BLACK PRESIDENT-Chapter 96. Kissinger is ferociously up-to-date of the macinations of the armament business-teaches President-John all about it.

CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

It was late afternoon by the time John could return to the White House second floor and get some privacy. Cissy was out somewhere, either wandering the Rose garden or talking to the kids in their rooms, so he finally got a chance to unfold the page she had given him after their discussion about Fran.

There it was again – YOUR BABY. The bold words seemed to unfairly imprint on his mind, so he folded the paper back up, creasing it right below the capital letters, and read silently the ten numbered points she had quickly typed out.

1. You’re the father, not Jackson, but Fran doesn’t know that.

2. Fran is alone, worried, but hormonal.

3. When it’s obvious that she is showing as pregnant she will get panicky.

4. Her kids – your kids – don’t know she’s pregnant yet, right?

5. Morally, you should tell her who you are – it’s your kid!

6. When you do tell her, I will be there by your side.

7. Will she then keep the child?

8. Will she forgive? Will she forgive you for a) not telling her sooner, and (b) sleeping with me all these months? Will she forgive me for sleeping with you?

9. Can and will she keep a secret, keep your true identity unknown?

10. If she tells your kids that it’s you alive, not Jackson, I’m afraid the whole thing will unravel.

***

The Situation Room at the White House was in a confused state as the news bulletins hit the wall-sized screen. The Sunnis had retaliated, detonating a bomb in a Shiite cafe. Fourteen people were dead, others maimed, some critically. The groups responsible had not waited patiently for the U.S. President to initiate some kind of vague food program or anything else. Rumors didn’t count for anything real in that part of the world. They had been promised too much in the past. In major cities there were protests, police and populace banging heads. Shots had been fired, smoke filling streets and alleyways. Turmoil in Egypt, the Sudan, Baghdad, with Tunisia also becoming embroiled in the current events. John realized that it was impossible to stem the hatred, even with the most creative of plans. But deep down the words of Kissinger – I have a plan – gave him hope. He made the call that would deliver the two years of pills to Henry’s residence, placed with an “Emergency/TOP PRIORITY” flag on the shipment. President Little’s Chief of Staff had gotten on it right away.

What was it – their course of action – and how dangerous could it be? When would Henry tell him? Hopefully, John wouldn’t have long to wait.

***

On Cissy’s suggestion, orders really, The President found himself back at the front door of Fran’s house. His lawful wife broke into a big smile and kidded around by saying “Shoo, shoo” to the agents on both sides of John. Inside, the house felt a bit warmer than he liked to keep it when he had previously lived there, but it was comfortable nevertheless. John Jr. was at the large TV screen as usual, indulging in his favorite pastime. “Hi Dad,” he called out, jolting John again while he kept pushing buttons on his controller, blowing aliens apart and sending rockets from screen-left to bring down the invaders’ airships. “Hi John,” said the President back, discounting as best he could the possibility that his son actually knew his true identity.

Walking down the hall together, Fran wrapped her arm around John’s back. He could feel the warmth of her skin right through his shirt. Her whispered words, I want you, were no surprise, and they quickly locked the bedroom door, removed each other’s clothing and enjoyed the pleasures of the affair.

The afterwards was what concerned John. As Fran spoke of the pregnancy, ran her questions about it, he had to struggle not to reveal the truth of his identity.

“I know you love me,” began Fran, saying the words so that she could hear it from her partner.

“Of course. And I love you.” John actually loved her doubly, as both her lover and her real husband.

“Then, what should we do about our baby? I don’t think it’s right to just abort it, kill it. Do you?” Fran was confident that the Jackson she knew would understand. “I don’t think John would have wanted that either.”

“Well, of course not.”

John suddenly heard himself answering for both himself and his brother. With Fran bringing up his name in the odd discussion, it made him suddenly more aware of his missing brother. As twin boys they could sense when one was hiding behind a door, as if they’d been given a sixth sense. Sitting there in bed, with his own wife, and pretending he was Jackson, suddenly felt more wrong than ever.

“Maybe we can keep the child hidden long enough that the world believes he or she is actually John’s,” said Fran, trying to come up with a solution. “Explain that I was pregnant at the time of the assassination? We could maybe fool people with the dates of birth?”

“Well, it’s been five months. So the child would have to have its birth date altered to conform to that timeline.”

“You’re the President. Can’t you do that sort of thing?” John wondered if he could actually get something forged like that. He didn't really know any criminals, unless his pal Kissinger counted. But still, it was an optimistic thought.

Suddenly livening up, John exclaimed, “Maybe it is possible! Certainly worth a try. Maybe Rudy can help!” It took hardly a second to realize he had made a huge mistake.

“Rudy? He knows about us? About the baby?”

“Umm, I–” John was momentarily tongue-tied. His mind raced.

“You told Rudy!” Fran looked devastated. “What must he think of me now? Do you think he’ll tell Cissy? This is horrible!” Fran’s hands went to her face.

