Never, page 57
This was not realistic, in Pauline’s opinion. If they tried it there would be hell to pay. She took a deep breath. “Madam President, I sympathize with your feelings but I believe that what you propose is dangerous to Korea and to the world.”
“I have promised to reunite my country. There may not be another moment like this for fifty years. I will not go down in history as the president who missed her chance.”
And that was it, Pauline thought. This was about revenge for the murder of her lover, and about keeping her campaign promise, but most of all it was about her legacy. She was sixty-five and thinking of her place in history. This was her destiny.
There was nothing left to say. Pauline said abruptly: “Thank you, Madam President,” and hung up.
She looked around the table. They had all heard the conversation. She said: “Our strategy for dealing with the Korea crisis has now collapsed. The north has attacked and lost, and the south is determined to invade. My peace conference has died before it could be born. President No is planning a giant swerve in world politics.”
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 favor 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 terry-cloth 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 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.”
“Good-bye, 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 programs 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 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 firsthand 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 aluminum 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 centers, 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
Tripoli was a big city, the biggest Kiah had ever seen, twice the size of N’Djamena. The downtown area had skyscrapers overlooking a beach, but the rest of the place was crowded and dirty, with a lot of bomb-damaged buildings. Some of the men wore European-style clothes but all the women had long dresses and headscarves.
Abdul took her and Naji to a small hotel, cheap but clean, where none of the staff or guests were white and no one spoke anything but Arabic. Kiah had been intimidated by hotels at first, and when the staff were deferential she had suspected them of mocking her. She had asked Abdul how to deal with them, and he had said: “Be pleasant, but don’t be afraid to ask for what you want, and if they seem curious about you, and they ask where you come from and so on, just smile and say you’re too busy to chat.” She had found that it worked.
When they got up on their first morning there, Kiah began to think about the future. Until this moment she had not quite believed that they had escaped from the mining camp. As they had traveled north through Libya, driving on gradually improving roads and sleeping in more comfortable places, she had nursed a secret fear that the jihadis would somehow catch them and enslave them again. Those men were strong and brutal and they usually got their way. Abdul was the only man she had ever known who could stand up to them.
The nightmare was over now, God be praised, but what were they going to do next? What was Abdul’s plan? And did it include her?
She decided to ask him. He responded with a question of his own. “What do you want to do?”
“You know what I want,” she said. “I want to live in France, where I can feed my child and send him to school. But I’ve spent all my money and I’m still in Africa.”
“I may be able to help you. I’m not sure, but I’m going to try.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you now. Please trust me.”
Of course she trusted him. She had put her life in his hands. But there was an underlying tension in him, and her questions brought it to the surface. He was worried about something. It was not the jihadis: he seemed no longer to fear they might be following him. He still looked behind him occasionally and checked out other cars, but not all the time, not obsessively. So what caused his tension? Was it thinking about their future together—or apart?
She found this frightening. Ever since she had first met him, he had given the impression of being in control, ready for anything, afraid of nothing. But now he admitted he did not know whether he could help her finish her journey. What would she do if he failed her? How could she go back to Lake Chad?
He adopted a bright tone and said: “We all need some new clothes. Let’s go shopping.”
Kiah had never “gone shopping” but she had heard the phrase, and she knew that wealthy women strolled around stores looking for things to buy with their surplus money. She had never imagined herself doing the same. Women like her spent money only when they had to.
Abdul got a taxi and they went to the city center, where shady arcades were lined with shops that put half their wares out on the sidewalk. Abdul said: “Plenty of French Arabs wear traditional dress, but you might find life easier in European clothes.”
They found a shop specializing in children’s wear. Naji reveled in the whole process of choosing colors and finding his size. He loved putting on a new shirt and looking in the mirror. Abdul was amused. “Such vanity in one so young!” he said.
“Like his father,” Kiah murmured. Salim had had a touch of vanity. Then she glanced worriedly at Abdul, hoping he would not be offended by the mention of her late husband. A man did not like to be reminded that his woman had lain with another. However, Abdul was smiling at Naji and seemed not to mind.
