Chapter 132: October Surprise

Sunday, September 10, 2000

The first thing we had to do was get out of the hotel. All of our cell phones were going nuts, and a few minutes later there was a knock on the door. Frank opened it to find the hotel manager. The lobby and front entrance were swamped, and he was having a hard time keeping reporters from slipping past the lobby. I nodded.

Turning to the others I said, “Everybody! Five-minute drill! Get to your rooms and get packed, now!” I turned back to the manager. “I need two trucks or vans, to carry us and our luggage out the back. Can you make that happen?”

He stared for a second and said, “I guess so. They might not be very fancy, and I’ll need them back.”

I pulled out my wallet and slapped five one-hundred-dollar bills in his hand. “We don’t need fancy. We need quiet. Can you make that happen?”

The hand went into his pocket. “I’ll get right on it.” He headed towards the door.

I grabbed his arm. “Hold it!” I turned to Frank. “Order the limos brought to the front door, right out where everybody is. Tell them we will be leaving in fifteen minutes.” To the manager I said, “Get those vans to the back door in ten minutes. Go!”

Ten minutes later the manager was escorting us out the back door into a pair of courtesy limos, oversized vans of the type you rode into to get to long term parking at the airport. I gave him another wad of cash and we headed out a side entrance and through a parking lot to a side road. Nobody followed.

We took off and headed towards Washington. Along the way we all read and reread the only information we had available, an Associated Press reprint of what was being published by the New York Times. It was a heavily slanted partial version of the U.S. Army’s armed incursion into Nicaragua, led by the crazed Captain Buckman. By the end of the story, I was wondering if Martin Sheen was now heading upstream to kill Colonel Kurtz, or in this case, me.

I spent the rest of the trip back wondering about just how much the Times had gotten, and who had given it to them. This story had been buried for almost 19 years. I had rarely pushed the Bronze Star, and never, ever, publicly told how I had earned it. I simply fell back on the Top-Secret aspect and told people that I had sworn an oath and simply never budged from that point. From everything I had learned over the years, the Army had sunk this in the deepest vault they could find; it had not been the U.S. Army’s finest hour. Aside from the brass, though, who knew about it?

There were probably about a thousand soldiers and officers from the battalion task force who knew something about the mission, but while they would certainly talk about it to each other, they probably wouldn’t have said anything to a reporter, and wouldn’t have known anything damaging. The ones who knew the really dirty details probably numbered only a few dozen, and they would have been ordered to keep their mouths shut. The MPs and Provost Marshall’s staff had no reason to talk; they had moved on with their lives now and didn’t need their hometown newspapers writing stories about how they had arrested and beaten an injured officer. The various officers who had been cashiered didn’t need it either.

Politically, there had been about a half dozen of us in 1992 who knew about it, when this came up during the days leading up to the confirmation hearings for Hawkins. Nothing had been said at the time, and Hawkins had left Washington and announced that health concerns were keeping him from further public service. I had never heard about this from anybody in the days afterwards, but I figured it had to originate there. It hadn’t been forgotten or kept quiet. Somebody had told Bill Clinton. Now it was payback time!

I couldn’t do anything more until we landed, and we just didn’t have enough information from the one report. We would get into D.C. early afternoon and be able to get a copy of the Times, and probably be able to watch the news. After that I would be able to meet with Governor Bush and figure out what was going to happen. This was a perfect example of a VP being more trouble than he’s worth. In some countries the job is an appointed position. It certainly made me wonder about our political system.

We landed at National in the late afternoon and managed to grab a copy of the New York Times as we headed on through the terminal. So far, they were the only ones on this, but that would change by tomorrow. This was bound to be the big topic on tonight’s evening news, along with the very predictable response. “ Governor Bush has full confidence in Congressman Buckman and eagerly anticipates being able to discuss this with him.” He just as eagerly was sharpening a machete, the better to hack me into small pieces with. The standard response in this would be to have me ‘voluntarily’ drop from the ticket, so that I could ‘concentrate my energies on fighting the lies and falsehoods.’ Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, by the way.

I read the article twice on the way to the hotel. The article in the Times gave more information than the AP piece. They were reporting that during an international exercise in Honduras, my unit was dropped incorrectly into neighboring Nicaragua. Despite orders to turn ourselves in to the Nicaraguan authorities, I had disobeyed those orders and captured a Nicaraguan airstrip. Then, as the helicopters were arriving to rescue my men and to arrest me, I summarily executed my prisoners and threatened to do the same to my soldiers if they said anything about what I had just done. Afterwards, back in Honduras, I was arrested and charged with mutiny, disobedience to orders, and murder, but was released rather than have the truth come out at trial, for national security reasons.

