The President nodded his thanks, fell silent for a moment, then said, “George, I’d like you to stay on it.”
“Mr. President…”
“Mr. Attorney General, instead of looking for precedents, how about let’s come up with reasons why we should set a precedent,” Chamberlain interjected. “Instead of finding out that no one’s ever done it before, how about some good reasons why we should do it?”
“When I need your advice, Mr. Chamberlain, I’ll ask for it, thank you,” Wentworth said acidly.
“That’ll be all, everybody, thank you,” the President said quickly, rising to his feet. Wentworth, Kallis, and Lemke departed the Oval Office silently, firing angry glares at Chamberlain.
“Well, I think you’ve succeeded in alienating just about everyone in the Cabinet now, Robert,” Victoria Collins remarked.
“What’s the use in even having a Cabinet if they won’t do what you tell them to do, Mr. President?” Chamberlain asked. “I understand this is no small task, but all I’ve heard so far is why it can’t be done. Why don’t you just do it and let the American people decide if they’ll accept it or not?”
“I want the entire Cabinet squarely behind me before I proceed, Robert,” the President said. “It’s getting harder to get there when you browbeat and insult them like that.”
“I apologize, Mr. President,” Chamberlain said. “I’ll stop antagonizing them. But I wish they’d show some backbone, that’s all.”
The President looked at his National Security Adviser for a few moments, then nodded noncommittally and went back to the papers on his desk. “Thanks, Robert.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Chamberlain said, and departed the Oval Office.
The President waited a few minutes, then buzzed his inner office secretary. “Bring him into my private office, please.” He went into the private room adjacent to the Oval Office and stood behind his desk. A few moments later the door opened, and the President straightened his suit jacket and smiled. “Welcome, Harold,” he said, moving around to the front of his desk and extending a hand in greeting. “Sorry to keep you waiting so long.”
“No problem at all, Sam,” Harold Chester Kingman, president of TransGlobal Energy, said. “Your staff made me very comfortable.”
The President motioned to a leather chair in the small office as a tray of coffee was brought in and beverages were served. “You’ve been briefed on the situation with these Russian terrorist suspects?”
“Yes, I have,” Kingman said. “I appreciate being kept informed very much.”
“We definitely believe the terrorists are targeting your company around the world, Harold,” the President said, “and we want to do as much as possible to protect your company. You and your company are very valuable to our nation’s energy future. You heard our conversation in the Oval Office?”
“Yes,” Kingman said, taking a sip of coffee. “Zakharov is in the United States? That’s very worrisome. How could Chamberlain and your Homeland Security people miss that guy?”
“Apparently he had an airtight alias, developed many years ago—completely legitimate. Basically he used his money and connections in the Russian government—and his position in TransGlobal Energy, I’m afraid—to get passports and visas into Mexico. He got himself a legitimate business, got his American visas and entry documents. Then he turned himself into a sleeper agent, going about his normal activities right under our noses, just waiting to activate himself.”
“My lack of faith in this country’s immigration system has been fully justified.”
“You remember this guy?”
“Of course,” Kingman said casually. “Think of Joseph Stalin on a good day. The guy’s a heartless, ruthless psychopathic killer. I cannot overemphasize the incredible danger we’re in to have him loose in America, especially if he has valid identification and financial resources. And I remember Pavel Khalimov too, his ‘enforcer’ in the KirovPyerviy oil company—he’s even worse. At least Zakharov would consider your value to himself and his schemes first before putting a bullet in your head: Khalimov wouldn’t waste the brainpower.”
“Why didn’t you have Zakharov eliminated yourself, Harold?” the President asked. He knew that Harold Chester Kingman certainly chose murder as one of his tools for corporate success—and he also knew that he was probably the only man in the world that Kingman would allow to ask him such a question.
“He got away and disappeared before I could tag him—to South America, it now appears,” Kingman replied. “I should have searched for him harder, but he had tons of money from his Russian oil company and he paid better than I did in Brazil.”
“What’s Zakharov after, Harold?”
“Me,” Kingman replied matter-of-factly. He lit up a cigar without asking the President’s permission—payback for him asking such uncomfortable questions. “He’s a twisted egomaniacal son of a bitch, Sam. He’s engineered dozens of killings and attacks against TransGlobal facilities all over the world for months, and now he’s after me here in the U.S. Only a wacko could ever believe he’d get away with it. If he can’t get me, he’s content to kill thousands of innocent persons.”
“What’s his next likely target?”
“Since he was based in the Bay area and returned there, I’d say he’s lining up something out there,” Kingman said. “Our corporate headquarters is in San Francisco, but it’s a relatively useless target—we’ve dispersed corporate functions out to dozens of different and more secure locations long ago. An attack there would be mostly symbolic—and Zakharov doesn’t really do ‘symbolic’ stuff. He likes to go for the jugular. He’s already gotten TransGlobal’s number-one petroleum and natural gas facility in the U.S. at Kingman City, Texas. Our number-two facility is in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but our number three is in Long Beach, California, and our number-four is in Richmond, California. My best guess: Richmond. He’ll kill several birds with one stone there: disrupt our Bay area oil terminal, along with five other companies’ facilities; take a swipe at my corporate headquarters; and attack right in my hometown.”
“We’ll deploy investigators and protective forces to all of your facilities in the U.S. and as many overseas as they’ll allow, Harold,” the President said, “but we’ll concentrate on Richmond. If he’s there, we’ll get him.”
“Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that.”
“You and TransGlobal are important to America, Harold—it’s in the government’s best interest to protect you the best we can.”
Kingman nodded, letting the obvious buttering-up routine slide off his back unnoticed. “So, how’s Chamberlain working out for you?” he asked after a few more puffs.
“He’s a great asset to me, Harold.”
“He seems to have matured a bit working for you in the White House, Sam,” Kingman observed. “When he worked for me he was an insufferable scheming weasel who liked to prove to everyone how important he was, although he was competent enough. You mentioned to me several months ago about that task force you were going to place him in charge of—I take it it’s not working out?”
“It was a great concept, but Robert seems to have picked some…unusual characters to be part of it,” the President responded. “I left it up to him, thinking he had thought about it extensively and picked the absolute cream of the special-operations crop to spearhead it, but it turns out he just picked a bunch of untested paper shufflers and lab-bound mavericks that couldn’t work well together.”
“Chamberlain can be an egotistic putz sometimes,” Kingman said, “but I always found him to be a pretty good judge of character—picking the wrong guys for the job doesn’t sound like him. Maybe he just got sloppy when he went into government service. I imagine being in Washington and having to deal with the brainless bureaucrats around here will do that to a man.” The President closed his eyes and chuckled, letting that comment slide off his back. “That’s why I stay away from this place as much as possible.”