Balance of Power: A Novel (8 page)

“Everybody listen up,” he said and paused until all
eyes were on him. “We don’t know if we’ll be going after them in an hour or three days. We have to be ready for anything. Get the ordnance ready. I want everything available, from Tomahawks to cluster bombs. Keep the laser-guided bombs ready—we may have to drop them into a cave. Alert the SEALs too—it may be their show.”

“Yes, sir,” the operations officer said, as he wrote furiously in a small green notebook.

“Anything else?” The Admiral looked around the table. “Okay. Let’s go. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. Dismissed.” The officers hurried out of the cabin.

The
Constitution
forced its way through the ocean, pushing mountains of water aside as it dashed westward toward the point on the surface of the ocean above the mangled hulk of the
Pacific Flyer
and the bodies of twenty-six Americans and two Indonesians. Billings was acutely aware of each one of lives that had been lost. He could picture their families, their houses or apartments, their normal lives.

He looked at his watch and called for his communications officer to draft the message he had been dreading, the message to Washington telling them he had failed to find the men who murdered the American merchant sailors and a SEAL.

T
HE
P
RESIDENT STEPPED ONTO THE PLATFORM WITH
Secretary of Defense Dick Roland and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs at his side. Just like the night before. He looked at the same tired faces of reporters who were constantly eager to undo him and make him look foolish. He sighed deeply.

Roland, who had been chosen to run this particular press conference, took a paper out of his coat pocket and began. Unconsciously, he stood on his toes to look taller and more imposing. “We have received word from the U.S. task force on the scene that the
Pacific Flyer,
which was hijacked yesterday, was taken out to sea. Once in open ocean, the terrorists who had taken the ship murdered the crew and set explosives in the ship.”

The President looked up when the press corps let out their audible gasps.

Roland continued, “By the time Navy personnel located and boarded the ship all the crew had been killed, except the captain, and the terrorists had escaped. The captain has been taken hostage. The explosives found aboard were evaluated and it was determined that it would be too dangerous to try to disarm them. Our men abandoned the ship, but the explosives went off as they were evacuating. One Navy sailor was killed. Shortly after the rescue team was safely evacuated the ship exploded again and sank. Twenty-five members of the crew were murdered,
all Americans, as well as two Indonesian port inspectors, and the ship and all its cargo were lost.” He looked up at the press. “That’s all I have. Are there any questions?”

“Mr. Secretary,” a woman from
The Washington Post
asked quickly, “did they get the bodies of the Americans off the ship?”

“No,” Roland replied. “They were chained to hard points on the ship. They couldn’t cut them loose.”

“They went to the bottom with the ship?” The press corps was astonished and energized. This was turning into a huge story, if a horrible one. They shifted in their seats and sat up straight.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Secretary,” yelled a popular New York columnist. “You said the captain was taken. Where is he now, and has he been harmed?”

“We have no idea, other than he wasn’t on the ship.”

“How do you know that the Navy personnel didn’t just miss him, not find him on the ship?”

Roland hesitated. “Because the terrorists left behind a photograph of the captain with a gun to his head. We’ve identified him from the picture. You’ll each get a news summary at the end of this conference. It contains the names and backgrounds of the captain and all the deceased.”

“Did the terrorists leave anything else to indicate who they were or what they wanted?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Have they made demands of any kind? Do we know who did this?”

“As you were told last night, there were twenty to thirty men dressed in Ford coveralls who walked aboard the ship when it docked. That’s all we know about them.”

“Mr. Secretary,” said a woman in the back.

“Yes?”

“What are you planning on doing about this?”

“Very simply, we’re trying to find out who did this
and why. We’re using every resource available to find whoever is responsible. When we do, we will respond appropriately. We aren’t ruling out anything.”

“Will you take military action?”

“I said we aren’t ruling out anything. That’s all for now. I will give you more information when we have it.” Roland stepped back. He, President Manchester, and Admiral Hart headed down the hall to the Oval Office, leaving the hubbub of unanswered questions behind them.

