The Threat

“I’m in Congress,” she told him. “Remember the guy I used to type for? The guy who tried to put rubber in the asphalt? He got caught buying ad space for a citizens’ committee that didn’t exist. They had to come up with somebody fast, from a district that breeds more farmers than lawyers. Who better than his campaign committee chair? And the name’s not Cottrell anymore. It’s Treherne. That’s my man, over there talking to the guy in the sheet. He had a million to spare. The rest is mystery.”

Her gaze shifted and Dan realized Blair was back. The two women traded evaluating looks. He said hastily, “Blair, this is an old friend of mine, Sandy Cottrell, I mean Sandy Treherne, recently elected to Congress from Tennessee. My wife — also undersecretary of defense for manpower and personnel.”

“Oh, yes. I’d heard … I won’t ask you what the difference between manpower and personnel is, if you won’t ask me if I ever bonked your husband,” Sandy said.

Dan had thought absolute zero impossible, but Blair’s smile proved him wrong. “I’m so glad to meet you, Mrs. Treherne. Tennessee? What district?”

“Seventeenth.”

“Then you’re one of Newt’s new hires.”

“Oh, Sandy,” Dan said. “KISS, Garth Brooks, Metallica, and the Contract with America?”

“It’s the same me,” she said, putting her empty glass on a passing tray and snagging a full one in the same motion. Dan concluded she wasn’t with AA anymore. “What people who aren’t in politics don’t realize is that it’s like casting an actor. You fit the role, you sell the donors, you get hired. I look at people like Zoelke and Mulholland and Dwayne Harrow and your old sugar pop, Bankey Talmadge,” she said, fluttering her lashes at Blair, “and I figure, why not little ole me? Dan, you never said what you’re doing.” She fingered the lapel of his blues as if she were thinking of buying it. “I see you’re still in the Navy. You an admiral yet?”

“A commander.”

“Shit, you were one of those when we used to get blitzed after class at Mister Henry’s, weren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to get promoted once in a while?”

“I was a lieutenant commander then. A full commander now.”

“Yeah, you were always full. Of something.”

“I’ll let the two of you catch up,” Blair said, with the no-tone that meant somebody would be doing some explaining after the party.

“Cute girl,” Treherne sneered after her retreating back, loud enough that even in the party noise Dan knew Blair must have heard.

“She’s my wife.”

“Yeah, you said. Where are you working now?”

Dan told her he was on the National Security Council staff. Treherne looked incredulous. “God help us. You’re at the White House, and I’m in Congress?”

He smiled. “That’s how I feel.”

“I wonder if everybody here does.”

Dan wondered too. How many of those at the apex quailed at where they’d arrived, and what power they wielded. Others, though, probably didn’t. For some reason Knight’s scowl came to mind. The lieutenant general he’d met that afternoon. The disdainful assumption that he knew better than his civilian masters, better than the voters … no, that didn’t seem to signal much self-doubt.

But wasn’t his own flaw the opposite? To distrust himself, and what he was told to do? Wasn’t that the key to his fatal ability to complicate the simple equations of command and obedience, to bring chaos out of order?

The emperor Vespasian moved stiffly past holding a Scotch. Or at least it appeared to be his broad face, wide, bony head, and iron gray buzz cut. The rest was clad in Army green. Dan recognized General Ulrich Stahl, chairman of the Joint Chiefs but rumored by the columnists unlikely to be asked to stay for a second term. He’d briefed Stahl once too. A small gray woman followed the stately general, tottering slightly. It was often shocking to see the spouses of senior military men. On the other hand, maybe that was a positive. At least they’d stayed with their first wives.

Treherne’s Salem-flavored breath in his ear brought him back. “So what are you doing over there? At the NSC?”

He told Sandy about counterdrug and threat reduction. “They’re serious about reducing the number of loose nukes. If you can vote in favor of that sometime, I wish you would.”

Past her Dan saw another familiar visage sharpen out of the blur; Knight himself, as if conjured by his recollection. The OPSDEP was on an intersecting course with Stahl, moving steadily through the crowd toward the chairman.

Treherne’s cheeks hollowed around a fresh filter tip; her eyes searched over his shoulder as more guests handed wraps to servants and joined the receiving line stretching ever longer in front of the Edwardses. “Let’s see. Threat reduction. That’s where we pay the commies to say they destroyed what they said they didn’t have in the first place, right? Cut checks to their army, keep them in shape for the next time they decide to fuck with us?”

“I guess we’re not on the same side on that one.”

“I don’t know about you, but the people I represent want to keep some of what they earned.”