There was just enough truth to what was being reported that somebody must have leaked some sort of official documentation to them. They had all sorts of dates and places down accurately. The only other specifics were from the account given by ‘an unnamed source intimately involved in the cover-up.’ That was the damning part. So far it was almost all smoke and almost no fire, but that was going to change rapidly. Now that it was out in the open, other people would talk. Everybody who had been anywhere near Tegucigalpa that fall was going to find a microphone stuck in his face, and somebody was bound to talk.

Once we got to the hotel, a Secret Service agent was waiting for me and escorted me directly to the Governor’s suite. Unsurprisingly, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove were waiting for me as well. Nobody was smiling. “Well, I guess I know why we’re all here,” I told them, waving the newspaper.

“I sure hope that’s not an attempt to be funny, Carl,” replied George. He motioned us to some armchairs, and we all sat down.

“Not hardly.”

“Is it true?” he asked, cutting to the chase.

“Not particularly, but there is just enough truth there to make it a problem,” I answered.

“Don’t get cute, Buckman!” snapped Cheney. “We asked you about this during the vetting process and you lied to us!”

“The hell I did, Dick! I told you that it was classified, and I couldn’t talk about it. Not talking about it is a long way from lying, and don’t forget it!”

“Screw you, Buckman. I knew you would be a problem.”

George decided to calm things down, and said, “Forget the Top-Secret stuff. That’s all behind us now. It’s all going to come out. You need to tell us what happened. All of it.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. Somebody decided to leak classified files, so that pretty much lets me off the hook anyway.” I spent the next fifteen minutes telling the others what had happened and another ten pointing out the differences between what happened and what the Times was reporting. I did not admit to killing any prisoners, but simply reiterated my old line about releasing them.

“It doesn’t matter. They got their hands on something. By the end of the week, they will have people swearing that you butchered these people with your bare hands,” said Rove.

“Karl, you haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about. Out of all of us who made that drop, only one person made a complaint and he made it all up. He never witnessed a damn thing. He lied then, and if he’s behind it now, he’s still lying,” I told him.

“So what? Pack your bags and go home. You’re off the ticket immediately,” he told me.

Dick Cheney looked over at the Governor. “Well, we’ll have to do now what we should have done two months ago. Tomorrow you’ll announce that this asshole is dropping out and you’re naming me to take his place. Let’s hope we can rebuild things after this disaster!”

“You know, Dick, for a guy with six deferments, you’re pretty damn mouthy when talking to somebody who, quote, solves his problems with ruthless violence, unquote.” That last part I read out of the article. “If I am guilty of any of this, then I’ve already killed five men, so what’s one more?”

His eyes opened wide at that, as did Rove’s. I ignored them and said, “Now, you two can go. I need to talk to the Governor about this.”

“Carl, I don’t see the point in protracting this,” commented George Bush.

I turned my gaze on him. “Oh, I disagree. I’d like to discuss commitment with you, George. You know, the difference between commitment and involvement. Man to man.” I turned back to the other two. “You two are excused.”

They stared at me, and then stared at Bush when he said, “Why don’t you two go out for a bit and have a drink? We’ll be done in a few minutes.”

The Governor and I waited until all the doors clicked shut, and then he turned back to me, a hard look on his face. “I don’t care what you are thinking. There is no way you are staying in the campaign after this mess!”

I smiled at him. “George, do you remember when you offered me this position, how we talked about the difference between the chicken and the pig, and how you were looking for somebody committed, like the pig? Remember how we discussed that commitment, man to man? Do you remember that conversation?”

“This totally changes things, Carl! I can’t be held to something said then when I didn’t know all the facts.”

“So, you do remember the conversation. Good! Well, I’ve committed ten million facts so far. I told you then that my word and my deals are very, very important to me. Didn’t you believe me?” I asked.

He blustered, “That has nothing to do with this!”

“George, do you think for one single second that I am going to let you weasel away with ten million dollars of my money?”

“There is nothing you can do about it!”

