyish, clean-cut and lean, the warrant officer was reading a paperback suspense novel. It had a colorful cover: two people running from an unseen enemy. Above the title was a line of copy: “Unarmed in the desert — with hired killers on their trail.” Without looking up, thoroughly hooked, the Bag Man turned a page. McAlister wondered how a man who might one day help to cause mega-deaths could possibly be enthralled by a fiction in which only two lives hung in the balance.
He knocked on the door, opened it, and went in to see the President.
The Oval Office was quintessentially American. It was clearly a room where business was transacted and not merely a place set aside for ceremonial purposes. The furniture was expensive, often antique, but also sturdy and functional. A United States flag hung from a brass stand at the right and behind the chief executive's desk, as if everyone had to be reminded this was not Lithuania or Argentina. Every corner and glossy surface was squeaky clean. The room held a vaguely medicinal odor composed of furniture polish, carpet shampoo, and chemically purified, dehumidified air. The ubiquitous blue-and-silver Great Seal of the President of the United States officialized the carpet, the desk, the penholder that stood on the desk, the pens in the holder, the stationery, the stapler, the blotter, each of the many telephones, the sterling-silver pitcher full of ice water, and a dozen other things. Only American chiefs of staff, McAlister thought, could wield so much power and yet cling to such simple-minded status symbols as these.
The focal point of the office was, of course, the President. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man who managed to look austere and approachable, sophisticated and of simple tastes, fatherly and quite sensual all at the same time. In spite of his London-tailored suit and hand-stitched Italian shoes, he had the rugged, rangy image of a cowboy actor. His hair was thick, salt-and-pepper, artfully mussed; and his eyebrows were dark and bushy. And he had the best collection of vintage 1960, white-white, porcelain-capped, steel-pin, jaw-sunk, permanently implanted, artificial teeth extant.
“Good to see you, Bob,” he said, coming out from behind his desk, his right hand extended, his teeth gleaming.
“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” McAlister said as they shook hands. The elaborate, long-time-no-see greeting made McAlister ill-at-ease, for he'd spent an hour with the President just last evening.
“Nasty out there, Bob?”
“Wet enough to drown ducks, Mr. President,” McAlister said, listening to the other man laugh, remembering Beau Jackson, wondering if there was actually all that much difference between a cloakroom attendant and a chief of state.
The only other person present was Andrew Rice, the President's number-one man. To his credit, he didn't laugh at the duck joke; and Ms handshake was softer than the President's; and he had imperfect teeth. McAlister didn't particularly like the man, but he respected him. Which was exactly how he felt about the President, too.
“You look as exhausted as I feel,” Rice said.
“When this is over,” McAlister said, “I'm for the Caribbean.”
As Rice groaned and shifted and tried to get comfortable in his chair, McAlister wondered what David Canning, compulsively neat as he was, would think of the senior advisor. Rice's gray suit looked as if it had been put through a series of endurance tests by the idealists at the Consumer's Union. His white shirt was yellow-gray, his collar frayed. His striped tie was stained, and the knot had been tied haphazardly. Standing five ten, weighing two-eighty, he was easily a hundred pounds too heavy. The chair creaked under him, and just the effort of getting settled down had made him breathe like a runner.
Of course, Rice's mind was quick, spare, and ordered. He was one of the country's sharpest liberal thinkers. He had been twenty-six when Harvard University Press published his first book, Balancing the Budget in a Welfare State, and he had been electrifying political and economic circles ever since.
“I received your brief report of this morning's tragedy in Carpinteria,” the President said. “I called Bill Ryder at the Bureau to find out how in hell his security was breached. He didn't know.”
“We made a mistake putting Ryder at the FBI,” Rice said.
The President allowed as how his senior advisor might be right.
“Berlinson, Carpinteria… all of that's become moot,” McAlister said. “Mr President, have you had any new communications with Peking?”
“Thanks to a satellite relay, I had a twenty-minute talk with the Chairman a short while ago.” The President put a finger in one ear and searched for wax. “The Chairman isn't happy.” He took the finger out of his ear and studied it: no wax. He tried the other ear. “He half believes that the entire Dragonfly hysteria is a trick of some sort. They've examined about half of the five hundred and nine suspects, and they haven't found anything yet.”
“Nor will they,” McAlister said.
“The Chairman explained to me that if a plague should strike Peking, he will have no choice but to target all of China's nuclear missiles on our West Coast.” The President found no wax in the second ear.
“Their ballistics system is antiquated,” Rice said. “Their nuclear capabilities don't amount to much.” He dismissed the Chinese with one quick wave of his pudgy hand.
“True enough,” the President said. Dissatisfied with the results of the first exploration, he began to make another search of his ears, beginning again with the left one. “Our anti-missile system can stop anything they throw at us. They don't have a saturation system like Russia does. We'll intercept two or three hundred miles from shore. But the fallout won't leave either Los Angeles or San Francisco very damned healthy.”
Rice turned to McAlister. “The Chairman wants to know the name of the agent you're sending over to General Lin.”
“They want time to run their own background check on him,” the President said, giving up on his waxless ears and drumming his fingers on the desk. “They haven't said as much. But that's what I'd want to do if the roles were reversed.”
“The only problem is that The Committee may be able to monitor all communications between us and the Chinese,” McAlister said softly, worriedly.
“Not likely,” Rice said.
“It would go out on the red phone,” the President said. “That line can't be tapped.”
“Any line can be tapped,” McAlister said.
The President's jaw set like rough-formed concrete.
“The red phone is secure.”
“I'm not questioning your word, Mr. President,” McAlister said. “But even if the red phone is safe, we can get my man killed by giving his name to the Chinese too early in the game. The Committee will have sources in China's counterintelligence establishment. Once the Chinese have the name and start running a background check, The Committee will know who I'm sending. They'll have my man hit before he's safe in Peking.”