B00DSDUWIQ EBOK (17 page)

He
thought on this large sum columned off to ‘Special Projects,’ his curiosity getting
the better of him. He’d have a word with Jameson over that the Bank and see
what they knew about it. Under the circumstances, and given the rather thin reserves
this lady seems to have in hand at the moment, the company is looking just a
tad vulnerable now, isn’t it? He sighed, realizing his old instincts for an
easy kill and quick acquisition were misplaced here. It didn’t matter any longer.
He had other ‘arrangements’ now, and if this Fairchild was a key holder then
she would have other arrangements as well, and not be bandying about in the
Black Sea worried about oil.

With
that in mind he wondered if he should consider taking a man like this Thomas fellow
along with him for the utilization of his special talents. He might prove very
useful indeed. He decided to make him an offer, and was confident all would be
well, reaching for his intercom to buzz the secretary.

“Yes
sir?”

“Calendar
clear for the day?” he asked.

“Nothing
the remainder of the afternoon, sir.”

“Good.
Ring Mister Thomas Tell them I should like to meet with him again in the morning.
Shall we say six AM?”

“Very
good, sir.”

That
should be sufficient, he thought. A man like Thomas could be much more useful than
Fairchild. She’d have to be looked after, fawned over, and might end up being a
nuisance more than anything else. He had come round to thinking of his plan as
something more like a safari than a pleasure cruise. In that circumstance,
Thomas was the much better fit.

Then
he looked at his calendar for the next week. It’s a pity he was going to have to
disappoint so many people. Some were coming to seek venture capital, others to
make business proposals, merger offers, lucrative expansion deals. He left all
the appointments in place, though if all went well he would not be here to ever
worry about them again. He would be somewhere else entirely if all went as planned.

That
thought brought all the excitement of the chase back again, the eagerness and anticipation
of the great journey—if it worked. That was the kicker. It had to work. He
decided to give this Professor Dorland another call to see about it. After all,
he bankrolled a goodly amount to indulge the man’s extravagant ideas. But if he
was on to something…if it actually possible…

Even
as he reached for intercom to have his secretary arrange a secure line the telephone
on his desk rang—Line 1. That raised an eyebrow, and a flash of concern as he
reached for the receiver.

“Yes,”
he said quietly, wondering what this was all about.

“Good
afternoon, sir. I am sorry to report we may have an anomaly.”

“I
see. You
may
have an anomaly?”

“We
believe so, sir. The variation readings are very high. Would you care to look at
the data?”

“Yes,
of course. Please have a file on my desk within the hour.”

My,
my, he thought. An anomaly! This was interesting. Was someone else planning something?
Could it be Maitland? The lady Pomroy? Whatever it was, he had to get a handle
on it at once.

Chapter 17

It
had been forty-eight hours since the disastrous
eruption of the Demon imposed its will on the seas around Hokkaido. In that
time the remnant of the Red Banner Pacific fleet had withdrawn into the Sea of
Okhotsk as the wounded CVBG
Washington
retired on Guam. Even as the
battle erupted in the Black Sea between units of Fairchild Inc. and the Russian
Black Sea Fleet, Captain Tanner’s stricken carrier had effected a loose rendezvous
with CVBG
Nimitz
in the region north of Marianas. Additional support was
close at hand with CVBG
Eisenhower
, which had moved up the coast of
Malaysia and through the Sulu Sea to head east for Guam.

The
US was now consolidating its naval power for the next phase of its planned operations.
Intelligence had been unable to ascertain the fate of the core of the Russian
fleet. Satellite photography was impossible due to the enormous and expanding
plume of ashfall from the volcano, and submarine contact was hit and miss on
sonar due to the continuing seismic turmoil caused by the eruption. Now both
sides were quietly prowling the undersea environment with subs, listening on
passive sonar as they crept through the deep murky waters. Behind it all the constant
rumble of the volcano growled from subterranean depths with an ominous undertone.

Naval
planners on the American side deemed further operations by the Russian fleet would
be impossible unless the flotilla sortied into the Sea of Japan where it would
be vulnerable to land based air power from the main island of Honshu. For this
reason they elected to withdraw south and consolidate to confront the real threat
in the ongoing operations being mounted by China against Taiwan.

Rod
Leyman, White House Chief of Staff, was meeting again with defense analyst Lt. Commander
William Reed, Air Force General Henry Lane, and the newly appointed five star
Navy Admiral William Ghortney. A tough and experienced naval professional,
Ghortney had pinned on his gold wings long ago as a naval aviator, and the
stripes on his cuff were well earned with well over 5000 error free flying hours
and 1200 safe carrier landings under his belt. He had served in executive
capacities on six fleet carriers, including both the
Nimitz
and
Eisenhower
,
both now prowling like angry sharks in the waters north of Guam. It was his
combat experience in operations against Iraq and service involving other
maritime security roles that made him the ideal man for the job now facing the
Navy. But the Admiral had some hard questions to ask that day.

