Morgan leaned back in her chair. She appeared satisfied, as if she was a lawyer who’d just delivered the closing arguments to a case she knew she was going to win.
“Alex and I talked before we came,” Hawk said. “And we almost didn’t come at all. But we thought we owed it to ourselves to see what we were saying no to.”
“Before you say anything else,” Morgan interrupted, “let me just say that you don’t have to work on site. We can set you up at home where you can operate in Montana. We’ll even provide you with the money to afford a full-time nanny for John Daniel when you don’t have time to drop him off at your aunt and uncle’s house.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Hawk said, “but we decided that we will help you for this mission. But only this mission.”
“That’s great,” Morgan said. “I can work with that.”
“Eddie Tyson meant too much to me to just leave him twisting in the wind in the middle of Siberia,” Hawk said. “I will bring him home and give his son his father back.”
Morgan pulled a cigar out of her top drawer and cut off the tip. She bit down on it before tossing it aside.
“I don’t know how Uncle J.D. did that, but it’s not for me,” she said before standing up and sauntering over to the wet bar in one corner of the room. “But we must celebrate, even if it is for only one mission.”
Hawk patted Alex on the leg as the two of them exchanged a knowing glance. He hoped this mission would end successfully as well as satisfy the itch he had to return to the field. Montana felt like home, but he couldn’t suppress his urge to flirt with danger for the sake of his country. He’d have to tell Alex how he felt soon. But he could wait.
“Cheers, everyone,” Morgan said as she offered a tray of tumblers to her two guests.
They clinked glasses before each downed a healthy serving of scotch. When they were finished, Morgan leaned on the wall behind her desk.
“Welcome aboard, you two,” she said. “Now let’s get to work.”
CHAPTER 7
Washington, D.C.
PRESIDENT FRANKLIN NORRIS WORKED the toothpick over in his mouth as he stood near a window in the Oval Office and peered out at the South Lawn. A few stray leaves tumbled along the faded grass, while the trees swayed with the wind. Overhead, the gray skies matched Norris’s mood after he’d just received his daily security briefing.
For the past three years, his time in the White House had been relatively devoid of any drama. The country’s economy had exploded while experiencing an unprecedented time of peace. For the most part, military troops had remained stateside and terrorists had been kept at bay. But in the past couple of weeks, Norris sensed the tremors of an impending seismic shift. The security briefing confirmed his intuition.
Emma Washburn, Norris’s chief of staff, swiped through a tablet situated on her lap.
“I guess it’s time to get to work,” Norris said.
“Well, sir, you do have several important calls today,” she said, tucking her curly brown locks behind her ears. “But I can postpone them if you want me to.”
Norris turned around to face Emma and shook his head. “There’s no need to push anything back. I’m sure I can manage this growing crisis with everything else I have.”
“In that case, I suggest you schedule a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff this afternoon,” she said. “They may have a better sense of what North Korea is up to.”
While North Korea had once been considered one of the biggest threats to the U.S., the isolated country’s inability to obtain viable nuclear weapons relegated them to the status of a rebel rouser, and nothing more. Their current leader, Kim Yong-ju, found an audience on social media and liked to post incendiary messages. Years of threats that never yielded even a hint of danger grew to be dismissed, the fodder of late night TV show hosts looking for a cheap laugh. But for the past six months, Kim Yong-ju had gone silent, leading to plenty of speculation as to what he might be up to or if he’d just dropped the grift out of frustration.
But when Norris sat through the morning security briefing, he realized Kim Yong-ju was serious about striking the U.S. and shredding his international image of being all talk and no action. Norris had served in the Marines and had once considered military action as the most direct route to peace. But with an election looming, he wasn’t sure that would sit well with the American people. Nobody wanted to be dragged into a protracted war. If he could swallow his pride and let Kim Yong-ju rattle his saber, Norris decided that a path of restraint could achieve a better resolution as well as keep his image pristine for voters.
That wasn’t an easy proposition for Norris, who was bent toward conflict.
“I know your inclination is to fire a pre-emptive strike, sir, but I don’t think that’s going to play well,” Emma said.
Norris looked up at his chief of staff, her eyebrows arched upward, giving him the impression that her statement was more of a question.
“Is that what you think, or are you just playing a hunch here?” he asked.
“Americans want peace, plain and simple.”
Norris nodded. “But sometimes peace is only achieved through a more violent means.”
“You could be right about that, but look at what’s become of previous administrations that pursued peace in that manner,” she said. “Their legacies are left in shambles, and those presidents are widely mocked and remembered with disdain.”
“I can’t govern, worried about what others might say,” Norris said. “And I certainly won’t let my decisions be dictated by what might get me elected. The American people put me here because they trusted me to lead them into peace and prosperity, something I’ve been quite adept at during my first term. And come hell or high water, I’m going to do what I feel like is best for this country.”
“That’s a noble sentiment, sir,” Emma said. “But what happens if your great ideas are muted because of this one incident?”
“Then so be it,” Norris said, twirling the toothpick around his mouth with his tongue. “I’m not a fortune teller. But I do know that letting Kim Yong-ju go unchecked isn’t just bad for America. It’s bad for the entire world. Someone like that needs to be taught a lesson.”
“So you want to strike?” she asked.
He paused and took a deep breath, contemplating the situation. “Not necessarily. It all depends on the intel. For all we know at this point, Kim Yong-ju might be all hat and no cattle.”
She furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure I get that analogy.”
Norris sighed. “You’ve probably never seen a classic western in your life.”
“Would that be one of those movies with Marion Michael Morrison?”
Norris grunted. “It’s John Wayne. And, yes, he’s a legend. However, I’m surprised you know his real name.”
Emma shrugged. “My father tortured me by making me listen to Ray Stevens songs. He’s got a tribute song to Marion Michael Morrison, who my father told me was the famous western actor.”
“All hat and no cattle is a way of saying that he’s got a big mouth but isn’t willing to back it up.”
“So you’re going to make him back it up?”
Norris nodded. “If it comes to that. But I’m betting that he’s just yapping his gums, desperately trying to get attention like he always does.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then we’ll strike,” he said. “For me, we just need more intel. And it’s not easy for us to get anything out of Pyongyang.”