She paused, making sure the gravity of the predicament had time to sink in. Then she turned to practical details.
‘Bill, I want you to take the morning conference in the White House press-briefing room today.’ Schneider looked reluctant, but she wanted a man in uniform. ‘Sandip Chakraborty will be with you.’ She almost added to hold your hand but stopped herself. ‘Say that we were prepared for the attack and fought it off with minimum damage. Give them as much military detail as you can: numbers of missiles fired, enemy planes downed, military casualties, civilian casualties. You can say that I was in touch with the presidents of China and South Korea throughout the night, but don’t answer any political questions; tell them that the situation is still unclear and, anyway, you’re just a simple soldier.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
‘With luck we now have a few hours to reflect. Everyone, please get your deputies into this room and go off and get some rest while East Asia is sleeping. I’m going to take a shower. We meet again this evening, when it’s dawn in Korea.’
She stood up, and the others all did the same. She caught a look from Gus and realized he wanted to accompany her, but she thought it a bad idea to favour him too obviously, so she looked away and left the room.
She returned to the Residence and showered. She felt refreshed but tired; she was desperate for sleep. However, first she sat on the edge of the bed in her towelling bathrobe and called Pippa to ask how the holiday was going.
‘The traffic was terrible last night and we took two hours getting here!’ Pippa said.
‘Bummer,’ said Pauline.
‘But then we all had supper and that was fun. This morning, Josephine and I went for an early ride.’
‘What horse did you have?’
‘A nice little pony called Parsley, lively but obedient.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Then Dad drove us into Middleburg to buy pumpkin pies and guess who we ran into? Ms Judd!’
Pauline had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. So Gerry had arranged a rendezvous with his lover at Thanksgiving. Boston had not been merely a one-night stand, after all. ‘Well, well,’ she said, forcing a cheerful tone of voice. But she could not help adding: ‘What a coincidence!’ She hoped Pippa did not detect the sarcasm.
Pippa seemed oblivious. ‘Turns out she’s spending the holiday with a friend who has a winery not far from Middleburg. So Dad had coffee with old Judders while Jo and I shopped for pies. Now we’re heading back and we’re going to help Jo’s mom stuff the turkey.’
‘I’m so glad you’re having a good time.’ Pauline realized she had sounded a bit down.
Pippa was young but she had female instincts, and Pauline’s faintly depressed tone reminded her that her mother was not having a holiday. She said: ‘Hey, what’s happening in Korea?’
‘I’m trying to stop the war.’
‘Wow. Should we all be worried?’
‘Leave it to me. I’ll do the worrying for everyone.’
‘Do you want to talk to Daddy?’
‘Not if he’s driving.’
‘Yes, he’s driving.’
‘Give him my love.’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Goodbye, honey.’
‘Bye, Mom.’
Pauline hung up with a bad taste in her mouth.
Gerry and Amelia Judd had planned this. Over the weekend Gerry would find an excuse to slip away from his hosts for an assignation. He had deceived Pauline – while she was valiantly resisting temptation.
What had she done wrong? Had Gerry sensed the feelings she was beginning to have for Gus? You can’t help your feelings, she thought, and she had not really minded when she began to suspect that Gerry had a little tendresse for Ms Judd. But you can help your actions. Gerry had cheated, and Pauline had not. Big difference.
It was eight o’clock, prime time for TV news. One of the programmes would be asking James Moore about Korea – like he knows anything, she thought sourly. He probably couldn’t find Korea on a map. She turned on the set and hopped channels until she found him on a populist morning show.
He was wearing a tan suede jacket with fringes. This was a new departure: he was not even pretending to conform. Did people really want a president who looked like Davy Crockett?
He was being questioned by Mia and Ethan. To begin, Ethan said: ‘You’ve visited East Asia, so you have first-hand knowledge of the situation there.’
Pauline laughed. Moore had taken a ten-day tour of East Asia and had spent exactly one day in Korea, most of it in a five-star hotel in Seoul.
Moore said: ‘I wouldn’t claim to be an expert, Ethan, and I sure can’t pronounce all those funny names –’ he paused for them both to chuckle – ‘but I think this is a situation that needs common sense. North Korea has attacked us and our allies, and when you’re attacked, you have to hit back hard.’
Pauline said: ‘The word you’re looking for is “escalate”, Jim.’
He went on: ‘Anything less just encourages the enemy.’
Mia crossed her legs. Like all women on this channel, she had to wear a skirt short enough to show her knees. She said: ‘But what are you talking about, Jim, in down-to-earth terms?’
‘I’m saying we could wipe out North Korea with one nuclear attack, and we could do it today.’
‘Well, that’s pretty drastic.’
Pauline laughed again. ‘Drastic?’ she said to the screen. ‘It’s insane, that’s what it is.’
Moore said: ‘Not only would that solve our problem at a stroke, but it would scare off others. Let’s tell people: if you attack America, you’re toast.’
Pauline could just picture his supporters punching the air. Well, she was going to save them from nuclear annihilation, whether they wanted her to or not.
She turned off the set.
She was ready for bed, but there was something she wanted to do before she slept.
She pulled on sweat clothes and went down the staircase to the floor below. There she found her Secret Service detail and a young army major carrying the atomic football.
It was not a football, of course, but an aluminium Zero Halliburton briefcase inside a black leather cover. It looked like a carry-on suit holder, except for a small communications antenna sticking out near the handle. Pauline greeted the young man and asked his name.
‘I’m Rayvon Roberts, Madam President.’
‘Well, Major Roberts, I’d like to look inside the football, to refresh my memory. Open up, please.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Roberts quickly removed the black leather cover, placed the metal case on the floor, flipped the three latches, and lifted the lid.
The case contained three objects and a phone with no dial.
Roberts said: ‘Ma’am, may I remind you of each of these items?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘This is the Black Book.’ It was a regular office ring binder. Pauline took it from him and flipped the pages, which were printed in black and red. Roberts said: ‘That lists your retaliatory options.’
‘All the different ways I can start a nuclear war.’
‘Yes.’
‘You wouldn’t think there would be so many. Next?’
Roberts picked up another, similar binder. ‘This is a list of classified site locations around the country where you could take refuge in an emergency.’
Next was a manila folder with a dozen or so stapled pages. ‘This details the Emergency Alert System that would enable you to speak to the nation on all television and radio stations in the event of a national emergency.’
This item was almost obsolete, Pauline thought, in the age of 24/7 news.
‘And this phone calls only one number: the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. The Center will pass your instructions to missile launch-control centres, nuclear submarines, bomber airfields, and battlefield commanders.’
‘Thank you, major,’ she said. She left the group and returned upstairs. At last she could go to bed. She took off her clothes and slid gratefully between the sheets. She lay with her eyes closed, and in her mind she saw that leather-clad briefcase. What it really contained was the end of the world.
In a few seconds she was asleep.
CHAPTER 35