The President Is Missing(64)

She laughs, in spite of the circumstances. “Reagan,” she says, shaking her head. “I had not heard this story. But it sounds just like him.” She angles her head, looks up at me. “This is ancient history, though.”

“Yes and no,” I say. “We learned that a number of people were disciplined for the mistake. It was a huge embarrassment for the Kremlin. A lot of people were punished. Some went to prison for life. We never knew all the details. But one of the KGB agents who was never heard from again was named Viktor Chernokev.”

Her smile disappears. “The Russian president’s father.”

“The Russian president’s father.”

She nods knowingly. “I knew his father was KGB. I didn’t know how he died. Or why.”

She chews on her lip, something she always does when she concentrates.

“So…what are you going to do with this information, Jonny?”

“Mr. President—excuse me, sir. Excuse me, Madam Prime Minister.”

I turn to Alex. “What is it, Alex?”

“Sir,” he says, “the German chancellor is arriving.”





Chapter

52



Juergen Richter, the German chancellor, steps out of his SUV looking like something out of British royalty in his pin-striped three-piece suit. He has a slight paunch, but he has the height—six feet four—and the perfect posture to carry it off.

His long, regal face lights up when he sees Noya Baram. He bows at the waist in exaggerated fashion, which she waves off with a laugh. Then they embrace. She’s more than a foot shorter than he is, so she rises up and he leans down so they can exchange kisses.

I offer my hand, and he accepts it, clasping my shoulder with the other hand, the large hand of a former basketball player for Germany in the 1992 Olympics. “Mr. President,” he says. “Always these difficult situations, we meet.”

The last time I saw Juergen was at Rachel’s funeral.

“How is your wife, Mr. Chancellor?” I ask. His wife now has cancer, too, and is getting treatment in the United States.

“Ah, she is a strong woman, Mr. President, thank you for your concern. She has never lost a battle. Certainly none with me.” He looks over at Noya for a laugh, which she gives him. Juergen is one of those larger-than-life personalities, always trying for humor. His need to shine has bought him trouble more than once in interviews and press conferences, where he’s been known to make an occasional off-color remark, but his voters seem to appreciate his freewheeling style.

“I appreciate your coming,” I say.

“When one friend has a problem, another friend helps,” he says.

True. But the principal reason I invited him is to convince him that the problem is not only my country’s but his—and all of NATO’s—too.

I show him around the grounds briefly, but my phone is buzzing before long. I excuse myself from the group and answer the phone. Three minutes later, I’m back downstairs, communicating by laptop on the secure line.

Again, it’s the same three people involved. Carolyn and Liz, whom I trust, and Sam Haber, who has to be involved in homeland security issues, and whom I would really like to believe I can trust, too.

Sam Haber was a case officer in the CIA thirty years ago who returned to Minnesota and was elected to Congress. He ran for governor, lost, and managed to get an appointment as one of the CIA’s deputy directors. My predecessor appointed him secretary of DHS, and he was given high marks. He lobbied me to be CIA director, but I chose Erica Beatty for that post and asked him to stay on at DHS. I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed. Most of us thought he’d serve in a sort of interim capacity, bridging administrations before moving on to something else. But he’s lasted more than two years in the job, and if he’s unhappy, he hasn’t made that known to anyone.

Sam’s eyes are in a nearly permanent squint, his forehead always etched in wrinkles below the ever-present crew cut. Everything about him is intense. It’s not a bad trait in a secretary of homeland security.

“Where exactly did it happen?” I ask.

“It’s in a small town outside Los Angeles proper,” says Sam. “It’s the largest water treatment plant in California. It pumps more than half a billion gallons of water a day, mostly into LA County and Orange County.”

“So what happened?”

“Sir, after the explosion at the private biological lab, we were in touch with state and local officials, focusing on critical public infrastructure—gas, electricity, commuter rail—but most urgently on water lines.”

Makes sense. The most obvious target among public utilities for a biological attack. You introduce a biological pathogen into the water, it spreads faster than wildfire.

“The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and members of DHS and EPA conducted an emergency inspection and discovered the breach.”

“Explain the breach,” I say. “In English.”

“They hacked into the computer software, sir. They managed to alter the settings on the chemical applicators. But they also disabled the alert functions that would normally detect anomalies in the purification process.”

“So dirty water that was supposed to be passing through a chemical application wasn’t receiving that chemical application, and the alert functions in the system, designed to detect that very problem…”