The Warbirds (15 page)

Secretary of State Piccard leaned back in his chair. “Mr. President, I’m a believer in rolling shit downhill, if you’ll
pardon the expression, and I think I know how we can start some rolling in the Libyans’ direction. May I suggest we discuss Soviet involvement in Libya with the Russian ambassador? In the same conversation we can surface some problems we’re having with their inspectors who are here monitoring the INF treaty.”

The President nodded, getting the point Piccard was making. He suspected that the Soviets might be engaged in a test of wills to feel out his new administration. Psychological gamesmanship. Well, he was an old player in that game. “And what are the inspectors up to these days?”

“You might say they’ve found it very hard to adjust to the benefits democracy has to offer in their off-duty time,” Piccard said. “The chief inspector, it seems, has a mistress, a Mrs. Frances Crawley, and five of the team members are assembling one of the largest videotape pornography collections in the great state of Utah.”

“And how reliable is this information?”

“Mrs. Crawley works for us,” Cagliari said, deadpan.

The President tapped the ashes of his cigar into an ash tray. He was not happy with the situation or the performance of his staff. He did not like being in a reactive position. So, it was his move…“Very well, let’s send a few signals to our Soviet friends. Cy, call in the Soviet ambassador, today, to discuss the conduct of the inspectors. He’ll know from the short notice that we’re serious. Make it a friendly meeting, though—concerned administrators—that sort of approach. At the end of the meeting give him the dog tag. Ask him to be so kind as to return it to the proper individuals. I want them to get the message that we’ll link the continued observance of the INF treaty to their conduct in the Med.

“Second”—he jabbed his cigar at the Director of the CIA—“get your people looking for
hard
confirmation of the advisers. I want it to be obvious. I hope that won’t be too tasking for your people.”

The President turned to Cagliari and Piccard. “You two gents were supposed to watch for this sort of development. I don’t like surprises.
Any
surprises. And Lawrence,” looking directly at Cunningham, “your C-130 should not
have been in Libyan airspace in the first place. Keep your people out of trouble, or I’ll just have to get someone who can. Gentlemen…” The President stubbed out his cigar and left the room, trailed by his chief of staff.

27 July: 0220 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0520 hours, Moscow, USSR

The General Secretary made the short walk from his office in the Kremlin to the lavishly appointed room where the Politburo held its meetings. In spite of the early hour the army guard at the door was fully alert and clicked together the heels of his polished boots as the General Secretary approached.

There was nothing in this room the General Secretary entered that spoke of a spartan communist ethic. Indeed, a czar would have felt comfortable surrounded by the priceless paintings and furniture of Imperial Russia. Contrary to popular myth, the room was not lit by only the green-shaded desk lamps on the table in front of each Politburo member. When turned on, soft, comforting indirect lighting filled the room with warmth.

Four of the twelve chairs surrounding the table were vacant.

No doubt the Defense Council is trying to firm up its position, the General Secretary thought. Give them all the time they need. At this point it will only work to my advantage. He sat down and reread the ambassador’s message from Washington. The General Secretary had known from the first what the Defense Council was doing but had pretended ignorance or indifference…let them guess. If the gambit in Libya started to pay off, he would support the four men and direct appropriate praise toward them, implying, of course, that he had been giving his consent by silence. Then they would owe him. On the other hand, if it backfired, as it appeared to have done, then he could remove one or maybe all of them from the Politburo and replace them with his supporters. Either way, he would benefit. At the same time, the maneuvering on the shores of North Africa kept the United States and Western Europe from looking at his two most important objectives.
How near-sighted they are, he thought. Our foreign-policy goals have always been the same: break up NATO and expand into the Persian Gulf. NATO and oil were the keys to Europe. We’ll keep them looking at Libya while the situation in the Gulf develops. The plan was so wonderfully simple—always an asset.

The door swung open now, and the four missing Politburo members walked in, only nodding at the General Secretary as they sat down. It was going to be a stormy meeting, he realized.

