Instinctively, Shaw sensed it was truth-to-tell time or he would end up back in some California city running elections for a desperate mayor or wanna-be assemblyman. “Madame President, it was what you needed to hear.” All traces of his Southern accent were gone. “To make it work, I’ll need to set up a war room similar to Clinton’s and make the appropriate noises. I’ll put a stable of tame reporters together and leak stories about how you have to keep me in check. The bastards will be so busy looking over their shoulders at me that you can scamper in home free.”
“What about finances?”
“I’ll set up a committee to reelect the president and then disappear into the background. But I can still open doors, twist arms, and crack heads. All behind the scenes, naturally.”
“Naturally. And the money?”
“All of it goes through the committee. I’ll have a screening process in place to make sure it’s clean and then promptly reported. Clean as a hound’s tooth.”
“My role in all this?”
“You never get involved with the filthy stuff.” He leaned forward, rolled the glass between his big hands, and stepped through a time warp. They were back in Sacramento and he was the master lecturing an eager student on the game. “Some bastard or foreign country will make a run at you and try to buy influence with a gawd-awful campaign contribution. I’ll try to catch ’em, but one might get through. That’s when plausible denial is everything. You’ve got to keep it at arm’s length so you can sacrifice the subordinate who got too eager, or careless, overstepped the bounds, and got caught. It’s the same dealing with the CIA and intelligence.”
“Patrick, you do know what will happen after the election?” Her voice was soft and full of concern.
Shaw’s face broke into a big smile. She was still the perfect student. “In this business, usin’ people is like eatin’ a good T-bone steak; you gnaw the bone, suck the marrow out, and throw what’s left to your dog.” He would have to make a very public exit from public life. Then after the proper amount of time had passed, he would be back, the privileged friend and advisor with direct access to the president. But this time he had it wrong.
They were as mismatched a pair as ever walked the halls of NATO. Mazie was doll-like while the tall and rangy Bender towered over most of the bureaucrats who made a career working for the political arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Mazie recognized the symptoms immediately: empty offices, too many casual conversations, and people wandering the halls. “This place needs a swift kick in the ass,” she muttered to herself.
“My sentiments exactly,” Bender replied in a low voice. As outsiders, they saw what the bureaucrats refused to acknowledge: NATO was an alliance that had lost its mission. Yet, it kept rolling along because of its own mass, a juggernaut without a compass. “The real action is at SHAPE where the working troops are.” SHAPE, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, was the military arm of NATO headquartered near Mons, thirty miles southwest of Brussels. “This is where the pretty people do their thing.”
She looked at him and laughed, her voice a tinkling bell in the staid corridors of the formal and sterile building. “Who would’ve ever thought — the Frump, here with the pretty people.” Bender arched an eyebrow, not understanding. “When I worked for Bill Carroll, they called me the Frump.” William Gibbons Carroll was a former national security advisor who had died of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“You, frumpy?”
“I was a little butterball.”
“Sometimes, people get hung up on images.”
“For a woman, it’s everything. It’s really stupid.”
An aide held the door open and they entered a private study. The two Russians waiting for them stood; one was a civilian, the other a three-star general. “Robert,” the general colonel said, “it has been a long time.” The two men shook hands. They had met when both were lieutenant colonels observing each other’s military exercises during the Cold War. “Minister Rodonov, may I present Mrs. Mazana Hazelton and Gen. Robert Bender.”
Vitaly Rodonov extended his hand and held Mazie’s longer than protocol required. “So charming,” he murmured in English.
“She is not window dressing,” the general colonel warned in Russian. Russian military intelligence had a full file on her, most of it wrong.
“In the White House, they call me the Dragon Lady,” Mazie replied in the same language.
Rodonov smiled and laughed. “I like you already.”
“I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” Bender said.
She gave him a sweet smile. “A little.”
With the introductions over, they sat down. Mazie went right to the heart of the problem and talked about the drugs coming out of Russia and what was happening in Poland. “The problem is that Mikhail Vashin is using diplomatic flights to transport drugs in huge quantities.”
Rodonov managed to look only mildly embarrassed. “The system is very complicated at the present time.”
Mazie understood perfectly. Rodonov could not control what was happening. “Without the proper constraints,” she said, “NATO may be forced to cancel your landing rights.”
Rodonov had not survived the upheavals in Russia by being slow or stupid and he instinctively sensed when he had an ally. “Such a development would embarrass my office.”
Mazie reached out and touched his hand, astounded by his candor. If NATO canceled Russia’s landing rights, he would be blamed and removed from office, maybe even feetfirst. “That is not our intention,” she said.
“Perhaps there is a middle ground,” Bender said. “It is our interpretation that diplomatic protection only extends to the aircraft itself and the crew.”
Rodonov nodded. Whatever was on the aircraft was fair game once it was unloaded. “We may have an understanding here.” He visibly relaxed. Now he could return to Moscow and claim a victory. Even Vashin should be pleased.
Now it was time for the Americans to reciprocate. “We are fairly certain, as you are probably aware,” Mazie said, “that Vashin has ordered your assassination.” She handed him a list of the men who were contracted to take him out. “I hope this is helpful.”
“We would appreciate,” Bender said, “knowing in advance what flights Vashin is using.”
“All of them?” the three-star general asked.
Bender was dumbfounded. The problem was much worse than anyone suspected. “It would be helpful if we knew when the flights were scheduled.”
Rodonov glanced at the general colonel. “As you know, Peter Davydovich commands Transport Aviation.” He didn’t add that was why the general was at the meeting. “I’m confident that certain protocols regarding notification can be established, which,” he added, deadpan, “do not violate our treaty rights. Why don’t you work them out while Mrs. Hazelton and I discuss other matters?”
Bender and the general withdrew to an inside office, leaving them alone. Again, Mazie came right to the problem. “Are you aware that Vashin was in Bonn last Saturday and reached an understanding with Herbert von Lubeck?”
“I didn’t know they had met,” Rodonov replied.
“Apparently, they agreed on ‘areas of interest’ in Poland; Germany in the west, Russia in the east.”
Rodonov allowed the worry he felt to show. “Please assure your president that neither I, nor, for that matter, anyone on the Security Council, wishes to change the status quo in Poland. But please remember our history. We cannot allow a remilitarized German presence on our borders.”
“I’ll tell her,” Mazie promised.
“Tea?” Bender asked, remembering the time he and the general colonel worked together.
“How can you drink that piss you Americans call tea?”