The President heard something, and glanced around to see that her husband had his hand over his face. He was trying to look solemn, but she could tell that the big bastard was actually stifling a chuckle. He loved seeing someone get the better of her, even for a moment, probably because he had never been able to.
“All I’ve tried to do is repair some of the damage that the previous administration did to this country’s standing in the community of nations,” she said to the National Security Advisor.
“Oh, sure, that’s what the rest of the world says they want from the United States,” she responded, much as she would have slashed right through some feeble argument from a student in one of her classes. “They want us to make nice and consult them on any action before we ever make a move and do whatever they tell us. But when we behave like that, they don’t see a strong but cooperative nation. They see a patsy, a pushover. They see an impotent giant without the balls to do what needs to be done.” The NSA shrugged. “I’m sorry if that’s not politically correct enough for you, Madame President, but you hired me to tell you the truth as I see it—and that’s the way I see it.”
For a long moment, the President thought about firing the arrogant bitch on the spot. Nobody talked to her like that and got away with it. Nobody. Even her husband would be licking his wounds—literally as well as figuratively, in his case—if he ever dared to speak to her in that tone of voice.
But the slant-eyed slut had a point, the pragmatic part of the President’s brain insisted. Ever since the bloody debacle in Iraq caused by the total troop pullout as soon as she took office, America’s enemies around the world had been licking their chops, just waiting for the right opportunity to humble the giant even more. So far it hadn’t happened, but according to the intelligence briefings from the CIA and Homeland Security, it was only a matter of time. Of when, not if.
But maybe she could postpone the day when some other rogue nation or organization would spit in Uncle Sam’s face. Maybe a show of strength now really was what was needed. For one thing, it would take the rest of the world by surprise. It was good to keep your enemies off balance, a little unsure of what to expect.
The atmosphere in the Oval Office following the NSA’s comments was thick with tension. The President broke it by turning to the Secretary of State and asking, “What’s the diplomatic response by the Iranians going to be? Can they do anything except whine to the U.N. and get the French and the Germans and the Russians to feel sorry for them?”
The heavyset man shrugged his shoulders. “What else can they do?”
The President looked at the SecDef and the JCS Chairman. “Militarily?”
“They don’t have the capacity to do much of anything,” the SecDef replied. “The Israelis wiped out any shot they had at delivering a nuclear strike, and while their conventional forces are fairly strong, they’re not up to invading Israel.”
“About all they can do,” the Chairman added, “is turn off the oil spigot.”
“Shut down the Strait of Hormuz, you mean?” the President asked.
The man nodded. “That they can do with their navy and air force…if nobody’s there to stop them.”
“What are our assets in the area?”
“A few,” the Chairman said. He was an old Navy man, an admiral, and his eyes glittered with the desire to get into the action. “And we can get our carriers in the Mediterranean over there in forty-eight hours.”
The President looked at the Vice President, but the gesture was more out of courtesy than anything else. They both knew who was going to make the decision here. But he was strong-willed enough to register an opinion anyway. “I don’t see that you have any real choice, ma’am.”
The President wanted to look at her husband and see if she could tell what he thought, but she suppressed the impulse. He wasn’t the commander in chief here; she was. Her head jerked in an abrupt nod as she looked at the Chairman and said, “Get those carriers to the Gulf, Admiral.”
She could tell that he fought to keep from grinning as he snapped to attention and said, “Will do, ma’am.”
“All right, everybody out,” she went on as she stalked over behind the desk. Her desk. The President’s desk. The ultimate seat of power in what was still the most powerful nation in the world. “I’ve got a statement to write. Somebody tell my Chief of Staff to advise the networks I’ll address the nation at eight tonight.”
She sat down and pulled a legal pad and a pen over to her as they all filed out of the Oval Office, even her husband. He lingered until last, and then looked at her with his bushy eyebrows lifted questioningly, as if he were unsure whether she really wanted him to go, too, or if she might want his help on the speech she was going to have to deliver to the American people.
She flipped an impatient hand at him, shooing him out with the others, and paid no attention to the hurt-puppy-dog look on his face. She had important work to do here…at the President’s desk.
God, despite all the annoyances, the power felt good.
As if she were born to it.
CHAPTER 5
“Accordingly, American aircraft carriers and other elements will be traveling to the Persian Gulf as quickly as possible in order to peacefully secure the region.”
Nate Sawyer called from the living room, “Mom, where’s the Persian Gulf?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it’s over in the Middle East somewhere,” Allison Sawyer told her son. She was folding laundry on the kitchen table in their little apartment and not paying much attention to the TV. She knew the President was on, talking about that crisis overseas. There was always a crisis somewhere overseas, it seemed like.
“Where’s the Middle East?”
“You know, Iraq and Iran and Israel, all those places. Don’t they teach you this stuff in school?”
Nate grinned. “I know all those countries you just said start with I. Wanna hear me say the alphabet?”
“You’ve been saying the alphabet since before you even started to school.”
“I could read before I started to school.”
Allison wasn’t so distracted by the laundry that she failed to hear the pride in her son’s voice. She smiled at him and said, “You sure could, champ.”
And she could take some pride in that, too, since she was the one who’d read to him every day since he was a baby. She was convinced that was why he had learned to read by the time he was four and now read at a higher level than any of the other kids in his third-grade class. She knew she wasn’t supposed to make too much of a fuss about that; the teacher had told her so. Doing that might foster a sense of elitism in Nate and ultimately damage the self-esteem of the other kids in the class, and you couldn’t have that. The whole public education system was geared toward leveling the playing field and making all the kids as much alike as possible.
But facts were facts, and Allison’s kid was smart. She wanted to make sure he knew it, too.
Maybe that way he wouldn’t make the same sort of dumb mistakes that his mom had made, like marrying a self-centered asshole—
“Are we gonna have a war?”
“What?” Allison set aside the laundry she was folding and walked into the living room. Maybe she ought to pay more attention to what the President was talking about, she thought.
“The President said there was gonna be a war between Israel and Iran. Are we gonna be in it?”
Allison sat down on the edge of the sofa beside Nate. “Surely that’s not what she said.”
“Uh-huh! Just listen.”
The camera, steady as a rock, showed