The next morning, the President held his first cabinet meeting. This time Ralph Brooks sat on his right-hand side. The group, visibly tired from the seven inaugural balls the night before, assembled in the Cabinet Room. Florentyna sat at the far end of the long oval table, surrounded by men with whose views she had rarely been in accord in the past, aware that she was going to have to spend four years battling against them before she could hope to form her own cabinet. She wondered how many of them knew about her deal with Parkin.
As soon as Florentyna had settled into her wing of the White House, she appointed Janet Brown as head of her personal office. Many of the positions left vacant by Parkin’s staff she also filled with her old team from the campaign and Senate days.
Of the remaining staff she inherited, she quickly learned how valuable their skills and special qualifications would have been had they not disappeared one by one as the President offered them executive jobs. Within three months, Parkin had denuded her office of all the most competent staff, taking first the middle-ranking campaign operatives and then some of the inner circle of advisors.
Florentyna tried not to show her anger when the President offered Janet Brown the position of Under Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Janet didn’t hesitate over the new opportunity: and in a handwritten letter to the President she accepted the great compliment he had paid her but explained in detail why she felt unable to consider any government position other than to serve the Vice President.
‘If you can wait four years, so can I,’ she explained.
Florentyna had often read that the life of the Vice President was, to quote John Nance Garner, ‘not worth a pitcher of warm spit,’ but even she was surprised to find how little real work she had to do compared with her days in Congress. She had received more letters when she had been a Senator. Everyone seemed to write to the President or the state representatives. Even the people had worked out that the Vice President had no power. Florentyna enjoyed presiding over the Senate for important debates, because it kept her in contact with colleagues who would be helping her again in four years’ time, and they made sure she was aware of what was being said covertly in the halls of Congress, as well as on the House and Senate floor. Many senators used her to get messages through to the President, but as time went by she began to wonder whom she should use for the same purpose, as the days turned into weeks in which Pete Parkin did not bother to consult her on any major issue.
During her first year as Vice President, Florentyna made goodwill tours to Brazil and Japan, attended the funerals of Willy Brandt in Berlin and Edward Heath in London, carried out on-site inspections of three natural disasters and chaired so many special task forces that she felt qualified to publish her own guide to how the government works.
The first year went slowly, the second even more so. The only highlight was representing the government at the crowning of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey after Queen Elizabeth II’s abdication in 1994. Florentyna stayed with Ambassador John Sawyer at Winfield House, conscious of how similar their respective roles were in the matter of form over substance. She seemed to spend hours chatting about how the world was run and what the President was doing on matters such as the building up of Russian troops on the Pakistan border. She gained most of her information from the Washington Post and envied Ralph Brooks’s real involvement as Secretary of State. Although she kept herself well informed on what was going on in the world at large, for only the second time in her life she was bored. She longed for 1996, fearing her years as Vice President would yield very few positive results.
Once Air Force II had landed back at Andrews, Florentyna returned to her work and spent the rest of the week checking through the State and CIA traffic that had piled up in her absence abroad. She rested over the weekend even though CBS informed the public that the dollar had suffered as a result of the international crisis. The Russians were massing more forces on the Pakistan border, a fact that the President had dismissed in his weekly press conference as ‘not of great importance.’ The Russians, he assured the assembled journalists, were not interested in crossing any borders into countries that had treaties with the United States.
During the following week the panic seemed to subside and the dollar recovered. ‘It’s a cosmetic recovery,’ Florentyna pointed out to Janet, ‘caused by the Russians. The international brokers are reporting that the Bank of Moscow is selling gold, which was exactly what they did before invading Afghanistan. I do wish bankers would not treat history on a week-to-week basis.’
Although several politicians and journalists contacted Florentyna to express their fears, she could only placate them as she watched proceedings from the wings. She even considered making an appointment to see the President, but by Friday evening most Americans were on their way home for a peaceful weekend convinced the immediate danger had passed. Florentyna remained in her office in the west wing that Friday evening and read through the cables from ambassadors and agents on the Indian subcontinent. The more she read, the more she felt unable to share the President’s relaxed stance. As there was very little she could do about it, she neatly stacked up the papers, put them into a special red folder and prepared to go home. She checked her watch. 6:32. Edward had flown down from New York and would be joining her for dinner at 7:30. She was laughing about the thought of filing her own papers when Janet rushed into the office.
‘There’s an intelligence report that the Russians are mobilizing.’
‘Where’s the President?’ was Florentyna’s immediate reaction.
‘I’ve no idea. I saw him leaving the White House by helicopter about three hours ago.’
Florentyna reopened her file and stared back down at the cables while Janet remained standing in front of her desk.
‘Well, who will know where he is.’
‘You can be sure Ralph Brooks does,’ Janet said.
‘Get me the Secretary of State on the line.’
Janet left for her own office while Florentyna checked through the reports again. She quickly went over the salient points raised by the American ambassador in Islamabad before re-reading the assessment of General Pierce Dixon, the chairsan of the joint chiefs of staff.
The Russians, it was reliably documented now, had ten divisions of troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and their forces had been multiplying over the past few days. It was known that half their Pacific fleet was sailing toward Karachi, while two battle groups were carrying out ‘exercises’ in the Indian Ocean. General Dixon had directed an increased intelligence watch when it was confirmed that fifty MIG 25s and SU 7s had landed at Kabul military airport at six that evening. Florentyna checked her watch: 7:09.
‘Where is the bloody man?’ she said out loud. Her phone buzzed.
‘The Secretary of State on the line for you,’ said Janet. Florentyna waited for several seconds.
‘What can I do for you?’ asked Ralph Brooks, sounding as if Florentyna had interrupted him.
‘Where is the President?’ she asked for a third time.
‘At this moment he’s on Air Force I,’ said Brooks quickly.
‘Stop lying, Ralph. It’s transparent, even on the phone. Now, tell me where the President is.’
‘Halfway to California.’
‘If we have an increased intelligence watch because the Soviets are on the move, why hasn’t he been advised to return?’