FOREWORD Read online

  The next person to speak was Reynolds. He was no expert on Russian affairs, and had never professed to be. But he did pride himself on his knowledge of people. And Russians were still people, weren’t they? They had the same weaknesses and fallibilities as anybody else. It was just a matter of finding out what their weaknesses were, and deciding how to capitalize upon them. That was the most important rule of politics, and international crisis or not, this was still a political situation.

  “I knew this guy once, a poker player,” he remarked. “A real shit hot player, he was.”

  The President cocked a grin. He was accustomed to Reynolds’s anecdotes, and had learned that to entertain them was often to learn something from the wily political specialist.

  Reynolds leaned forward in his chair as if addressing a kindergarten class. He had his audience. He lived for moments like this. “Well,” he went on, lowering his voice an octave, “this guy got involved in this game one night. Big stakes. All the other guys were strangers, but it didn’t matter to him because he had the knack of reading people. He could tell what you were thinking just by the way you breathed.”

  “Bullshit,” Nielsen snorted with undisguised contempt. “Get to the point, Jim.”

  Reynolds zeroed in on the Secretary of Defense. “You ever played big stakes poker, Paul?” In his Maine accent, poker was pronouncedpoke-ah .

  “No,” Nielsen admitted.

  “Well then shut up and listen. You might learn something.” He took a deep breath before proceeding. “Anyway, this guy cleaned up, walked away with the whole fucking pot. Not immediately, mind you. He played the long game, throwing a few hands while he studied the other players’ weaknesses. But in the end, he broke ‘em all. Walked away from that table with a cool half mil. Best night’s work of his life. So he starts thinking about taking his pretty young wife away for a nice long vacation, maybe buying a new sports car. Hell, he even thought about getting himself a condo on Malibu beach. He made all these plans about what to do with this money he’d won.”

  Copeland was clearly hooked. “So what happened to him?”

  “He walked out of the club, went home, and guess what? When he got home, he found his wife humping the guy who owned the gaming room. Funny thing was, they both thought the husband would be at the game all night. Didn’t think he’d clean up so quickly. In fact, the owner of the gaming room invited him to the game just so he could be alone with the guy’s wife, and all the other players knew what was going on. After that, the husband lost his touch. He was never able to play poker again. His wife divorced him and ended up taking most of his winnings, and he ended up a broke and lonely hobo All because he didn’t find out why he’d been invited to the game in the first place.” Reynolds smiled crookedly at Mitchell as he concluded the lesson. “My point is, Mr. President, that you should never play the game until you find out who’s really running it and why. Seems to me that none of you really know what the game is in Russia right now, never mind who the other players are. Until you find that out for sure, don’t play. You might get stung.”

  “Is that story true?” Copeland asked.

  “What do you think?” the chief of staff replied cryptically.

  Mitchell understood the point Reynolds was making. And the bitch of it was that the chief of staff was right. There was no point trying to anticipate your next move in a game that hadn’t even started yet. He almost turned to ask for Bert Aldick’s opinion, but stopped himself just in time, glancing sadly at the empty chair that his National Security Advisor would normally have filled. In situations like this, Bert had been the only man whose opinion could have been relied upon for its absolute objectivity and honesty. How the hell do I replace him? The President asked himself. He made a mental note to ask Margaret about that. It was a situation that would have to be tackled sooner rather than later.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and allowed himself a yawn. Time to wrap things up. “Okay, well, the press is expecting a statement soon, hopefully in time for the late editions. Something for people to chew on over lunch. I take it we should offer our tentative support to Pushkin.”

  “With reservations,” Copeland advised. “We should support him as a continuity figure, somebody we can deal with, providing that he proceeds with economic reform and continues to seek a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian conflict.”

  The President searched the faces of the other men in the room. There were no objections to Copeland’s advice.

  “Okay.” To Reynolds: “Jim, get Sara Walsh to draft a statement, something expressing sympathy for Godonov’s family, a tragic loss of a great statesman, a friend of the American people. Normal drivel.”

  “Who’ll attend the funeral?” Copeland inquired.

  Mitchell and Reynolds exchanged a glance. They were both thinking the same thing.

  “Might as well leave the veep out there for that,” the President suggested. The Vice President was already in Moscow, leading a U.S. trade delegation to the Russian Federation.

  “That’ll keep him happy,” Reynolds noted dryly. “He likes overseas travel. Besides, it’ll keep him out of trouble for a few more days.”

  That remark caused everybody to snigger. Vice President Adam Jones was as much of a joke within the realms of government as he was outside. But the youthful former resident of Fort Lauderdale, Florida,had delivered the Sunshine State, and that was the only reason Mitchell had chosen him as a running mate.

  “Oh, and Brad,” the President added.

  “Sir?”

  “Summon the Russian ambassador and reaffirm in person ourconditional support for Pushkin. I’ll draft a personal letter for you to deliver to him.”

  “The Ambassador’s in Moscow at the moment, but he’s due back later today,” Copeland reported. “I’ll arrange to meet him as soon as he gets back.”

  “Good.”

