OBVIOUSLY, THIS REPORTER CANNOT DIVULGE THE DETAILS OF ANYTHING DISCUSSED AT THAT MEETING, EXCEPT TO SAY THAT ██████ ARRANGED FOR ██████ TO MEET WITH JOURNALISTS KNOWN TO BE EXPERT ON SOMALIA TOMORROW IN ██████, GERMANY.
WE WILL BE FLYING THERE TOMORROW.
DAY SIX — JUNE 15, 2007
LEAVING ██████ THE ████ AND ██████ BEHIND IN BUDAPEST TO ARRANGE THEIR SURREPTITIOUS ENTRY INTO SOMALIA, THIS REPORTER FLEW THIS MORNING WITH LIEUTENANT COLONEL ██████ AND THE MERRY OUTLAWS ON THE GULFSTREAM V TO A PRIVATE AIRFIELD NEAR ██████, GERMANY.
THERE WE WERE MET BY ████ ██████ MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ██████ █████████████████, G.M.B.H., WHICH OWNS THE ████ ██████ NEWSPAPER CHAIN. HE IS A HESSIAN, BUT HE LOOKED LIKE A POSTCARD BAVARIAN. HE IS A TALL, HEAVYSET, RUDDY-FACED MAN.
██████ TOLD ██████ THE ████ ██████ CORRESPONDENTS HE HAD ORDERED TO COME FROM MOGADISHU TO ██████ HAD BEEN DELAYED IN ██████, ██████ AND HAD NOT YET ARRIVED. THEY ARE EXPECTED TOMORROW OR THE NEXT DAY. IN THE MEANTIME, ██████ AND HIS TEAM HAVE BEEN GIVEN ACCESS TO THE FILES OF THE NEWSPAPER CHAIN.
MORE TO FOLLOW
“Will there be a reply, Madam Secretary?”
“Martha, we’ve known each other ever since the UN, and you can’t bring yourself to call me Natalie, even when we’re alone?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that, Madam Secretary.”
“There won’t be a reply right now, Martha, thank you. If Charlene is out there, would you ask her to come in, please?”
Charlene Stevens, the former Secret Service agent who headed Secretary Cohen’s security detail, came into the office and announced, “Anytime you’re ready, boss.”
“We can’t leave until I deliver this to the President,” Cohen said, holding up the messages.
“I’ll tell them to stand down,” Charlene said. “Any guess as to when we can go?”
“Let’s find out,” Cohen said, and pressed the buttons on her red White House switchboard telephone that would connect her with the President and put the conversation on loudspeaker.
A male voice was on the line in less than ten seconds.
“The President’s line. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Secretary Cohen.”
“Madam Secretary, the President is not available at the moment, and has asked not to be disturbed in less than a Category Two Situation. Would you like me to put you through to the President?”
“No, thank you. Please tell the President I have information for him and that I would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”
“Yes, ma’am. I will pass on to the President that you would like to see him at his earliest convenience.”
“Thank you,” Secretary Cohen said, and broke the connection.
“Well, while obviously important,” Charlene said, “whatever that message says, it doesn’t pose as much of a threat to the nation’s security as getting the First Mother-in-Law back in the loony bin does.”
Natalie shook her head, but didn’t reply.
“You knew he wasn’t there, right?” Charlene asked. “That he’s in Biloxi?”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
“Some of my boys were talking.”
“See if you can get some of your boys to let you know when they have an ETA for him at Andrews. I’d like to be at the White House when he gets back.”
“Done. Anything else?”
“Not unless you want to sit here and listen to me tell my boys that our golf at the Greenbrier will have to be delayed for a while.”
“I’ll pass, thank you,” Charlene said.
[FOUR]
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. President,” Secretary Cohen said. “But you said you wanted to see Colonel Naylor’s reports as soon as they arrived.”
“Actually, Madam Secretary,” Robin Hoboken said, “what the President said was that he wanted to see Colonel Castillo’s reports as soon as they arrived.”
“I stand corrected,” Cohen said.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” President Clendennen asked. “I just got back three minutes ago.”
“When I called earlier, when I first received these messages, Mr. President, I was told you were unavailable, not that you had gone somewhere.”
“Belinda-Sue’s mother, that saintly old woman,” the President said, “is very ill. She wanted to see me. I could not, of course, turn her down. God alone knows how long she’ll be with us. But I could not in good conscience ask the American taxpayer to pay the enormous expense of my going down to Biloxi in the 747 on a personal matter. So I went, very quietly, in a Gulfstream, taking only Robin and Mulligan with me.”
“How is the First Mother-in-Law?” Natalie asked.
“Not well, but with prayer there’s always hope,” the President said. “Now let me see Colonel Castillo’s report.”
“She doesn’t have Colonel Castillo’s report, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken said. “She said she had Colonel Naylor’s report.”
“And Mr. Whelan’s redacted news story,” Cohen said.
The President read both.
“Well,” he said, “to judge from this, and other information I have, I think it would be fair to assume my Out of the Box Operation is starting to take shape. Wouldn’t you agree, Madam Secretary?”
“‘Other information,’ Mr. President?”
“Natalie,” he said condescendingly, “I learned a long time ago that the more people who know a secret, the less chance there is that it will remain a secret. Right now, you don’t have the Need to Know about my other information.”
“May I ask, sir, if your other information might result in something that would require my services in the next twenty-four hours?”
“The President just told you, Madam Secretary, that you don’t have the Need to Know,” Robin Hoboken said.
“Why do you ask, Madam Secretary?” the President asked.
“I’d like to run down to the Greenbrier and play a little golf, Mr. President.”
“For how long?”
“I would be back tomorrow afternoon no later than five, sir.”
“Sure, go ahead. All work and no play makes Jack… in this case, Natalie, of course… the dull girl, as I always say.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Did you know, Natalie, that during the Cold War, they had a great big underground place at the Greenbrier where Congress could meet in case the Russians nuked Washington?”
“I’ve heard that, Mr. President.”
“Robin here told me that only last week. Which made me wonder what else is going on around here that I don’t know about.”
“Mr. President,” Natalie said, “I would suggest that with Hoboken and Mulligan looking after you, there’s very little of that sort of thing.”
“You’re right,” the President said. “I only wish I was as sure of the loyalty of other people around here as I am of theirs.”
Then he added: “Have a good time playing golf at the Greenbrier, Natalie.”
[FIVE]