President Manchester sat down heavily in his chair. Molly was there with the other advisers and Cabinet members sitting on the couch or standing around the desk. The President rubbed his forehead and sat forward.

“The great United States can’t find three motorboats. That’s how it will play around the world.”

The Secretary of Defense shrugged his shoulders. He had never been one to care too much about world opinion. His approach was to get the job done, and world opinion be damned.

“Find them,” the President said standing up, indicating clearly that the discussion was over. The others stood to go, but thought much more needed to be said. What approach? What to do?

“If I may, sir,” offered Nathaniel Corder, the Secretary of State. “What about Admiral Billing’s request to contact Indonesia and get permission to overfly their air space?”

“Of course. Why do they even have to ask us about that? Isn’t that automatic?” His tone exposed his frustration. “Please expedite that request.” The President looked around the room. “Anything else we absolutely have to deal with? I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m tired.”

They considered several things, then remained silent.

“Fine. I’ll call you if I need you. Let me know if you hear anything or have any brilliant ideas. Oh, Ms. Vaughan,” he said as they were leaving.

“Yes, sir?” she replied, not sure whether to stay or go.

“How’s that one-page memo on the War Powers coming?”

“Fine. I should have something very soon.” She smiled hesitantly. “It’s not hard getting the information; what’s hard is reducing it to one page. Any limitations on font size?” she asked mischievously.

Manchester smiled. “Have to be able to read it with my glasses off. Fourteen point.”

Molly held the door, about to close it behind her. “I’ll try to get it to you this afternoon.”

Manchester nodded. His mind was already on something else.

“What’d you think of the press conference?” Grazio asked as he sat in Jim Dillon’s office. They were going over the agenda for the day.

Dillon noticed the playful look in his eyes. “I thought it was weak. The President should have run it himself instead of dishing it to the Secretary. Made him look like he wasn’t sure what was going on.”

“They did answer the most important questions.”

“But they didn’t say anything. ‘We haven’t ruled anything out.’ I guess there isn’t much more to say, but I’d like to hear that we will pursue these people to the
ends
of the earth. That we’ll do whatever it takes, no matter who it turns out to be. Why do we have to wait and see who it is to be able to say what we’re going to do about it?” Dillon stood up, almost involuntarily, “It’s like the police saying we know there’s been a murder, and as soon as we find out who did it we will decide whether to make an arrest. What difference does it make
who
it is? Why do you have to know about all the angles when U.S. citizens have been murdered and valuable property ruined?”

Grazio nodded and smiled. “Exactly,” he said, pointing at Dillon. “
That’s
what sets you apart as a nonpolitician. To a politician everything is relative, everything has to be examined from all possible angles before any
commitment can be given. In my opinion, a
gifted
politician also knows when not to waffle. But that instinct is found only among the truly developed political animal. I’m afraid our President, of the other party, I might add, fails on that test.”

“Oh, and
you
happen to have a perfect feel for the use of that instinctive response, instead of a careful political response.”

“I was just evaluating the President’s performance. I didn’t know we cared about mine,” he said wryly. “So what’d you find out about Indonesia?” he continued, carefully changing the subject.

“Quite a bit, actually,” Dillon said. “I admit to being basically ignorant about it before today. I knew where it was, but I sure didn’t know it was the fourth-largest country in the world—in population.”

“Seriously?” Grazio said.

“Yep. Over a hundred ninety million people. Bigger than Russia. Bigger than Japan.”

“You sure don’t hear much about it.”

“Not much anymore. During the seventies and eighties they had a lot of trouble with the Communists, the military taking over the government, Sukarno and all that. Some have said up to a million were executed in the seventies when the Communists made a big run at taking over the country.” He leaned forward and put a piece of paper in front of Grazio. “I copied a page from the atlas. I’ve circled Indonesia.”

“It’s really spread out,” Grazio said as he examined it. “How many islands?”

Dillon looked at his copy. “Hundreds. Maybe thousands if you consider five square miles an island. There are bays and coves all over the place. There are all kinds of different languages and cultures. Any group could have done this to get back at Indonesia.”

Grazio nodded, thinking. “What’s their dominant religion?”

