“If you are going to cut me out of the loop, I have no choice but to reassert congressional prerogative,” the Speaker said insolently.
“We involved you from the very beginning,” the Chief of Staff said. “You decided to freelance on the South China Sea Agreement and you got burned. That’s on you.”
The Speaker was in no mood to back down. “I’d like to know what the President plans to say,” she declared.
“That’s why we’re doing the congressional briefing before the speech,” the Chief of Staff said.
The Speaker gave a short, mirthless laugh. “The President has been calling people all over Washington. Everybody knows the situation.”
“Then you don’t need the briefing, apparently.”
“As a courtesy, I would appreciate hearing directly from the President,” the Speaker said. In the background, the President motioned for the phone; the Chief of Staff handed it to him.
“Madam Speaker,” the President said, “I am telling you not to address the press before we do our congressional briefing.”
“Cecelia Dodds has lost consciousness,” the Speaker said. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I didn’t realize the two of you were close,” the President replied. They were not, of course. Cecelia Dodds had criticized the Speaker on several occasions for her divisive tactics. The Speaker had declined to attend the ceremony at which Dodds was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“She’s a national treasure,” the Speaker said. “This will be your legacy.”
“One has to admire her selflessness,” the President said honestly.
“Let’s cut to the chase, Mr. President, you can’t tell me when to meet with the press.”
“Okay, then I’m asking. I’m asking you to be a team player here.”
“It’s always about your team. It’s your team or no team,” the Speaker said.
“What?” the President asked in genuine amazement. “I think we’re done here. You do what you have to do.”
Eager to have the last word, the Speaker said, “And by the way, Mr. President, you can have the plane. American taxpayers shouldn’t have to bear that expense.”
The President hung up without reply. “She’s running for president,” he told the Chief of Staff. “Her donors are going to give her a nice big campaign plane. That’s what that means.”
Two other things of note were happening at roughly the same time. In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a small group of armed Sunni extremists burst into an international school, overwhelmed a night security guard, and took a hundred and twelve students and faculty hostage. There were twenty-seven American students and two teachers among the hostages. The terrorists’ grievances were nothing new. They demanded a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations; the end of U.S. support for the Saudi monarchy; and assorted other such things. What was new, however, was the method to their madness. The hostage takers identified the American students with parents who worked for either the American military or the U.S. Embassy; the others were released unharmed. The kidnappers then demanded that the parents—the military and embassy officials—exchange themselves for their children. They had twelve hours to present themselves. When a parent walked into the school gymnasium, their child would be released; if that did not happen in twelve hours, the child would be shot. The terrorists had found and exploited the underbelly of the heavily fortified American presence in Saudi Arabia. Our military facilities and the embassy were impregnable; the international school, less so. The rest of this story is familiar to anyone who lived through it. I mention it merely to draw attention to the timing. The President received word of the terrorist assault just before his address to the nation.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State and the Strategist were on their way to Bahrain. They had not boarded Air Force One for the flight back to the U.S., as staffers had realized. The President had instructed them to reexamine the possibility of India as a Dormigen donor, but the delicate nature of that situation was such that they could not fly to India unless and until the Indian Prime Minister invited them to do so. The Secretary of State chose Bahrain as a logical intermediate destination: a place where they might plausibly have diplomatic business that was close enough to India to allow them to get there quickly should the Prime Minister summon them. Just as the two of them were touching down at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, several prominent Indian newspapers were reporting on a “new poll” from the Indian Institute for Future Security showing that 68 percent of Indian voters believed that India had an obligation to help the U.S. during the Outbreak; 73 percent agreed that “India would benefit from closer ties to the United States.” The details surrounding the poll—and the origins and funding of the Indian Institute for Future Security—remain shrouded in mystery. In a later moment of indiscretion, the Strategist did tell an audience at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York: “The Soviets taught us that no one ever wins an election with ninety-nine percent. To be credible, your fake results need to be in the sixty to seventy percent range. Even eighty percent strains credulity.”
The Secretary of State and the Strategist stepped off the small Air Force jet in Bahrain and were immediately belted with a blast of hot, dry desert air, like opening a hot oven. An officious two-star general met them on the tarmac, eager to be of assistance and excited to be involved in whatever was happening. One did not need to be a rocket scientist—though, coincidentally, the general in question was an aeronautical engineer—to recognize that the Secretary of State does not show up on short notice with the President’s chief strategist unless something interesting is afoot. The Secretary of State was traveling without a staff, which was also highly unusual. “We’re honored to have you here, Madam Secretary,” the General said earnestly. He ushered her and the Strategist toward a terminal where a handful of other officers were waiting awkwardly with cold drinks.
“Now what do we do?” the Secretary of State asked the Strategist under her breath.
“We know the Prime Minister is going to read the papers. We just wait for the phone to ring,” the Strategist answered.
The General said, “I know you have meetings with Bahraini officials, but might I be able to offer you a tour of the base?”
“That would be excellent,” the Strategist replied.
71.
THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE STEPPED TO A PODIUM BENEATH the rotunda of the Capitol, the very same place where she had advocated strenuously for “the China option.” The Washington press corps recognized that the Speaker was violating protocol by making a statement before the President’s address. The bad chemistry between the President and the Speaker always made for good copy, especially now that the Outbreak had raised the stakes in their pissing match. “I will be brief,” the Speaker began. “Today I will introduce legislation guaranteeing every American access to Dormigen, irrespective of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, or, most important, age. We do not live in a society where lifesaving drugs should be rationed. We should not have to pass legislation to guarantee such a basic right, and yet here we are. In less than an hour, the President, having failed to provide the nation with sufficient Dormigen, will announce a plan to deny that lifesaving drug to some of the most vulnerable members of society: the old and the infirm—the very people who need the nurturing hand of government most.”