The military intelligence people were much more regimented, and therefore more capable of controlling leaks. Nobody was allowed to know more than he had to so a great many more people would have to talk before anything useful to the enemy could get away from them.
Since he was commander-in-chief and the present crisis threatened national security he could eliminate most interference from congress. Admiral Vogel and the chiefs of staff seemed to be more conscious of their constitutional obligations than anybody Sumpter knew in the congress.
There would be accusations of censorship, of course, but the alternative, to let the enemy in on strategic plans, was unthinkable. He would not follow the course that had toppled Czarist Russia and made the twentieth century a time of continuous ideological warfare.
As it happened Sumpter was not the only one entertaining such notions. Later on that afternoon he got his first comprehensive report from the State Department. August Powers, his secretary of state, was a capable and conscientious man, but he was not a career diplomat and was somewhat less than thrilled with diplomatic practices.
“They’re giving me the runaround, Mr. President,” he announced. He sat on the very edge of his chair, pawing through his briefcase for his bundle of correspondence with the French foreign minister. “I’m convinced they know a lot more than they’re telling us.”
“And just what have they told us so far, Augie?”
Powers had finally extricated the documents he wanted. He glanced furtively through the pack, then replied. “The funds came through Switzerland. No big surprise there.” He handed the president a couple of the papers from his stack, then continued.
“Nothing remarkable about the satellite package either. It was supposed to be an ordinary communications rig, assembled by a Russian Company established by former employees of the Soviet space administration. All these people are experts and all are well respected. The French explanation for what was in the package is that while top company leadership was honest they had some employees on the take, and somebody substituted a different payload than the specs showed. They claim all that Francospatiale’s people did was mount it on the launch vehicle.
“The instrumentation was mostly Japanese. I’ve talked to their foreign minister. He confirms what the French say, that it was just business as usual; standard components ordered off the shelf from respectable companies. As far as they could tell there was nothing unusual about the order, not even any custom-made devices. The French think there were other former Soviet people involved in the fabrication of the detonating devices we saw demonstrated.”
“What you’re telling me is that they don’t know any more than we do?”
“No, Mr. President, I’m telling you they’re holding back. I don’t know why, but I do get the impression that this is highly embarrassing to them and they’d like to get out of it without our help.”
“I can understand that. What I don’t like to contemplate is unilateral action. This is a global problem. The solution should also be global.”
“All the other European governments are cooperating, Mr. President. So are the Chinese, for once.”
“I hope that lasts. I expect dissension when we get those instructions’ the terrorists promised us.”
“Me too. But we can’t back down, can we?”
“No chance. One alternative is as bad as the other—for everybody, not just us. If they set that thing off we go back to old fashioned technology, which means economic ruin. If we give in to blackmail then the US is no longer the superpower, they are. On the other hand we can’t let them destroy our economy either, and that’s the alternative. Our economy is civilization’s engine. Our money is the global standard. If it Ms, we fall, and mankind itself falls with us. No, Augie, there has to be another way.”
“I hope so, Mr. President. I’ll keep at it. So will the rest of your people, you know that?”
“It’s because I know that I still have hope. Keep me informed, Augie.”
“Yes, sir.”
Three days had passed since Sumpter’s discussion with the admiral. They had been action filled. Mexico had fragmented. Half a dozen regional revolutions had sprung up while its central government cowered in Mexico City awaiting an onslaught that hadn’t come and most thought never would, now that the old regime was doomed. The revolution had decapitated the snake. The body was their prize, so they simply ignored the helpless head, leaving it to rot away. A new capital was being set up in Monterey, long the country’s prime industrial and manufacturing center.
The US border was now garrisoned by troops from units drawn largely from the interior, and a strip of land fifty miles wide was under martial law. Military police units, not the corrupt Border Patrol, regulated traffic between the two countries. Civilian authorities, both federal and state, were now powerless.
The flow of drugs overland dwindled from a torrent to a trickle. In Occupied Texas, the Big Bend, through which 70 percent of everything America snorted, smoked, or shot up had once come in, political dissidents who had for years on end been second class citizens in their own country were turning over tons of information to the military. A few local politicians resigned. So did several US district judges and half a dozen federal prosecutors. But most just fled. It was like a horde of cockroaches running from the light.
Sumpter was beginning to feel very good about this part of it. The crisis had not only brought the country together on the issue, it had provided a legitimate excuse to take long overdue action. “If this is all I accomplish in my presidency,” he remarked to Baribeau, “I will have justified my own existence.”
Then the dam broke. The “instructions” arrived, again by an ordinary fax. Again, distribution had been wide, obviously so that terror would more easily spread. It demanded first, that all the new currency and all the plates for making it be publicly destroyed, and second, that the US Treasury redeem for gold, without question and upon demand, all expatriate money brought into the country.
President Sumpter took one look at the fax and said, “No.” He didn’t even bother to hold a press conference. Instead, Marsh issued a press release in which he quoted the president’s response—“Given the choice of death on our feet or life on our knees, this country will fight.”
The general public took it much better than the moneyed interests did. While the man on the street was aware that bad things would happen to him if the bomb went off he understood these same things would happen if it didn’t. Either way he lost, so he wanted the bad guys to lose right along with him.
The bankers and industrialists saw things quite differently. A howl went up from them, that congress joined in, and which was reinforced by similar groups in other countries. All the people who stood to lose big, and soon, were opting for appeasement.
Congress went into emergency session to consider impeaching Sumpter. But congress, designed as a deliberative body, deliberated. It could not agree with itself, thus the procedure began to drag out. Congressional leaders carefully leaked their not so subtle hints to the media, suggesting that but for their efforts to reach a “fair and just resolution of the differences,” the button would already have been pushed.
Sumpter and his allies had a different theory to explain this forbearance. “Threats are ineffective when the victim has nothing to lose. We haven’t. We can’t fall off the floor.”
The man on the street agreed. So, apparently, did the bombers. The situation languished in stalemate. Nobody blinked, but nobody moved either.
The trouble with stalemates was that none ever had or ever could last forever.