Legacy - 34. A Matter of Trust - Jeremy Kimball

The tension in the room was palpable as members of the President’s Cabinet - David Reynolds’ Cabinet - slowly filed into the Situation Room in the Underground White House. In not quite a week, we’d lost David, the Vice-President, the Secretary of State, Karen Richards, and my longtime friend, Paul Manning. Now David’s Secretary of Health, President Schroeder’s Secretary of State and my longtime friend, Altaf El Tahari, was missing in Israel. I knew that President Schroeder blamed me for Paul Manning’s situation - the only reason he asked Trevor to take the fall was because he couldn’t fire me - and now he blamed me for Altaf’s kidnapping. The President and I were never close to begin with and now the gulf between us couldn’t have been any wider.

When Randy Bernstein entered the room, it was evident he was distraught and had been crying. Randy was now the Secretary of Health and of course he was Altaf’s husband. Like David and me, they’d been together since high school.

“What’s he doing here?” President Schroeder asked with a shout as Trevor walked into the room.

“Mr. President,” I replied, “with all due respect, the United States of America cannot afford to be without a National Security Advisor right now. Trevor may no longer be the man at the helm, but you need his expertise . . . desperately.”

“I’ve already made my selection for National Security Advisor,” the President replied, “and it’s not Trevor Austin.” Then in a near whisper, but still loud enough for all to hear, he added, “This administration already has too many faggots in it.” Then, looking up at Kurt, Schroeder said, “Dr. DeWitt, I know he’s your husband, but he can’t be here. He’s no longer the National Security Advisor and he doesn’t even have the necessary security clearance.”

Recognizing that I might be needed to weigh in on the matter, I approached the President just as did Debbie, Stan Meyer, the Director of the NSA, and Gary Clark, the Director of the CIA.

“Mr. President,” Debbie began, “I couldn’t help but overhear what you just said and I have to inform you that Richard Samuelsson will not be confirmed. If you proceed with his nomination, I will have no choice but to inform the Senate that he cannot pass the FBI security check and will not be given any kind of security clearance. He cannot be your National Security Advisor.”

“I can appoint whomever I Goddamn well please,” came the President’s retort. “If you won’t grant him a security clearance, then I’ll find someone who will. Hell, I can grant him his security clearance myself if necessary.”

“Mr. President,” Debbie continued, “before you make a rash judgment, you need to know what I’ve found. I’ll have all the details by tomorrow morning but I have enough information even now to state with reasonable certainty that Richard Samuelsson is none other than convicted terrorist Blake Sinclair.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” President Schroeder replied, shocking us all. “I realize that, were this information to be made public, his nomination would be a lightning rod for my administration, which is why it will never be made public. Dr. Samuelsson more than made up for what he did when he turned state’s evidence and brought the other members of the 2012 Movement to justice. For his role, he was afforded witness protection. He’s immune from prosecution and his records are sealed. This information cannot and will not be brought forward. To do so would be a direct violation of the law and would result in certain prosecution, not to mention the likely civil suit that would follow.”

“Mr. President,” Debbie responded, “I don’t need to reveal Dr. Samuelsson’s identity to deny him his security clearance. Just the denial in and of itself would be sufficient to derail his confirmation by the Senate, don’t you think?”

“Which is why you’re going to issue him his security clearance and give him a clean bill of health,” the President stated. “If you don’t, not only will I fire you but I’ll arrest your wife for breach of national security. She’ll be convicted of treason and go to jail for life, if not face execution. Do I make myself clear?”

Debbie’s eyes opened wide in horror as she realized just what Schroeder was saying. Early on in her career, Cathy Andrews had inadvertently revealed secret information in the process of applying for one of her many patents. She was duly informed of her error and the information in question was removed from the application as is typically done in matters of National Security. It was an honest mistake and one that occurs in the defense industry far more often than most people realize. Unfortunately, Schroeder was technically correct - Cathy had committed treason and could go to jail for it. Schroeder was threatening to blackmail his Attorney General. This was something I could not allow.

“Mr. President,” I interrupted, “Need I remind you that, had Samuelsson a.k.a. Sinclair succeeded, hundreds of thousands of civilians would have been killed and more than a million would have been injured? It would have been, by far, the worst man-made mass casualty event in human history. Just because he cooperated after he was caught doesn’t make up for what he intended to do.

