Power Curve (26 page)

Martini was sitting at the small table with two pilots, Knives 1 and 2. The videotape from the engagement that had been recorded through Knife 1’s HUD was playing on the TV set. “Here’s where I stuffed guy five,” toe pilot said. His voice was calm and controlled with no hint of the jubilation going on in the hall. “They weren’t very good, sir. I only had to pull 4 gs to get behind him.”

Martini nodded, agreeing with him, as the video showed a Chinese J-8 barely maneuvering inside the gun pipper reticle. A captain stuck his head inside the door. “Sir!” he shouted. “It’s sixteen. We got sixteen.”

Martini smiled and stood up. “Congratulations,” he told the pilots.

“General,” Knife I said, “it was too easy—a piece of cake.” The pilot’s face was sad and drawn, reminding Ryan of a repentant basset hound. Again, Martini agreed with him. He left the briefing room with Townly and Ryan still in tow.

“Now comes the hard part,” Martini said.

What’s so hard?
Ryan asked himself.
You don’t have to live with the knowledge that you killed five men
. A voice shouted that the C-141 had landed safely at Yokota. The heavy weight that had been grinding Ryan down was gone and he was soaring. Over 200 of his people were safe.

Washington, D.C.

A worried look crossed Maura O’Keith’s face when Turner emerged from the dressing room off her bedroom. “You look tired, Maddy.” She immediately regretted say
ing toe words, but the crisis in the Far East was in its tenth day and taking a terrible toll on her daughter.

“I’m not a morning person,” Turner replied irritably. “You know that, Mother.” Maura heard the tension behind her words and said nothing. “Are they here yet?”

“They’re waiting in the dining room,” Maura replied. “I thought it would be nice to offer them breakfast as you’re meeting so early.”

“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you—or them.” Turner led the way into the corridor. As usual, Jackie Winters, her personal assistant, was waiting for her in the hall, notebook in hand.

“Mrs. President, William Knowles is retiring and today is his last day.”

“Knowles?” Turner asked, not putting a face to the name.

“William, the butler who normally serves you in the morning,” Jackie explained.

“Oh, William,” Turner said. “Ah, do whatever is normally done, and make sure I personally sign whatever—”

“Normally, it’s a personal letter and a framed certificate,” Jackie told her. They were at the door to the dining room. “And the dean of the Academy would like to speak to you about Brian.”

“Maura will take care of that,” Turner said as she entered the dining room. Jackie closed the door behind her president and waited in the hall while she met with her kitchen cabinet.

They were all clustered around one end of the table. “Lord, woman,” Noreen Coker boomed, “I never get up before seven. At my age, anything earlier and my body sags for the rest of the day. And that’s a lot of saggin’.” She smiled. “There, Mrs. President, I feel better now.” The tension momentarily broken, they sat down, and William rolled in a serving cart. For a few minutes the talk was light and witty as they ate. Turner sipped her coffee and listened, finding strength and certainty in her friends. She felt a sad reluctance to let it go when Sam Kennett turned to business and described the problems he was encountering in Congress over tax reform.

“For some reason, tax reform has touched a deep nerve
on the Hill and is stirring them up,” he told her. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They’re already organized and entrenched. Apparently, there is some big money behind them.” He went on to list the legislators who were lining up against them and ended by suggesting they might want to put tax reform “on a back burner until the Far East settles down.”

But Coker claimed it was too late. “The fat’s in the fire, honey, and we got to cook it now. We back off, and they’ll just have more time to get their ducks waddling down the street in order.” Parrish, the secretary of the treasury, disagreed with her and supported Kennett. Turner listened to them for a few more moments before turning to the Far East. On this issue, they all agreed with Maura when she said that caution was better man dead American soldiers.

Turner smiled at William when he entered the room with a fresh carafe of coffee. “Jackie tells me you’re retiring.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” he replied. The rumors flying through the White House staff were too strong for him to ignore, and he hoped she would ask him the right question. But she only wished him well and waited for him to leave before she resumed talking.
I’m so sorry, Mrs. President
, he thought as he closed the door,
them bastards are gonna destroy you and I can’t watch that
.

Shaw brushed past and did not stop to grill him about what the president had said. William considered it the best gift he could have received on his last day. Shaw knocked twice on the door and pushed through. “Mizz President,” he said, not waiting to be recognized, “there’s been fighting off Okinawa involving our aircraft,” Her face paled and she stood up. “No casualties on our side,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “General Overmeyer will be here in fifteen minutes. I told him to go directly to the Situation Room.”

