To Kill the President: The most explosive thriller of the year

HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Jonathan Freedland 2017

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Cover photographs ©

Jonathan Freedland asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780007413720

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007413751

Version: 2017-09-12

Dedication

For my sister Dani: funny, warm and always good company. A devoted mother to her boys, her determination knows no limits. This is for her, with a brother’s love.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About Sam Bourne

By Sam Bourne

About the Publisher

1

Alexandria, Virginia, Monday, 3.20am

It began the night the President sought to bring about the end of the world.

The first Robert Kassian knew of it was when his phone started vibrating on the nightstand. He woke with a start, his heart thumping. It took him a second to understand where the sound was coming from: he wondered if he had dreamed it. He reached for the nightstand, fumbling to make the vibrations stop. The task was urgent: his wife was a light sleeper who, once stirred, stayed awake.

Only then did he realize this was no alarm, but an incoming call. He took in the next two facts at once: it was 3.20am and the call was from the White House switchboard.

‘Mr Kassian?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered, peeling the duvet back and moving towards the bathroom, the phone jammed against his ear. He had barely opened his eyes.

‘Please hold for the Situation Room.’

So it was happening. The three am call Washington folks always talked about. He’d only been Chief of Staff for four months and this was the first call of its kind. Sure, there had been late-night crises – plenty of those – and urgent meetings just after dawn. The pace had been relentless and round the clock since the inauguration in January. In the last week, that had only intensified. But a bona fide emergency in the middle of the night? This was the first.

A couple of clicks and he was put through. Instantly he could hear a commotion; there was a banging sound. A voice came on. A woman, young and nervous.

‘Mr Kassian. This is Lieutenant Mary Rajak. We have a situation, sir. I think you need to get down here right away.’

Now he could hear shouting. He wondered if this woman had been taken hostage. Maybe the White House was under siege. He blinked hard, his brain now revving.

‘What kind of situation?’

Kassian was sure he heard the woman dip her voice. ‘It involves the President.’

Jesus Christ. Had the President been taken hostage? How would anyone … ‘What’s happened?’

‘Please, sir. Just come.’

‘I’m on my way. But can you—’ He stopped himself. He could hear someone shouting. A man. It sounded as if his voice was coming from the next room.

‘Hold on, sir.’ He guessed she was putting her hand over the receiver. ‘Yes, I’m speaking to Mr Kassian right now. He’s on his way.’

In the second that followed, he could hear it clearly. It was unmistakable. There couldn’t be a soul on the planet who didn’t recognize it. Over the last two years, that voice had been heard every day, once at least, whether on the news or in a video that went viral, sometimes mocking an opponent or taunting a heckler at a rally, sometimes being impersonated by a TV comic or a precocious kid in a school playground. But no one had heard the voice like this, bellowing with rage – real, not confected. Get out of my way. I’m your Commander in fucking Chief and this is an order.

As he listened, Kassian grabbed a shirt and reached for the first suit his hand could find. ‘What the hell is going on there, lieutenant?’

‘It’s difficult to explain on the phone, sir.’

‘This is a secure line.’

‘I don’t think we have much time, sir.’ Her voice was trembling.

‘In a nutshell, lieutenant.’

She spoke quietly, as if fearful of being overheard. ‘North Korea, sir. The President wants to order a nuclear strike.’

‘Jesus fuck.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Has something happened? Is there an imminent attack on the United States?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So, what the—’

‘A statement, sir. From Pyongyang.’

‘A what?’

‘Please, sir. This is very urgent.’

‘A statement? You mean, this is because they said something?’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘OK. OK. What’s he doing now?’

‘He’s demanding to be put through to the Pentagon War Room, sir.’

Kassian felt his stomach lurch. He’d had upwards of sixty handover meetings, briefings from every branch of the US government before the inauguration, cramming his head with more information than he had learned in all his previous fifty years. But only one session had struck the fear of God into him. It came when he, the soon-to-be President and the Defense Secretary were instructed in the procedure for launching a nuclear strike.

