Free Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller by Doug Norton Page B

We’ve had a discussion that points to
some things we need to think through to make the most effective use of
Paternity. John, I need your good staff work, soon.”
    Martin rose and left the room. As he
walked, he made a decision: he and Ella would go to Las Vegas, soon.

 

 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter
12
    Rick and Ella made love that night, not
passionately, but deeply, two people tenderly seeking to give and receive
solace, knowing their lives had been changed forever, in a yet unfathomable
way.
    Rick had dropped quickly off to sleep,
but now he was awake. It felt really good to be above ground again, at Camp David. He rolled and saw Ella, motionless in her bed
a few feet away, heard her breathing slowly and deeply. Good—she wasn’t awake.
His mind was racing and he knew that sleep would not return.
    The
buck stops on my desk. Okay. Presidents get the issues that are basically
insoluble. If they weren’t, somebody else would have solved them. Most
presidents muddle through, sustained by strong belief in something , be it a political philosophy or a religion or both, and avoid the
shame of a failed presidency because chance or fortune or a higher
power—whatever you choose to call it—breaks about even over the course of a
term. Bad decisions tend to be balanced by good. It’s a fifty-fifty world.
    I’ve made tough calls, risky calls
before, like running against Glenna Rogers. When you take on your party’s
sitting president, failure isn’t an option if you want to stay in politics! I made that call and other tough
ones during the campaign, and now I’m president. This is different, but . . . I can do it .
    At five a.m. he
quietly put on robe and slippers, stepping softly to the cabin’s porch, feeling
in a pocket for cigarettes and matches. As he moved, the Secret Service moved,
too, murmuring into their microphones.
    The president lit up and inhaled deeply.
The cigarette’s glow was the only light source on the shadowed porch, although
the compound was lit. Birds were starting their morning chorus in the nearby
trees, and the air felt pleasant.
    Rick’s mind returned to the cabinet
meeting. His gut said they couldn’t continue to govern from a bomb shelter.
Yes, it would be chaos if a nuke in Washington
got him, Bruce, the cabinet, and Congress. But the country couldn’t shelter in
a bunker and continue to exist as the United States of America. Americans
had to get back to their workplaces and resume buying and selling and borrowing
and lending.
    If
the people have to get back to their cities their government should lead by
getting back to its city, Washington. Bruce and I
must stay apart so that one bomb can’t get us both, but beyond that, this
government has to go back to work in the capital. This morning I‘ll tell Bart
to make the arrangements. We’ll sleep tonight in the White House!
    Paternity!
Sweet Jesus, what am I going to do with that information?
Aaron and Scott got the drift that I didn’t want them to rush through the
analysis, and that should delay the official determination another twenty-four,
maybe forty-eight hours. But it’s coming at me like a freight train, and it
can’t and shouldn’t be kept secret.
      Suddenly it hit him: Suppose North Korea had not
only made the bomb; suppose North
Korea had also made the attack?
     
    ***
    Low lights came up. Kim sat in his chair,
alone in his theater.
      He’d spent hours watching scenes of the
devastation and President Martin’s speech and news conference. He’d heard the
president say, “we will find out how they got the bomb they used” and that America would
deal with both those who carried out the attack and those who enabled it.
    The devastation pleased him, and Martin’s
threat felt hollow.
    As he had before taking the Arab’s money,
Kim assessed Martin’s options. If the Americans attempted invasion—unlikely
with the memory of Iraq
so fresh—his fine army would bleed them far worse than al-Qaeda had. One