Red Phoenix

CHAPTER 3 The Washington Waltz

The televisions are always on in a Congressional office.

“Good morning. I’m Amanda Hayes and this is a CNN special report — The Massacre in Seoul.”

Jeremy Mitchell looked up into the TV screen perched precariously on his bookcase. One hand reached for his tortoise-shell glasses while the other shoved the latest draft press release on National Frozen Food Week off his notepad. Without taking his eyes off the small screen, he waved the nearest intern over, a short, pudgy University of Michigan junior who was spending his fall semester learning the business of government while duplicating constituent mail for a congressman. Mitchell ignored the discontented frown on the kid’s face. Endless hours of gofer work — stapling, filing, duplicating — those were the dues you paid to get more meaningful work later on.

Mitchell had paid his own dues in full. Summers as an unpaid campaign volunteer. University terms spent crawling as an unpaid, overworked congressional intern. Two years after school as a poorly paid legislative correspondent, locked away for sixty-hour weeks drafting and redrafting answers to letters written by constituents. By then he’d seen how the system worked. You climbed over the still-warm bodies of those who’d thought they were your friends and coworkers. He’d used that knowledge to win a succession of promotions — first to handling domestic issues as a legislative assistant and later to committee staffer. A lot of people who’d trusted Jeremy Mitchell’s sincere smiles, open-featured good looks, twinkling blue eyes, and firm handshake had long since come to regret trusting first impressions.

Now, ten years and a pile of broken friendships later, he held the top-dog slot in any congressional office: he was the administrative assistant — the AA. And that meant he ran everything and everyone in the office, including the representative, if the man or woman was malleable enough.

Mitchell smiled thinly to himself. Ben Barnes was so malleable that he often reminded people of the Playdough little kids loved to squeeze and squash. He darted a glance at the intern impatiently waiting. “Phil, go get the congressman. He’s going to want to see this.”

The intern nodded grumpily and went, threading his way through the crowded maze of desks, cubicles, bookcases, filing cabinets, and stacks of newly printed newsletters that marked any House-side congressional office. Senators and their staffs usually had more room, but House members and their people worked under conditions that would have made a sweatshop seem spacious. A single suite of two rooms usually held twelve to fifteen harried staffers, their phones, files, and personal computers.

Congressman Ben Barnes appeared out of his inner office moments later, looking rumpled with wisps of his thinning, ash-blond hair sticking up at all angles. A wrinkled red silk tie hung loosely from his open shirt collar, and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot. Mitchell took it all in and made a mental note to never again let the congressman attend an auto industry luncheon unaccompanied. Thank God there hadn’t been any unfriendly press there. Barnes never seemed able to resist an open bar unless there was somebody around to pull him away.

The congressman smiled uncertainly and blearily at his AA. “What’s up, Jer?”

Mitchell pointed at the screen.

“… as this tape from a CNN camera team shows, armed troops began firing on the students — apparently without warning.

“Reports are sketchy and the South Korean government has imposed a news blackout, but it appears that at least several hundred people have been killed. Sources in one Seoul hospital report treating dozens of gunshot wounds and emergency rooms all across the city are said to be overflowing with the critically injured. There are even unconfirmed reports that several American or European tourists have been killed.

“For now, Seoul remains under strict curfew. And South Korea’s security forces have warned that violators will be shot on sight. That’s a threat they seem all too willing to enforce. This is Amanda Hayes. We’ll have more news from Seoul on the half-hour.”

Mitchell reached up and turned the volume down — shutting out an ad for hay fever medicine. He spun around in his chair to face the congressman.

Barnes seemed puzzled. “Very interesting, Jer. But couldn’t you have just put together a memo for me? I’ve got a million things to do before the committee meets this afternoon.”

“But don’t you see …” Mitchell stopped. Yelling at your boss was not recommended for Capitol Hill survival. He tried again. “Ben, this is the kind of break we’ve been waiting for. This Seoul massacre thing gives us the leverage we need to put an imports bill on the legislative fast track.”

“That’s great. That’s really wonderful.” Barnes still looked a little lost — an expression he was careful never to wear in front of TV cameras or constituent groups.

Mitchell decided to lay it all out. “South Korea makes those cheap Hyundai cars and other products that have the unions back home all hot and bothered. They want some more tariffs and import restrictions to even things up, but we haven’t been able to move anything worthwhile through both the House and Senate.”

Barnes seemed to be following along, so he threw in the clincher. “Right now these news reports are being shown all across the country — in every district — so I don’t think South Korea’s going to have too much public support by nightfall. They’ve been getting bad press for some time now, and this should really fan the flames. If we got a tough trade bill moving, we just might be able to ram it through before all the ‘free traders’ know what’s hit them. And that would make the autoworkers back home very happy.”