“All of us in this room, yourself included, took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States from all threats, foreign and domestic. You cannot fault Debbie McLaughlin for upholding that oath, even if you are willing to set it aside in the interest of an alternative agenda.”

“Are you accusing me of treason, Mr. Kimball?” The President asked, “’Cause if you are, you’d damn well better be ready to carry your threat through to the end. Perhaps I’d better remind you that you promised to support any and all of my decisions in public.”

“And may I remind you, Mr. President,” I responded, “that I promised to give you hell in private whenever I disagreed with your decisions. Obviously, this is one of those times. Although I may be obligated to support your decision to nominate Richard Samuelsson in public, that doesn’t mean I have to ignore the oath I took to defend the Constitution. Yes, Mr. President, I am prepared to invoke the twenty-fifth amendment over this. In fact, I’m obligated to. Therefore, I strongly suggest you ask Dr. Samuelsson to withdraw himself from the nomination, citing whatever personal reasons seem appropriate. At least in that, you can both save face.”

“HELL NO!” the President screamed. “NO FUCKING WAY! I’ve made my decision and my decision is final!”

“Mr. President,” Kurt chimed in, “If there is a reason you feel so strongly about Dr. Samuelsson, I suggest you make it known now. Most presidents throughout history have had to withdraw a cabinet nomination or two over far less significant issues. Threatening a cabinet-level appointee with prosecution of her wife for an inconsequential act committed more than twenty years ago is absurd. It’s also illegal. It’s impeachable. The United States cannot afford a Constitutional crisis at this time. Please don’t take us down that path.”

“Who are you to tell me what’s impeachable?” Schroeder spat back at Kurt. “You’re nothing but a cock-sucking preacher.”

“That ‘cock-sucking preacher’ graduated at the top of his class at Boston University at the age of nineteen,” I pointed out. “He got his doctorate in Divinity from one of the best seminaries in America, if not the best. He was the youngest Dean in history at the National Cathedral. Believe me, he’s more than qualified to pass judgment on you.

“But if you’re not willing to listen to him, how about me?” I continued. “I’m not generally one to toot my own horn, but I graduated first in my class from Harvard Law in 2017. I know constitutional law as well as anyone except perhaps Professor William Kramer. Damn right you could be impeached for this. If you won’t listen to your ‘cock-sucking’ chief of staff, at least listen to your ‘cock-sucking’ vice-president.”

“Perhaps I should remind everyone that we’re in the midst of a crisis here,” Gary Clark stepped in. “I didn’t know that Samuelsson is really Sinclair and I would have to agree, if that’s the case, he shouldn’t be the National Security Advisor no matter how much he’s changed. That said, however, it’s not my place to tell the President of the United States what to do. If he wants to take this nomination forward and if he can convince the Senate to go along with it in spite of Samuelsson’s history, so be it. We can deal with Samuelsson’s nomination later.

“Gentlemen . . . and lady,” he added in deference to Debbie, “the Secretary of State has been kidnapped. That and that alone is our priority right now.” Then turning back to face Schroeder, he continued. “Mr. President, you need a National Security Advisor to guide you through this crisis. You need one tonight. You can’t afford to wait for Samuelsson or whomever you ultimately choose to be confirmed. You simply can’t. No one is better qualified than Trevor Austin, period. He’s right here, right now. Why not take advantage of that?”

“Because he’s a civilian, and he lacks the necessary security clearance,” Schroeder responded.

“He was plenty qualified yesterday,” Gary noted, “and as you already pointed out, you have the power to grant him the needed security clearance.”

“Actually, Mr. President,” Stan Meyer joined in, “I’ve already hired Austin as a consultant to the NSA. He has all the security clearance he needs.”

“You hired him behind my back and put him back on the payroll?” the President asked incredulously.

“With all due respect, sir,” Stan answered, “I can hire as many consultants as I deem appropriate so long as they’re qualified and so long as I stay within my budget. Since Dr. Austin has graciously agreed to work for the generous annual stipend of one dollar, I don’t believe I need to worry about going over budget,” he added with a laugh.

After pondering it far longer than seemed necessary, the President replied with a sigh, “Very well, Austin can stay, but only as a consultant and not as my National Security Advisor.”

“Fair enough,” Trevor answered, speaking on his own behalf for the first time.

