“Obviously, Mr. Attorney General,” the President said, “you have some objections to my plan to secure the release of Colonel Ferris.”
“Yes, sir, I have a number of—”
“I’m not interested in what they might be, Mr. Attorney General. This is the plan of action your Commander in Chief has decided upon. My question is whether your objections will keep you from carrying out my orders to see that what I want done is done.”
“That would depend, Mr. President, on what orders you give me.”
“Fair enough,” the President said. “If I ordered you to have this fellow Abrego moved from his present place of confinement to the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution, would your conscience permit you to carry out that order?”
“Mr. President, are you aware that Abrego has been adjudicated to be a very dangerous and violent prisoner requiring his incarceration in the Florence maximum-security facility?”
“So Clemens has told me.”
“And that La Tuna is a minimum-security facility? What they call a country club for the incarceration of nonviolent white-collar offenders?”
“Are you going to be able to obey my orders or not?”
The attorney general looked at the secretary of State and saw on her face and in her eyes that she was afraid he was going to say no.
“Mr. President, if you order me to move Abrego from Florence ADMAX to the La Tuna minimum-security facility, I’ll have him moved.”
“Good. I like what the military calls ‘cheerful and willing obedience’ to my orders to my loyal subordinates.”
President Clendennen turned to Secretary of State Cohen.
“I presume that you are also going to cheerfully and willingly obey my orders to you, Madam Secretary, vis-à-vis having Ambassador McCann deliver Clemens’s brilliant letter to President Martinez?”
“I will take the letter to Ambassador McCann, Mr. President, but I’m not sure he will be willing to take it to President Martinez, and I have no idea how President Martinez would react to it if he does.”
“McCann will do it because he works for you, Madam Secretary—although actually, since I appointed him, he’s my ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary and knows who butters his bread—and Martinez will go along with it. What my good friend Ramón wants to do is not antagonize the drug cartels any more than he has to. And to keep the tourists and retirees—and all those lovely U.S. dollars— going to Acapulco and those other places in sunny Mexico. My plan will allow him to do both.”
He turned to Defense Secretary Beiderman and General Naylor.
“Now, as far as you two are concerned, I presume that you two, as loyal subordinates of your Commander in Chief, will both cheerfully and willingly obey this direct order: I don’t want any involvement by the military in this. Period. None. Either of you have any problems with that?”
“No, sir,” Beiderman said.
“No, Mr. President,” Naylor said.
“Okay,” the President said. “That’s it. Thank you for coming in. Douglas, show them out.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Special Agent Douglas said.
Attorney General Crenshaw caught up with Secretary of State Cohen as she was about to get into her limousine in the driveway.
“Natalie, we’re going to have to talk.”
“Not now,” she replied as she slid onto the backseat. “I tend to make bad decisions when I am so upset that I feel sick to my stomach.”
“We can’t pretend this didn’t happen,” he insisted.
“Give me twenty-four hours to think it over,” she said, and then pulled the limousine door closed.
[FOUR]
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