“And I’m going to need the autoworkers next year when I run for the Senate.” Barnes finished the sentence for him. He grinned. “That’s great thinking, Jer. Let’s do it. Draft up a real solid bill for me, something that’ll pull in a big coalition and get me a lot of press. I’ll take a look at it later this afternoon. Okay?”

Mitchell nodded and Barnes left humming happily. Mitchell spun back around to his keyboard and opened a new file, Korea-Bash. He smiled to himself. That was going to be a pretty accurate title.

Now, he thought, let’s see just what kind of a packaging deal I can come up with. Packaging was everything on the Hill, and if you wanted to pass a bill, you had to be sure it had a little something in it for every important interest group. That was part of the fun.

Mitchell started making a list.

The first section had to be a strong condemnation of South Korea’s human rights abuses and a tough set of required democratic reforms, with a short-term time limit for their implementation. Church groups and the other liberal lobbying organizations would really lap that stuff up.

Then came the sanctions the U.S. would impose if the Koreans didn’t put the reforms in place before the deadline.

The most obvious were new tariffs on Korean imports coming into the country. That would give the union bosses their bone, and they, in turn, would give a lot for Barnes come the next election.

Mitchell paused, his hands held over the keyboard while he thought. Yeah, the U.S. had troops in South Korea. Well, we wouldn’t want to prop up a corrupt, tyrannical regime, would we? He typed in “Withdrawal all U.S. forces if reforms not made.” That would piss off the conservatives, but it would win solid backing from the liberals in the party caucus. Maybe they could make sure that any troops pulled out of South Korea were sent to bases in Texas. That would make the Speaker happy. And making the Speaker happy was a crucial part of getting any bill through the House of Representatives.

Now he needed something to help break up the conservative opposition. “Cut off all military aid to South Korea and use the money to reduce the deficit.” Mitchell smiled. That would pick up a few votes. And it would give some of the Southern Democrats a conservative fig leaf to hide behind if they voted for the bill.

That should do it. Mitchell knew that the committee’s legislative counsel cold turn his rough notes into a polished piece of legal language in a matter of hours. He could concentrate on putting together all the background material they’d need — “Dear Colleague” letters soliciting support from other congressmen, fact sheets, and most importantly, press releases. Given two or three days and some good staff support, and he could flood the Hill and the airwaves with talk about Representative Barnes’s new South Korean sanctions bill.

Then he frowned at the outline taking shape on his screen. Any bill drawn up along those lines should be a real vote-getter. The trouble was it touched on everything from trade and taxes to defense and foreign affairs. And that opened the door for practically every major committee in both the House and Senate to demand a piece of the action.

Mitchell wasn’t sure who had first called committees “God’s gift to procrastination, sloth, and delay,” but it could be a completely accurate picture at times. With only a few weeks left until the Congress was scheduled to adjourn, there just wasn’t time to waste while every committee held hearings, tossed in its own favorite amendments, and issued its own thousand-page report. He was going to have to get Barnes to cut enough deals with the other committee chairmen to win expedited consideration for the bill. Even worse, he was going to need a senator to do the same thing over on the other side of the Hill.

Okay, it wasn’t going to be easy — but it could be done. And if he could pull this off, his reputation as a top-notch legislative strategist would be made forever. That was something worth working for. He just hoped that the South Koreans didn’t get smart and stop killing each other before they could get the bill through.

Mitchell turned away from his computer screen and started flipping through his Rolodex. It was time to start calling in a few favors. For years he’d made sure that Barnes carried water for liberal political action groups and for the unions. Now he was going to cash in. Besides, they’d all probably jump at the chance.

He pulled a card out of his Rolodex and started dialing. It had begun.

The reporter stood framed against the Capitol dome.

“This is Phil Smith, reporting from Capitol Hill. Just three days after the Seoul massacre, Congress has begun moving against the South Korean government.

“In a press conference held this afternoon, Representative Ben Barnes of Michigan, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Trade, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Farell of New York, announced the introduction of a stiff sanctions bill aimed at South Korea. More than one hundred congressmen and thirty senators have already announced their support for the measure.

“The bill calls on the South Korean government to institute major political reforms. Among other things, it demands an end to press censorship, freedom for all political prisoners, and the immediate reform of the entire South Korean security force.

“It also seeks the complete removal of all trade barriers aimed at U.S. exports to Korea, and a significant reduction in Korea’s trade surplus with the United States.

