60

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
1337 HOURS, ZONE TIME; AUGUST 28, 2006

“How does it look?”

“Mr. President, according to our last set of projections, the probability of the China conflict going nuclear has been reduced to between ten and fifteen percent.”

“A ten-to fifteen-percent chance that a million people could still die. That’s not good enough, Sam. But I guess that it’s better than it was. Maybe enough so that I won’t dream about it tonight.”

“Stay outside of it, sir. If you’re going to command, you can’t take it personally.”

Ben Childress produced a brief, ironic snort of laughter.

“At one and the same time, Sam, that is both good advice and the rankest kind of bullshit.”

“I know, sir. I was never able to manage it either.”

The two men were seated in the Oval Office, an afternoon situation briefing trailing off into a few minutes of conversation between friends.

“What else is going on out there? Has there been any indication of Red retaliation against us?”

The National Security Adviser shook his head. “Communists appear to have their hands full. The Nationalists have taken advantage of our disruption of the air-defense net around Shanghai and are bombing the hell out of the place themselves. I doubt that the Reds are really interested in picking a fight with anyone else just now.”

“That’s good news.”

“And here’s some more. Our conflict-simulation projections indicate that our intervention may have shortened the Chinese civil war by possibly as much as a month. God knows how many people are going to live who otherwise would have died if we hadn’t stepped in. And that isn’t even considering the bomb.”

President Childress nodded to himself. “Every little bit of positive will help, Sam. Lord knows but there are a lot of people who want to know why I took us out on the edge like this.”

“How about because it was the right thing to do, sir.”

“That doesn’t necessarily cut it in some circles these days, Sam.”

“Then use the apartment-house comparison,” Hanson grunted, settling deeper into his chair.

Childress cocked an eyebrow. “The apartment-house comparison?”

“Yes, sir. Back in the good old days, the nations of the world were like individual farmsteads, scattered out across the country. Separated by time and space. If your neighbor’s barn burned down, well, all that you’d see was the fire against the sky. You could get involved, or not, depending on how you felt about it.

“These days, though, the world’s shrunk on us. We’re all living in the same apartment house now. And if some son of a bitch is smoking in bed, we all need to be concerned about it.”

“Good metaphor, Sam. What do you want for it?”

“Consider it a gift, Mr. President.”

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