The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

in the Post. Charlie chased skirts, slacks, any garment that had a woman inside
it.
Marsha Blum . . . Jewish? Probably. The jerk was banging one of his doctoral
students. Knocked her up even. I wonder why she just didn't get an abortion and
be done with it? I bet he dumped her, and she was so mad . . .
Oh, God, he's scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia later today . . .
We can't let that happen . . .
The idiot. No warning. He didn't talk to anyone about it. He couldn't have. I
would have heard. Secrets like that last about as long as they take to repeat in
the lavatory. What if he hadn't even known himself? Could this Blum girl be that
angry with Charlie? That resulted in a smirk. Sure, she could.
Elliot lifted her phone and paused for a moment. You didn't just call the
President in his bedroom. Not for just anything. Especially not when you stood
to make a personal gain from what happened.
On the other hand . . .
What would the Vice President say? Alden was really his man. But the VP was
pretty strait-laced. Hadn't he warned Charlie to keep a lower profile on his
womanizing? Yes, three months ago. The ultimate political sin. He'd gotten
caught. Not with his hand in the cookie jar either. That brought out a short
bark of a laugh. Stumpfing one of his seminar girls! What an asshole! And this
guy was telling the President how to conduct affairs of state. That almost
unleashed a giggle.
Damage control.
The feminists would freak. They'd ignore the stupidity of the Blum girl for not
taking care of her unwanted – was it? – pregnancy in the feminist way. After
all, what was 'pro-choice' all about? She'd made her choice, period. To the
feminist community it was simply a case of a male turd who had exploited a
sister and was now employed by a supposedly pro-feminist President.
The anti-abortion crowd would also disapprove . . . even more violently. They'd
recently done something intelligent, which struck Elizabeth Elliot as nothing
short of miraculous. Two stoutly conservative senators were sponsoring
legislation to compel 'illegitimate fathers' to support their irregular
offspring. If abortion was to be outlawed, it had finally occurred to those
Neanderthals that someone had to do something about the unwanted children.
Moreover, that crowd was on another morality kick, and they were kicking the
Fowler Administration for a number of reasons already. To the right-wing nuts,
Alden would just be another irresponsible lecher, a white one – so much the
better – and one in an administration they loathed.
E.E. considered all the angles for several minutes, forcing herself to be
dispassionate, examining the options, thinking it through from Alden's angle.
What could he do? Deny it was his? Well, a genetic testing would establish that,
and that was guts-ball, something for which Alden probably didn't have the
stomach. If he admitted it . . . well, clearly he couldn't marry the girl (the
article said she was only twenty-four). Supporting the child would be an
admission of paternity, a gross violation of academic integrity. After all,
professors weren't supposed to bed their students. That it happened, as E.E.
well knew, was beside the point. As with politics, the rule in academia was to