“If these conditions aren’t met within ninety days after the bill is signed into law by the President, the measure would automatically impose tariffs on almost all South Korean products coming into this country, end Korea’s most-favored-nation trade status, and cut U.S. military assistance. And in a move guaranteed to outrage congressional conservatives, it would also require the complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces now stationed in South Korea.”

The picture cut to footage of Ben Barnes speaking earnestly into the camera.

“We have no quarrel with the people of South Korea. Nor do we seek trade protectionism for its own sake. But we also know that America cannot be seen to side with oppression, tyranny, and ruthless terror. The South Korean government must learn that its brutality will not go unpunished. America will not condone cold-blooded murder. And the Congress cannot stand idly by while democratic reform is crushed underfoot in South Korea.”

The videotape of Barnes ended, cutting back to the CBS Evening News anchorman in New York.

“In other congressional news today, the House Foreign Affairs Committee continued its work on legislation aimed at improved Soviet-American relations by defeating an amendment that would have linked U.S.-Soviet ties with Soviet actions in Afghanistan.”

Blake Fowler finished reading the telex from Seoul before tossing it onto the pile of papers on his desk. He leaned back, took his wire-frame glasses off, and rubbed his eyes. God, he was getting too old to stay up reading fine print all night. What you could do at twenty in college didn’t seem at all possible at thirty-five.

Fowler let his head drop onto his chest and closed his eyes. Maybe he could get away with a short in-office nap. People had to make allowances for you when you’d been up for almost twenty-four hours straight, didn’t they?

He already knew the answer to that question. National Security Council staffers were expected to be awake and alert for days on end, to brief politicians in a split second, to keep rival intelligence agencies from going to war against each other — and to leap tall buildings in a single bound for that matter. Just the kind of thing that getting a Ph.D. in Asian and Pacific Affairs prepared you for. Fowler squirmed, trying to get more comfortable. His damned desk chair must have been designed especially by the Spanish Inquisition.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Can I wake you with a kiss?” Fowler warily opened an eye to find his secretary hovering over him with a cup of coffee. She looked as tired as he felt. That wasn’t really surprising — she’d been working all night, too.

He sat upright. “Sure, Princess Charming. You can kiss me. But then you have to save me from my wife.”

Katie Morgan smiled. “No thanks, Beaut. I’d really rather go hunt a dragon for you. Have some coffee instead.” She set the cup on his desk, carefully avoiding the stack of documents still waiting to be read, and dropped an interoffice memo on top.

“And speaking of reptiles, Putnam wants to see you in his chambers at oh nine fifteen sharp.” She looked at her watch. “Which is in ten minutes. He wants to know what happened to the world while he slept, or attended the congressional prayer breakfast, or something.”

“Ah, sh … darn, I mean.” Fowler started leafing through the papers on his desk. “Katie, I’m going to need the latest Agency analysis and those NSA intercepts. Putnam probably won’t understand them, but they look impressive.” He stood up, stretching and yawning. This was a hell of a way to start the new day.

Walking outside over to the White House made him feel a lot better. He could have taken the tunnel over, but the crisp, cool morning air woke him up more than coffee ever could. A gentle breeze ruffled his straight, brown hair. It was getting long, he thought, and he’d have to try to find time to get it cut.

As Fowler strolled across Executive Drive, the early-morning sunlight threw his image against the windshield of a parked Volvo. He turned his head slightly while passing to study himself. And grinned when he became aware of the unconscious habit. Although he never changed much between glimpses, he could never quite break himself of the mannerism.

At only a tad over six feet, Fowler wasn’t any taller than the average man his age, it was just that he was slender enough to make himself seem taller. His wife, Mandy, called him lean and rangy, but she was prejudiced. The tight fit of the khaki slacks around his waist made him realize that some of that youthful slenderness was starting to disappear — the victim of too much desk work, too many wolfed-down junk-food meals, and an aversion to most forms of exercise. For the thousandth time, he made a mental note to start swimming laps again, and for the thousandth time he dismissed it from his mind.

At least his face didn’t show any immediate signs of falling apart on him. But not even Mandy would call it handsome. Instead, a long, thin nose, large green eyes, and mobile, arching eyebrows gave him a faintly professorial look — the quizzical, distracted air of someone always looking for more than the obvious.

He reached the White House, flashed his security badge to the Marine guard and Secret Serviceman on duty at the side door, and went in.

As the national security adviser, Putnam had an office just down the hall from the Oval Office itself — a fact that he was always careful to mention at cocktail parties. And Fowler noticed that he’d managed to get an even larger nameplate, GEORGE PUTNAM — NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER, plastered all over his door.

