Bud was last to enter the Oval Office. The President, DCI Merriweather, and DDI Greg Drummond were already there. There was a good-sized security case resting upon the single coffee table to the left of the President’s desk, its contents obvious to the NSA. Imagery. The Agency must have turned the cameras on Cuba real fast to get pictures this quickly. It wasn’t really a surprise. Ninety miles south of Florida there was, according to preliminary reports from the intelligence services and the four major networks, intense fighting. That was close, and worth keeping an eye on.
“Bud, good morning again,” the President said, standing as his NSA came in. The others stood also. “Have a seat.”
A couch was aligned along one side of the low table and two chairs along the other. The President sat at the head of the table, nearest the room’s center, in a chair the woodworking of which dated to the late 1700s. The DCI and his deputy were on the couch, leaving a simple choice for Bud, who took the chair closest to the President.
Drummond gave Bud a subtle nod and a smile. The DDI was a straight shooter and knew the NSA well. They had worked closely during the first six months of Bud’s tenure but not much since Merriweather’s arrival. The new DCI had pulled his people in, in an effort to define their roles more clearly as he saw them. In reality it was a semi smart move, as Congress was trimming the intelligence agency’s budget with a sharp, unselective budget axe. To make the Agency lean and productive was essential, as some on the Hill were trumpeting for the dissolution of the Agency, arguing that it should be consolidated into some pseudo-diplomatic/information-gathering arm of the State Department. The idea was a crock, but at least Merriweather was playing smart to stave off any serious effort to do away with the CIA. Despite the director’s aloof manner with him, Bud had to credit the man with having some foresight.
“James, you’re looking good,” Merriweather commented, looking up while laying the case flat and zipping it open. His eyes were a foggy brown, with small black centers that were further miniaturized behind the thick glasses he wore. The old-fashioned thick black frames looked awkward on his small head, which was covered by a full crop of short hair that matched closely the color of his gray tweed jacket. By appearances he could have been a college professor or a car salesman.
“I’m getting back into my morning jog.” And the name is Bud. The DCI took his educational and social lineage, which stretched from Exeter to Yale, quite seriously. Nicknames were not among his repertoire of verbiage, and only recently had he taken to calling those Agency personnel closest to him by the more casual forms of their given names, much to the delight of “Gregory” Drummond.
The DDI looked up from his own set of materials. “We’ll have to do that crack-o’-dawn run thing again.”
“None of that sprinting crap at the end like you did to me last time,” Bud insisted with a chuckle. “I’ve got almost a decade on you, remember.”
The DDI smiled. “Old men need motivation.”
The President watched the exchange with amusement. His advisers were normal people, just like him, though his California background had not lately manifested itself in the kind of relaxed, playful banter he was witness to. Just a week shy of his thirty-ninth birthday, he was the youngest President ever to serve, and, if all went well, in two years he would be the youngest elected. Age, though, had been warped during his short tenure. To look at him was to see the aging process accelerated, just as it had for each man to hold the highest elective office in the land. Responsibility brought with it work, and worry, and planning, and so many other elements of the job that he was certain his main recollection of his term in office would be the constant state of tiredness.
But it was times like these that gave value to all the exhaustive efforts, particularly when a President was able to be witness to something historic that he might not have started but that he had offered assistance to. There were actually two such things happening; that which his NSA had taken from concept to reality, and that which the same man had no idea of. It was time to change that
“Bud, I’m afraid we’ve left you out of something.”
Left me out… Bud saw there was some regret in the President’s eyes, but more satisfaction. Merriweather had only the latter expressed on his face. Greg Drummond was without either, just a flatness to his expression. “What is that, sir?”
“Operation SNAPSHOT,” the DCI answered for his boss. “The liberation of Cuba.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know this may be a little hard to fathom, but hear Anthony out, Bud. This was too good to pass up.” The President leaned to one arm of the chair, a single finger coming to his chin as he turned his attention to the DCI.
Too good? Something in Bud clicked at that characterization. A quick look at the wooden DDI confirmed his intuitive addition of “to be true” to the phrase.
“Some months back we received word from one of the Cuban-American exile groups that they had been contacted by a representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.” Merriweather stopped momentarily, as if there was nothing more to explain. “They wished our assistance in removing President Castro from power.”
“What members?”
“The leader of the rebellion is Colonel Hector Ojeda,” Merriweather answered. “Do you know who he is?”
Bud nodded. Ojeda was probably the most highly decorated and best-trained officer the Cubans had. A veteran of Angola, the not-so-secret secret detachment sent to Afghanistan, and every special training program their former “brother Soviets” had to offer. He was the cream of a very sparse crop.
“And to him you can add thirty-two thousand. Sufficient, wouldn’t you say?” the DCI inquired unnecessarily.
“More than, actually.” Bud looked back to the President. “Sir, why was this kept from me?”
“It is a CIA operation,” the DCI answered out of turn.
Bud acknowledged the DCI with the briefest glance. It wasn’t from him that the NSA wanted an answer. “Sir?”
“Bud, like Anthony said, this began as an Agency operation. The two ranking members of the Joint Select Committee have given the Congress’s stamp to it. My belief was that you had a full plate working with the Russians, and this really does not fall under your area of National Security.” The President saw his adviser’s jaw drop at that. “This is low risk, Bud.”
“Sir, a war raging ninety miles from us is precisely what I see as in my domain. That is a national-security issue, with all due respect,” Bud said firmly. He had never backed down when he believed himself to be right in any disagreement with the Man. He owed the nation’s leader no less.
“Your point is noted,” the President responded with no malice. He had expected his NSA to react just this way, which had partly influenced his decision to keep him from the initial stages. “It was my call, Bud.”
“Understood.” Bud’s eyes swept over the DCI. A slight expression — never a smile — edged up from the wrinkled folds at his mouth’s corner. And your prompting. “But ‘low risk’ is not always as low as we’d like to believe.”
“Our exposure here is one man. Anthony, if you would…”
“Of course, Mr. President.” Merriweather faced the man he’d seen as his nemesis in the West Wing since day one, guessing correctly that James DiContino now was party to that analysis as well. “What the rebellious faction wanted from us was intelligence. The location and movement of loyalist forces once the fighting began, and similar reports. That was all they asked for, but with that they would be at a distinct advantage. To accomplish that, we attached a field officer to the rebel command staff some months ago. His job was first to validate the viability of the proposal — it would do us little good if this was all a crazy show to be put on by some disgruntled officers. His job now is to receive the reports from here — all the information is to be gathered by satellite reconnaissance, of course — and give them to the rebel command staff.”