The First Casualty

43

The window seemed to filter all life from the pale winter afternoon sunlight that was barely strong enough to cast shadows on the carpet of the Oval Office. Behind the Resolute desk, the president of the United States leaned back in his padded wooden-and-leather swivel chair, his fingers interlocked across his chest. Only a few inches of cigar butt were left, visible in the right corner of his mouth.

No matter what the decision on the trip, Chief of Staff Henry Hodges was thankful his boss wasn’t babysitting today. The twins, Ches and Wes, were one of a number of reasons Hodges was thankful he had successfully eluded marriage.

Henry guessed the president’s mind was made up, down, and locked. Henry could only sit on one of two wheat-colored sofas perpendicular to the desk, leftovers from the previous occupant. The chief of staff was convinced the former president had them placed so that no one could look at the desk without turning his head, a subtle means of discouraging arguments.

And arguments there had been aplenty as the past chief executive had not so subtly tried to overcome the constitutional restraints that had seriously hampered his plans for the country, plans the recent election had demonstrated were less than popular.

None of that, though, was why Henry was here today. His duty, as he saw it, was to do the near impossible: Change the president’s mind. As the president’s campaign manager, he had had to develop certain persuasive skills varying from diplomacy to the political equivalent of breaking legs.

The president, whose boyish good looks and a penetrating gaze that screamed sincerity had earned him comparisons to a young John F. Kennedy, shook his head. “Forget about it, Henry, I’m going.”

“I’m not suggesting you cancel, Mr. President. I’m urging you, though, to reschedule.” Hodges twisted on the sofa to put his body as close to face-to-face as the furniture arrangement permitted, a less than comfortable contortion and finally stood. “Give us a chance to verify this thing’s location and destroy it.”

The president unlocked his fingers and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “I’m not going to postpone my meeting with the first democratically elected president of Egypt. I can’t risk offending him or the rest of the Moslem world. Extending the hand of friendship to Egypt and all of Islam is the only solution to the conflict between the Middle East and the West.”

More like extending the hand of friendship to an angry rattlesnake, Henry thought. But he said, “You won’t achieve a hell of a lot if you’re dead.”

“Life is not without risk, Henry. Audaces fortuna iuvat.”

The president was fond of Latin aphorisms, a habit his class-warfare-mongering opponents characterized as elitist. To their surprise, the electorate decided to restore a modicum of culture and learning to the White House.

“That may be so, Mr. President, but we have credible evidence Al Qaeda or their allies intend to shoot down Air Force One just like they did the Air France flight.” Hodges stood and took a stroll around the sofa. “If nothing else, think of Suzanne. She’s far too young to be a widow, and the twins need their father.”

The president shook his head. “I can’t be seen as cowering away from some sort of Star Wars weapon that we don’t really even know exists. Can you imagine what the Post and Times et al would do with that? Hell, I can even see a Saturday Night Live skit.”

Hodges was well aware the president was not the darling of the majority of the media. His promise to balance the budget in his first term had resulted in austerity programs that had already reduced the deficit while enraging those no longer subsidized by the government.

“I don’t understand how this thing is supposed to work… if it works at all.”

“We’re not sure, Mr. President, other than it seems to be some sort of particle beam. Going back and looking at what remains of the notes of this man Tesla, it seems most likely it was powered by a huge electrostatic generator to accelerate tiny articles of mercury in a vacuum and spew them out through some sort of specialized nozzle at great distance.”

“I’m no physicist,” the president admitted, “but if you need a vacuum to accelerate particles, what happens when they’re spewed out of the vacuum? Seems like they’d lose velocity. Sounds like nothing more than a crackpot idea.”

Hodges returned to the sofa, this time giving himself more room to turn and face the president. “Don’t be too sure. We know that, in 1908, Robert Peary was making his second attempt to reach the North Pole. Tesla sent him a pre-departure telegram, telling Peary he, Tesla, would try and contact the expedition and to please report anything unusual occurring on the tundra.”

“North Pole? Robert Peary? C’mon, Henry, you’re wasting my time!”

The chief of staff held up a protective hand. “Indulge me, Mr. President, please.”

The man behind the desk didn’t look pleased, but he wasn’t shooing anyone out of the office either.

“Anyway, on the evening of June 29, Tesla and his associate George Scherff climbed up a tower Tesla had built in Shoreham, New York, and aimed the so-called ‘Death Ray’ across the Atlantic toward the Arctic at a spot Tesla had calculated would be west of where Peary’s expedition should be.

“According to Scherff, Tesla turned the machine on. At first, there was nothing but a dull hum. They thought the device might have malfunctioned. Then an owl flew in front of them and seemed to disappear. Later, they found it dead and reduced to about the size of a sparrow.”

“An owl? So the thing shoots down birds. Air Force One is a little larger than an owl.”

“The damned owl isn’t really important. What is, is that two days later the newspapers carried a story of a huge explosion devastating Tunguska, a remote area in the Siberian wilderness, about the same time Tesla and Scherff were on the tower. Five hundred thousand acres of timberland destroyed, an explosion greater than any nuclear device ever detonated since the bomb was invented, audible from more than six hundred miles away.

“The first explanation was an asteroid or comet but no exact point of impact was ever found nor was any trace of the asteroid or comet. Tesla had a different explanation: His death ray had overshot its intended target and leveled a good part of Siberia.”

The president gave Hodges the famous look. “You believe that?”

“Tesla did. He dismantled the thing, put it away till the First World War when he tried to peddle it to Woodrow Wilson, offered to rebuild it.”

“And?”

“All he got was a polite letter from Wilson’s secretary.”

The president leaned back in his chair. “And that was the end of it?”

“Not quite. When the Second World War came along, J. Edgar Hoover and William Donovan corresponded about it. There seemed to be some reason. To think the Germans might have gotten hold of Tesla’s ray.”

“Did they?”

“Inconclusive, but we know we won.”

The president stood, a signal the conversation was at an end. “Which would seem to indicate this so-called death ray either doesn’t exist or, more likely, never did.”

Henry Hodges stood again. “I hope you’ll reschedule, Mr. President.”

“I’ll give it some thought, Henry.”

Which almost always meant the subject would not come up again.