As we went to take our seats, I couldn’t help but wonder why the distinction. What difference did it make what title Trevor held or what role he played? The bottom line was he was the best person around to advise the President in this time of crisis. The other question that kept nagging at the back of my mind was why Schroeder was so dead-set on having Samuelsson as his National Security Advisor. He knew that Samuelsson was really Sinclair. He knew! That should have disqualified Samuelsson from even remotely being considered and, yet, the President still put forth the nomination. Was there a political agenda somewhere in all of this, or was, perhaps, the President so blinded by his loyalty to his longtime friend, Nehru, that he couldn’t see the bigger picture? Was there another, hidden agenda? Something just wasn’t right with this picture.

Once we were all seated and with large mugs of much-needed coffee in front of us, President Schroeder began. “Less than an hour ago, I received a call from the acting Prime Minister of Israel. He regretfully informed me that the motorcade in which Altaf El Tahari rode from the airport had been ambushed and that our Secretary of State had been kidnapped during the ensuing confrontation.”

“When exactly did this occur?” Debbie asked. “Wasn’t Altaf’s transport supposed to have landed several hours ago?”

“As a precaution, the Secretary’s transport did not fly directly to Israel, but first made stops in the UK and in Turkey,” General Lichter, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, answered.

Of course I already knew all of this, but I thought it important that everyone fully understand the situation and so I asked, “Wasn’t he on a C65 supersonic stealth transport?” I asked. “Even with the stops, shouldn’t the Secretary still have arrived in under ten hours?”

“Only the leg from Andrews AFB to RAF Fairfield was supersonic,” the General pointed out. “We kept to commercial airline speeds from the UK to Turkey. Dr. El Tahari’s plane arrived at 9:45 PM local time, which was 2:45 PM here,” the General answered. “He was supposed to have been taken to an undisclosed, secure location and should have been safely there before one AM at the latest.”

“Meaning six PM here?” Debbie asked.

“Meaning six PM our time,” the General confirmed.

“So why the fuck did it take four or more hours for us to find out?” Trevor asked.

“I would remind you, Dr. Austin, that you are here as a consultant to Mr. Meyer and nothing more. Any questions you wish to raise should be raised through him.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that. Trevor was the most knowledgeable person on the planet when it came to intelligence, and he had an uncanny intuition for people’s underlying motives. That he was relegated to talking through Stan Meyer was laughable.

“The Israelis are our longtime allies in the Middle East. It is a matter of trust. If there was a delay in notifying us, I’m certain the acting Prime Minister had a good reason for it. Perhaps the ensuing chaos kept him busy.”

“Trevor, you handled the security arrangements for the Secretary,” Gary Clark, the CIA director noted. “Could you please fill us in on exactly what that entailed?”

Leave it to good old Gary to get around the President and his ridiculous insistence on Trevor talking through Stan.

“The measures taken were extraordinary,” Trevor replied. “We have never taken such extreme measures for a visit by an American dignitary to a foreign country . . . not even for a president.

“Of course the secure location to which Altaf was to be taken, as well as the route there, were kept secret from all but those in the highest levels of the Israeli government. Altaf’s motorcade consisted of forty escort vehicles including both Israeli and U.S. security forces and two intensive care ambulances. The Secretary himself rode in a heavily armored vehicle . . . there’s no way anyone should have been able to break into it . . . and there were two identical vehicles in the motorcade that served as decoys.

"Speaking of decoys, there were also two identical, decoy motorcades that headed in different directions from that taken by the Secretary. Even if Dr. El Tahari’s motorcade had been followed by his abductors, they would have had to have sufficient force to take on three motorcades.

“What puzzles me is why our own security forces failed to contact us in the immediate aftermath of the abduction. It would have been standard protocol. The vehicles we sent with them were equipped with satellite radios. The only way I can imagine them failing to follow protocol is if they were all killed in the exchange.

“It’s also a mystery how they managed to get into Altaf’s vehicle,” Trevor added. “There is no way he would have opened the vehicle to let anyone inside.”

“Could there have been a rogue agent inside Altaf’s vehicle?” Debbie asked.

“The only occupants of the Secretary’s vehicle, besides the Secretary himself, were American security agents,” Trevor explained. Although it’s possible one of our agents could have been compromised, we took great pains to ensure the lowest risk possible. The agents were selected because they’re single with no close living relatives. Research has shown that unattached agents are much less likely to be compromised by threats against family members.”

“There is a vulnerability to the G23 armored transport vehicle,“ General Lichter called out with a sigh. “We only discovered it a few months ago and have been quietly working on a fix for it ever since.