It was so simple, it was terrifying. The President had merely to call the War Room at the Department of Defense, state the secret codes that confirmed he was indeed the President and give the order. That was it. No process, no meetings, no discussion. And no one with any authority to say no. That was the whole point. The system had stayed that way since Truman, enabling the Commander in Chief to act within seconds of an all-out attack on the country.

But no one planned for this situation. Or this Commander in Chief.

‘What shall I do, sir?’ The woman sounded like she was quaking.

Kassian was now downstairs. His movements had stirred the security detail who guarded his house. The lead officer was standing, close to the front door. Kassian made a driving gesture with his right hand. They headed to the car.

‘Has he got the codes? Did the military aide give him the codes?’

‘He tried not to, sir. He delayed as long as he could.’

‘But he’s got them?’

‘The President put his hands around his neck and threatened to strangle him.’

‘OK. OK.’ Kassian looked out of the window, watching a sleeping Alexandria speed by. Even at this pace, he could make out the lawn signs that had sprouted all over this town and – in certain places – across the country. Not My President.

‘Have you called Jim? Secretary Bruton. Have you called him?’

‘He’s being spoken to now, sir.’

‘OK. In the meantime, you need to tell the President the procedure for such a decision requires the presence of Secretary Bruton and myself. There is a sequence we need to follow.’

‘But, that’s not—’

‘Just tell him.’

‘Shall I put you on the phone to him, sir?’

Kassian weighed it up. Instinct told him it would not work. The President would not take it, not from him. Military officers – neutral, anonymous – stood a better chance: there was a possibility he would hear their words as the response of a system, a machine, with no inherent hostility to him, no feelings either way. So far that had proved the best way to stop him.

‘No, I’ll talk to him when I get there.’

‘But you may not get here in time.’

Kassian remembered what the President’s daughter had said about her father in a TV interview during the campaign. ‘You never say “No.” You say, “Yes, but maybe not right now.”’ The interviewer had laughed, joking that it was kind of like dealing with a toddler. The daughter had laughed back, saying, ‘Whatever works, right?’

‘All right. Tell him, you’ve spoken to us. We support him and want to be with him on this one. And the best way to ensure this decision goes well for him is if he waits for me and Secretary Bruton.’

There was a banging sound. It could have been a fist pounding the desk or a door being slammed, Kassian could not be sure. He hoped it was the latter. Maybe the President had stormed out of the Situation Room in frustration, his will thwarted. Perhaps he would just go to bed or watch TV. The man hardly ever slept.

But then the officer spoke again. ‘He’s been put through, sir. He’s talking to the War Room at the Pentagon right now.’

Kassian felt a heave in his guts. Good God, what was this man about to do?

He killed the call and moved to make another, dialling Jim Bruton’s cell. It was hard to press the buttons; his hands were trembling. And as he put the phone to his ear, all he could think of were the words from that briefing, perhaps three days before the President was sworn in. At your command, sir, will be thousands of weapons, each one ten or twenty times more lethal than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima … Retaliation by the enemy will be automatic, swift and devastating. The combination of an initial US strike and the enemy’s counter-strike will lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people within a matter of hours … Yes, sir, we have gamed that out: our most conservative scenario projects a global catastrophe that would end civilization itself, sir … On your command, eight hundred and fifty missile warheads will take flight within no more than fifteen minutes … No, sir. Once the order is given, there can be no stopping, no recall and no turning back.

Busy signal. He tried again. And then again. Until at last he heard that trademark, Louisiana drawl, the one voice in Washington he truly trusted, the voice he’d heard in countless moments of mortal danger – though none as terrifying as this.

‘Bob, is that you?’

‘Jim, thank God. Listen, you have to get hold of the War Room right now, before he does. You have to tell them—’

‘I already did. I told them they have to stall.’

‘How?’

‘They’re telling him there’s a malfunction in satellite comms. They can’t reach the subs.’

‘He’ll never believe that.’

‘What else have we got? He’s mad as a snake, raging and squawking.’ Bruton’s voice dropped. ‘He’s going to fucking kill us all, Bob. You do realize that? He says he wants Option B.’

