Oath of Office

“Unfortunately,” Mary Pat said, “it’s getting all too easy to manipulate audio and video. Deepfake, or FakeApp, they call it. There are several types of software that do a believable job. We were playing with this tech several years ago at the Agency. You just need an existing video and some audio files from which to get exemplars. An actor can then sit in front of a camera and microphone and read from a prepared script. The program inputs the mouth movements, facial expressions, and synthesized voice onto the target video. It’s CGI and AI all rolled into one.”

“Should be easy to disprove,” Ryan said. “Since the actual video is on YouTube.”

“That’s the problem,” Foley said. “The real video makes you look good. The doctored one makes you look bad.”

“And you think people will believe the bad,” Ryan said.

“That’s the way it works, sir,” van Damm said. “Stir some bullshit in with the truth and the bullshit floats to the top.” The muscles in his jaw tightened. “The opening bell in New York won’t ring for another hour, but the London Exchange is already in a freefall. Somebody believes it. And Senator Chadwick is helping things along by providing color commentary as events unfold. Her snarky tweets have already been retweeted thousands of times. This whole shit storm has taken on a life of gargantuan proportions.”

DNI Foley made a face like she’d just eaten a whole lemon. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was behind this. Chadwick, I mean.”

“I doubt even she would stoop this low,” Ryan said.

“Well she’s certainly piling on,” Foley said. “Especially about the Persian Spring.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Ryan asked, looking pained.

“Well, she is,” Foley said. “And so is just about everyone else.”

“All of you have a seat,” he said. “I want to get into that.”

Special Agent Montgomery braced. “Thank you, Mr. President. I’ll be over at the Hoover Building this morning following up on this with a friend at the FBI. Special Agent Langford will be in charge here.”

“Gary,” Ryan said, leaning forward with both elbows on the desk. “And this goes for the rest of you as well. I can see full well that you’ve all got your blood up about these posts and twitters… tweets. You’re pissed. Hell, I’m pissed. But I’ll remind you all that when our blood’s up it’s easy to make mistakes, mistakes the American people do not deserve. It goes without saying, but this Internet garbage notwithstanding, neither the FBI nor the Secret Service is my private police force. We can’t go around tossing senators in jail — or throwing them off balconies — just because they say mean things about me.”

He was met with silent stares.

“Understood?”

Murmurs now, but none from the heart.

“Understood,” Montgomery said. “But I do have to protect you, Mr. President. And to do that, I need all the facts. Sometimes protective investigations aren’t necessarily prosecutable… because lines get crossed.”

“Watch the lines.” Ryan held up his hands. “But I trust you.”

Montgomery left through the door to the secretaries’ suite, pulling it shut softly behind him.

Ryan called for a coffee service and joined the others in the center of the Oval, taking his customary chair by the fireplace.

“No balconies?” Mary Pat Foley said. There was an unspoken pecking order in the group, and as President Ryan’s oldest friend in the room, she nestled in at the end of the couch nearest him. “You sure about that?”

Ryan turned to Dehart, the newest member of his cabinet. “You’ll have to excuse her, Mark.”

“I’m kidding.” Foley smirked. “But seriously, how do you feel about thumbscrews?”

Ryan gave a wan smile. “Let’s talk about Iran,” he said. “Most of the stuff those websites said about me is bullshit. We all know that. But Senator Chadwick is right about one thing. I do have serious misgivings about this so-called Persian Spring.”

The chief of staff rolled his eyes. “Due respect, sir, but here we go again. The existing regime makes no bones about the fact that they hate us. Throwing U.S. support behind the protesters seems like a no-brainer.”

“I agree with Arnie,” the SecDef said. “But just this one time.”

Ryan tapped a pencil against the knee of his crossed leg. “The trouble with no-brainers,” he said, “is that they make it easy for us to stop using our brains. I’m not a big fan of that.”

“Can’t argue there,” Burgess said. “I’m not saying we should follow blindly, but virtually all of our allies are falling in behind the protesters.”

“That’s a true point, sir,” Foley said.

Ryan shook his head. “There’s something about this Reza Kazem character that rubs me the wrong way. He’s a little too… Rasputinesque for my blood. I’d like your people to dig into him a little deeper.”

“Right away,” Foley said. “And speaking of Kazem, the Bureau puts him meeting with a Russian SVR operative in Crystal City four days ago.”

Ryan chewed on the new information. “Which SVR operative?”