Chapter 16
The Oval Office sat on the southeast corner of the White House, overlooking the Rose Garden. During their tenure, each President got to choose the décor inside of the office. President John Merrick decided to use the Oval Office to memorialize his brother. Paul Merrick was killed on September 11th, 2001, when a suicide terrorist crashed a commercial jet into the office where he worked in the Pentagon.
Directly across from the rosewood desk hung a large framed photo of Paul Merrick in his lieutenant’s uniform, taken just a week before the attack. Other photos of his brother, his wife, and their two daughters intermingled with portraits of Harry Truman and JFK. Paul’s favorite putter leaned against the wall next to a couple of golf balls. Whenever Merrick got the nerve, he gripped the club and felt the indentations where his younger brother’s hands had worn down the leather. His fingers wound around the grip and rekindled the warmth that his brother’s hands left behind. Merrick would lean over, aim a golf ball at the leg of his desk and stroke the putter. Like a magic wand, it conjured up teenage memories of Saturday afternoons sneaking over to the local public course and playing golf with his brother deep into the darkness. In more recent years, with the finances to back him, Paul would constantly tinker with new equipment. Somehow the latest technology always ended up in his golf bag, but the putter was the only club that Paul would never replace no matter how old and worn.
Now Merrick stood over a golf ball, his hands duplicating his brother’s position on the putter. With memories of his brother resurfacing, he stared intently at the ball as if he might see his brother’s face when his head came up. He didn’t. Instead he saw the stern expression of Chief of Staff William Hatfield, who was sitting on a leather chair, scrolling down the screen on his laptop.
Situated in various chairs and sofas fronting Merrick’s desk were five of Merrick’s aides, who’d pulled an all-nighter with him collecting data and discussing options. A tray of cut fruit and vegetables sat on a coffee table in the middle of the room. Secretary of State Samuel Fisk interrupted his pacing to take a celery stick and nervously chew it to down his fingertips. Fisk had the longest running relationship with Merrick, going back to eighth grade, and he always had the last word on serious issues. Everyone in the room knew this, so Merrick would sometimes catch his staff addressing Fisk instead of him. This was of no concern to him. Merrick was as no-nonsense as they came, and everyone who worked for him understood his loyalties. The Presidency was one of the few occupations where cronyism was not only allowed, but practically a necessity. Merrick surrounded himself with people he trusted and in return, his people trusted him.
Standing behind Hatfield and looking over his shoulder, Press Secretary Fredrick Himes, who craned his neck to get a better glimpse of the overnight polls.
Hatfield scrolled down the computer screen with his index finger. “Do you want the bad news, John, or the worse news?”
“Just give it to me, Bill.” Merrick hunched over the putter, eyeing the golf ball.
“Your approval rating has dropped again. It’s down from forty-three to thirty-nine percent.”
Merrick felt the room tighten up. A lame-duck president not only lost the support of his political constituents, but could indelibly tarnish a staff member’s career. The captain might go down with the ship, but the crew didn’t escape unscathed.
Hatfield scrolled further until he found what he was looking for. “When asked whether the President was handling the KSF attacks properly, sixty-five percent said no. Only twenty-five percent said yes. Ten percent were undecided.”
Merrick looked up at the faces before him. They were long, tired and confused. They’d spent the past week performing masterful acts of damage control and it seemed to be paying little dividends.
Hatfield said, “Then there’s the people who were asked whether—”
“That’s enough,” Merrick announced. He didn’t need to hear any more, especially from his Chief of Staff, who was the White House’s version of Chicken Little. Hatfield was a good, loyal man, but the pressure associated with the everyday dealings of a sitting president was becoming too much for the man. Nobody wanted to hear bad news from the panic-stricken voice of Bill Hatfield.
Merrick leaned the putter against the wall and walked to the front of his desk. “I want to remind all of you, this is not a permanent condition. We will ultimately succeed in finding Kharrazi and we will put a stop to the bombings, and our approval rating will go up.”
This inspired a few nods of sympathetic agreement. Merrick could sense the disingenuous consent to his appraisal and wondered how long he had before he would lose even his own staff.
“Sir,” Press Secretary Himes said, “if you don’t mind me asking — how close are we to accomplishing our goals?”
This, of course, was the real question. Merrick could tell a story and buy an extra day or two, but eventually it would come back to bite him. He knew better than to fabricate scenarios that didn’t exist. He received confidential information from the FBI three or four times a day, and each briefing was more frustrating than the last. Apparently, Kharrazi had cultivated a team of Kurds whose only purpose was to act suspicious enough to be brought in for questioning. Hundreds of decoys were sent out into the streets of America asking hardware storeowners for large amounts of fuses and other curious materials. They would linger long enough for the clerk to contact the FBI and get themselves dragged into custody without any possibility of furnishing information about Kharrazi. It cost the Bureau precious man-hours of investigative time, which they desperately needed.
“Fredrick, I’ll have a full report available to you for the three o’clock press conference. I’ll know more when I get my briefing from the Bureau this morning.” He gave Himes a trust me look, but his clout was wearing thin and he knew it.
Merrick pointed to Defense Secretary Martin Riggs, “Marty, what about that other option?”
This drew some few flinches in the room. It was the option that no one wanted to consider. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla that sat on Merrick’s desk in the form of an order to withdraw troops from Turkey.
Riggs was an ex-marine, ex-CIA, and exceptional at finding a middle ground in almost every situation. He knew the terrors of war intimately and Merrick took him on as Defense Secretary for that very reason. Merrick wanted someone who understood the consequences of combat, and therefore would be more agreeable to alternatives. Riggs wasn’t afraid of confrontation, just aware of the costs.
“Sir,” Riggs said, dropping a clipboard onto the coffee table and leaning over, elbows on his knees. “We’re prepared to release military footage from Turkey showing Turkish Security Forces in Kalar raising the Turkish Flag and shouting cheers as they pump their guns into the air. Kalar was the Kurds’ last stronghold and this should be enough evidence to show that the United States is no longer needed. It could allow us the dignity to leave on our own terms, without pressure from the KSF.”
“Bullshit,” came a voice from the back of the room.
Merrick saw Samuel Fisk shaking his head, looking down at the wood floor. “Sam,” Merrick said, “you think the public will buy it?”
“Fuck no — would you?” Fisk snorted.
Merrick laughed for the first time in so long that his cheeks hurt from the unused muscles. “You shouldn’t pull any punches, Sam.”
Fisk muttered a few words under his breath and returned to a contemplative posture.
Merrick tugged down on his tie and pulled a melon ball out of a crystal bowl with a frilled toothpick. Before he finished chewing, he said, “Marty, thanks for the report.”