The President Is Missing
James Patterson & Bill Clinton
Special thanks to Robert Barnett, our lawyer and our friend, who brought us together on this book, advised, cajoled, and occasionally cracked the whip.
Thanks as well to David Ellis, always patient, always wise, who stuck with us through the research, our first and second outlines, and the many, many drafts. This would not be the story it is without David’s help and inspiration.
To Hillary Clinton, who has lived with and worked against this threat and the consequences of unheeded warnings, for her constant encouragement and reminders to keep it real.
To Sue Solie Patterson, who has learned the art of criticizing and encouraging, often in the same breath.
To Mary Jordan, who keeps her head screwed on while everyone around her is losing theirs.
To Deneen Howell and Michael O’Connor, who keep us all on contract, on schedule, and on the mark.
To Tina Flournoy and Steve Rinehart, for helping the novice partner hold up his end of the deal.
And to the men and women of the United States Secret Service and all others in law enforcement, the military, intelligence, and diplomacy, who devote their lives to keeping the rest of us safe and secure.
Thursday,
May 10
Chapter
1
The House Select Committee will come to order…”
The sharks are circling, their nostrils twitching at the scent of blood. Thirteen of them, to be exact, eight from the opposition party and five from mine, sharks against whom I’ve been preparing defenses with lawyers and advisers. I’ve learned the hard way that no matter how prepared you are, there are few defenses that work against predators. At some point, there’s nothing you can do but jump in and fight back.
Don’t do it, my chief of staff, Carolyn Brock, pleaded again last night, as she has so many times. You can’t go anywhere near that committee hearing, sir. You have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
You can’t answer their questions, sir.
It will be the end of your presidency.
I scan the thirteen faces opposite me, seated in a long row, a modern-day Spanish Inquisition. The silver-haired man in the center, behind the nameplate MR. RHODES, clears his throat.
Lester Rhodes, the Speaker of the House, normally doesn’t participate in committee hearings, but he has made an exception for this select committee, which he has stacked with members of Congress on his side of the aisle whose principal goal in life seems to be stopping my agenda and destroying me, politically and personally. Savagery in the quest for power is older than the Bible, but some of my opponents really hate my guts. They don’t just want to run me out of office. They won’t be satisfied unless I’m sent to prison, drawn and quartered, and erased from the history books. Hell, if they had their way, they’d probably burn down my house in North Carolina and spit on my wife’s grave.
I uncurl the gooseneck stem of the microphone so that it is taut, fully extended, as close to me as possible. I don’t want to lean forward to speak while the committee members sit up straight in their high-backed leather chairs like kings and queens on thrones. Leaning forward would make me look weak, subservient—a subliminal message that I’m at their mercy.
I am alone at my chair. No aides, no lawyers, no notes. The American people are not going to see me exchanging hushed whispers with an attorney, my hand over the microphone, removing it to testify that I have no specific recollection of that, Congressman. I’m not hiding. I shouldn’t have to be here, and I sure as hell don’t want to be here, but here I am. Just me. The president of the United States, facing a mob of accusers.
In the corner of the room, the triumvirate of my top aides sits in observation: the chief of staff, Carolyn Brock; Danny Akers, my oldest friend and White House counsel; and Jenny Brickman, my deputy chief of staff and senior political adviser. All of them stoic, stone-faced, worried. Not one of them wanted me to do this. It was their unanimous conclusion that I was making the biggest mistake of my presidency.
But I’m here. It’s time. We’ll see if they were right.
“Mr. President.”
“Mr. Speaker.” Technically, in this context, I should probably call him Mr. Chairman, but there are a lot of things I could call him that I won’t.
This could begin any number of ways. A self-congratulatory speech by the Speaker disguised as a question. Some light introductory setup questions. But I’ve seen enough video of Lester Rhodes questioning witnesses before he was Speaker, back when he was a middling congressman on the House Oversight Committee, to know that he has a penchant for opening strong, going straight for the jugular, throwing off the witness. He knows—in fact, after 1988, when Michael Dukakis botched the first debate question about the death penalty, everyone knows—that if you blow the opener, nobody remembers anything else.
Will the Speaker follow that same plan of attack with a sitting president?
Of course he will.
“President Duncan,” he begins. “Since when are we in the business of protecting terrorists?”
“We aren’t,” I say so quickly that I almost talk over him, because you can’t give a question like that oxygen. “And we never will be. Not while I’m president.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Did he really just say that? The heat rises to my face. Not one minute in, and he’s already under my skin.
“Mr. Speaker,” I say. “If I said it, I meant it. Let’s be clear about that from the start. We are not in the business of protecting terrorists.”
He pauses after that reminder. “Well, Mr. President, maybe we are parsing words here. Do you consider the Sons of Jihad to be a terrorist organization?”
“Of course.” My aides said not to say of course; it can sound pompous and condescending unless it’s delivered just right.
“And that group has received support from Russia, has it not?”
I nod. “Russia has given support to the SOJ from time to time, yes. We’ve condemned their support of the SOJ and other terrorist organizations.”
“The Sons of Jihad has committed acts of terror on three different continents, is that correct?”
“That’s an accurate summary, yes.”
“They’re responsible for the deaths of thousands of people?”
“Yes.”
“Including Americans?”
“Yes.”
“The explosions at the Bellwood Arms Hotel in Brussels that killed fifty-seven people, including a delegation of state legislators from California? The hacking of the air-traffic control system in the republic of Georgia that brought down three airplanes, one of them carrying the Georgian ambassador to the United States?”
“Yes,” I say. “Both of those acts occurred before I was president, but yes, the Sons of Jihad has claimed responsibility for both incidents—”
“Okay, then let’s talk about since you’ve been president. Isn’t it true that just a few months ago, the Sons of Jihad was responsible for hacking into Israeli military systems and publicly releasing classified information on Israeli covert operatives and troop movements?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s true.”
“And far closer to home, here in North America,” he says. “Just last week. Friday, the fourth of May. Didn’t the Sons of Jihad commit yet another act of terror when it hacked into the computers controlling Toronto’s subway system and shut it down, causing a derailment that killed seventeen people, injured dozens more, and left thousands of people stranded in darkness for hours?”
He’s right that the SOJ was responsible for that one, too. And his casualty count is accurate. But to the SOJ, that wasn’t an act of terror.
That was a test run.
“Four of the people who died in Toronto were Americans, correct?”
“That’s correct,” I say. “The Sons of Jihad did not claim responsibility for that act, but we believe it was responsible.”
He nods, looks at his notes. “The leader of the Sons of Jihad, Mr. President. That’s a man named Suliman Cindoruk, correct?”