“Comrades,” the General Secretary began, “it seems your adventure in Libya has gone a bit sour. It would have been better if we had all known the full extent of our involvement before something like this happened…”

Rafik Ulyanoff, the chairman of the Defense Council, spoke for the group. “Comrade General Secretary, there is nothing gone sour here. We were only executing our agreed-on plan. Perhaps you recall—”

“Was stupidity our agreed-on plan? We
agreed
to sell the Libyans the necessary equipment to build a defense force and to train them in its use. The
goal
was to encourage the
Libyans
to use it, create an unstable situation for the United States and Europe to content with, for the Soviet Union
not
to be directly involved. Is your memory becoming a problem?”

“A matter of interpretation,” Ulyanoff said quietly. “Surely the Defense Council has that prerogative—”

“Is it a matter of interpretation that our pilots fly with their identification plates?”

The other members of the Politburo kept silent, in the best tradition of skilled bureaucrats waiting and watching to see which way the wind blew. Now the General Secretary had to find out if they supported him. “And how do we recover from this situation? The United States is linking our presence in Libya to the INF treaty, and the conduct of our inspectors has been called into question.”

Fydor Kalin-Tegov, the party’s theoretician, the keeper of the true faith, spoke up. “It is sometimes necessary, sir, to take three steps forward and two steps back. Now is—”

“Why should we retreat at this point?” Defense Council Chairman Ulyanoff broke in.

“Because we can always return to Libya at a more opportune time. Be patient,” Kalin-Tegov told him. “You have laid the ground work for us, for the future. But now, we should withdraw most of our military advisers while expanding the staff of our embassy in Tripoli. Be proud of what you have accomplished.”

A murmur of agreement went around the table.

The General Secretary knew he had won, temporarily, but that Kalin-Tegov was still supporting Ulyanoff. “We will direct our ambassador to advise the Libyan government that we shall withdraw our advisers beginning in sixty days. If the Libyans object, we’ll tell them that we have no intention of cutting off the flow of new equipment and spare parts. They will understand. Sixty days gives them time to reestablish their position with their neighbors, and they will do it if they are as smart as I think they are, regardless of the posturing of their leader.”

The General Secretary stood and nodded his head at the group. The meeting was over. Rafik Ulyanoff had survived another round, he thought. Which was more than the commander of the inspection team in the U.S. would enjoy. After all, somebody’s head had to roll.

27 July: 1003 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1203 hours, Tripoli, Libya

The Soviet ambassador to Libya,
al-Jamahiriyah al-Arabiya al-Libya al-Shabiya al-Ishtirakiya,
to use its proper name, waited patiently in the reception room of the huge tent. He could hear the ritual chant of the
Shahada
coming through the canvas walls.

“Allah-u Akbar, Allah-u Akbar. La illah ilia Allah…”

The Libyan leader would soon be finished with the second prayer of the day. Thankfully, prayers did not take long. The veil that served as a door was pulled aside by an unseen hand and the Libyan colonel entered the room. His hands were clasped together as he gave the customary greetings the occasion required. With a sweeping gesture he then motioned outside and the ambassador followed
him onto the ramp of the airbase, where the tent was pitched. The heat was building. Twelve new MiG-23 Floggers were lined up, a guard of honor. “Your government has been most generous. For this we pledge our friendship.”

The translator relayed the words in Russian, a formality, since the ambassador spoke Arabic.

“Always in the past our visits have been the touchstone of my day,” the ambassador said in Arabic, the signal for the translator to disappear. “Today this is not a pleasant occasion for me.” He waited for the Libyan’s reaction. The man could switch from reasoned calm to apparent irrationality in seconds.

“There are many problems we can solve together,” the colonel said.

“The problem is Comrade Vitali Morgun”—both men knew Morgun was the pilot Jack Locke had shot down. “The Americans know…”

“But we have the body.”

The ambassador shook his head. “They know and are pressuring my government. It is a delicate situation for us—”

“How delicate?” An undercurrent of anger caught at the Libyan’s words. “He was flying at
your
insistence.”