I laughed at him. “George, right now you are thinking that if I tell somebody I bribed you, nobody will believe me. It will be the crazed ramblings of a desperate man, right?” I could see in his eyes he had this all figured out. “One small problem, George. I have the account numbers where I wired the money to, and I have slips of paper with your fingerprints and your DNA on them from giving me those account numbers. They are locked in the deepest vault imaginable. If I leave this room as anything other than your continued Vice-Presidential nominee, I will head directly to the Justice Department and see if they understand commitment.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” he hissed.

“How long do you think those guys will take to trace that money, especially when I give them the account that I paid it out of?”

“They’ll arrest you for this!”

I wagged my finger at him. “They’ll arrest us, George. They’ll arrest us! You think anybody’s going to care about Nicaragua after you get photographed doing a perp walk in handcuffs? I don’t think your Daddy can write a pardon retroactively.”

“You’ll be in handcuffs, too.”

I shrugged. “Yes, I will. I will be ruined. I’ll have to resign my seat in the House. My name will be mud. I will be charged with all sorts of things. I will have to hire the finest lawyers in the country to get me out of jail, and I will probably have to pay a fine in the millions of dollars, maybe a billion dollars. And most important of all, I will have to turn State’s Evidence against you! The one thing I won’t be doing is spending any time in prison. You, on the other hand, will bankrupt yourself and your father fighting this, and you will spend time in jail. I don’t think you’d do very well in prison, George. As for me, well...” I waved the newspaper loosely. “ ... I’m a ruthless killer. I can handle it easily in case I end up there.”

George Bush looked like he was about to vomit. After a couple of quiet minutes, he said, “You son of a bitch!”

“I told you, George, I was committed. That cuts both ways, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, damn you!” He had surrendered.

“Why don’t you wash your face and let’s invite Dick and Karl back in, and give them the good news?”

“Don’t push it, you bastard!” I kept quiet and he composed himself, and then went to the door. A few minutes later Cheney and Rove came in. They found us sitting on the couch, side by side, and chatting amicably. Bush motioned for them to have a seat, and then said, “Carl has convinced me that this is a situation that can be dealt with and dealt with positively.”

“You have got to be kidding!” exclaimed Rove. Cheney simply stared like we had both grown second heads.

“No, not at all. Let’s face it; Thomas Eagleton proved the danger of swapping nominees. The Governor will be slammed for pushing me out and abandoning me. No, he’ll be hurt badly doing that. The only thing we can do is fight this,” I answered.

Rove turned to me and said, “And just how do we do that? This is a fucking disaster!”

“Two parts. One is that the Governor supports me fully and knows my innocence. He is standing by his principles. This is all politics and Bill Clinton releasing classified information for political purposes. Blah, blah, blah. Part two is me. I’ll handle this mess,” I told them, holding up the newspaper.

“How?” asked Rove, incredulously.

“First steps first. Call CBS and get me on 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace doing the interview. Make that call as soon as I leave. I want that interview as soon as possible,” I told them.

Cheney said, “You’ve lost your mind!”

I slammed down the newspaper on the coffee table. “I used to be a soldier, and a damn good one. I think it’s time some people in this town learn just what that means! Get the hell out of my way, gentlemen, and watch! I AM GOING TO WAR!”

I left them in stunned silence and went down to a car waiting for me. I went over to the house on 30^th, where several reporters had set up camp, though none were daring to push past my security people. I went inside, ignoring their yelled questions, and went into my office. I was beat but needed to get some work done. The first call was to Marilyn, who had been getting hounded by reporters. I told her everything would be fine, and that I was still the VP nod. I told her I was staying in Washington until this was over, and to reassure the girls and not to worry. Then I made myself a stiff drink and started making notes on a pad of paper.

The one thing I didn’t quite understand was the relative crudity of the attack. Slick Willie was a master of manipulation. He could have slit my throat much more easily. Start out with a whisper campaign in the Senate, in the Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Start simple, with an investigation into possible false claims of military medals among Congressmen and Senators, something that would require a very quiet review of classified records. Then, leak the investigation to the Times, but don’t give any names out. Let the media start figuring out which politicians have medals. Then convene some very quiet and discreet hearings, and clear most of the people, but not everyone. At some point leak that Congressman Buckman didn’t pass muster, but that nobody could do anything about it. It leaves me swinging at ghosts and rumors.

