“To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it,” the vice president had often heard James MacPherson say. And, “Evil, unchecked, is the prelude to genocide.”
As Harris got back on the phone with some producer in Atlanta, James thought about MacPherson’s comments. He had given most of the best years of his life trying to protect his country, but what did he have to show for it? He’d certainly thought he understood the nature and threat of evil. He thought he’d been prepared for the worst. But now it seemed he was mistaken. Apparently he hadn’t had a clue. And it wasn’t over yet.
Caulfield was ranting.
At the top of his lungs, he was decrying the immorality of starting a war with North Korea. Didn’t the president know Pyongyang had nuclear weapons? Didn’t he know they had chemical and biological weapons?
“The CIA says a war with North Korea could cause a million casualties,” Caulfield screamed. “A million souls. A million people with parents, and brothers, and sisters, and cousins, and friends. And for what? What do we gain? The right to say we won? Who cares? Who cares if there is so much death, so much suffering, so much destruction?”
Two agents took up positions in the hallway, prepared to throw flash grenades on cue. Six more agents were behind them — three at each end of the hallway, ready to storm the room and take their target out when so ordered.
“Haven’t enough people died?” Caulfield continued, his ranting turning to tears, and his tears turning to sobs. “Haven’t enough people suffered? How many more will it take, Mr. President? How many more?”
McKittrick stared at the monitor and pressed his headphones more tightly to his ears, trying to get every nuance from the audio feed. “He’s losing it,” he told his team. “All agents stand by.”
Tears were streaming down Caulfield’s face, but his eyes were still open. Indeed, he was staring at Judge Summers, who was too close to the conference room door for McKittrick’s purposes. He kept waiting. A few more seconds. Just a few more. The moment Caulfield looked away, or down, or closed his eyes, even for an instant, McKittrick would call for the attack. He’d pump in the gas, cut the power, send in his men, and hope to God the president made it through in one piece.
But Caulfield kept staring at the judge. His tears were slowing. His breathing was becoming more measured. He wasn’t shouting now. He was just mumbling something. But what? McKittrick turned up the volume on the monitor and pressed the headphones still tighter. What in the world was Caulfield saying? Whatever it was, he was saying it over and over again.
McKittrick picked up the remote control on the table in front of him. He started to zoom in to Caulfield’s mouth, trying to read his lips. Then all of a sudden he got it. Caulfield was mumbling, “It’s over. It’s over. It’s over….”
NO! McKittrick thought.
He grabbed his wrist-mounted radio. “Code Red, go now — go, go, go.”
But it was too late.
Caulfield stepped back, closed his eyes, and shot the president in the head. Then he opened his mouth, shoved the 9 mm inside, and pulled the trigger.
60
Vice President James stared at the TV in shock.
All color instantly drained from his face. His body began shaking. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. His brain refused to process the images, much less the implications. He couldn’t hear the screams, the gasps, the commotion moving across the command center floor one flight below. He never heard Ginny Harris scream or saw Agent Santini physically lurch backward — as if someone had punched him in the stomach — at the sight of the president being shot through the right temple.
James just stared at the flickering screen. His eyes began to glaze. The colors around him began to fade. The room began to spin. And then his stomach convulsed and there was a burning sensation at the back of his throat. Before he realized what was happening, the vice president of the United States was retching his guts out. Given that he had barely eaten anything in nearly twenty-four hours, there wasn’t much coming up. But that didn’t slow down the intense, violent convulsions ripping through his system.
He didn’t hear Santini radio for backup or notice agents and medics rushing into the office. He would later notice General Stephens there too, pulled out of a war planning meeting with a dozen other generals in the situation room three floors down. But for the moment, all he knew was that the vomiting wouldn’t stop, and he suddenly began to fear for his life.
The army Black Hawk helicopter came in low and fast.
It circled the landing pad twice until the pilots received clearance, then touched down amid a platoon of heavily armed Marines.
A colonel rushed out and opened the chopper’s side door. “Chuck Murray?” he shouted above the roar of the rotors.
“Yes, sir,” the former White House press secretary replied.
“Follow me.”
Murray grabbed his garment bag, briefcase, and laptop and climbed out of the helicopter, moving quickly to keep up with the colonel and ducking instinctively to keep from having his head sliced off by the rotors, though there was no real threat of that. The colonel gave him a temporary ID badge and coded in at a side door into the NORAD complex. They worked their way through an MP checkpoint, complete with X-rays, metal detectors, and bomb-sniffing dogs, and proceeded down a hallway toward the war room. Exhausted, Murray asked if there was a place he could shower and change before meeting General Briggs and the president.
The colonel stopped in his tracks. “General Briggs?” he asked in disbelief.
“Yes, sir,” Murray replied. “I was told to check in with the general as soon as I arrived and then he’d take me to see the president. I know it’s urgent, but I’m going to need fifteen minutes or so.”
The colonel just stared at Murray.
“Something wrong, Colonel?” Murray asked.
“Actually, there is, sir.”
“What?” Murray replied. “Because I can certainly shower and change later if…”
“No,” the colonel interrupted. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“You haven’t been told?”
“Told what?”
“They’re dead, sir.”
“Dead? Who’s dead?”
“General Briggs… and the president.”
Lee James woke up in General Stephens’s private quarters.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He just knew how weak he felt, and how sad and utterly alone. He couldn’t shake the images of Bill Oaks being shot to death in that conference room. Or of Bobby Caulfield putting a bullet through his own head. He had experienced more death in the last few days than he would ever have imagined. His tours in Vietnam with the Marines seemed tame by comparison.
James felt untethered, adrift. His love of politics was gone. The thrill of public service had evaporated overnight. He had never planned to serve as the nation’s commander in chief. Certainly not in time of war. Certainly not in a nation under an attack of this magnitude. The weight of the responsibility was almost unbearable. How had other presidents handled such moments? How had Truman before Nagasaki and Hiroshima? How had MacPherson before the War of Gog and Magog? Were they this depressed? How could they go forward, day after day?