  After the meeting, the President sat down to breakfast with Margaret. It was one of the few times of the day they could actually enjoy any semblance of privacy. But even at breakfast, a Secret Service agent would hover impassively in the background.

  “What’s in your diary for today?” Mitchell asked his wife, unsuccessfully trying to trap a slippery slice of grapefruit with his spoon. It occurred to him that he was supposedly the most powerful man in the world, and yet sometimes even the most menial of tasks eluded him.

  “I’m flying down to North Carolina to visit an abused women’s center, no less,” she told him, watching with amusement as her husband’s spoon vainly pursued the grapefruit around the bowl. “I imagine one of Jim’s focus groups has identified abused women as a major voting bloc. Can’t get thar without them,” she added, cruelly lampooning Reynolds’ Maine inflection.

  “What about abused men?” the President half-smiled, temporarily giving up on the grapefruit.

  “Nah, their wives probably don’t let them vote.”

  The First Couple shared a chuckle. A rare moment these days.

  “What about you?” she asked him with an edge of concern. Her husband looked physically and mentally exhausted, even if he wouldn’t admit to it. She’d have to talk to his physician about that, she thought. “I imagine your day will be pretty much taken up with Russia, huh?”

  “Pretty much. Apparently, Godonov died of a massive coronary. I have to say, his timing was immaculate.” He frowned. “I tell you, Bert couldn’t have picked a worse time to get caught with his zipper undone. If ever I needed his advice…” He paused, leaving the rest unsaid. “I’ve got to find a replacement. The National Security Advisor is one of the few posts I can appoint without legislative approval. I need somebody who knows what the hell they’re talking about. You know I’m not big on foreign…”

  He saw a ponderous grin flicker across Margaret’s lips. He knew that expression.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I think I might know just the man you’re looking for. He’s one of the best Russian experts around. Somebody you can trust a hundred percen
t. Only problem is, I doubt he’d want the job.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A guy I met when I was teaching at Princeton.” Margaret took a sip of coffee. “Actually, he was a star pupil of mine. Probably the best I ever had.” The First Lady was a Professor of International Relations, and would have made an adept National Security Advisor herself had she not been married to the President. There were some things – blatant nepotism being one of them – that even a President couldn’t get away with.

  “Okay then, how do I approach him?”

  “You don’t,” she stated. “Get Bishop to do it.”

  The President raised a quizzical eyebrow, picking up his spoon for another attempt.

  “This guy used to work for Tony at the CIA, both as a field officerand an analyst. He left Langley a few years’ ago and took a job teaching at UCONN, so he may be a bit rusty on current events. But if you need a good Russia guy, he’s your man. While he was at the Agency, he spent a lot of time over there working in the field. He speaks the language like a native. Arabic too, so I recall.”

  “Sounds promising,” the President agreed, quite proud that he had finally managed to trap the elusive slice of grapefruit. “I’ll call Tony after breakfast, get him to set up a meet. If he’s as good as you say he is, perhaps this guy could come in on a temporary basis for the time being. What’s his name, anyway?”

  INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI

  “Goddammit. Where the hell are they?”

  Beth Logan checked her watch again, her face darkening with anger. She glanced through the kitchen window and muttered a curse.

  “Probably caught up in traffic on the Interstate, honey,” her husband Martin suggested. “Don’t worry, they’ll be here.”

  “Dinner will be burned to charcoal by the time they arrive,” she grumped. “I took a day off work to prepare for your parents’ visit. The least they could do is show me somegoddamn respect by being punctual.”

  Martin wrapped a muscular arm around his wife’s shoulder in a vain attempt to ease her foul mood. That usually worked. But not this time. She shrugged him off and opened the oven to check on the lamb, leaving Martin looking slightly hurt.

  Beth had never been on the best of terms with her in-laws, largely due to religious differences. The Logans were devout Irish Catholics, while Beth - whose maiden name was Goldberg - was a New York born Jew. Two weddings had been required in order to placate both families, although neither Beth nor Martin had ever seen the need to change their own respective religions purely because they happened to love each other. If only Martin’s parents could have been so compromising. After all, Beth’s parents – both of whom, sadly, were dead now - had accepted Martin, so why couldn’t his folks have done the same? He’d spent many a sleepless night wrestling with that question without ever obtaining a satisfactory answer.

  In fact, his parents had only visited their son and daughter-in-law twice during the three years that he had been married to Beth. They owned a bar in Chicago, which did enough business to allow them the nominal excuse of having too little time to come all the way to Missouri for a fleeting visit. They managed to do this, Martin thought, without ever leaving any doubt as to the real reason for their absence. So he had some sympathy with Beth’s refusal to travel to Chicago just to visit in-laws who did their utmost to make her feel unwelcome. After all, he would have felt exactly the same way in her position.

  Of course, Martin’s allegiances were somewhat confused, and that was not a comfortable predicament for a US Air Force bomber pilot who was conditioned to measure life in terms of simple polarities; black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. He was actually hoping that this visit, which had required the diplomatic skills of Henry Kissinger to arrange, would show his parents that, regardless of what they thought, he loved Beth and wasn’t about to leave her just because she had been brought up to worship the same deity in a slightly different manner than he. It had taken all of his persuasiveness to persuade Beth also to give them a chance; and if they did show any hostility towards her, to take it all with a pinch of salt. His parents were too set in their ways to change, he had told her, so she’d just have to try to accept them for what they were.

