“What’s the obvious?” the President interrupted.
“Well, we have to decide whether we are going to raise the threat level to orange, or perhaps red. I tend to think the latter.”
“Not ‘we have to decide,’” the President said. “I have to decide. Somebody tell me why raising the threat level from yellow wouldn’t cause more problems than it would solve.”
He looked around the Oval Office. “Comments? Anyone?”
There were none.
“What else is obvious?” the President demanded.
“Well, sir, we have to find out who sent this stuff to the colonel,” Andrews said.
“First of all, it wasn’t sent to Colonel Hamilton,” the President said. “It was sent to us. The government. Me, as President. Not to Colonel Hamilton. It was sent through him because these bastards somehow knew he was the only man around who would know what it was. And they knew he would tell me. Secondly, at this moment—and I realize this could change in the blink of an eye—there is no immediate threat. If these people wanted to start killing Americans, they would have already done so.”
“Mr. President,” Ambassador Montvale offered, “their intention might be to cause panic.”
Clendennen nodded.
“That’s what I’m thinking. And I’m not going to give them that. That’s why the threat level stays at yellow.”
The President was then silent, visibly in thought, for a long moment. Then he cocked his head to one side. A smile crossed his lips, as if to signify he was pleased with himself.
He said, “Fully aware that this is politically incorrect, I have just profiled the bastards who sent Colonel Hamilton the Congo-X. I have decided that the Congo-X was sent to the colonel by a foreign power, or at the direction of a foreign power or powers. And not, for example, by the Rotary Club of Enterprise, Alabama, or any sister or brother organization to which the Rotarians may be connected, however remotely.”
Ambassador Montvale’s eyes widened, and for a moment he seemed to be on the edge of saying something. In the end, he remained silent.
“The ramifications of this decision,” the President went on, “are that finding out who these bastards are—and, it is to be hoped, what the hell this is all about—falls into what I think of as the CIA’s area of responsibility, rather than that of the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security.”
He looked at DCI Powell.
“Those are your marching orders, Jack. Get onto it. I will have the attorney general direct the FBI to assist you in any area in which you need help.”
“Mr. President, with all respect,” Mason Andrews said, “this crime, this threat to American security, took place on American soil! This situation is clearly within the purview of Homeland Sec—”
“What situation, Andrews?” the President interrupted him. “What threat to American security? No one has been hurt. What’s happened is that a securely wrapped package of what the colonel has determined to be what he calls Congo-X was sent to Colonel Hamilton in a container clearly marked as a biological hazard.
“That’s all. There has been no damage to anyone. Not even a threat of causing damage. If we had these people in handcuffs, there’s nothing we could do to them because they haven’t broken any laws that I can think of.
“What we are not, repeat not, going to do is go off half-cocked. For example, we are not going to resurrect my predecessor’s private James Bond—what’s his name? Costello?—and his band of assassins and give them carte blanche to roam the world to kill people. Or anything like that.
“What we are going to do is have Montvale—he is the director of National Intelligence—very quietly try to find out who the hell these bastards are and what they want. I think Colonel Hamilton is right about that. They want something. That means they will probably—almost certainly—contact Colonel Hamilton again.
“What that means, since we can’t afford to have anything happen to him, is that Homeland Security is going to wrap the colonel in a Secret Service security blanket at least as thick as the one around me. That’s your role in this, Andrews. That’s your only role.
“And then we’re going to wait for their next move. No action of any kind will be taken without my express approval.”
The President met the eyes of everyone in the Oval Office, and then quietly asked, “Is there anyone who doesn’t understand what I have just said?”
There were no replies.
“That will be all, thank you,” the President said.
[ONE]
The Hotel Gellért
Szent Gellért tér 1