From the moment — and perhaps even before — her husband had acceded to the presidency following the sudden demise of his predecessor from a ruptured aortal aneurysm, Belinda-Sue had had her eyes on the vice presidency and perhaps — even probably — the presidency itself.
The first clue to this came when Belinda-Sue sat down on her throne at her husband’s very first Cabinet meeting as President. As soon as she could get the secretary of State alone, she opened a conversation dealing with the political history of the Argentine Republic, especially that of its president, Juan Domingo Perón.
“Do you know that President Perón appointed his wife,” Belinda-Sue began, “not the blonde, Evita, the other one, the redheaded one, Isabel, to be vice president?”
“Circumstances in Argentina are somewhat different than they are here, Mrs. Clendennen.”
“You can call me Belinda-Sue, honey,” Mrs. Clendennen said. “And I’ll call you Natalie.”
The secretary had smiled wanly but had not replied.
Mrs. Clendennen’s ambitions regarding the vice presidency had had to be put on hold when her husband was forced to appoint Charles W. Montvale to that office. His only other option was to face impeachment charges in the Congress for a number of offenses. One of these, for example, was described by the attorney general as so egregious that its “illegality boggled the mind.”
But she had by no means abandoned them, which everyone in the Cabinet Room had to consider very carefully when they thought about getting President Clendennen out of the White House.
So long as her husband was President, there was the possibility that Vice President Montvale would suffer a rupture of his aorta, or get run over by a truck, thus making the office of vice president vacant once again. If something like that happened, God forbid, Belinda-Sue wanted to be available.
The people in the Cabinet Room today had decided — not in a formal meeting, but in an interlocking series of private conversations between no more than three of them at a time — that the best, and probably only, way to deal with the situation was to do nothing and hope for the best.
The President’s aorta was reported to be in absolutely no danger of rupturing, and it was highly unlikely that he would get run over by a bus, but hope, someone said, springs eternal in the human breast.
Eventually the President’s term of office would expire. In the meantime, they would just have to live with him and with Belinda-Sue attempting — with only slight success — to decide who got to see her husband, and who did not, and what documents of state were — and were not — presented to him for his signature.
In the meantime, they would pretend the President was sane, and that the First Lady was indeed the twenty-first-century embodiment of Martha Washington, which was, she had confided to her friend Natalie, how she often thought of herself.
Everyone stood as the President walked from the door to the Oval Office to his chair.
“Good afternoon,” he said, flashing his benign smile. “Please be seated.”
Everyone sat down and looked at him expectantly.
“Inasmuch as the First Lady had to go to Mississippi to deal with a family medical problem and won’t be with us, we might as well get started,” the President said.
“I hope it’s nothing serious, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Frederick K. Beiderman said solicitously.
Freddy, CIA Director A. Franklin Lammelle thought, you know as well as I do that means that Belinda-Sue’s mother has once again escaped from the Ocean Springs Baptist Assisted Living facility and is now holed up somewhere they can’t find her with three Mason jars full of Mississippi’s finest 140-proof white lightning.
“Nothing serious,” the President said. “A recurring problem.”
Usually recurring about once a month, Lammelle thought.
Well, at least Belinda-Sue won’t be here to offer her solutions to the nation’s problems.
“I have been thinking…” President Clendennen began.
Oh, shit! We’re in trouble!
“… about our war on the drug trade and piracy.”
Double shit! In spades!
“And I have concluded we should start thinking out of the box,” he went on. “And, doing that, I have come up with an idea that I want your wholehearted cooperation in implementing.”
How bad can this get?
“Specifically, I think we should involve Lieutenant Colonel Castillo.”
What did he say?
Lammelle looked at Secretary of State Cohen, whose eyes were rolling.
That’s involuntary. Natalie plays the game of life with a poker face Las Vegas gamblers would kill for.
“Now, that may surprise some of you, but surprise is what you get when you start thinking out of the box,” the President went on. “And this will surprise you even more, but after thinking about it at length, I’ve concluded that my predecessor had a pretty good idea when he first involved Colonel Castillo in affairs of state.
“When that diplomat was kidnapped in Argentina, my predecessor wanted a knowledgeable, objective observer to see how the situation was being handled, and to report his observations and recommendations directly to him.
“He bungled the carrying out of the idea, as we all know, but the idea was sound. If he had given Colonel Castillo the proper supervision, everything would have worked out fine. I won’t repeat that mistake. I’m very good at supervising people. Hands-on is how I think of it.
“How soon can we get him in here?”
No one replied.
“General Naylor?”
“Mr. President, Colonel Castillo is retired.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? He can be recalled to active duty.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President, in ‘extraordinary circumstances’ Colonel Castillo could be recalled to hazardous active duty.”
“General, would you call Mexican drug cartels shooting up the streets of Laredo and El Paso — my God, the next thing you know they’ll be doing that in Biloxi — ordinary circumstances? Not to mention Somali pirates holding three of our tankers for ransom? Call Colonel Castillo to active duty and get him in here. Where is he?”
“I don’t really know, Mr. President,” General Naylor confessed.
“What about you, Mr. Ellsworth?” the President asked. “Does my director of National Intelligence know where Colonel Castillo is?”
“I have some unconfirmed reports that he’s either in Budapest or Argentina, Mr. President,” Truman C. Ellsworth replied. “I’ll look into it further for you, Mr. President.”
“Huh,” the President snorted. “You’ll do better than that. You will personally go to Budapest to see if he’s there and, if so, order him to report to me immediately. And while you’re doing that, General Naylor will go to Argentina for the same purpose. And while they’re doing that, if my CIA director acquires unconfirmed intelligence that Colonel Castillo is in Timbuktu, Mr. Lammelle will go there for the same purpose. And while all that is going on, you, Secretary Beiderman, will handle the administrative details of recalling Colonel Castillo from retirement.”
Ellsworth, Naylor, and Beiderman all said, “Yes, sir,” on top of one another.
“And the rest of you will take whatever action in this regard that pops into your fertile imaginations,” the President went on. “I’m sure you all heard what I said about wanting your wholehearted cooperation in that matter.”
He let that sink in for a moment, and then dismissed them by saying, “That will be all. Thank you for coming.”