The General's President (3 page)

The tall, still straight Stenhus looked Flynn over quizzically for a long second, as if surprised that the priest was not collared and robed. He put out a large hand, and Stephen Flynn shook it. Then the two older men carried the canoe up the steep path to the road while he struggled behind with the huge pack. Flynn was reasonably strong, but winded quickly. Physical strength persists long after physical endurance has been lost.

After tying the canoe atop the pickup shell and stowing the pack, they crowded into the pickup cab. Stenhus started the motor and pulled out onto the blacktop.

"I suppose you ain't heard what happened in the news the last couple days," he said as they started down the road. Stenhus's speech had a discernible flavor of Scandinavia which Haugen's did not.

"No," Haugen said. "What?"

"There was some big riots started. Fires and looting. Shootouts with the police—like a regular war you know. In New York first. Then yesterday they broke out in a bunch of other places too. Washington, Detroit, Los Angeles, places like that. I heard this morning that Donnelly sent the army in, and called out the national guard."

Father Flynn felt his chest constrict. Haugen's face seemed to pucker. Outside, the Indian summer sun shone on.

Stenhus turned and spit brownly out the window. "Too bad this country ain't got a president with a teaspoon or two of brains." He looked at Haugen. "You ought to run for president next time, Arne. If there is a next time. You got enough money to get elected, and you're a hell of a lot smarter than that Donnelly." He laughed then, and poked Haugen with an elbow. "Even if you are half Finlander."

Haugen laughed wryly, as much a snort as a laugh. "Me, president?! That'd be the day! I wouldn't have the job if they offered it to me. And the country wouldn't have me if I took it."

TWO

The little OH-6 Cayuse lifted from the Pentagon grounds and swung smoothly north-northeast toward the Potomac. As an observation helicopter, the model had been replaced for more than a decade, but they were an excellent little aircraft, and a few were still used to shuttle brass. This one was the personal shuttle of the chairman of the JCS, the joint chiefs of staff, and just now carried two passengers wearing four stars each.

The Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool scarcely registered on General Thomas M. "Jumper" Cromwell as he looked northward past them. He was seeing the bulldozed remains of street barricades near the State Department Building on 23rd Street, the black scars where cars had burned, and farther north, the blocks of burned-out buildings with smoke still rising from the rubble. The air stunk from it.

He saw an old M-60, probably an A3, roll slowly, ponderously through an intersection, accompanied by three armored personnel carriers. Nothing seemed to be going on with them. Patrolling, keeping military visibility up, that was all. The fighting had dropped way off, to spasmodic sniping, brief infrequent firefights. All but the real hardcases had backed off, gotten lost, at least in Washington. The question was, would they stay backed off or would they go guerrilla?

This was high security airspace. Although the Cayuse emitted a constant identification signal, the pilot had been challenged moments earlier, and responded with the code of the day. Constitution Avenue passed beneath, then 17th Street. The grass was still emerald on the ellipse and the White House lawn, though marred with machine gun emplacements. A few trees were beginning to show autumn colors. Rifle-carrying marines patrolled, in helmets and camouflage fatigues. And there were marines on the White House roof, no doubt with ground-to-air rockets.

But no tourists at all. Of course, there hadn't been many since gas rationing began a year earlier.

Cromwell could see a man in class-A uniform waiting in front of the South Portico, watching them come in. The OH-6 slowed, hovered a moment, oscillating slightly, then settled on the little helipad, a semicircle of marines standing nearby with ready weapons, watching.

When the vanes stopped, the president's military aide strode over to greet Cromwell and Klein. Greetings were minimal. The aide led them briskly across the lawn toward the Executive Wing.

"How's the president doing, Ernie?" Cromwell asked. The question was not a routine courtesy, but a matter of genuine concern.

Brigadier General Ernest Hammaker shook his head. "Not well, sir. Not as well as yesterday. Singleton's with him."

Shit!
Cromwell thought,
just what we need at a time like this—the president in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

They entered the building and walked into the president's office area, Martinelli, the president's secretary, watching bleakly as they passed. Hammaker opened the door to the Oval Office and ushered the two senior generals through.