“As you know, the G23 is designed to withstand a direct hit from a wide variety of explosives, including a small-yield nuclear device. Even the glass is made from a diamond silicon laminate. It’s impervious to just about everything.

“As a protection against biological agents,” the General continued, “the air handling system is completely isolated from the outside environment. Using technology developed by NASA for the space program, the vehicle has its own oxygen supply and uses CO₂ scrubbers.

“The problem is with the vehicle charging ports. There are two . . . a proprietary, military-grade port for connection to a ten-kilovolt line and a standard port for use with any 110/220/440 recharge station on the road. In retrospect they should have been completely isolated from the vehicle’s electronics, requiring activation by someone inside the vehicle but, for expedience and ease of use, they are connected directly to the electronics and located outside the vehicle, behind an unlocked hatch.”

“Jesus!” I exclaimed.

“Exactly!” exclaimed the general. “The ports are well protected from a surge standpoint, but the standard port isn't designed to handle overvoltage. Applying as little as one kilovolt is enough to cause the batteries to explode, filling the vehicle with thick, toxic smoke.”

“SHIT!” the President exclaimed.

“Is that what we think happened?” Trevor asked.

“Until we have more information, we have no way of knowing,” the General answered, “but it certainly points out a means by which terrorists could have gained entrance to the Secretary’s vehicle. Faced with choking on toxic smoke, how many of us could resist the urge to open a window or a door?”

“Why wasn’t the standard charging port at least disconnected once the military identified the problem?” the Secretary of Defense asked.

“In retrospect, that would have been an obvious solution,” the General replied, “but you know how these things go. Disconnecting the standard charging port would have been at best a temporary fix and the military is loath to admit its mistakes in the first place. Further, disabling the standard charging port would have meant deploying proprietary charging stations to every base where we expected to use these vehicles.”

“But we've had decades of use of electric vehicles in the military,” Debbie pointed out. “Surely we could have deployed the infrastructure for high-speed, high-power secure charging stations by now.”

“The military was the last holdout in the conversion from fossil fuels to electric power,” the General pointed out, “and getting all branches of the Defense Department to agree on a single standard didn’t happen until recently. There are still some holdouts among the generals who believe we’d be better off sticking with internal combustion engines.

“In developing the G23’s predecessor, the G18, we did not even have a standardized charging station in mind when we put out for bids. It was in the competition that the contractors pointed out the need for a standardized charging station and that it would need to be able to provide significantly more power than the ones used for conventional vehicles. However, that meant building an entirely new infrastructure. The winning bid was chosen largely because it included a design for a proprietary charging station and maintained the capability of charging from a standard one. Of course it takes nearly a day to charge off a 440-volt station rather than the twenty minutes required from a 10 kV station but, in wartime, that capability could prove to be the difference between victory and defeat.”

“But the G18 is a lightly armored vehicle,” Trevor pointed out. “It’s nothing like the G23!”

“But the G23 was developed directly from the G18 with little thought to isolating the electronics from the outside world. What will have to be done in any retrofit of the G23 will be to isolate the interior cabin’s electrical system from that used to power the drive train. Ideally that’s what should have been done in the first place. By having two separate power systems, even exploding the primary batteries would have little effect on the occupants inside. They’d still have a working, fully powered environmental system.”

“General,” Trevor began, “perhaps even more important than the fact that the military was aware of a basic design defect in the G23 is that others might also have known. Who else had access to this information?”

“That’s a very good point, Trevor,” Gary Clark responded. “If the list is small enough, we might be able to trace who might have leaked the information to terrorists.”

“Which was my point exactly,” Trevor replied.

“As you can imagine, we have been keeping this close to our collective chests,” the General answered. “We didn't want this getting out, not only because of the potential threat that these vehicles could be compromised, but because it would have been a major black eye for the military. The news media would have . . . and regrettably will have a field day reporting on a fundamentally flawed, trillion dollar program.

“Of course the joint chiefs all know about it, as do a few key people in all branches of the service. This has been kept completely under wraps and I only divulged it here because it may be critical to finding the Secretary. The only people outside of the military to know are the engineers who developed the original design and those who are working on the redesign and retrofit.

“I have to caution, however, that any decent engineer looking for a defensive weakness in the G23’s design could find this. It’s an embarrassingly obvious design flaw,” the General concluded.

“Nevertheless, could you get us a list of all individuals with access to the information by morning?” Gary Clark asked.

