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She smiles. “Just fine, sir. Thanks for asking.”
He says, “She’s at George Washington, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Think she’d like a ‘get well’ bouquet from the White House?”
Her smile is bright and happy. “Oh, Mr. President, that’d be wonderful.”
He nods. “Then I’ll make it happen. In the meantime, could I bother you to fetch Carlton and me some coffee?”
“It’d be a pleasure, sir,” she says. After the door is closed, Carlton smirks.
“You’re too nice,” he says.
“Never can be too nice to your inferiors,” Barrett says as he tears open the manila envelope. “She’s clumsy, dumb, and she’ll screw up the coffee order, but you know what? She’ll say nice things about me to her friends and coworkers, and they’ll pass it on to others, and if you do that to everyone you meet in the White House, the nasty leaks won’t happen, the anonymous sources won’t drop a dime, and there’re no tell-all books telling the world the secrets of the Barrett White House.”
He tugs out a business-sized white envelope, thick and creamy.
“That’s one of my many goals, Carlton,” he says, “is to dry up the tidal wave each year of the White House tell-all books. Ahhh, look at this, will you?”
He rotates the envelope so that the return address is visible:
Embassy of the Russian Federation
2650 Wisconsin Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20007
No other marks appear on the outside of the envelope.
Barrett opens the envelope, takes out a folded sheet of paper, unfolds it. The same address is centered at the top, and there’re two lines of handwriting:
Agreed
Josef
He grins, pushes the sheet of paper over to Carlton, who takes it in his large hand. Barrett says, “How do you like them apples?”
Carlton gives it a quick scan. “Well done, sir.”
Barrett takes the letter back with satisfaction. “Halfway there, Carlton. Halfway there … now that we’ve got the Russians where we want them. Stop the cyberattacks, leave us alone, and we’ll leave them alone. Quid pro quo. Set up spheres of cyber influence. If they want to mess around with the Poles, Germans, or Chinese, have at it. Just leave us be.”
“Think it’ll stick?”
“I made them an excellent offer, going back more than forty years from ye olde CIA playbook,” Barrett says. “They’ve just finished their fourth Nord Stream natural gas pipeline project from Russia to Germany. I told Josef that if they quickly agreed to my proposals, I, in turn, would tell them which parts and computer software bugs were placed within that pipeline and its sisters while I was running the CIA. A time bomb, if you will, that could cause billions of dollars in damage, help crater the Russian economy, and break relations with Germany.”
Barrett grins. “Reagan and the CIA did the same thing, nearly fifty years ago. The Russians were just starting to steal our technological secrets, and we allowed them to do that for a natural gas pipeline in Siberia. When it exploded, the force was so huge and bright that astronauts in space thought it was a nuclear bomb going off. Oh, they’ll stay bought. I have no doubts.”
He folds up the sheet of paper, puts it back in the envelope. “For decades we’ve been scared to death of the Russian bear, thinking it’s ten feet tall with razor-sharp claws and big sharp teeth. Truth is, their GDP is less than Italy’s. If it weren’t for their nukes, the rest of the world would laugh at them. They’re a bear, all right, one of those old sad sacks with a muzzle over its mouth you see at a second-rate circus.”
He puts the victory note aside. “What they crave most is respect. This agreement is secret, just between me and the Russian government, via Josef, the SVRrezidentat their Embassy. One spy to a former spy, who know how to keep secrets. We get what we want, we stop giving them painful lessons, and we never, ever publicize it. Or even hint at it.”
“And the Chinese?” Carlton asks.
“A tougher nut,” Barrett says. “But we’ll crack them, sooner or later. No matter how bloody and long term.”
“Your two terms, I imagine,” Carlton says.