‘Which one is that?’ Kassian remembered – how could he forget – the ‘black book’, carried by the President’s personal military aide, the aide who was with him at all times, setting out the menu of options, the different target lists. He just couldn’t remember which one was B.

‘North Korea and China.’

‘Mother of God.’

‘And he’s going to do it in the next sixty seconds. Just as soon as that poor bastard in the War Room runs out of excuses.’

‘You have to tell him it’s an illegal order.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Call the War Room. Tell them they are required to disobey an illegal order.’

‘But that’s bullshit. You know he has total and absolute authority. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. I can’t stop him, Joint Chiefs can’t stop him, Congress can’t stop him. This is his show. One hundred per cent.’

‘Yes, but they only have to obey an order that is constitutional.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning, the Commander in Chief must believe that he is defending the country against an actual or imminent attack.’

‘Well, maybe he does believe that.’

‘It’s a war of words, Jim. Five days of words. No reasonable person could say we’re under threat of an attack.’

‘But that’s the point. He’s not a—’

‘Well, tell your men that is the test they must apply. In fact they don’t need to make any decision. You’re telling them. This is an illegal order.’

‘It doesn’t work like that. He’s the Commander in Chief, he’s—’

‘We don’t have time for a fucking debate, Jim. Tell them. It’s that or we’re all dead.’

He hung up. And, as his car turned into Pennsylvania Avenue, Bob Kassian closed his eyes and, for the first time since he was a child, he prayed.

2

The White House, Monday, 8.45am

‘What in fuck’s name is that?’

Maggie Costello was in the outer office, where her boss’s PA and two others sat. She had only just spotted that on a back wall, just behind the secretary’s head, alongside the portraits of previous holders of this grand office – the White House Counsel – was a calendar. Not the usual one found in Washington government buildings, showing spectacular landscapes of the great American outdoors, but the kind you’d see in a car repair shop. The image for this month, May, depicted a woman on all fours, facing the camera, wearing nothing but tiny bikini bottoms, her mouth gaping open, her tongue visible.

The PA, a black woman in her fifties, gave a resigned shrug.

‘Seriously, Eleanor, who put that up there?’

The PA scowled at Maggie, a look that said, Don’t get me into trouble.

Maggie leaned forward, letting her voice drop to a whisper. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

Eleanor looked over her shoulder and said, ‘Mr McNamara’s orders. He’s put them up all over the West Wing. He said it was about time this place got in touch with the working people of America. About time it looked like a regular American workplace.’

‘You’re not even joking, are you?’

The woman shook her head.

Maggie leaned across, stretching over Eleanor’s shoulder and, in one move, ripped the calendar clean off. Then, she tore through the thick, glossy paper once, twice, and headed towards the trash. Habit made her look for the green bin for paper.

‘No more recycling, Maggie. He’s got rid of that too. “It’s not called the Green Faggot House. It’s called the White House.”’

‘That’s what he said?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Maggie dumped the remnants of the swimsuit calendar in the sole trash can and marched into her office, slamming the door behind her.

She would have complained to her nominal boss, the man who carried the title of Counsel, but he was an absentee holder of the post, a pal of the President who served as his personal bankruptcy lawyer and been rewarded with a White House sinecure. Maggie had met him only once, at a cocktail party to celebrate his appointment; he hadn’t been seen at the White House since.

She reached for her phone and sent a text message to Richard.

What the hell are we doing here?

In the old days, there would have been scores of women, at all levels, who would have done what she had just done, or backed her up. But now, in this department, it was just her and Eleanor. The rest were all men, almost all of them white. And that pattern held across the White House.

A few seconds later, he replied. Am in with Commerce folks. Talk later tonight?

She shoved the phone across the desk, letting it collide with the picture she kept of herself with the previous President – a tiny gesture of rebellion in this new era. Right now, she felt like cursing that man. It was – partly – his fault she was still here.

‘Listen, Maggie,’ he had said. ‘I know how you feel about my successor—’, but she didn’t let him finish.