President Kevin J. Donnelly met them seated. He looked older than his fifty-six years. The skin of his face was slack, as if he'd shrunk inside it these last two weeks, and especially the last three days. The White House chief of staff stood behind his left shoulder, and Colonel Singleton, the White House physician, behind his right.
They don't look too damn good either
, Cromwell thought.

"Good morning, Mr. President," he said.

"Good morning, general." The president stopped at that, as if to gather energy, then added, "I'm going to resign."

Cromwell hardly missed a beat. "I understand, sir." He paused. "There's one thing I trust you'll take care of before you do though."

The president simply looked at him.

"There is no vice president, sir. Mr. Strock resigned four days ago, at your insistence. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment requires that you nominate someone for the post. As it stands now, there is no constitutional replacement for you."

The president nodded. "Mr. Milstead pointed that out to me. I am appointing you my vice president."

Cromwell's face suddenly felt as if it was going to shatter and fall off. "Mr. President," he said, "I don't think the Congress would approve that."

Milstead spoke then. "General, we called the attorney general when President Donnelly first brought up his retirement last evening. You're aware, of course, that the Congress passed an Emergency Powers Act on Monday, granting the president extraordinary authority. We reviewed the act together, and it's the attorney general's view that the president can now simply appoint a vice president. During the emergency he doesn't need congressional approval." He went on almost apologetically. "The legislation was rather hurriedly drawn. They may not have envisioned this scenario."

Cromwell's jaw locked with chagrin. Just the idea of being president somehow horrified him. He didn't look for the rationale in the reaction; it was simply emotional. But its roots, whatever they were, went deep.

"General Cromwell?" said Milstead. Cromwell returned to the here and now, and focused on the man. "General," Milstead repeated, "if you accept the post and Mr. Donnelly resigns, you can then appoint a vice president and resign in turn, if you prefer."

"Shit, Charles!" Cromwell snapped, "that's not okay!" He stopped then and looked at Donnelly. "Sorry, Mr. President. Sorry, Charles. But that would be terrible PR! It would look as if nobody wants the job! As if the problems were just too much."

He turned to Donnelly. "Mr. President, would you be willing to stay in office for—two more days? Charles will take care of things for you, and in two days I'll come up with someone who's willing to have the job and able to do it better than I could. If I don't, I'll take it myself."

The president nodded, so doped he looked moribund more than tired. "Two more days?" He looked up at Milstead then. "Two more days, Charles."

"Fine, Mr. President."

Colonel Singleton said nothing, but his tight lips told Cromwell that two days was asking a lot of Kevin Donnelly.

"Thank you, Mr. President," said Cromwell.

"I'll walk General Cromwell to his helicopter, Mr. President," Milstead said. The president nodded slightly, and the three generals left the office with Milstead behind them.

"General Cromwell," said Milstead when they got outside, "I may have to call you. It's not at all sure that the president will be able to function mentally at all in two days. Or even this afternoon; it's a moment to moment thing. And he
has
appointed you; all you'd need to do is accept. You already have, conditionally—if you don't get someone within two days. If the president becomes nonfunctional before he can appoint someone else, will you take the job?"

He looked intently at Cromwell as they walked along. "Frankly, general," Milstead continued, "I think the president made a good choice. You've demonstrated a large capacity for accepting responsibilities, evaluating situations, making decisions, giving orders... Even in declining the president's offer, you noticed a consideration that the rest of us missed."

Cromwell was tempted to tell him to knock off the flattery. But he didn't, because he knew it was true. Instead he nodded curtly, almost angrily. "I'll accept if it comes to that. But don't do it to me, Charles, unless you absolutely have to. My first name is Thomas, for chrissake, not Oliver."

Milstead nodded, and with Ernie Hammaker, stopped somewhat short of the chopper, watching Cromwell and Klein board before turning back to the White House. As the pair of four-star generals took seats and buckled down, Klein said, "Who've you got in mind, Jumper?"

"Christ, Brad, I haven't had time to think yet. But I'll come up with someone."

