Wainwright peered up at Farrell with red eyes. “You’ve completely lost it.”
“Don’t you see how this is going to look? The plan was to blame this on the Allied Jihad. That’s falling apart now. It looks bad. We look bad.”
The Chairman remained calm. “Get a grip. We look golden. Besides, if we give up now, the country would be right back where we started. Bogged down in the Middle East for a generation. Vilified by the world. Buying our water from Canada or going to war with Mexico to get it.” He stood, walked around the circumference of his desk and spoke mere inches from Farrell’s face. “The most patriotic men in America are standing right in this room. I really believe that. And I’m not afraid to put my reputation, and my very life, on the line for the good of our country. Are you?” He poked his index finger into the middle of Farrell’s chest. “Are you? Because it sounds to me like you’re only concerned about saving your ass.”
Farrell stepped back. He took an unfiltered cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. Thick ropes of smoke roiled throughout his esophagus and lungs.
TEN MONTHS EARLIER
Northern Colorado
The Chairman’s private hunting cabin was nestled within sixty private acres of golden windswept plains and dense aspen forests. It was not accessible by road. Being an avid hunter, General Farrell had been angling for an invitation for more than a year. With armies in three war zones, a single weekend off for any of the Pentagon brass was a rarity.
Wainewright finally relented in early October, just in time for deer season. They had come in on a Wednesday morning by private helicopter. The 110-year-old outpost had been a remote ranger station until the late 2000s when the State of Colorado, its tax revenue crippled by the housing bubble collapse, had been forced to sell off chunks of prime public land. Wainewright snapped the place up for just over a million in cash.
The Pentagon’s most powerful duo spent the afternoon in an aspen grove overlooking a busy game trail. They saw deer by the dozen and elk by the truckload. By dusk they had both bagged big bucks. They butchered the animals themselves, hauling the prime cuts out on their backs and leaving the rest for the coyotes.
They spent the evening eating venison, drinking 12-year-old cognac and smoking Dominican cigars by firelight. As always, the conversation eventually turned to politics. Wainewright was candid about his feelings about the President’s policies. That was no surprise. He waited until Farrell’s third glass of cognac to veer into the unexpected.
“Ed,” he said, using Farrell’s first name for the first time in ages, “There’s a movement among certain members of congress to remove the President.”
Farrell shook his head. “There’s not enough votes for impeachment. Trust me, I’m following it too.”
“I’m not talking impeachment,” Wainewright said.
The Vice-Chairman sipped his liquor. “Then what are you talking about?”
“Removal.”
Farrell laughed. “Careful,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re talking-”
“Removal,” Wainewright confirmed.
Farrell was quiet for a moment as the implications of the conversation dawned on him. He set his drink on the table, extinguished the cigar in an ash tray and replaced it with an unfiltered cigarette. “I take it you didn’t bring me out here just to hunt.”
The Chairman puffed his cigar and looked up at a bison head that his great-grandfather had killed. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to discuss it. No pressure at all.”
Farrell knew better. Wainewright had no patience for anyone that wasn’t rowing in the same direction that he was. This conversation was a test. If he didn’t seem amenable, he’d find himself out of the Joint Chiefs — or worse — by the end of the year.
“General,” Farrell said, “you’re a registered Republican, right?”
“I’m beyond the party system, Ed.”
Farrell took that to mean that Wainewright now considered himself a revolutionary. “So these members of Congress…” Farrell said, treading as lightly as he could. “They theoretically advocate drastic measures.”
“Not theoretically. It’s real, Ed. It’s obvious to everyone that the executive branch has accumulated too much power. Fact: we’re on track to suffer twelve thousand combat casualties this year, and we’ll have nothing to show for it but more enemies. Fact: our annual foreign aid to Israel and its neighbors alone costs us more in one year than it would cost to fix social security for the next ten years.”
“I’m sure that’s true. But still-”
“Fact: twelve states are running out of clean drinking water, and the President is doing nothing to stop it.”
The Vice-Chairman tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Was this the cognac talking, or was Wainewright for real?
“General,” he began, not quite comfortable with calling Wainewright by his first name, “these member of Congress you mentioned. Maybe we could help them get the votes they need.”
“Impeachment?” Wainewright laughed. “The Vice-President would just continue the same policies.”
“Point taken. But the line of succession would be the same regardless of how the President left office.”
Wainewright smiled. “We think alike, my friend. Which is why I told them that their plans were far too conservative. Removal by assassination is too short-sighted. They’re not thinking big.”
Farrell felt dizzy. “Big?’
“We’ve known each other for thirty-five years. You know I’m no secessionist, and I’m sure as hell not a socialist. You know I love this country. But you have to admit that we’re being outmaneuvered by emerging governments that combine free markets, a strong military and strong central government.”
“You mean China.”
Wainewright nodded. “Not just China. Fact: Russia is buying our debt and selling it back to us at prices we can’t even afford.” He pounded his fist on the table. “Russia, Ed!”
Farrell lit another cigarette. “I think it’s important to remember that we still live in the greatest country in the world.”
“Not even close. We’re at best the nineteenth or twentieth greatest country in the world. But there’s a powerful movement afoot, Ed. The fog is lifting.”
That night, Farrell went to bed so shaken that he could not sleep. By morning he had developed several stress boils on his neck, shoulders and back.
The cabin phone rang at 10:36 a.m. with the news that a car bomb in Santa Monica had killed 170 people. The Joint Chiefs were summoned to the White House for an emergency Security Council meeting. A helicopter took them to Fort Collins, where they boarded a private jet bound for Washington.
The NSC convened five hours later at the White House, where President Hatch informed them that, in response to Indonesian radicals claiming responsibility for the bombing, they would open up a new military front in Indonesia. The decision came despite the fact that the U.S. military was already stretched beyond capacity. It came without any proof whatsoever that Allied Jihad forces battling the government in Indonesia were behind the bombing. It came without any room in the country’s three-trillion-dollar deficit. But the public wanted revenge and the President had decided to take the fight to the terrorists. He wasn’t interested in the Joint Chiefs’ arguments to the contrary.
After the meeting, the two Generals shared a car back to the Pentagon. They were quiet until they entered the Pentagon parking garage. “About what you said last night,” Farrell said. “I’d like to discuss that more.”
Eleven days later General Farrell received an invitation to attend a private dinner at General Wainewright’s home near Alexandria. He was specifically instructed not to bring his wife or any other date. Upon pulling up to Wainewright’s home — a six-bedroom estate with Greek columns in front — a parking attendant led him inside, where Wainewright’s assistant, Corporal Hammond, swept his clothes with a metal detector and placed his phone in a safe near the front door.