Naji got two pairs of shorts, four shirts, two pairs of shoes, some underwear, and a baseball cap that he insisted on wearing right away.
At a nearby store Abdul disappeared into the changing room and came out wearing a dark blue cotton suit with a white shirt and a plain narrow tie. Kiah could not remember the last time she had seen a man wearing a tie other than on TV. “You look like an American!” she said.
“Quel horreur,” Abdul said in French. How dreadful. But he smiled.
Then it occurred to Kiah that he might really be American. It would explain all the money. She would ask him, she decided. Not now, but soon.
He returned to the back of the store and reappeared in his usual gray-brown robes, carrying his new clothes in a bag.
Finally they went to a store for women. “I don’t want to spend too much of your money,” Kiah said to Abdul.
“I tell you what,” he said. “Choose two outfits, one with a skirt and one with pants, and get underwear and shoes and everything to go with each one. Don’t worry about the price, nothing here is expensive.”
Kiah did not really think the prices were cheap, but she had never bought clothes—just the fabric with which to make them—so she did not actually know.
“And don’t rush,” Abdul said. “We have plenty of time.”
Kiah found that not worrying about the cost was a strange feeling. It was pleasant but also a bit unnerving, because she was afraid to believe she really could have anything in the shop. Tentatively she tried on a checked skirt and a lilac blouse. She felt too self-conscious even to step out and show Abdul. She then tried blue jeans and a green T-shirt. The shop assistant offered her black lace lingerie, saying: “He will like it.” But Kiah could not bring herself to buy what looked like underwear for prostitutes, and she insisted on white cotton.
She was still embarrassed about what she had done in the car, that first night after their escape. They had slept in each other’s arms for warmth, but when daylight came she had kissed his sleeping face, and once she had started she could not stop. She had kissed his hands and his neck and his cheeks until he woke up, and then of course they had made love. She had seduced him. It was shameful. And yet she could not bring herself to regret it, because she was in love with him and she thought he was beginning to love her. All the same she felt worried that she had behaved like a whore.
She had everything put into a bag and told Abdul she would show him when they got back to the hotel. He smiled and said he could hardly wait.
As they left the shop she wondered longingly whether she would ever really wear these clothes in France.
“We have one more thing to do,” Abdul said. “While you were trying on clothes, I asked if there was somewhere we could get photos taken. Apparently in the next street there’s a travel agency with a photo machine.”
Kiah had never heard of a travel agency or a photo machine, but she said nothing. Abdul often referred to things she did not know about, and rather than pester him with questions all the time she waited for the meaning to become clear.
They walked around a couple of corners and entered a store that was decorated with pictures of airplanes and foreign landscapes. A businesslike young woman sat at a desk wearing a skirt and a blouse a bit like the ones Kiah had bought.
To one side was a little booth with a curtain. The woman gave Abdul some coins in exchange for banknotes, and he explained to Kiah how the machine worked. It was easy, but the result seemed like a miracle: within seconds a strip of paper came out of a slot, like a child poking out its tongue, and Kiah saw four color photographs of her face. When Naji saw the photos he wanted the same, which was good because Abdul said they needed pictures of Naji too.
Like any two-year-old Naji did not see the point of sitting still, so it took three tries before they got good photos.
The woman behind the desk said: “Tripoli International Airport is closed, but Mitiga Airport has flights to Tunis, where you can catch planes to lots of destinations.”
They thanked her and went out. In the street Kiah said: “Why do we need photographs?”
“So that we can get you travel papers.”
Kiah had never had papers. Identifying herself at borders had never been part of her plan. Abdul seemed to think she could enter France legally. As far as she knew that was impossible. Otherwise why would anyone pay smugglers?
Abdul said: “Tell me your date of birth. And Naji’s.”
She told him and he frowned, memorizing both dates, she guessed.
But there was a worry. She said: “Why didn’t you have your photo taken?”
“I already have papers.”
That was not really her question. “When Naji and I go to France . . .”
“What?”
“Where will you go?”
