Drone

She isn’t going to do too badly in this crisis, either, Myers thought.

“What we need is a decisive military response.” All eyes turned toward Senator Diele.

“Are you proposing an invasion of Mexico, Senator?” Early asked. “We could dust off Plan Green,” he said with an easy smile.

Plan Green was a plan to invade Mexico that was drafted by the American secretary of war in 1919 and had been recently republished. Surprisingly, it hit the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction almost overnight.

“We do have current contingency plans for a Mexico invasion. Canada, too, for that matter,” General Winchell said. Senator Diele’s friend was dead serious.

“It wouldn’t necessarily have to be a full-scale invasion. But our lack of serious action sends a very powerful signal that we are weak. President Myers, with all due respect, your failure to provide a more violent and timely response to the El Paso massacre is partly to blame here,” Diele said.

The room erupted in debate.

“You’re out of line, Gary. Back it way up,” Senator Velázquez growled. The normally affable Texan had family in Houston.

“I apologize, Madame President, if I’ve offended you, but I hope you see my point. This attack was an outrage. Another Pearl Harbor or 9/11. It demands a swift and violent response.”

“An invasion of any size isn’t justified by this singular act, horrible as it is, but I’ll take your suggestion under advisement.”

Myers turned to the secretary of state. “What do the Mexicans have to say about all of this?”

“President Barraza’s office has expressed his outrage and concern, as well as his support, but then again, so has Trinidad and Tobago, so I don’t know what it’s worth. I’ll be curious to see what the Mexican government’s response will be following this al-Jazeera report, but my guess is that they’ll just offer more of the same.”

“Is there any chance at all the Mexican government is behind this?” Greyhill demanded. He was skyping from an air force base in Greenland and clearly agitated.

“To what purpose?” Strasburg said, incredulous.

“Dr. Strasburg’s right. There’s no indication of official Mexican involvement,” Donovan added.

“They better damn well be kicking down doors and taking names trying to get at these guys,” Diele insisted. “If we’re not going to kick some ass, somebody has to.”

“Right now we have an economic crisis on our hands. I have complete confidence in the Department of Homeland Security to find and arrest the bastards who did this,” Myers said.

Donovan sat a little taller in his chair. “Thank you, Madame President. We’ll catch them before they strike again.”

Myers addressed the rest of the room. “So for the moment, let’s focus on our options for tackling the economic issues. Suggestions?”

She sat silent as a sphinx as she listened to the options. Some were conventional, some out of the box. All of them had carry costs. None of them was a perfect solution. Factions began to form. Arguments broke out.

After an hour had passed, Myers held up the palm of her hand. The room silenced.

“Thank you all. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Would you care to share it with us?” Diele asked.

She stood, and gathered up her papers.

“I’ll be holding a little press conference tomorrow morning, Senator. Tune in, if you can. I think you might get a kick out of it.”

33

Gulf of Mexico, near the Texas coast

The stock market opened on Monday morning and immediately plunged over 650 points before the secretary of the treasury ordered trading suspended on the New York Stock Exchange “for reasons of national security,” an order the NYSE directors complied with happily and immediately. Unfortunately, the secretary had no such authority over the Asian markets, which had plunged precipitously the night before, and the European markets had jumped off of the same fiscal cliff as the rest of the world before trading was suspended there, too.

The price of oil was holding steady at $127 a barrel this morning, after a steep 30 percent increase in just twenty-four hours. The only reason the spot price was holding, according to Myers’s advisors, was that if the economies of the world really were going to crash—as it seemed they probably would at any moment—then the demand for oil would plummet, and the price would drop. It appeared as if the oil speculators were giving her some breathing room, albeit temporarily. The financial markets waited eagerly to see what she would do with the respite.

Myers flew to Houston on Air Force One, which was crammed with the Washington press corps. They all then loaded into a fleet of Bell Ranger helicopters and choppered out to one of Chevron’s biggest oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.