You’re going to have to throw a Democrat to the wolves. You have to be bipartisan. Who do we sacrifice? It will have to be somebody in a district that will stay Democratic. How about John Kerry of Massachusetts? It will be easy to find somebody to damn him, since he turned anti-war afterwards. He won’t be up for re-election until 2002, so he can be ‘rehabilitated’ by then, evidence can be found to prove he earned the medals after all.

A campaign like that can work very well, but it takes time to make it happen. It could easily take a month of whispers to get George Bush to drop me. Didn’t they figure they had enough time? Did Al Gore’s pick of Kerry throw off the idea of killing a hero off? I knew that Al and Bill had differences, but weren’t they even talking, or had Al killed off the idea and Bill was running it anyway? Too many questions...

I ended up having a drink or two too many and woke up sitting in my armchair about four in the morning, my notepad still in my lap. I shook myself awake and headed upstairs. I might as well get some work done. I told the security guys to get the ball rolling on a car, and took a shower and shaved, then dressed. I skipped breakfast other than some juice and Advils and glanced out the front window. A few reporters were stirring, seeing the lights on in my house. I smirked at that. I told Jerry, “Let’s go.” We left the lights on and headed out the back door, through the back yard, and out a small gate in the fence. Then it was a ten-foot hike through some brush to the street and into a car. As we drove down the street I glanced back and saw the reporters still standing there in the early morning chill.

We snuck into the Rayburn building through the garage. The only people in at that time of the morning were some very early staffers and some more reporters assigned to hang around my office. We brushed through them, ignoring their yelling, and closed them out.

“Jerry, you want to make a phone call and hustle up something to eat for us? McDonald’s would do. Just something,” I asked him.

He grabbed his phone and asked, “Anything particular in mind?”

I shrugged. “Something from the four major food groups, you know - salt, cholesterol, caffeine, and sugar.”

He laughed at that. “I’ll order some bagels and cream cheese, too.”

“Fair enough. Thank you.”

While Jerry did his thing, I pulled the pages I had torn off my notepad and laid them on my desk. I was going to be making a lot of phone calls, and probably waking people up, but if I was going to get anything accomplished, I needed to start right now. At a minimum I needed to find out just what Clinton had leaked to the Times. The Army floats on a sea of paperwork, even if it is a classified sea. There must have been after action reports, JAG inquiries and investigations, documentation ordering us to do what we were doing. Only some of this seemed to be leaked. The only way to fight this was for me to do a full disclosure and technically violate my security oath. I found this mildly distasteful, but only mildly. Somebody else had really blown the doors open on this, so my keeping silent was useless now.

Anybody else keeping silent was also going to be useless. I still had contacts at the Pentagon from when I had been on the Armed Services Committee and Veterans Affairs Committee. What I needed now was names of people who could testify to what had happened. It had been nineteen years. By now most would have left the military, even the lifers, with twenty-plus years in. A few might still be in. Simply because of time, some would have died, and some would have moved and been lost track of. Still, the odds were that several of the guys who were in C Company would be available, and I trusted them more than I trusted Bill Clinton. Clinton would know he would need more than a nineteen-year-old report to jam me up, too. He must have somebody on tap as the unnamed source in the cover-up. Who? It would have to be one of the bad guys. Hawkins getting me back for ‘92? That shithead Provost Marshall or the numbnuts second john, whatever their names were? I was going to have to get copies of the records myself for review.

When my staff arrived, I greeted them and gave them all a basic rundown. No, I wasn’t a serial killer. Yes, I was being set up by the President. Yes, I needed their help, as much as possible. No, don’t say jack to the press. I was passed copies of the Times and the Washington Post and found more information was being leaked. The basement of the Pentagon was being turned into a sieve. Sunday’s stuff was just the appetizer. Now there were intimations that I had managed, with collusion from high places, to block the JAG investigation back in 1981. How a fucking captain could do that was left unanswered. There were also two unnamed sources now, with more expected to come forth. Until now they were reportedly too afraid of my retribution to come out. Joy!

I also cut a cartoon out of the Post. It wasn’t the first cartoon of me. Those had started right after I was picked as George Bush’s VP pick. They generally portrayed me as tall and slender, sort of a trimmed down Karl Malden, balding, and with a noticeably busted up nose. Ever since I had rescued Stormy, Stormy had been appearing in some of the cartoons as a St. Bernard with a barrel under her neck labeled ‘Votes’. Today’s had me with a sweatband tied around my forehead, carrying a machine gun with ammo belts crisscrossing my bare chest. The caption? ‘Rambuckman!’