The Cobra

He handed the card back. Privately, he mocked the “totally secure” boast. A few years earlier, a British computer geek with mild autism had gone through all the firewalls of NASA and the Pentagon databases like a hot knife through marshmallow. And that was from a cheap gizmo in his bedroom in North London. The Cobra knew about real secrecy; that you can keep a secret between three men only if two are dead; that the only trick is to be in and out before the bad guys have woken up.

A WEEK AFTER the Devereaux-Silver conference, the President was in London. It was not a state visit but the next level down, an official one. Still, he and the First Lady were welcomed by the Queen at Windsor Castle, and an earlier and genuine friendship was refreshed.

That apart, there were several working discussions with a stress on the ongoing problems of Afghanistan, two economies, the EU, global warming/climate change and trade. On the weekend, the President and his wife had agreed to spend two relaxing days with the new British Prime Minister at the official country retreat, a magnificent Tudor mansion called simply Chequers. Saturday evening found the two couples taking coffee after dinner in the Long Gallery. As there was a chill in the air, a roaring log fire sent the light of its flames flickering off the walls of hand-tooled, morocco-bound antique books.

Whether two heads of government will ever get on as people, or develop the empathy of true friendship, is completely unforeseeable. Some do, others do not. History records that Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, while never entirely without their differences, liked each other. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were genuine friends despite the gulf between the Englishwoman’s steely convictions and the Californian’s folksy humor.

Between the British and the Europeans at that level, there has rarely if ever been more than formal courtesy, and often not even that. On one occasion the German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, brought over a wife so formidable that Harold Wilson, descending for dinner, gave vent to one of his rare barbs of humor, remarking to the assembled staff, “Well, wife-swapping’s out.”

Harold Macmillan could not abide Charles de Gaulle (mutual) while having affection for the much younger John F. Kennedy. It may have to do with the common language, but not necessarily.

Considering the gulf between the backgrounds of the two men sharing the warmth of the log fire that autumn evening, as the shadows deepened and the Secret Service patrolled with the British SAS outside, it was perhaps surprising that in three meetings—one in Washington, one at the UN and now at Chequers—they had developed a friendship on a personal level.

The American had the disadvantaged background: Kenyan father, Kansas-born mother, Hawaii and Indonesia raising, the early struggles against bigotry. The Englishman came from a stockbroker married to a county magistrate, a nanny as a baby, private education at two of the most expensive and prestigious junior and senior schools in the country. That kind of background can endow with the sort of easy charm that may or may not mask inner steel. With some it does, with others it does not.

At a more superficial level, there was much more in common. Both men were still under fifty, married to beautiful women, fathers of two children still school-aged, both men with top college degrees and an adult lifetime spent in politics. And both with the same almost obsessional concerns for climate change, Third World poverty, national security and the plight, even at home, of those whom Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.”

While the Prime Minister’s wife showed the First Lady some of the earliest books in the collection, the President murmured to his British opposite:

“Did you have time to glance at that report I gave you?”

“Certainly. Impressive . . . and worrying. We have a massive problem over here. This country is the biggest user of cocaine in Europe. I had a briefing two months ago from SOCA, our own Serious Crime people, about the spin-off crime that derives from it. Why?”

The President stared into the fire and chose his words.

“I have a man at the moment looking into the sheer feasibility of an idea. Would it be possible, with all our technology and the skill of our Special Forces, to destroy that industry?”

The Prime Minister was taken aback. He stared at the American.

“Your man, has he reported yet?”

“Nope. I expect his verdict momentarily.”

“And his advice. Will you take it?”

“I guess I will.”

“And if he advises it is feasible?”

“Then I think the USA may go with that.”

“We both spend huge amounts of treasure trying to combat narcotic drugs. All my experts say complete destruction cannot be done. We intercept cargoes, we catch the smugglers and the gangsters, we send them to jail, long-term. Nothing changes. The drugs keep flooding in. New volunteers replace the jailbirds. The public appetite continues to increase.”

“But if my man says it can be done—would Great Britain come in with us?”

No politician likes to be hit way below the belt, even by a friend. Even by the President of the USA. He played for time.

“There would have to be a real plan. It would have to be funded.”

“If we go ahead, there will be a plan. And funds. What I would like are your Special Forces. Your anti-crime agencies. Your secret intelligence skills.”

“I would have to consult my people,” said the Prime Minister.

“You do that,” said the President. “I’ll let you know when my man says what he says, and whether we are going ahead.”

The four prepared for bed. In the morning they would attend matins at the local Norman church. Through the night the guards would patrol, watch, check, survey and check again. They would be armed and armored, with night-vision goggles, infrared scanners, movement sensors and body-heat detectors. It would be extremely unwise to be a patrolling fox. Even the specially imported U.S. limousines would be under guard all night so that they could not be approached.

The American couple, as always with heads of state, had the Lee Room, named after the philanthropist who had donated Chequers to the nation after total restoration in 1917. The room still contained its huge four-poster bed, dating, perhaps not very diplomatically, from the time of George III. During the Second World War, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, had slept in that bed with a pistol under his pillow. That night in the fall of 2010, there was no pistol.