Except for one thing. To stay would be the greatest and most dangerous gamble of their lives. Their country was now under the strictest control they could remember, and there was a reason for it. The people who’d roared their love and affection for the dead one–what did they really think? It hadn’t mattered a week before, but it mattered now. The soldiers they commanded came from the same human sea. Which of them had the charisma to assume the leadership of the country? Which of them had the keys to the Ba’ath Party? Which of them could rule by the force of will? Because only then could they look into the future, if not without fear, then with a small enough quantity of it that their experience and courage could deal with the chances they would be taking. Each of them, standing at
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the racetrack, looked around the assembly of brother officers and wondered the same question: Which one?
That was the problem, because if there had been one of their number to do it, he would already have been dead, probably in a tragic helicopter mishap. And a dictatorship was not operated by a committee. Strong as they all felt themselves to be, each looked at the others and saw potential weakness. Private jealousies would destroy them. Jockeying and rivalries would, probably, cause such internal turmoil that the iron hand needed to control the people would weaken. And in a few months, probably, it would come apart. They had all seen it happen before, and the ultimate result was foretold in their deaths, standing before a line of their own soldiers, and a wall to their backs.
There was no ethos for these men other than power and its exercise. That sufficed for one man, but not for many. Many needed to be unified around something, whether it be the rule imposed by one superior, or a commonly held idea, but it had to be something that imposed a common outlook. No one of them’ could do the former, and collectively they lacked the latter. Powerful as they each might be, they were also weak in a fundamental way, and as the officers stood there, looking around at one another, they all knew it. At base, they believed in nothing. What they enforced with weapons they could not impose with will. They could command from behind, but not lead from the front. At least most of them were intelligent enough to know it. That was why Badrayn had flown to Baghdad.
He watched their eyes and knew what they were thinking, however impassive their faces might have been. A bold man would have spoken up with confidence, and thus assumed leadership of the group. But the bold ones were long since dead, cut down by one bolder and more ruthless, only to be cut down by the unseen hand of someone more patient and more ruthless still–enough so that he could now make a generous offer. Badrayn knew what the answer had to be, and so did they. The dead Iraqi President had left nothing behind to replace himself, but that was the way of men who believed in nothing except themselves.
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THE PHONE RANG at 6:05 this time. Ryan didn’t mind awakening before 7:00. It had been his custom for years, but back then he’d had to drive in to work. Now the job was an elevator ride away, and he’d expected that the time previously spent in a car could now be spent in bed. At least he’d been able to doze in the back of his official car.
“Yes?”
“Mr. President?” Jack was surprised to hear Arnie’s voice. Even so, he was tempted to demand who the hell else would pick the phone up.
“What is it?”
“Trouble.”
VICE PRESIDENT EDWARD J. Kealty had not slept all night, but one would not have known it from looking at him. Shaved pink, clear of eye, and straight of back, he strode into the CNN building with his wife and his aides, there to be met by a producer who whisked him into an elevator for the trip upstairs. Only the usual pleasantries were exchanged. The career politician just stared forward, as though trying to convince the stainless-steel doors that he knew what he was about. And succeeding.
The preparatory calls had been made over the previous three hours, starting with the head of the network. An old friend, the TV executive had been thunderstruck for the first time in his career. One halfway expected airplane crashes, train wrecks, violent crimes–the routine disasters and sorrows from which the media made its living–but something like this was the occurrence of a lifetime. Two hours earlier, he’d called Arnie van Datnm, another old friend, because one had to cover one’s bases as a reporter; besides, there was also a love of country in him that he rarely expressed but it was there nonetheless, and the CNN president didn’t have a clue where this story would go. He’d called on the network’s legal correspondent, a failed trial attorney, who in turn was now on the phone with a professor friend at Georgetown University Law
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School. Even now, the CNN president called into the green room.
“Are you really sure, Ed?” was all he had to ask.
“I don’t have a choice. I wish I didn’t have to.” Which was the expected answer.
“Your funeral. I’ll be watching.” And the line went dead. At the far end there was a form of rejoicing. It would be a hell of a story, and it was CNN’s job to report the news, and that was that.
“ARNIE, IS T HIS totally crazy or am I still dreaming?” They were in an upstairs sitting room. Jack had thrown on some casual clothes. Van Damm didn’t have his tie on yet, and his socks were mismatched, Ryan noticed. Worst of all, van Damm looked rattled, and he’d never seen that before.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Both men turned when the door opened.
“Mr. President?” A fiftyish man came in, properly dressed in a business suit. He was tall and harried-looking. Andrea followed him in. She, too, had been briefed, insofar as that was possible.
“This is Patrick Martin,” Arnie said.
“Criminal Division at Justice, right?” Jack rose to shake hands and waved him to the coffee tray.
“Yes, sir. I’ve been working with Dan Murray on the crash investigation.”
“Pat’s one of our better trial lawyers. He also lectures at George Washington on constitutional law,” the chief of staff explained.
“So, what do you think of all this?” the President asked, his voice still somewhere between whimsy and outright disbelief.
“I think we need to see what he has to say.” The quintessential lawyer’s reply.
“How long at Justice?” Jack asked next, returning to his seat.
“Twenty-three years. Four years in the FBI before that.” Martin poured a cup and decided to stand.
“Here we go,” van Damm observed, unmuting the TV.
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“Ladies and gentlemen, with us here in our Washington bureau is Vice President Edward J. Kealty.” CNN’s chief political correspondent also looked as though he’d been dragged from his bed and genuinely shaken. Ryan noted that, of all the people he’d seen that day, Kealty looked the most normal. “Sir, you have something unusual to say.”
“Yes, I do, Barry. I probably need to start by saying that this is the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in over thirty years of public life.” Realty’s voice was quiet and restrained, speaking in the tone of an essay by Emerson, slow and clear, and painfully earnest. “As you know, President Durling asked me to resign from my post. The reason for this was a question of my conduct while a senator. Barry, it’s no secret that my personal conduct has not always been as exemplary as it should have been. That’s true of many people in public life, but it’s no excuse, and I do not claim that it is. When Roger and I discussed the situation, we agreed that it would be best for me to resign my office, allowing him to select a new running mate for the elections later this year. It was his further intention to have John Ryan fill my post as interim Vice President.
“Barry, I was content with that. I’ve been in public life for a very long time, and the idea of retiring to play with my grandchildren and maybe teach a little bit actually looked pretty attractive. And so I agreed to Roger’s request in the interests of–well, really for the good of the country.
“But I never actually resigned.”
“Okay,” the correspondent said, holding his hands up as though to catch a baseball. “I think we need to be really clear on this, sir. What exactly did happen?”
“Barry, I drove over to the State Department. You see, the Constitution specifies that when the President or Vice President resigns, the resignation is presented to the Secretary of State. I met with Secretary Hanson privately to discuss the issue. I actually had a letter of resignation prepared, but it was in the wrong form, and Brett asked me to redraft it. So I drove back, thinking that I could have it done and resubmitted the following day.