He looked, when he said it, as if he were facing execution, but by the time they put back down at the Pentagon, he'd thought of someone.

THREE

Excerpt from a sermon by the Reverend Delbert Coombs, of the Stalwart in God Church of the Apocalypse.

There are those who deny God. They will be damned! They are already damned.

And there are those who claim to be Christians but do not believe the Word of God. They are
twice
damned!

And there are those who say they are Christians and claim to believe the Word of God ...
yet do not believe that the millenium will come!
They deny the Word of God as revealed by John in the book of Revelations!!

Well I'll tell you something, my friend! They too will not enter the Kingdom of God! Unless ... unless they change their hearts! And they'd better
hurry
, my friends, for the millenium is soon upon us. The years remaining are fewer than the fingers of my hand. And if they do not believe their calendar, and if they do not believe their Bible,
then let them look about them, for the signs are everywhere to be seen!

***

There were five joint chiefs. Cromwell was the Chairman; General Fred Hanke was Army Chief of Staff; General Ewell Boyd Trenary was Air Force Chief of Staff; Admiral James L. "Howdy" Dudak was Chief of Naval Operations; and General Francis X. Carmody was Marine Corps Commandant. Bradley Klein made a sixth in the meeting: As commander of the newly reinstituted Continental Command, Klein was in charge of the troops enforcing martial law.

When everyone was seated, Cromwell, as a matter of form, rapped his small gavel on its plate. "All right, gentlemen," he said, "I have some important news for you."

He had their attention. "A little while ago, at 0800, Brad and I went over to the White House. I assumed it was to give the president another rundown, and discuss any ideas he might have before the six of us met.

"He gave us a surprise. A hell of a surprise."

Cromwell paused then, looking around. "I'm telling you this in strictest confidence; it must not be discussed or mentioned to anyone. The president is in very shaky health, and he intends to resign. In fact, he would have resigned when we were there, but I talked him into waiting two days."

Trenary's thin face darkened; he was less surprised than angry. "Talked him out of it?! Jesus Christ, Jumper! Quitting would be the best thing he's done lately. What in hell did you talk him out of it for?"

"There's no vice president. He needs to appoint one; then he can quit."

"Jumper, he doesn't
appoint
one," Hanke said drily. Fred Hanke was a tall lanky man whose thin hair still showed blond through the gray. "He
nominates
one, and then the Congress has to approve."

"Not now it doesn't," Cromwell answered, then repeated what he'd been told about the emergency powers granted the president.

"Huh!" Hanke grunted. "So he can appoint his own successor! I'll bet that wasn't the intent of Congress."

"Beats me. Anyway that's what Cavanaugh and Milstead came up with. And Cavanaugh practiced before the Supreme Court for years."

"Why didn't he name one last night?" Carmody asked. "Or this morning? Why the two-day wait?" The Marine Corps Commandant was a thick-shouldered, hard-bodied man who, with a sergeant's stripes, could have passed for a drill instructor. Usually he was a quiet, mild-seeming man, but his tongue could take the bark off a tree on occasion, and the whole Corps knew it.

"He did name one, Frank. But the guy didn't want the job."

"Who was it?" asked Dudak.

"I hate to tell you this, Howdy, but it was me. So now I've got the job of finding him one. And I've got two days to do it."

"Wait," Trenary said. "He offered you the job? That's like offering you the presidency! He's got to be off his rocker! That would really heat things up, appointing a president right off the JCS, for chrissake!"

"We don't know that," Hanke commented. "Probably ninety percent of the people in this country want someone to take hold and straighten things out. They might like the idea of a military president, the way things are."

"Or they might not," Dudak put in. "Especially if things didn't work out right away. Which they wouldn't." His features, usually reminiscent of a skeptical cherub, were set now in disapproval.

"Who've you got in mind, Jumper?" Carmody asked. "Someone, I'll bet."

"Yeah, I've thought of someone." Cromwell looked around at the others, then said nothing.

"Goddamn it," said Trenary, "don't be so damn coy, Jumper! Why even bring it up to us, if you already know who you want? You're the one the president told to name one."