Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (91 page)

 
          
“But
where could they go?”

           
“Anywhere. They could be in
Colombia
—that’s only six hundred miles away—or they
could have gone a few miles further inland. Some of the cargo-class aircraft
you saw could reach
Mexico
, or
Venezuela
, or even as far as
Brazil
.” He slapped a hand on an armrest. “I
never
should have gone in without an
intelligence update. My best bet was to keep them under constant surveillance
when we figured out who they were. Instead I let them sneak away. Now they’ve
mounted a successful attack on CARABAL, KEYSTONE, and HIGHBAL,
and
they got clean away. We mount a big
deal counteroffensive, and come up empty.”

 
          
Elliott
was quiet for several moments, then, angry at himself, straightened up in his
seat. “All right, Patrick, we've still got work to do, and, I guess, be
thankful that we’re alive to fight another day . . . I need an update on the
situation at Hammerhead One, KEYSTONE and CARABAL, plus a status report on our
available units and mission capability. When you get a report from headquarters
we’ll give the Secretary of Defense’s office a call. That’ll be no later than
six a.m.
—he should be awake but not yet at the
Pentagon—and we should reach him before any reporters do in case this raid was
somehow leaked to the press. I’ll report what happened here tonight and ask to
see the President in the morning. Our number-one priority has got to be
reactivating the border security units in the affected areas. I’ll suggest
stationing sea-borne aerostat units in the Bimini Straits, the
Straits of Florida
off
Key West
and in Bahamian waters, and we’ll get the
carrier stationed near Hammerhead so we can reestablish airspace control.

 
          
“Once
we’ve done that—we’ll coordinate a search for this magician Salazar and his
outfit. We can check radar records for flights out of
Haiti
and try to follow up any suspicious flights
from
Haiti
to isolated parts of countries in the region. We should also get
together with CIA and our DEA guys to figure out a way to draw Salazar out into
the open—he’ll go deep underground for a while.”

 
          
“There’s
one way to dig these guys out of hiding,” McLanahan said. “Money. It can
outweigh the fear of discovery ...”

 
          
But
when? How long? Elliott thought. He couldn’t just sit and wait. He needed to
smoke them out. Somehow . . .

 
          
The
White House Oval Office

 
          
Two Hours Later

 
          
“Say
that again, Tom,” the President said, staring at Secretary of Defense Preston.
“Elliott flew a mission to
Haiti
—an
attack
mission?”

           
“So he reported this to me a few
minutes ago. His mission was—”
“His
mission? I didn’t order any mission to
Haiti
, especially not a damned attack mission.
What did he do? What did he use? Another B-52?”

 
          
“Two
Sea Lion tilt-rotor aircraft from his headquarters in Florida, one E-2 radar
plane belonging to the Border Security Force, twenty armed Seagull drones and
two F-117 Stealth fighters from the tactical fighter unit in Nevada.”

 
          
“Stealth
fighters ... he used
Stealth fighters
on this mission without my authorization? How can he do that? How can he even
get his hands on those things without my permission?”

 
          
“Sir,
General Elliott was in charge of the test unit at Tonopah for many years before
it became a tactical fighter wing. He’s still in virtual command of his unit at
the weapons test center in
Nevada
even though he’s not active there—”

 
          
“I
should have that sonofabitch shot. What’s he going to do next? Bomb
Cuba
? Bomb
China
? Bomb
Washington
if he doesn’t get what he wants when he
wants?”

 
          
“Sir,
if I could offer an explanation ... He was fully empowered to conduct this
operation.” The President only stared at
Preston
. “As a member of the
U.S.
military, as a de facto military commander
and general officer, he has authority to conduct security, defensive,
counter-insurgency, search-and-destroy and reconnaissance operations in defense
of his installations and in defense of the
United States
. General Elliott followed the rules, sir.
He conducted an authorized reconnaissance mission. He briefed you yesterday on
his findings, on the threat posed to his command, his installations, to the
security of the country and on appropriate responses. Four of his installations
came under attack last night and he had every reason to believe that the attack
came from that base in
Haiti
. He had no other option—he had to respond
with force. There’s no question—" “Can the lecture, Tom. He acted without
notifying anyone—not even you . . .”

 
          
“Commanders
aren’t required to immediately notify us when their bases or commands come
under attack—”

 
          
“That’s
bull,
Preston
—”

 
          
“It’s
also the truth. If Russia had a change of heart and Soviet tanks started
rolling across into West Germany, we’d expect our commanders there to execute
their wartime responses, defend their installations and fight back—without
notifying us immediately. If they saw a weakness that they felt they had to
exploit, we would expect them to do it if it served to protect American lives
and property. We expect our commanders to act, Mr. President. General Elliott
did just that.” The President seemed'to calm down as he turned to his Chief of Staff,
Jack Pledgeman: “I want Martindale, Chapman. Curtis and Mitchell in here.
Quietly. Jack." Pledgeman left to use the phone in the outer office.