“If we work through the night, I think we can do that,” the General answered.

“Make it so,” the President replied, reminding me of an old television series I used to watch reruns of when I was little, but I couldn’t remember which one. In any case, at least we were finally all on the same page.

As the General conferred with his subordinates, setting in motion the mechanics to generate the requested list, Gary Clark took the lead as the CIA director in presenting to the Cabinet members and the President what little was known about Altaf’s abduction. We were getting surprisingly little cooperation from Israeli Intelligence, which was strange in and of itself. Of course we had our own contacts within Mossad, but they, too, were surprisingly silent.

It looked like we might have to make use of our own operatives on the ground in Israel - something we were reluctant to do. As Israel was supposedly an ally, making use of these operatives could leave the U.S. compromised. Although all countries secretly spied on their allies, actual hard evidence of the fact could prove to be more than a little embarrassing.

As Gary was filling us in on the details, I noticed that Trevor was busily looking at his workstation, occasionally typing on the keyboard but always with his eyes focused on the holographic image projected onto them. He seemed to be barely paying attention to Gary at all but, then, Trev likely had access to much more immediate, complete and accurate data than did even the head of the CIA. This was Trevor’s forte. No one was better at sifting through reams of raw intelligence data than Trevor Austin, which was why we so desperately needed him right now.

As the night wore on, the emphasis quickly shifted from what little we knew about Altaf’s abduction to what our response should be. Although nearly all of us cautioned the President against making a rash decision in the heat of the moment, Schroeder seemed determined to respond quickly and decisively.

“Within the span of less than a week,” Schroeder said, “They’ve managed to kill the President, the Vice-President and our Secretary of State. Now they’ve kidnapped yet another Secretary of State. We cannot and will not let them get away with it! We have to act decisively and we have to act now!”

“But Mr. President,” I countered, “we don’t yet know who’s responsible, or even if the three separate attacks were perpetrated by the same individuals. I agree that we need to act decisively, but not until we know who’s responsible. The only thing worse than being seen as weak would be for us to be seen as an international pariah, lashing out at anyone and everyone without purpose . . .”

“But we do have purpose!” the President exclaimed. “The United States of America is under attack! We must strike back or risk being seen by the rest of the world as irrelevant.”

“But Mr. President,” I again countered, “even the United States can’t go it alone. For better or worse, we need our allies to be able to effectively counter any international threat that may come along. That requires careful cultivation of relationships with those allies. It’s a matter of trust, Mr. President. So long as they feel they can trust us, our allies will be there when we need them. We’ve made too many mistakes in the past that have shaken that trust, often with disastrous consequences. Decisive military action against an innocent party could shake that trust irrevocably.”

“That’s why we have nuclear weapons,” the President responded. “So long as we have the might to bomb any adversary to oblivion, international relationships don’t matter. Our enemies know this. The only thing that has allowed the terrorists to be successful has been our reluctance to harm innocent civilians. That has got to change . . .”

“On the contrary, Mr. President,” Randy Bernstein, Altaf’s husband and the Secretary of Health, interrupted. “Israel’s fight against the terrorists in their midst has proven exactly the opposite. Any time they act decisively against the terrorists, the killing or harm of countless innocents has only strengthened the hands of the terrorists. Nuking the wrong target would play directly into the hands of the terrorists.”

“What the fuck do you know about international politics and terrorism, Mr. Secretary of Health?” Schroeder asked.

“Apparently more than you do,” the Secretary of Defense challenged, earning a scowl from the President.

“Excuse me,” Trevor interrupted, “but I have something important. I’ve intercepted a message. The message begins, ‘The tie had a light cream-colored background. There was a subtle beige pattern and, in the background, the Smithsonian motif could barely be seen when holding the tie up at an angle to the light.’”

The blood drained from my face as I recognized the significance of the message.

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” The President asked.

“It's a coded message, sir,” Kurt answered, “The intent is to prove the identity of the person who sent it. There are only eight people in the world who would know what it means, three of whom are supposedly dead and three of whom are present in this room.

“We know for a fact that David Reynolds and Clifford Kimball are beyond a doubt, dead. Jeremy Kimball, Trevor Austin and myself are right here in this room. The only other people who could have sent it are Sammy Austin and Bradford Reynolds . . .”

“Neither of whom could have possibly sent it,” Trevor interrupted.

“Which can only mean that the message came from Paul Manning,” I interjected to the collective gasps of all present.