Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [94]
Senator Fox was already concerned about the president. Mala Chatterjee had no love for him. The secretary-general would certainly give interviews stating that the president had been completely mistaken about the United Nations initiative. What if Gable or Fenwick were also to leak information about bad judgment the president had shown over the past few weeks? Reporters would swallow it whole. Hood knew. It would be easy to manipulate the press with a story like that. Especially if it came from a reliable source like Jack Fenwick. And it wasn't just Fenwick and Gable who were involved in this. Hood now knew for certain.
The vice president had been on the same page as Fenwick and Gable back in the Oval Office. Who stood to benefit most if the president himself and possibly the electorate were convinced that he was unfit to lead the nation in a time of crisis? The man who would succeed him, of course.
"General Orlov, have we heard from our people tracking the Harpooner?"
Hood asked.
"They're both at the hotel where he is staying," Orlov reported.
"They're moving in on him now."
"To terminate, not capture."
"We don't have the manpower to capture him," Orlov stated.
"The truth is, we may not even have the manpower to complete the mission at hand. It's a great risk, Paul."
"I understand," Hood said.
"General, are you solid about this information? That the men who attacked the Iranian rig are Iranian?"
"Until their body parts are collected and identified, an educated guess is the best I can do," Orlov said.
"All right," Hood said.
"I'm going to take that information to the president. His advisers are pushing him to a military response. Obviously, we have to get him to postpone that."
"I agree," Orlov said.
"We're mobilizing as well."
"Call me with any other news," Hood said.
"And thank you, General. Thank you very much." Hood hung up the phone.
He ran from the Cabinet Room and jogged down the carpeted hallway toward the Oval Office. Canvas portraits of Woodrow Wilson and First Lady Edith Boiling Wilson looked down from the wall. She had effectively run the country in 1919 when her husband suffered a stroke. But she was protecting his health while looking out for the country's best interests. Not her own advancement. Had we become more corrupt since then? Or had the line between right and wrong become entirely erased?
Did presumably virtuous ends justify corrupt means? This was maddening.
Hood had information, and he had a strong, plausible scenario. He had Fenwick turning pale when he said that the Harpooner had been captured.
But Hood did not have proof. And without that, he did not see how he was going to convince the president to proceed slowly, carefully, regardless of what Iran did. Nor were the joint chiefs likely to be much help. The military had been itching for a legitimate reason to strike back at Teheran for over twenty years. He turned the corner and reached the Oval Office. The secret service officer stationed at the door stopped him.
"I have to see the president," Hood told him.
"I'm sorry, sir, you'll have to leave," the young man insisted. Hood wagged the badge that hung around his neck.
"I have blue-level access," he said.
"I can stand here. Please. Just knock on the door and tell the president I'm here."
"Sir, my doing that won't help you to see the president," the secret service agent told him.
"They've moved the meeting downstairs."
"Where?" Hood asked. But he already knew.
"To the Situation Room." Hood turned and swore. Fenwick was correct. He was going to keep him from seeing the president.