“Who
the hell sent that flash traffic to Tanner? That’s what I want to know. We had
Nimitz
out there on his right flank and that order prodded him to act unsupported. Damn
sloppy in my judgment.”

 “It
didn’t come from this office,” said Leyman. “We paint the broad strokes here, but
I have no idea what flash traffic even is.”

“You’re
telling me the order did not originate from the White House Situation Room? Well
it sure as hell didn’t come from the Joint Chiefs. I was in a meeting with the
entire group not three hours ago and we heard nothing of this flash order that
sent Tanner into action.”

“If
I may, sir…” An adjutant stepped forward at the Admiral’s elbow and handed him a
file.

Ghortney
flipped the cover open and looked it over, a single raised eyebrow registering surprise
as he read. He finished and set the file on the table, covering it with his
stripe festooned jacket cuff. Then he looked Leyman square in the eye.

“I
was just handed a message trace file on that order, and it appears to be classified
above top secret. That makes it an SCI file, so I am not at liberty to discuss
it further unless everyone in this room has the necessary clearance.”

SCI
files were those reserved for Sensitive Compartmentalized Information. In the labyrinth
of security protocols it amounted to a “need to know” designation on the file,
with access strictly limited to a select group of individuals. That alone was a
surprise to Ghortney, for his designation as five star Fleet Admiral placed him
at the top of the chain of command now for all naval matters. That any message
should be sensitive enough to bypass his inbox before an order was issued made
for some very uncomfortable feelings in the gut, particularly around a table
like this, where decisions were about to be made that would affect the outcome
of this rapidly developing conflict and the world that would be left when it
was over. Ghortney wasn’t happy about the situation.

“I’m
going to be frank here and say that if I sit down to a card table for a good hand
of poker, I damn well want to see every card the dealer hands me. Now, I wasn’t
born yesterday and I know there are segments of this government that are buried
so deep you’d need an undertaker to show you the door, but this doesn’t work
for me. I don’t care if you tattoo these orders with code words from Aardvark to
UMBRA. This one here was coded Watchstander-1G, for what it’s worth. If I’m appointed
theater commander, I want all tactical orders routed to me, and I call the
shots. Clear?”

“I
wish I knew what you were talking about, Admiral.”

Reed
cleared his throat and intervened. “Excuse me, Mister Leyman. What the Admiral is
saying is that this order was not cleared through his desk because of a security
classification issue. It was most likely designated SI, that would be Special
Intelligence, and the sources and methods that developed the information are
highly classified, as well as the heads that information is disseminated
through.

“If
I’m in command then this head better be on that list,” Ghortney said pointedly.
“Anybody wants to start pushing naval carrier battlegroups around on a map, then
I want to know about it and approve—
that’s
what I’m saying.”

Leyman
seemed surprised. “You mean to say these orders were withheld? You never saw or
approved them?”

“Correct.”

Now
it was Leyman’s turn to sit with that discomfort. Yes, the US Government was a deeply
furrowed maze of convoluted byways, where information flowed through secret
plumbing from wells of power that he could not even fathom. There was NSA, CIA,
black projects originating in organizations like DARPA, and virtually every
branch of the military. Even NASA held secrets that few were privy too—things
seen in orbit, things found on the moon and Mars, things too secret to ever
contemplate open discussion. Now here was the Admiral in charge filing a
complaint in the White House Situation Room and claiming key intelligence had been
denied him and battle orders were issued without his knowledge or consent. It
was a most uncomfortable situation.

“I
understand,” Leyman began. “Well I can look into this, Admiral Ghortney, and I can
also tell you that we were as much in the dark about this as you were. What is
this classification you spoke of?”

“Watchstander-1G.
God only knows what it’s supposed to mean, but I’m issuing standing orders that
no commander under my authority is to act on any order that does not originate from
FLEETCOM-1—that’s me, gentlemen—a new designation for the command I now hold. I
don’t want to sound arrogant, or even selfish, but that’s the way I play the
game. The congress handed me this fifth star for a reason. I know the Executive
Branch is fond of reminding us that the buck stops on that desk in the Oval Office,
but unless the President wants to set up shop and start issuing fleet deployment
and combat orders, I’d prefer to do the job myself.”

“You’ve
got it,” said Leyman. “I can’t say I’ve heard anything of this Watchstander thing,
but I can find out what happened here and see that it doesn’t happen again.
General Lane, have you any light to shed on this?”

“I’m
afraid not. If that attack order was deemed to be above the Admiral’s desk then
they sure as hell wouldn’t send it to me.”

