said, taken aback. “I’m honored to be here to help in any way I can, and please excuse the clothes.”
Larkin put his hand on my shoulder and gazed at me evenly. “We’ve got more dire things to deal with.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
He held my gaze a moment and then nodded and said softly, “Good. Take a seat, Dr. Cross. And keep your eyes and ears open.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll do that.”
CHAPTER
61
AS MAHONEY AND I took seats, we saw members of the cabinet, one of the congressional leaders, and several others I did not recognize sizing us up. My first inclination was to ignore them, but then I realized that all of the people in the room feared for their lives but were also probably jockeying for position in the power vacuum created by the assassinations.
The killings were an act of war or a coup, something huge and sinister—I was in such a deep state of shock that for the moment I couldn’t do anything but heed Larkin’s advice to sit down, listen, and watch.
The acting president said, “The purpose of this meeting is twofold. All members of the current cabinet are to serve through the period of martial law at least. You will be separated, however, and flown with your families aboard one of the E-fours, the advanced airborne command posts, to secure locations.”
Several of them started to protest. Larkin held up his hand and said, “There is no discussion. This is being done for your own safety and for the good of the country. I will be doing the same thing in the near future.
“In any case, we will stay in close contact via secure satellite transmission. You will be involved in all major policy debates and made aware of decisions in real time.
“Chief Justice Watts and leaders of the majority and minority parties, I ask that you remain readily available in the coming days. In an emergency like this, I will need clear legal guidance on what I can and cannot do to try to defend the nation.”
The chief justice hesitated but then said, “It’s highly unorthodox, but I think in this time of crisis, it’s a smart idea, Mr. President.”
Larkin nodded, leaned forward, and looked around the table.
“Let me be clear about something,” he said. “In this case, no one is above the law or outside our jurisdiction. I am instructing Director Sanford and all intelligence agency leaders to follow the investigation wherever it leads.
“If this is the work of a hostile nation, we will declare war. If this is the work of any ideological group, domestic or foreign, we will root them out and bring them to justice. I will not have these heinous acts wreck the country, not on my watch.”
Many at the table nodded and voiced their approval.
Larkin started signing executive orders that put the Justice Department’s assassination-contingency plan into effect. In line with that plan, he sought and received approval from the congressional leaders and from the chief justice to temporarily amend the rules of Congress to limit members’ access to classified information as the investigation rolled forward.
The plan also called for a rapidly deployed investigative group answering to the FBI director, the AG, the president, and those gathered in the room. Larkin asked the majority leaders of both houses to form select committees on the assassinations that would provide independent oversight and reports.
“I will not allow this to be like the JFK investigation,” Larkin said. “I will not have some future panel judge us deficient in our investigation. This is no lone gunman. These coordinated assassinations are clearly the result of a massive conspiracy, the most outrageous attack on our democracy since Pearl Harbor, and I plan to tell the nation just that when I address them later in the day.”
For a moment Larkin seemed excited by that prospect, the idea of speaking to the nation in a time of great crisis, and I wondered whether he’d ever imagined himself president of the United States. He certainly had been a brilliant careerist.
I knew his résumé; he’d been a decorated army captain before going to Yale Law School and then joining the Justice Department. It was almost as if he’d planned his rise. And now here it was, his moment, probably a lot sooner than he’d expected.
The acting president looked down the table at me and Mahoney. “Dr. Cross, SAC Mahoney, for the next one hundred hours I am allocating unlimited resources to bring to bear on these crimes. Advise us on how best to