Sitting in the chairs next to Leach were Air Force general Felix clough, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army general Kurt Sverdlov, the newly nominated chairman. Pacino knew Donchez and Clough shared a professional dislike that went back decades, based partly on each man’s disregard for the other’s service. But Clough was a lame duck, and Sverdlov and Donchez seemed to be forming a close working relationship, Sverdlov apparently realizing that having a friend at NSA could help him. Meanwhile, Donchez was no longer in the Navy or in competition with Sverdlov the way he had once been with Clough. Pacino knew that Donchez hoped that when Leach was gone he would inherit CIA, and from that point on, the Blowtorch notwithstanding, he would have a seamless, functional network surrounding and leading up to the president. As if cued by Pacino’s thought, President Jaisal Warner swept into the office with aides in tow, her low-voiced orders flying to each until she reached her seat and dismissed them. The men in the room all stood as if someone had called them to attention. Warner waved them to their seats. Pacino tried not to stare at her, but wasn’t successful.
Jaisal Warner was only in her second year in office, yet it was already a charmed administration. Warner had come into office almost unopposed, the previous incumbent withdrawing from the race for reasons of health, his announcement coming just after Warner was nominated. His party’s nomination was a tired old senator who was in the race for show.
Warner’s campaign had focused on her energy and competence as the remarkably successful governor of California, where her hard-nosed leadership had pulled the state out of severe financial troubles. After the governorship she had become the state’s junior senator yet had been named to the Armed Services Committee, making news with her proposals on revolutionizing the military. She had become something of a media darling, as well as of even the military and the American people over a period of ten years. Her campaign slogan still graced the bumpers of countless cars, the green letters proclaiming on a white field: jai-sal warner — just get out of her way. Even her name was symbolic of her rise to power — the name Jaisal was Indian for “victory.” Her first hundred days in office had been a thunderstorm of activity as she cleaned house in the government, eliminating half the government bureaucracy and replacing the administrators with handpicked replacements. She made the cover of Time three times in two years, one caption reading: jaisal cleans up, the next: WARNER’S MACHINE, the third: GOVERNMENT NOW WORKS! the last in capital letters with an exclamation point. Warner seemed to live for crises, Donchez had once remarked to Pacino. She often quoted wartime leaders, her favorites Winston Churchill, the two Roosevelts, Eisenhower, even Nixon, but her clear number one was Margaret Thatcher.
Warner stood now in front of the large chair at the desk end of the couch-and-chair arrangement. She was in her late forties, and remained a very beautiful woman. She wore a dark suit, the skirt midlength, with a cream silk blouse, a small diamond necklace at her throat. Her hair was cut in a bob, the straw color graying but attractive. Her hands were graceful, her fingers long and unadorned by rings. Her husband had died when she was in the Senate, and she had never remarried, all her energy pouring into her job. Her eyes were dark and unreadable, but the lines around her mouth seemed to indicate her concern. When she spoke, her voice was clear. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “Please sit down.” She remained standing herself. “I assume you’re all up to speed on what’s happened in Greater Manchuria. I think you should all see this.” She nodded at an aide, who passed out folders. Pacino opened his, finding an advance copy of the next week’s Time magazine. On the cover was: japan strikes again. Pacino opened the old-fashioned paper magazine, this version the one that would be sold on the newsstands.