The ambassador wanted to avoid that subject. He had, indeed, been directed to “persuade” the Libyans to accept a Russian pilot on every flight, the theory being that the Libyan pilots would thereby improve their shoddy flying skills. “We need to send the Americans a signal that our advisers have completed their work here. Of course…whatever we do will only be temporary.”

“I understand Russian ‘temporary,’” the colonel said.

“I assure your excellency that everything else will be the same as before between us. But for now we must start to remove our advisers in sixty days.”

The colonel said nothing for a few minutes—silence was a sign, the ambassador knew, that the colonel’s temper was building.

“Go,” he finally said. “And take your advisers with you.”

As the ambassador’s limousine drove off, the colonel
waved his hand at it, as if ridding himself of one more infidel who one day, along with the U.S., would be very sorry. For the moment he might be delayed in mounting his vengeance against the Americans for bombing his country, but he would still retaliate if they should send F-111s against him. He would use the ordnance the Russians had given him…and his own people would just have to do without the Russian “adviser…pilots. No question, time was running out for both of them. Meanwhile, he would use them in every way he could, especially the Russians, who were so anxious to control his country. He would play one giant against the other, just as he had already done, and watch them move to their well-deserved destruction. And he would wave their bloody flag to win sympathy with the Egyptians and the Arab nations.

27 July: 1425 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1025 hours, Washington, D.C.

Thirty-two hours after the Pentagon had received the message telling of the Russian pilot, Waters and Blevins were in Cunningham’s office. The general glanced at the two colonels. Waters, he noted, seemed relaxed.

“I need your help,…Cunningham began. “I’m getting signals that the political situation in North Africa is heating up thanks to Grain King and that Russian pilot. I need to reassure the Egyptians that the 45th is there for
their
benefit and do all possible to calm the situation. You were there. Ideas?…

Blevins ran through his mental organization chart of the Pentagon to locate the office that should come up with an answer for the general. He himself damn well was not going to touch the thing.

“General Cunningham,…Waters said, “I dealt with the Egyptians when we transferred the 31st’s F-4s to them in 1980. Pride is a very big thing with them. They probably believe
they
should have flown the scramble, not us. I suggest you have our air attaché approach his counterpart in Egypt with apologies and try to work out a way to integrate our alert birds into their air defense system for the western half of Egypt….

“You’re suggesting we put our birds under the operational control of a foreign command?”

“We do it for NATO now, sir. We’ll be facing the Libyans, not the Israelis. And…if the Egyptians have found out about the Russian pilot, they’ll read a Soviet presence as a Libyan reaction to our base in Alexandria South, which it probably is.”

Cunningham was impressed with Waters’ thinking. Okay, Muddy Waters, he decided, you’re on the team…“When will you be finished with the report?”

“I’ll have the RC-135 section done in three days,” Waters told him. “I need to talk to the lieutenant that did the translating and is a Middle East expert to fill in some blanks.”

The general nodded and looked to Blevins, who was seething. It was going to take him two weeks to write the part on the Watch Center and coordinate it through the staff. He didn’t like Waters’ driving his schedule. He remembered General Beller’s words: “Keep Cunningham off Intel’s back on this one…”

“Sir,” Blevins hedged, “it’ll take me longer than that. The situation in the Watch Center was more complicated than at the 45th or in the RC-135.” Cunningham was drumming on the desk with one finger. “By the end of the week, no later…”

Cunningham stopped drumming. “Just get the report to me,” he said, dismissing the colonels.

After they had gone he sat behind his desk brooding over another problem that was troubling him—shoving the Egyptians and the 45th onto a back burner for the moment. He buzzed for his aide. “Dick, I was looking at the Combat Status Reports last night. I think some of our wing commanders are inflating their combat capability. Have the Inspector General start looking for that. The first one that gets caught rating his wing a one when they’re not gets the can. All right, Dick, get it into the mill.” And he told himself, I’ve got to know the real combat capability of my wings. Goddamn, a one tells me you can go to war and take on the enemy—if you can’t do that, tell me so I can fix it.