 
          
“All
right. Let’s table whether he had authority to do what he did. What did he find
over there? What happened?”

 
          
"The
base had been evacuated.”
Preston
told him, and added the details.

 
          
“What
about these drones, these Seagull things?”

 
          
"They
weren’t used in the attack. 1 think General Elliott had planned on using them
if he couldn’t obtain the Stealth fighters.”

 
          
"Everyone
got out? No casualties?”

 
          
"General
Elliott reported the loss of two drones enroute,”
Preston
said, “apparently due to maintenance
problems. They were parachuted to the ocean and will be recovered by a Border
Security Force crew. Under the circumstances, I am impressed with the
operation. General Elliott organized quite a mission in little time, in utter
secrecy and with considerable firepower given his limited resources and the
need for fast execution. If he had encountered resistance in
Haiti
he still would have had a very good chance
for success with few
⁷
or no casualties. He struck with speed,
precision and restraint—”

 
          
“Yeah,
I know. You love the guy, everybody goddamn loves the guy. But I don’t want him
running all over the
Caribbean
slinging bombs at every strip of land that
looks like a smuggler’s hideout. I don’t want my commanders planning their own
strikes against foreign nations without my explicit approval. I don't care what
the book says his responsibility is. Defending American airspace is one thing—
bombing another country is another, for God’s sake!”

 
          
“I’ll
be sure to give that message to General Elliott,”
Preston
dead- panned. “He's due here in about three
hours. Would you like to see him?”

 
          
"Yes,
I'd like to see him. I’d also like to strangle that four-star sonofabitch. Xo,
maybe I’ll demote him to lieutenant colonel and
then
strangle the sonofabitch.”

 
          
“I
believe the people will be expecting an appropriate response to the attack,
sir,”
Preston
pointed out. "General Elliott’s
strike, as much as you disapprove of it, may fill the bill very well.” He
paused, reading the smoldering doubt in the President’s face. “We may consider
leaking it to the press tonight, or perhaps tomorrow
⁷
. No details, of
course—but it will be that much more believable because we will neither confirm
nor deny it. If the press investigates and finds a bombed-out base in
Haiti
—well, we still deny it but the public will
have what it w
^T
ants. People love secrets—especially when they
discover them.”

 
          
“There’s
nothing I hate more than playing games like that. I don’t want to be forced to
accept Elliott’s gunslinger act as part of my foreign policy and
then
have to play the
informed-White-House- sources-leak game.”

 
          
“Are
you certain, Mr. President, that what General Elliott did was not what you
really wanted?”

 
          
“What
are you talking about . . .?”

 
          
“I’m
just suggesting that perhaps all you wanted was to be in control of the
situation. You’re not necessarily objecting to the mission per se, you object
to not being informed and not directing the effort—”

 
          
“I
don’t need your two-bit psychoanalysis,
Preston
.” But the truth was, he silently admitted,
Preston
probably was right... “I want you to brief
the rest of the staff for me when they arrive—delay my scheduled news
conference if you need to.” Pledgeman arrived back in the Oval Office, but
before he could say anything the President snapped, “They should be here by
now, Jack.”

 
          
“Waiting
on Director Mitchell, sir. He’s down in the communications center.”

 
          
“We’ll
start without him. Send ’em in, Jack. I hope the hell they brought briefing
notes for me.”

 
          
“Got
them right here, sir,” Pledgeman said, holding up a stack of briefing sheets—he
would condense and revise these so that the President could refer to them if he
needed to during the press conference.

 
          
“I
need them in five minutes.” The President got to his feet and moved away from
the tall window to his right—the one that looked out over the White House lawn,
the one through which reporters with long lenses could get pictures of the
chief executive. He had always wanted to move his desk away from that window,
but it had always been there and probably always would. It was a symbol of the
presidency, an image of the man in charge, hard at work . . .

 
          
The
man in charge . . . Sometimes it was nothing but a damn joke.

 
          
The
White House Situation Room

 
          
Three Hours Later

 
          
The
Vice President, two military aides and Brad Elliott were the only ones left in
the Situation Room. The last hourly meeting with the President and his Cabinet
had just broken up, and developments in the
Caribbean
were now being handled directly from the
White House. Everyone was required to stay in touch, which meant stay in the
White House. From the Situation Room most calls and messages did not have to go
through the switchboard or the Chief of Staff
⁵
s office, which
allowed greater speed and responsiveness.