AIR FORCE ONE
A president needed to be able to separate his personal life from his professional, but right now Jack Rutledge couldn’t do it.
He had never made any excuses about being a father first and a president second. Since he had lost his wife to breast cancer several years ago, his daughter, Amanda, was all he had left, and right now he didn’t even know if he had that.
“Anything?” asked the president the minute Carolyn Leonard entered his private suite at the front of the custom Boeing 747.
“Still nothing yet, sir. I’m sorry,” she replied.
“How’s that possible? They were in two cars, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you haven’t been able to reach either of them?”
“No, sir, but Amanda and her friends were riding with Marcy Delacorte and Tim Fiore. I picked them myself as the lead agents for your daughter’s detail. They’re the best. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”
The president wanted to ask her how soon, but it would have been inappropriate to burden her with his fears. He needed to remain strong. Besides, he knew Carolyn was already doing everything she could. In the end, though, there was only so much that could be done. For the time being, they were both helpless. “Anything from the local authorities?”
“They’ve got the route into Manhattan that the detail was traveling, as well as the last GPS coordinates for their vehicles. We’ll find her, Mr. President. I promise you.”
“Thank you, Carolyn,” replied Rutledge. “Let me know the minute you hear anything.”
“I will, sir,” replied Agent Leonard as she backed out of the suite so she could buckle up for takeoff.
Because this was supposed to be a vacation, the president had left his staff back in DC so they could be with their families over the holiday weekend. That meant that as he tried to focus his attention on New York City, he was going to have to tackle everything via secure video links from his airborne office.
He’d learned early on that the first hurdle in a situation of this magnitude was separating fact from fiction. Much like the hours following the September 11th attacks, rumors were running rampant across the country and emergency action plans were being put into effect left and right. All anyone knew for sure was that America was under attack, again.
After being briefed over the video link by his chief of staff, Charles Anderson, during the plane’s taxi and takeoff, the president replied, “That’s it? That’s all we know?”
“We’re still trying to gather information, sir.”
“How the hell is that possible, Chuck?”
“The flow is pretty slow coming out of New York.”
“I thought after September eleventh we put procedures in place to change all that.”
“We did,” replied Anderson, “but with any occurrence like this there is a certain amount of event resonance.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning no matter how good our procedures are for transmitting data, human beings have to snap out of their shock, assess the situation, and pass it up the chain of command. It just takes time.”
The president didn’t like that answer, especially when thousands of lives were hanging in the balance, including his daughter’s. “That’s not good enough. We’ve got people injured and dying. They’re trapped on bridges, they’re trapped down in tunnels choked with smoke and fire, and they’re trying to stay afloat in the Hudson and East rivers. If we don’t start communicating properly, those people won’t have a chance, and I can’t have that. The American people won’t stand for it. Not after 9/11.
“I don’t care how many asses you have to kick, put your boots on and start kicking, damn it. We put those response systems in place for a reason. We were supposed to have learned from our mistakes, so let’s start acting like it. Understood?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” replied Anderson.
“Good,” said Rutledge. “Now, when can I talk to the mayor?”
“It could be some time. His emergency command center was targeted in a run-up to the attacks and we’re having trouble locating him.”
The president threw up his hands in disgust. “I don’t believe it. What about the governor?”
“He’s en route from Albany right now, but he knows even less than we do. Do you want me to get him on the line and patch him through?”
“No, I want to talk to Mayor Brown first. I want to hear from him how his people are doing and what they need. I don’t want things being filtered through the governor. That was a big part of the problem with New Orleans.”
“There is a chain of command, sir.”
“Not with something like this. I want you to track down the mayor and put him through to me as soon as possible. Now, so far we have no intelligence that any other cities have been targeted, correct?”
“Yes, sir. That is correct.”
“I guess we can thank God for that,” said Rutledge as he laid his briefing folder onto the table in front of him and massaged his face with both hands. “What about an appearance?”
“I think right now that would be a little premature,” said Anderson.
“Premature? Chuck, people are panicked,” said a voice from next to the chief of staff. The camera pulled back to show Geoff Mitchell, the president’s press secretary. “They need the president to reassure them and it needs to be done sooner rather than later.”
“Reassure them of what? We have no idea what’s going on in New York, we can’t control it, and we have absolutely no idea who’s behind it. I hardly think any of that’s reassuring.”
“You can’t keep the president walled off, Chuck. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have all the answers yet. People need to see him. That’s all. They need to hear him say everything is going to be all right. Hell, if we play this right, it might even be okay for him to admit he doesn’t have all the answers yet, but that he’s working very hard to get to the bottom of what’s happened. And then of course he needs to state unequivocally that America ’s response to this barbarism will be swift, sure, and severe.”
“We can talk about releasing a videotaped statement once we decide where the president is headed after Mountain Home Air Force Base,” stated the chief of staff.
“We’re not going to Idaho,” replied Rutledge. “We’re on our way back to DC.”
“Mr. President,” began Anderson, “I don’t think that-”
“Chuck, you said it yourself. No other cities have been targeted. My place is in the White House. America needs leadership right now. I’ve already okayed putting the continuity of government plan into action, but other than that, nothing else changes. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, sir.”
The president then addressed his press secretary. “Geoff, I want you to start drafting some remarks. Keep them short. Chuck is right. At this point we don’t know a lot, and the less we say the better. Let the networks know that I’ll be making a live statement as soon as I get back to the White House. I think that about does it. Let’s get to work.”
“Mr. President,” said Robert Hilliman, the president’s secretary of defense, from his secure link at the DOD, “if I could have a moment of your time in private please, sir?”
“Go ahead, Bob,” replied the president once he had gone into private conference mode. “What is it?”
“Well, there are some concerns about an intelligence intercept we had this morning.”
“What about it?”
“Apparently, reference was made to the United States abducting a foreign national and bringing him here against his will in direct violation of international law.”
“This is nothing new, Bob. We hear this stuff all the time, especially since all of the press on our extraordinary rendition policy broke.”
“I know, Mr. President, but this is different.”
“Different how? They could be talking about any one of thousands of people we’ve detained.”
“This conversation made clear that the person in question was a bombmaker who had been brought to New York.”
“Which means…” said the president, trailing off.
“It could only be one of two people.”
“Both of whom we’ve got at the same location.”
“With no effective way to protect or evacuate.”