“Then
we are agreed that no one in this room knew that this message, this flash traffic
as you call it, was even sent.” Leyman scratched his head. This was the White
House Situation Room!

“That
appears to be the case,” said Ghortney. “And to put it bluntly, that stops now.”

“Your
pardon, sir,” said Reed. “That may require some rather high lever intervention.
Anything coded SI-GAMMA-UMBRA would take an Executive Order to inhibit or restrict
dissemination. In fact, and no offense here Mister Leyman, the President may
get a daily intelligence briefing, but there are lists out there that will not
even have his name on it, and that’s just the fact of the matter.”

“I
see…” Leyman looked concerned. “Well if that’s what it takes—an Executive Order—then
I’ll raise the matter with the President. In the meantime, before I take this
to the old man himself, can you paint me a picture of what we’re going to do
about this situation in the Pacific? I understand your position entirely,
Admiral Ghortney. If we stand you up in front of the tiller then the ship is
yours. I’ll tell you right now that I’ll do everything possible to see your
decisions are final.”

“Much
obliged,” said Ghortney. “As to our intentions at this point, I can brief you on
that right now. General Lane here has his assets in theater ready to go now. The
two Missiles North Korea tried to lob at Guam were successfully intercepted and
he has a number of strategic assets now in place for deep strike missions. It’s
time we begin offensive operations. General Lane?”

“Sir,
I have Bones, Bats and Buffs in theater now, and I can put missiles and heavy
metal wherever you need it.”

“Bones
and Bats?” Leyman looked at Reed.

“That
will be B-1B
Lancers
, B-2
Spirit
stealth bombers, and our older B-52s,
Mister Leyman.”

“Buffs?
Where do you guys come up with this stuff?”

“It
stands for Big Ugly Fat Fellow, sir. A term of endearment among the air corps.

“Correct,”
said Lane. “We’ve cued up that X-51C
WaveRider
strike Mission and it’s ready
to go. The first thing we have to do is take out their ability to access space
and prevent any further attempt to hit our satellites.”

“You’re
talking about hitting the Chinese?” Leyman wanted to know what he had to take to
the President.

“That’s
right, the Chinese…But the Russians are on my short list now as well. We may have
to hit their primary Cosmodromes and other key launch sites if we want to do
this right.”

“You’re
talking about a strategic attack on Russian soil?”

“With
conventional bombers and ordnance. No nukes.”

“Yes,
but will the Russians see these bombers coming? Might they interpret this as a nuclear
attack?”

“Sir,
if we wanted to launch a surprise nuclear attack we wouldn’t start with the bomber
leg of the triad. We’d lead with ICBMs and sea launched missiles. So yes, they
might be able to detect the incoming strike package, even if we use the B-2s,
but we think they would correctly interpret the attack as conventional.”

“Well
I’m glad you’re confident about that, General, because it’s making me just a little
bit nervous when we start sending strategic bombers over enemy airspace. Is
there any way we can limit our operations to the areas presently involved in the
conflict?”

“You
mean Taiwan and the North Pacific? STRATCOM is the wrong tool for that job, sir.
We’re here for deep strike missions. Admiral Ghortney?” Lane wanted support.

“I
agree with General Lane,” the Admiral put in quickly. “We have two carrier battlegroups
mustered now, and CVBG
Washington
will be able to hand off its viable
assets to either one to strengthen those groups. These are the tools, to use
the general’s word, that we’ll use to beat the Chinese over the head with a
hammer to settle this Taiwan business. The Strike Warfare Commanders and working
with the Air Tasking Orders for Taiwan now. There was no way I was going to
send the
Eisenhower
in to the South China Sea on its own after we saw
what happened to Tanner on Big George. This time we will group our naval assets
and use them in close coordination with one another. The Chinese have demonstrated
some interesting and formidable capabilities. If we’re going to settle this
matter, we’ll need everything we have in theater.”

“What
about the Russian fleet?” Leyman was looking at his latest briefing on the matter.

“We
think they’re down for the count—nothing we need concern ourselves with in the short
run, except for the boomers. Those are the SLBM subs capable of launching missiles
at the US from off shore. Thus far this business hasn’t escalated to an all out
war at sea, but that’s where it’s headed. If this thing winds up any tighter,
they’ll be after our boomers, and we’ll be after theirs, and I mean all over
the globe.”

“The
President is hoping we can limit this to the Pacific—to Taiwan and the Chinese.”

“Those
hopes have already gone up in smoke, Mister Leyman.” Ghortney was not one to mince
words. “The Russian 58th Army crossed the border into Kazakhstan this morning.
They’re already operating to seize the oil fields in that region, and with the
Persian Gulf up in arms, that matters. There’s also been an incident in the
Black Sea involving British ships, not to mention that sucker punch in the Gulf
of Mexico when they took a pot shot at that oil platform.”