“Honey–” was all John could say, as he tried to embrace his wife. Fran was in a melt-down, tears flowing, nose running. And through all of that emotionality, John ached to reveal everything, come clean with all the lies and deception. Could she really forgive him and Cissy, and keep the big secret? What would happen when she learned that Cissy knew his true identity before she did? And kept making love with him anyway?

There seemed to be one bombshell coming after another. He just didn’t know if it could all be contained. Could he really afford to unleash Fran’s fury? Her present anguish gave him pause. A wrong word here or there, to his kids, or Cissy’s kids for that matter, would sink everything. NO. He decided he had to weather the situation as Jackson, regardless of future consequences.

“Would you ever divorce Cissy?” came the next unexpected and crazy question from Fran’s lips. “You can’t love her as much as what we’ve had. That way, the child won’t be born a bastard, another child fathered by some Kennedy affair.”

As soon as Fran mentioned Kennedy she knew she had slipped up. After all, both the Little twins were a result of such a tryst, however forced and undesired. Their mother, Sarah, had always claimed that she had been seduced, not in any way a willing partner to JFK. Fran had never entirely bought that story, but had gone along sympathetically. But, at the present moment, she had not meant it in exactly the cold way it sounded. “Not meaning that you and John–”

“You know I love you,” began John, hoping to change the topic, “but any such scandal would hurt the programs I’m trying to enact here. Jackson’s programs.”

“Are you making love to her too?”

While Fran’s question hung in the air, John realized that he had made another major slipup. He was supposedly Jackson, so why would he call it Jackson’s programs? Maybe she hadn’t caught it. In any case, the questions at hand were basically impossible to answer. Any direction he took would surely land him in more hot water.

“Are you?” Fran demanded an answer.

Was he making love to Cissy? The real answer? More than ever. Was Cissy on board with the Presidential charade? Yes. Could she, Cissy, be trusted to keep a secret of such magnitude? Absolutely. Cissy was a lawyer, after all, and respected client privileges. The longer John’s pause ran before he answered, the worse it got.

“Yes,” answered John, finally. Fran just stared ahead.

“That’s what a husband normally does, isn’t it?” he added, not knowing what else to say. Fran’s next words shocked him utterly. “But you’re my husband! You’re John. Admit it!”

What was happening? Was there something he had missed?

“You look like John, you make love like John, and John Jr. calls you ‘John.’”

Before he could process her words - and say something he’d regret forever - Fran delivered her next wild declaration.

“I’m going to have this baby, so you’d better damn-well figure out a way to give it legal birth papers. That’s what John would have done for you, under similar circumstances.”

***

Back at the White House after his emotional rollercoaster ride with his wife, John immediately checked e-mail and found what he needed. The subject line from hk@gmail.com, “My Plan/let’s talk,” made him waste no time in replying. Less than eight hours later he found himself sitting again with Henry Kissinger, side by side on a park bench at Camp David, Secret Service agents spread throughout the nearby forest and pathways. John tried to contain his excitement, as he waited for the confidant of five Presidents to speak.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” began Kissinger. “And the helicopter ride was delightful too. Of course everything looks so much better organized from the air.”

Generating a gracious persona, Kissinger was skilled enough at his snake-charming routine to make sure no audience could break the spell. And he had dealt with the most lethal of serpentine clients through a good part of a century. Once again, he was sitting at the seat of power, however illegitimate. When he was satisfied that the stage was properly set, he launched into a truncated history lesson for the benefit of his current Presidential buddy.

“Divide and conquer. Have you heard this expression, Mr. President?”

“Yes, of course,” answered John, “though I don’t remember the exact context. Maybe it was from some ancient history class I took. Greek wars? ‘Carpe diem?’ No, not quite the right Latin -seize the day? Anyway, the word Peloponnesian comes to mind, but I don’t know why. Peloponnesian War?”

“Very good, Jackson! The history lesson of the Peloponnesian War, I’m afraid, is that large wars affect everyone negatively. Athens, at the time of 430 BC, or so, was a superpower. But Sparta, another city-state, was hungry, and provoked the big beast. Two cities brought the entire region to a poverty-level existence within 30 years. The lesson for us, now, is that we don’t want to instigate anything that can do such widespread damage.”

“Of course not, Henry,” agreed John.

“What we do want, is for the over-funded military to devour itself from the inside, while we keep the damage contained within its own parameters. As I’ve said, you’ve already sprung the bait. They will be increasingly perturbed as we conduct the free food give-away in the Middle East. They are annoyed because they consider all the tax revenues flooding into the U.S. treasury every April 15th should be their revenue. Their money. Every penny of it. And they’ve have been spending it freely for decades, are too used to the extreme power they have corralled, and will take huge offense at any variation.

“So, in essence, you have already attacked them. You are Sparta.”

“OK. I see. It’s follow the money, like in Watergate.”

“It’s always about the money, dear Sir. And I’ll admit that you are talking to the biggest whore of all. I allowed myself to get on the wrong side of history because of the people who owned me. I’m not a Rockefeller – nowhere close. Yes, I live comfortably in New York, but unlike Jack Nicholson I have no Van Gogh paintings on my walls.”

John didn’t instantly respond.