  “Why should I?” she had snapped at him during that very argument two days’ earlier. “Why should I sit back and listen to all their shit in my house. Myhouse.”

  And that’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it? Martin reflected sadly. I have home advantage, so you will live by My Rules. If you don’t like it, you damn well know where the door is.

  “Well,” she snorted, slamming the oven door shut. “I just hope they like charred lamb. It’ll sure as hell give your mother a reason to criticize my cooking.” And wouldn’t that be something, coming from a woman whose idea of haute cuisine is a bacon sandwich with a Guinness chaser, she didn’t say.

  Martin glanced through the kitchen window and, to his relief, he saw his parents’ white sedan turn into the driveway. Good timing, guys.

  “You can stop complaining now,” he told his wife. “They’re here.” Brace yourself. Here we go…

  Beth joined Martin at the front door to welcome Patrick and Cathy Logan to Missouri. Hugs and greetings were exchanged, albeit frostily on Beth’s part. They all went through to the dining room, where Martin’s parents brought their son up to date with all the gossip from Chicago while Beth served up dinner.

  “Have you been eating too much chocolate?” Cathy smiled coldly as Beth spooned vegetables onto her mother-in-law’s plate. “You’re losing your shape, dear.”

  Beth narrowed her eyes at her husband, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Well, I think Beth looks stunning, Mom,” he objected, coming to his wife’s defense. In his eyes, she hadn’t changed much from the petite blonde he had first met at college nearly two decades ago. The hair was a little shorter, the crows’ feet slightly more prominent, but she was still capable of turning heads.

  For many years, their relationship had been entirely platonic. They first met when Beth started dating a fellow student called Simon Hall, who happened to be one of Martin’s teammates from the college football team. Simon was later to become her first husband. After college, when Beth was a young stockbroker and Martin an Air Force cadet, she periodically exchanged postcards and letters with Martin. But as the future husband and wife both pursued their own careers, correspondence between them gradually became less frequent, and eventually stopped altogether. In that time, Martin worked his way through the Air Force ranks, himself chalking up one broken marriage to a younger woman who hadn’t been able to cope with the irregular lifestyle that his job had entailed. The final separation had been triggered by Martin’s posting to Germany, a country that she decided to hate after just a few days. She promptly returned to America, and that was the last that Martin heard of her until she served him with divorce papers.

  It wasn’t until nearly a decade later that, by freak coincidence, he again crossed paths with Beth. By this time, Martin had made the rank of Captain and had been posted to the 509thBomb Wing at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. To celebrate his promotion, he and a few buddies had decided to take a vacation in the picturesque resort of Shoshone, California. Fortuitously, Beth and her sister had had the same idea, although in their case it had been to celebrate Beth’s divorce from Simon. This time, neither Martin nor Beth were prepared to let destiny escape them.

  Within six months of meeting again, they were engaged. Beth gave up a lucrative career on Wall Street to join a small investment boutique in Kansas City, sixty miles away from Whiteman. Adjusting from Manhattan’s intensity to KC’s easygoing ambience hadn’t been easy, but Beth had no regrets. Sure, she would never earn as much as she could have done in the Big Apple, but the relaxed lifestyle and shorter working hours provided ample compensation for that. Plus she was with the man she loved.

  In fact, life would have been perfect if it wasn’t for -

  “Who are you to talk?” Cathy was yapping at her son. �
��Look at the state of you. You’ve lost so much weight. Have you been eating properly?” The obvious insinuation was that Beth wasn’t taking care of her husband.

  That was enough to shatter Beth’s reverie. She narrowed her eyes at Cathy. “Martin’s eating just fine. He’s been working out more often. That’s why he looks slim.” Don’t you dare even try to suggest that I don’t take proper care of him, her expression warned.

  “Damn good lamb,” Patrick enthused, his mouth full. “A bit overcooked, but never mind.”

  Beth took a mouthful of food to prevent herself saying anything she might come to regret. Her face said it all. She’d have rather been having surgery without anesthetic than enduring her in-laws’ acerbic gibes. And I’ve got three days of this shit to put up with, she reflected bitterly, wondering for how long she could keep a lid on her temper.

  “Not bad,” Cathy agreed. “But I do prefer a nice piece of pork myself.” She feigned an apologetic look at Beth. “Oh, I forgot. Youpeople don’t eat pork, do you?”

  That was the final straw, Beth pursed her lips, screwed up her serviette and threw it onto her plate. “I’m not hungry,” she told her husband. “I’m going upstairs for a lay down. I’ve got a headache.” Glowering at Cathy, she added, “Even Jews get headaches.”

  Beth stormed out of the dining room before Martin could say anything to stop her.

  “Such a sensitive girl,” Cathy sighed with complete indifference, helping herself to some more vegetables.

  “What is it with you?” Martin snapped at both his parents. “Beth went to a lot of trouble to prepare this dinner, and all you do is insult her.”

  Patrick raised his finger, as if to make a point, but Martin cut him off.