Dillon looked at him intensely. “Guess.”

Grazio frowned, “Buddhism?”

“Nope.”

“Taoism?”

“Nope.”

Grazio was stumped. “Hindu?”

“Nope.” Dillon leaned forward. “Guess which country is the largest Muslim country in the world?”

“I don’t know. What does that have to—”

“Indonesia.”

Grazio’s face showed his puzzlement. “Are you kidding me?”

“Eighty-five percent of the country is Muslim.”

“I wonder if that has anything to do with what happened—the country being
Muslim
.”

“Beats me…. What’d you find out from your pal at the Pentagon?”

Grazio shrugged absently. “Nothing. He said he doesn’t have anything you can’t find out on CNN.”

“Sounds like we’re all up to speed. Look, I’ll call you if anything else comes up. I’ve got to do some other stuff.”

Grazio stood up. “I can take a hint,” he said as he walked out of the office and closed the door loudly behind him, as he always did.

Dillon turned toward his desk. It was stacked high with books and magazines on Indonesia. He threw open a
National Geographic
and began reading about indigenous groups and religious traditions. There were also the usual pictures of naked breasts. He turned the page and frowned at a picture. It was an exotic picture of people on Irian Jaya, a province in eastern Indonesia, one half of the island of New Guinea. He leaned down and looked more closely, his face inches from the page.

The photo showed the men of the island wearing long gourds on their penises. The gourds were held up by cord tied around their waists to look like they had a permanent erection. Dillon laughed. He shook his head as he stared at the picture, imagining the status of the guy in the tribe
with the biggest gourd. He wondered what would happen if some young buck found a gourd bigger than the head chief’s. Would he have to surrender the gourd? He looked more carefully at one man in the picture. His gourd looked different. He bent down and squinted at the photo.

“No…it can’t be,” he said. The man had a pink plastic doll leg over his penis instead of a gourd. The leg protruded from his abdomen, with a small little foot pointed up at the sky. He looked very proud.

Dillon wondered how in the hell some native got a pink plastic doll leg, and what compelled him to put it…there. He wondered if Molly would be impressed if he met her for a movie with a pink plastic doll leg protruding from his fly….

There was a knock on the door, and Grazio stepped in. “Thought I might find you here.”

“Good guess. My office and you just left,” Dillon said. “Check this out,” he said to Grazio, showing him the
National Geographic
article, and pointing to the guy with the doll leg.

“What the hell is
that
?” Grazio said, staring at the picture, his mouth open.

“Doll leg.”

“On his crank?” Grazio said, a startled laugh forcing itself from him.

“Sure,” Dillon said. “Where else would you put a doll leg?”

“That what Muslims wear under all those big robes and everything? Doll legs? Gourds?”

“You’re pathetic,” Dillon said. “I think you’d better stop thinking the only Muslims in the world are Arabs.”

Grazio ignored him. “Listen, I just got another call from my guy at the Pentagon.”

“Good,” Dillon said, turning in his chair toward Grazio. “So. What’d you find out?”

“Indonesia has more than I thought,” he said. “Did you know they have F-16s and F-5s?”

“Yeah. It was a big deal in Congress when they agreed
to sell them F-16s; then later, they bought MiG-29s.”

“They’ve also got a military of two hundred thousand men.”

Dillon whistled. “I had no idea. They any good?”

“Initially trained and supplied by the Dutch when Indonesia was the Dutch East Indies. Since independence in 1948, they’ve been on their own; they haven’t fought anybody but themselves. So it’s hard to say how good they are.”

“Anybody else in the area that could challenge them? Anybody they’re scared of?”

“Japanese. Have been since World War Two. Maybe India and Australia? China, I suppose, except the fifty-trillion-man Chinese Army can’t walk there. Indonesia is all islands, it’s basically secure unless some real heavy with a navy—like us—decides to pop ’em.”

Jim Dillon sat back and put his hands behind his head. “I just don’t get it. What does anybody gain from killing those crewmen and sinking the ship?” His chair creaked from the weight on the spring.

“Seems to me they’re trying to make some kind of statement. But to who?”