LITMIR.BIZ

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were filing out of the Oval Office, after yet another meeting of principals to discuss the stand-off with North Korea. The President had been subdued, Bob Kassian thought. He’d watched him idly twisting a pen between his fingers and turning at intervals to glance at the TV set, now permanently turned to a hostile cable TV network (‘It gets his juices flowing,’ McNamara had explained, before adding a leering reference to the First Lady.) The TV was muted, but subtitles gave a rough, if delayed, sense of the on-air conversation. Kassian was at the wrong angle but what he could see displeased him.

       … painted himself into a corner. I agree with Mark and John. At this point, anything short of a military response will look as if the President’s wimped out. You can’t issue red lines and not enforce them …

      Not for the first time, Kassian found himself cursing the media. Perhaps they didn’t realize how closely the President paid attention to them, to television especially. For them it might be no more than time-filling hot air, but it had an effect. The President took each of their remarks as a challenge. No, it was more basic than that. As a dare. When they said he was being weak, he’d lash out just to show that he was strong. Fine, when it was only the campaign. Fine, when lashing out merely meant bad-mouthing some senator or congressman who had bruised his ego. But the stakes were higher now.

      Indeed, Kassian had made some discreet inquiries of the senior butler in the Residence. It turned out that shortly after one am yesterday, the President had asked to see playbacks of the Sunday talkshows that had aired the previous day. Several pundits had demanded a show of US ‘resoluteness’ in the face of Pyongyang’s provocations. It struck Kassian as highly plausible that it was these goads to action from a few talking heads on NBC and CBS, rather than the specific wording of a statement from the DPRK Workers’ Party, that had pushed the Commander in Chief to the threshold of all-out nuclear war.

      The meeting in the Oval Office had been devoted entirely to the North Korea question, pitting hawks against doves. As so often, those who had seen armed combat with their own eyes were most cautious. Those whose familiarity with war extended to owning the director’s cut of Saving Private Ryan were more gung-ho. It was yet another fact of DC life that Kassian could not stand.

      At one point, the discussion had moved onto the ‘paper tiger’ statement put out by Pyongyang, the one that had pushed the President into his late-night meltdown. Kassian felt his back muscles tense. He caught Jim Bruton’s eye for the briefest of moments. They both braced themselves for the inevitable response from the President: Oh, yeah but they apologized to me over that. At which point, the others would look puzzled and demand to see the text and things would get very awkward.

      But, thank God, he was not paying attention. His eye was fixed on the TV, chiefly, Kassian suspected, on the straight blonde hair and shiny, waxed legs of the Fox morning anchor, seated on the couch between two middle-aged white men.

      A new worry replaced the first. What if the President asked why the media were not trumpeting the humiliating climbdown he had forced the North Koreans to make? But that was the one upside of working for a man with an apparently extreme case of attention-deficit disorder, a man who seemed to struggle to focus on one subject for more than a few seconds: played right, it was not hard to get him to move on.

      Now as they filed out, agreeing only to meet again in twenty-four hours’ time if not sooner, Kassian steered the Defense Secretary as subtly as he could down a corridor and out into the covered walkway, the colonnade that looked out onto the Rose Garden.

      Only once he was sure they were neither overlooked nor overheard did Kassian allow his demeanour to change. The two men had already spoken once by phone earlier that morning, so now they could pick up where they left off.

      ‘You’ve heard about Frankel?’ Bruton began. ‘The state his body was in?’

      ‘I heard,’ Kassian replied.

      ‘I mean, Jesus Christ, Bob. We were there just a few hours before. It’s so obvious.’

      ‘Listen, Jim. I hear McNamara is hoping to have a new physician in place by tomorrow morning. Perhaps even tonight.’

      ‘Jeez, that’s quick.’

      ‘Like he doesn’t want to leave anything to chance.’

      ‘Shouldn’t that be you? Choosing the White House doctor: that’s up to the Chief of Staff, no?’

      ‘Of course it should be.’ Kassian looked over his shoulder. He could see two reporters, heading towards the briefing room. (Had Frankel’s death been announced already?) ‘But guess who got involved over breakfast this morning?’

      ‘You’re kidding. Daughter? Son-in-law? Don’t tell me. Both?’

      ‘I don’t know. Maybe. But however early I get in here, McNamara’s already on it. He meets the boss in the Residence every morning. Cup of coffee, shooting the breeze. Taking the temperature from the daughter—’

      ‘And the son-in-law.’

      ‘The whole imperial court. Czar, Czarina—’

      ‘He’s a regular Rasputin.’

      ‘Anyway,’ sighed Kassian. ‘He’s ahead of me on this one. Now he gets to do what they all wanted to do on day one.’

      ‘Appoint the family physician?’

      ‘Yep. The loyal retainer.’

      ‘That guy who signed off the bullshit statement during the campaign?’ Bruton allowed himself a smile. ‘It’s a wonder that jackass wasn’t struck off years ago.’

      ‘Well, his position is safe now,’ said Kassian. ‘And we can forget him signing off any “inability” medical letter.’

      ‘That’s why they want him there. He’ll have one job.’

      They stood and faced outwards together. Kassian wondered if they were too visible. ‘Frankel was right about one thing,’ he said.

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘There’s nothing in the Twenty-fifth about an expert opinion. Nothing about a doctor’s certificate.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘It makes things even harder. For us, I mean.’ Kassian reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a thin booklet, no bigger than a wallet. ‘Since this is the document we swore to defend, I thought I ought to look at it. I read it again this morning.’ He started flicking through the pages. He came to one towards the end. ‘Here we go,’ he said.

      ‘Key bit is Section Four.’ He read out loud. ‘“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments, yadda yadda, transmit … their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”’

      ‘So we’d have to have the Veep and a majority of the cabinet,’ said Bruton. ‘Not or. And. Fuck. We’d have to have both.’ He twisted the sole of his cowboy boot into the ground, just like he did when stubbing out a cigarette butt on the road to Baghdad. His frustration was visible.

      Kassian said, ‘My hunch is there’s no way we can bring the VP on board with this. He couldn’t do it.’

      ‘Folks would say he was out for himself.’

      ‘He’d be dead to the base if he backed a stunt like this. Forever. And he’s smart. “The assassin never inherits the crown.”’

      Kassian put the document back in his pocket. ‘So what if the cabinet came together – without him – and wrote the statement? Presented it to the Veep as a fait accompli. Nothing to do with him, he can’t be blamed. He just has to go along with it.’

      Bruton shook his head. ‘Fine in theory. And he gets what’s going on. Or at least he should, a man like him. But the others?

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