Putnam’s secretary looked up as he walked in. She smiled sympathetically. “Long night?”

He nodded, rubbing his chin and realizing he’d forgotten to shave again.

She looked apologetic. “His Excellency has asked that you take a seat for a few minutes. He’s on a very important call with one of his old Hill cronies.”

Fowler looked at his watch: 9:15 A.M. on the dot. That bastard Putnam. He seemed to think that you showed people how important and busy you were by keeping them waiting outside your office door.

Fowler thought that George Putnam, erstwhile national security adviser and full-time asshole, was a good example of the truism that when the pendulum swung, it usually swung too far.

Several of Putnam’s predecessors had been highly professional career soldiers who’d somehow managed to get both themselves and the president they served in hot water. There’d been an outcry in the press and on Capitol Hill, and a whole slew of foreign policy pundits had come forward arguing that the next president should find someone who could work more easily within the constraints imposed by Congress and by domestic politics.

Well, that was advice the new president had taken — and Fowler thought he’d probably live to regret it. Putnam had been some kind of a staff bigwig on the Hill before the election, and then he’d wormed his way into a transition team slot with the incoming administration. After that, he’d managed to surprise everyone outside the Hill establishment by parlaying his temporary position into a nomination for the national security adviser’s job.

Fowler had to admit that Putnam knew how to operate. That didn’t make him any less of a jerk, but it did make him the jerk responsible for keeping the President up-to-date on national security issues.

Putnam kept him on ice for nearly fifteen minutes this time. And when Fowler walked in, he didn’t even look up from the notes he was scribbling. Instead he waved vaguely toward a chair. “I’ll be right with you, Blake. No rest for the righteous, eh?”

Fowler sat, trying manfully to conceal his disdain for his nominal superior. Putnam was still a young man, barely into his forties, but he looked older somehow. Not older and wiser. Just older. The national security adviser’s fleshy, freckled face and petulant, thin-lipped mouth made him look like an aging schoolboy, like the bully who’d never been beaten up.

After a moment Putnam laid his pen down carefully, flexed his fingers, and sat back looking smug. He brushed a wisp of graying, reddish-brown, curly hair back into place. “Always pays to keep your ear to the ground, Blake. Got some really hot stuff from the Hill this morning.”

Fowler knew that Putnam’s “really hot stuff” was probably the latest dirt on some senator’s love life, so he kept quiet.

Putnam looked a little exasperated that his subordinate hadn’t begged him to share the latest gossip. “Ah, well. Can’t expect you ‘professionals’ to care much about the way things really get done in this town, now can I?”

Putnam shook his head. “Someday, Blake, you’ll realize that this town doesn’t move on facts — it moves on perceptions. On rumors. On whispers.”

He leaned forward across his desk. “And the granddaddy rumor mill of them all is right over there.” He pointed off in the rough direction of the Hill. “That’s where the action’s at.

“Without the Congress, the President’s agenda is dead in the water. So we’ve got to keep on our toes. We’ve got to know who’s up and who’s down — who the Speaker or majority leader like and who they don’t. And we have to keep them happy. This administration has to have a sort of symbiotic relationship with the Congress. You know, ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ Do you see what I mean?”

Fowler could name quite a few presidents who’d been at their best when they opposed congressional idiocy, but it seemed a little too early in the morning for another pointless political debate. Instead he reached into his folder and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Well, George, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the American political theory to you. I have a tough enough time keeping up with South Korean politics these days.”

Putnam frowned. “Oh, yes. South Korea. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He tapped a finger on his bare desk blotter. “Now look, Blake, we’ve got some real trouble brewing on the Hill over Korea. And the President needs to know just what the hell is going on over there.”

Fowler handed him the latest CIA analysis, a stapled selection of National Security Agency signals intercepts, and a telexed report from the general commanding U.S. forces in Korea.

“Jesus Christ, Blake, I don’t have time to read all this crap! That’s what I’ve got you for. Did you bother to put together a one-pager for my signature — or was that too much trouble for you?”

Control. Control, Fowler told himself. Don’t let him see that he’s managed to piss you off. He held out the single-page summary he’d written at around four in the morning.

But Putnam waved it away. “Just give me the gist for now. I’ll read it for details later.”

Fowler tried hard to keep his voice level. “Essentially, our most recent reports show some improvement in the situation. Seoul and the other major cities are still under a nighttime curfew, but there are signs that the government will lift it sometime in the next three days. There have been some minor incidents outside Seoul — small demonstrations, a few rocks thrown at police, that kind of stuff — but nothing really dangerous. The National University is still crawling with security troops, of course, but there hasn’t been any further trouble. The students still seem to be in shock.

