“Respectfully, Ted,” Jones shot back, “you yourself just said this kind of intel is uncertain.”
“Respectfully, Vernon, you advised that the Turks you believe delivered Hamilton to the Syrians were simply drug runners. Yet this morning, they set off a bomb a few blocks from the White House.”
Jones had no answer to that other than to seethe, and Anders immediately regretted the riposte, which had been ego driven, unrelated to the goal he was trying to achieve. He held up his open hands in supplication. “What I’m saying is, what if we’re both wrong? It’s not Hamilton in Azaz, and it’s not our jihadists.”
Jones shrugged. “Then we have some collateral damage on our hands.”
“Unattributable collateral damage, yes. Which, while certainly unfortunate, is neither new nor particularly costly. Now, what if we’re both right?”
Jones watched him as though wary of being tricked. “We take out the jihadists,” he said slowly, “but we also take out Hamilton.”
“Agreed. Now, what I’m asking — what we all need to be clear-eyed about — is this: Are we willing to lose the opportunity to take out the people behind this morning’s attack because there’s a risk of a potential American casualty? How do we explain that kind of squeamishness to the American people if there’s another attack and this group turns out to be behind it?”
The president looked at Jones. “Are we certain the person being held in Azaz is Hamilton?”
Anders watched Jones and could almost feel the man’s calculations. Everyone had just agreed certainty was impossible. Which meant the president knew the answer would be no. And if he was asking the question anyway, it meant he wanted the answer to be no. Presumably because he had already decided the political risks and rewards of an immediate, simple drone strike were preferable to those of a slower, more complicated rescue attempt. The success of a rescue attempt was easy to grade: Was Hamilton really rescued? While the success of a drone strike was easy to fudge: If the bodies were military-age males and Muslim, and the government claimed they were terrorists, how could anyone prove otherwise?
Jones shook his head. “Not certain, sir, no.”
The president gazed at the ceiling for a moment, then said to no one in particular, “And is it possible the group behind this morning’s attack wants us to believe they’re holding Hamilton, even though they’re not, as a way of staying our hand?”
It was so obvious what the president wanted to hear that it was inconceivable anyone would argue with him. Still, it was an effort for Anders to wait. He wanted it to come from Jones. It would be the signal that Jones was in.
“It’s possible, sir,” Jones said after a moment. “We know they’re terrified of our UAVs. Pretending to be holding an American hostage — a kind of fictitious human shield — would be one way of dissuading us from pressing our technological advantage.”
The president smiled slightly, perhaps pleased to have demonstrated that, in the end, he was always the smartest guy in the room. “Vernon, you’re friendly with Mike Rogers at CNN, correct? The former congressman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If the worst should happen, could we give him our version of events on background, and count on him to explain why this was a difficult call, and why it was of paramount importance that we seize this opportunity to keep the American people safe?”
“I have no doubt of it, sir.”
The president nodded. “Make sure he’s properly briefed, then. And what about Declan Walsh at the New York Times? Didn’t he publish what our ‘counterterrorism officials and analysts’ fed him the last time an American hostage was killed? How valuable and successful the UAV program has been overall, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, sir, that was Walsh. Really helped us get out our version of the story.”
“Make sure to reach out to him, as well.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right,” the president said, “here’s the official narrative. If it’s not Hamilton, we carried out a successful reprisal against the terrorists behind this morning’s barbaric attack on our nation’s capital.”
The president paused for the assembled players to murmur their assent, then continued. “If, on the other hand, in the unfortunate event Hamilton loses his life in the course of the operation, the narrative is that the terrorists fear our UAV program so much they’re trying everything they can, including deliberately placing hostages in the line of fire, to get us to dismantle it. To deliver to them that sort of victory would itself reward the very terrorism with which we are at war. That the terrorists would do to a hostage what they did to Hamilton is, in a sense, proof of just how well the UAV program has been working, and criticizing the program would itself be a perverse reward for the terrorist propaganda strategy. Are we all clear on that?”
The president paused again while everyone nodded, probably enjoying the drama of making his national security team wait for their commander in chief to issue his decision. Then he said, “I took an oath to protect the American people. Today, that oath requires a difficult call. We can’t let this morning’s attack go unanswered. We can’t take a chance on the people behind it acting again. Vernon, how did you put it? ‘Emulsify these bastards.’ Without delay.”
Jones nodded crisply, then remembered for form’s sake to glance over at the secretary of defense. The necessary and inevitable nod procured, Jones said, “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
Anders maintained a poker face, but inside he was awash with relief. The meeting could have gone either way. He’d played it well, but he knew to some degree he’d been lucky. It didn’t hurt that the president seemed to be under the misapprehension that his constitutional oath was to protect the American people, rather than to protect the Constitution. Anders certainly wasn’t going to be the one to correct him.
In the corridor on the way out, Jones caught up to Anders and took him by the arm. “Hey. What the hell were you pulling in there?”
Anders glanced at Jones’s hand and waited until it had been removed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why are you so intent on a drone strike? Why don’t you want us to rescue this guy?”
“Personally, I wish we could rescue him. As the president said, it was a tough call.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Ted.”
“I’m not bullshitting anyone. Do you want to be the one to explain after the next bombing why we didn’t hit these bastards when we had a chance?”
Jones eyed him for a moment, clearly unconvinced. It didn’t matter. The president had made the call. And it was the right call.
In the car on the way back to Fort Meade, Anders thought of the images he’d seen on CNN that morning. It was unfortunate, but on balance he believed it would be beneficial. In so many ways, a country was like a person — which made sense, after all, because a country was in the end just a collection of people. And people were always concerned about their health, and rightly so, but not always properly solicitous of it. A man might therefore visit the dentist and be warned he needed to floss more often to prevent gum disease, and the man, in the immediate aftermath of his run-in with the pick and the drill, would promise himself that this time, he would be more diligent about his dental hygiene. And he might even follow through, brushing more conscientiously, flossing more regularly, for a few days, perhaps even for a week. But inevitably, as the dentist’s warning and the discomfort induced by her instruments receded into the distance, the man would revert to laziness, complacency, denial. The simple truth was, twice a year just wasn’t enough to make the average person take better care of his teeth. And similarly, the occasional random terror attack demonstrably wasn’t enough to keep the citizenry properly vigilant. An occasional supplement might be required, and while that supplement might involve some unpleasant inherent side effects, surely those side effects were nothing compared to the actual disease they were required to protect against?