“The fields of Verdun,” continued Kissinger, “can teach us something too. Nineteen Sixteen. December. Germans and French each sustained almost one third of a million casualties. Imagine over 700,000 dead bodies lying around. We don’t want to ever see something like that on U.S. soil.”

“Didn’t that already occur – our Civil War?”

“Well, yes. But I was thinking in terms of a single battlefield, not such a wide spread of casualties. Actually, it is interesting that you bring that up because recently the number of total dead from the U.S. Civil War has been reevaluated. Now with raised numbers up by 20% it is basically the same as Verdun – 750,000. Horrible in both cases.”

Both men said nothing for a half-minute. Then Kissinger spoke.

“You, Mr. President, could personally cause such slaughter to occur again, by simply wielding your pen. That’s what we are discussing. That’s what we must avoid, while defeating the military and their endless coffers.”

Finally John had absorbed enough to speak up. “Let me ask you a question, Henry. Is Lockheed Martin part of MIC?” John Little believed he knew what Kissinger would say, but felt the need to test his theory.

“Lockheed Martin is, of course, one of the largest suppliers of U.S. missiles and defense systems,” began Kissinger, brimming with confidence in the topic. “They produce the latest airplanes, all-terrain vehicles, armaments for ever occasion. And pardon me if I get a little misty eyed in describing the U-2 plane they built. You may have read about it in grammar school. It could reach altitudes of over 70,000 feet.” He winked at John.

“Pilot Francis Gary Powers had to bail out over Russia when his U-2 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. Cold War stuff, but it doesn’t diminish the achievement of Lockheed inventing that plane. It went mach-3, and crossed the U.S. coast-to-coast in just over one hour, undetected by radar.

“You see, we Americans take pride in our inventions, even if a lot of them could be labeled weapons of destruction. So that’s another element of our MIC master plan that we must take into consideration. We need to be sensitive to the men and women who have their pride tied up in these deadly systems. Because it is these people – workers and engineers inside heavily restricted areas - top- secret facilities – who must pull the plug on their own creations, take down these weapon systems, nuclear and otherwise.

“So what we’re talking about is a wide-ranging operation against one of the greatest foes ever encountered, with millions of tentacles. MIC has its own nukes, its own armies – secret ones I might add, though most people have heard of Blackwater. If these soldiers for hire don’t do what they’re told they will lose their paychecks, and also be letting down their ex-military buddies. What we need to wage is a war of ideas, fought on social media computer links – Facebook for instance – not something that will turn into bloodbaths.

“We need people to change their minds, so they’ll walk away from such immoral activities. And your free food giveaway is a perfect first step. We just need to apply it now to America as well. If it sounds like I’ve totally reversed my stance on this issue, gotten soft, it’s because I have.”

Kissinger turned to his yellow, legal-sized pages for a second, jotting down a few quick notes. Fortunately the weather at Camp David held to overcast and not rain, as John waited for his companion to continue.

“Guns, bombs, planes are funded and traded. All the separate contributions leading up to the overall yearly revenue. The price tag is virtually half of all tax dollars collected from unsuspecting citizens. Think about the waitress in the diner, the cooks back in the kitchen, the cabdriver who shuttles corporate executives to meetings. Tax dollars are the key. Stop the funding and you stop wars.

“Of course, if citizens stop paying taxes,” added Kissinger, “you stop payment on everything else. No more Federal Reserve either. Then the engraved plates used for printing dollars, five-spots, twenties, fifties and hundreds must all be scrapped, smashed, so billions in paper money can’t suddenly reappear willy-nilly, to rebuild arsenals. All systems of payment must be halted.”

Kissinger turned another yellow page, and wrote the word “TAXES,” all caps, before drawing a big X over it.

“The monetary systems in other countries must also be halted, all at the same time, the same moment. IF NO ONE PAYS TAXES, ANYWHERE, WORLDWIDE, we will save this planet from nuclear destruction.”

John sat back. He had heard Kissinger’s gravelly voice start out fast and then slow to a crawl – more what people expected of the old man’s voice patterns when they saw him hemming and hawing on TV. Few knew that Kissinger could speak quite rapidly. He had finished his spiel with a flourish and now, it seemed, he was drained.

“My friend,” began Kissinger, at his normal pace of a centurion, “there is a flip side as well, to this bold approach. Can you guess what it is?”

John was on the spot, but didn’t feel panicky. Kissinger had been building castles in the sky and verging on the conspiracy crap John read online. So instead of challenged, he felt playful. “Maybe bring back the gold standard? It would be fun to feel my pockets weighted down by precious metal.”

“OK–” Kissinger knew his young friend was toying with the information. The break in logic had served him well, for presenting his next bombshell.

“What if, on the other hand, instead of trying to lower income taxes you enact much higher rates, back to the old days of Cassius Clay – before Mohammed Ali’s name change. Remember his heavily-taxed boxing purses? Could even go higher. More like 90% for the top earners. So, instead of American citizens working to mid-April for the privilege of giving almost a third of a year’s wages up to the government, they’d be working half-a-year or longer for taxes. I can guarantee you they’d be screaming for some changes in military spending after that!

———