‘You see, even that, I can’t stomach. My successor. How can you say that, like this is normal? This is not normal. He’s a liar and a cheat and a bigot and should be nowhere near this place.’

The outgoing President had indulged her, the way he always did. ‘Maggie, you’re a woman of great passion. It’s why you’ve served this administration – and me – so well. But the people have spoken. He’ll be my President – and he should be yours.’

‘But no one’s telling you to stay and bloody work here.’

‘I’m not sure I’m the right demographic,’ he smiled.

‘Exactly. That’s another thing. It’s all white men. Hundreds of them. Every appointment he’s made. It’s like there are millions and millions of people he doesn’t even see.’

‘So, if you stay, you can even up the score a little. Woman, native Dubliner. That’s two boxes you check, right there.’

‘But—’

‘This isn’t just about him, Maggie. Just like it was never about me. It’s about the country. You need to make sure the train stays on the tracks.’

‘Sure, so that he can ram it into the buffers. Besides, what would I even do for him? Former UN aid worker, former peace negotiator, woman – I’m not exactly his cup of tea, am I?’

‘You could do for him the same thing you did for me. Troubleshooter in chief. The woman who knows how to get to the bottom of any crisis and solve it.’

‘But that requires trust.’

‘I know, Maggie.’

‘You trusted me and I trusted you. Totally.’

‘I know and I cherish that. But you’ll find a way. You always do.’

Maggie looked at the photograph, marvelling at the naiveté of her earlier self. Even a year ago she would never have believed this was possible. Mind you, nor would anyone else.

And then she felt it, that familiar stab of guilt and with it the attendant nausea. It seemed to rise from a specific place, a site of revulsion deep in her guts. If only she hadn’t …

In an attempt to push that dread thought out of her mind, she thumbed out another message to Richard.

How early can you leave tonight?

Let’s eat at my place. Really need—

But before she had finished, her office door flung open. She heard him before she saw him. ‘Are you decent?’

Crawford ‘Mac’ McNamara, senior counsellor to the President. If Maggie and all the other non-partisans who had stayed on were dedicated to keeping the train on the tracks, McNamara was the man who decided the destination. Even Bob Kassian, the nominal Chief of Staff, was a mere bureaucrat compared to McNamara. In the White House solar system, only one star burned more brightly.

Of course, Maggie was several moons below him – even under the previous president, her official title never reflected her true status – which under the old Washington rules meant a man of his rank would never deign to say so much as two words to her, let alone make the journey to come see her in her office. But McNamara was the self-styled outlaw, the sorcerer who had shredded the Washington rulebook to get his man elected President. Protocol could go hang. Memos were for dweebs, minuted meetings were for assholes. Instead he patrolled the West Wing each day, strolling into whichever office he wanted to whenever he wanted to. The Oval was no exception. McNamara saw the President first thing in the morning and last thing at night; he was the all-powerful voice in his ear.

Nor was this the first time he had made the journey to see Maggie. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Richard had said, when they discussed it over Chinese takeout the other night. ‘You’re the most attractive woman in the office and he’s … intrigued. I’d be flattered.’

Maggie’s reply had been concise: Ugh. And now here he was again, middle-aged but wearing cargo-style shorts, with square, capacious pockets, and a Linkin Park T-shirt. He wore socks, but no shoes. His head was almost completely bald.

‘You seen the paper today, Costello?’ He threw over a copy of the Washington Post, landing it just in front of her. It was folded open on a story about a new poll, confirming the country was ‘more divided than at any time since the civil war’.

‘Why are you showing me this, Mr McNamara?’

‘Ooh, did someone just let my father in the building? Mister McNamara? Who’s that? It’s Mac, Maggie. Mac. Thought all you liberals dug that informality thing in the workplace.’ He made a mincing gesture and raised the pitch of his voice. ‘Oh, we’re all equal. Treat me equally.’

She reminded herself of what she and Richard had agreed. That perhaps they could mitigate the effects of this presidency, even in a small way, by being here, on the inside. They had a duty to make a difference, if they could. She took that vow again now. ‘How can I help you, Mister … Mac.’