“And so far the North Koreans haven’t tried anything funny. We’ve gotten the usual propaganda blasts, but we haven’t yet picked up evidence of anything worse in the works.”

Putnam interrupted. “What about the massacre? Do we have any idea who was responsible? That’s the kind of thing we’re going to get asked by the press.”

“Well, the government over there is probably going to lay the blame on some junior police officer — undoubtedly one of the ones who got himself killed. But that general of ours who saw the start of the whole thing argues the real culprit is whoever ordered the police to meet that demonstration with real guns in their hands.” Fowler shook his head. ‘And that had to have been someone pretty high up — probably at the cabinet level.”

Putnam snorted, “Stupid bastards.” For once Fowler was inclined to agree with his boss.

“Yeah. We’re still not sure just why whoever it was thought it was necessary. But we do know that the government’s been under a lot of pressure from the heads of some of the South Korean industrial conglomerates, the chaebol, to keep things under tighter control this fall. The last round of unrest wound up costing them a lot in labor concessions, and that cut into South Korean’s competitive edge. They didn’t sell enough autos and computer parts last year to cut their international debt as much as they wanted to. But I don’t think a full-fledged massacre is what they had in mind.” Fowler slid the heavily underlined summary on top of the rest of the documents he suspected Putnam would never read.

Putnam looked across the desk at him. “So what’s the bottom line? Can the President tell the press and the Hill this was just a one-time screwup that won’t happen again? Or can we expect more of this?”

Fowler shrugged. “There’s really no way to tell. After the 1980 bloodbath in Kwangju, things were quiet for six or seven years. But this happened right on worldwide TV and it happened in Seoul. And Seoul is the heart of South Korea — it’s the capital, the population center, business center, cultural center, you name it. We just don’t have enough information yet to make an accurate prediction.”

“Now see here, Dr. Fowler. I’ve got to give the Man more than that. He can’t just go out there in front of the cameras and say, ‘Gosh, fellas, there’s really no way to tell if Korea’s gonna come unwrapped faster than you can say Iran.’ ” Putnam’s attempt to imitate the President’s voice fell flat, but the anger in it was real enough.

“And it’s not just the press,” Putnam continued. “We’ve got to deal with the House and Senate as well. You know about this Barnes sanctions bill that got dropped in the hopper yesterday?”

Fowler nodded. “I read the summary Legislative Affairs put out last night. Frankly, I can’t think of when I last saw such a piece of dangerous stupidity — ”

Putnam cut him off. “I don’t give a great big goddamn for your uninformed opinions on legislation, Blake.” He made a visible effort to control himself. “The point is, the bill’s not going to go anywhere, but we have to form an administration position on it. And for once I want a single administration position.”

Putnam looked over at his desk clock. “So what I want you to do, Dr. Fowler, is put together a top-notch, interagency working group to analyze the potential effects of the Barnes bill. Get all the key players involved — State, Defense, Commerce, CIA, and all the rest. Do it ASAP and make sure that all the documents flow through me, okay? I want a final report on my desk inside of two weeks from now.”

Fowler mentally wrote off two weeks’ worth of dinners at home with his family, his daughter’s school play, and a lot of domestic tranquility. “You know that either State or Defense will fight like hell to chair this thing. And they’ll want to route through their respective bosses first.”

Putnam smirked. “I know. So what you do is this. Put me on the group as chairman, and then I’ll just have you fill in for me. Got it?”

Fowler nodded his understanding. Putnam might be a slimy son of a bitch and he might not know squat about foreign affairs, but he did know how to play the bureaucracy game. The Korean situation involved everything from foreign policy and military strategy to questions of international trade and domestic politics. And all of that made the President’s national security adviser the logical choice to head up an interagency group on South Korea. That gave Putnam power, because only the designated chairman of an interagency group had the right to present the group’s final report to the President.

“Okay, Blake, I’m sure you’ve got work to do, so I won’t keep you any longer.” Putnam’s eyes flicked over to the clock again. “Besides, I’ve got an important meeting right now.”

Fowler stood, took his folder off Putnam’s desk, and walked to the door. He opened it, but Putnam’s voice stopped him with his hand still on the knob. “By the way, Blake, try not come in looking like a refugee all the time. I expect my senior staff to set the right tone for this shop, all right?”

Fowler didn’t say anything. He just fought down the urge to go back and kick his boss in the nuts and went out — brushing past the man waiting in Putnam’s outer office. Behind him, he heard Putnam trying out his best “one of the guys” tone of voice: “Hey, Jer! Good to see you! Come right on in.”