“Is General Bender in his office?” she asked. Shaw nodded an answer. “Ask him to be there.” She paused. She hated the windowless Situation Room with its severe military atmosphere. It was a subterranean cave of war, and she needed a place with sunlight and windows to the
outside world. “Patrick, we’ll meet in the Oval Office.” Again, she waited until Shaw had left and the door was closed. “I’m pressing ahead with tax reform,” she told her friends. “Not China, not anyone, is going to drive my administration.”

Hazelton was with Bender in his office when Shaw’s secretary called, telling him to meet the president in the Oval Office. “This doesn’t play right,” Hazelton said. “Why did the Chinese go after the first aircraft carrying civilians?” She walked back and forth in his office. “General, I need time to check this out.”

“How long will that take?” Bender asked.

“May I use your telephone?” Hazelton asked. Rather than push the phone across the desk, he stood up and motioned to his chair. She sat down and dialed a number. “My contact in the National Security Agency,” she told him. In a few moments she was talking to the desk chief in charge of monitoring communications in the Far East. She turned the key on the side of the phone unit and activated the encryption circuits. Bender listened, not fully understanding the technical jargon. She broke the connection and stood up. “They’ve got something,” she told him. “Most of it hasn’t been translated yet so they’re going to relay the raw intercepts to me in the communications center in the basement.”

“That’s a long way from the Oval Office,” he said. Speed and security requirements during a crisis dictated the colocation of the Situation Room and the communications center.

“We’re not time critical on this one,” she told him. “Besides, I can get anything important to you in three or four minutes.” Her lips pursed as she considered her next words. “General, stall for time until I can fit all the pieces together.” She gave him a worried look and disappeared into the corridor.

Turner sat in a rocking chair at the end of the facing couches in the Oval Office as the DCI summarized events. She rolled a pen between her fingers as he finished, disturbed by the incomplete picture before her.
Is it always
like this?
she thought.
I have to react to problems that are forced on me. And I have to make a decision based on too little information in too short a time. Time is the ultimate challenge and there’s no second chance if I make a mistake. Why hasn’t Robert said anything? He just sits there calmly making notes. Did the generals force this to happen? If they did, I’ll court-martial them. But how do I do that? Patrick would know. Patrick. What do I do about him?

“We were making progress on the diplomatic front until this happened,” Secretary of State Francis said. “The United Nations Security Council is going to consider the matter Wednesday and we should have a full debate in the General Assembly next week.”

“Need I remind the secretary,” Overmeyer said, “that the Chinese initiated the attack, not us.” He leaned forward, uncomfortable on the couch, and rested his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. “Madam President, how much more is it going to take to convince you to get tough? Evacuate our dependents from Okinawa immediately before they become hostages. Then use the Navy to break the blockade.”

How many people will die if I follow that advice?
Turner asked herself. An image of an Air Force general riding a horse and wearing a pearl-handled revolver flashed in front of her. “General Overmeyer, the timing of this attack bothers me. Did Martini deliberately put civilians at risk?”

Overmeyer was slow to answer. “He was acting within his directives, Madam President. Food riots are breaking out on Okinawa and we are experiencing shortages ourselves. Because cargo flights have been moving in and out on a regular basis without incident, he asked for volunteers who wanted to leave.”

“Perhaps we should replace Martini with a more senior ranking officer,” Turner said, “one more capable of judicious action.” She stopped talking when Hazelton slipped into the room. She spoke quietly to Bender and handed him six pages of translated intercepts.
They have a good relationship
, Turner decided. She motioned to an empty chair beside Shaw. “Please join us.” Hazelton looked sur
prised and sat down. Turner felt better with another woman in the room.

“Madam President,” Bender said. “We were set up.” He read off the series of messages and phone calls the NSA had intercepted. It was obvious the Chinese had been monitoring activity at Kadena and were waiting for the first evacuation aircraft. “It was an ambush,” Bender said.

“Ridiculous,” Francis scoffed. “That would only make matters worse. They know that.”

“Do they?” Bender asked. “They launched those planes to destroy the C-141. Only the timely reaction by General Martini saved it from being shot down.”

“Why,” Turner asked, “do I get the impression that Martini is driving events?”

“He is not ‘driving events,’” Bender replied. “He’s on the front line. It’s his job to constantly assess the threat and react quickly.”

“Madam President,” Hazelton said, “this was another probe by the Chinese. They will continue until you say, ‘No more.’ But by then, they hope to have significantly altered the power structure on the western rim of the Pacific.”

“I don’t believe that,” Turner said.

Hazelton refused to give up. “Ask yourself this, Madam President: If the C-141 had been shot down and the Chinese claimed it was a terrible tragedy, would you have responded with force? Or would you have continued with negotiations?”

Madeline Turner felt her stomach churn. Every instinct told her to negotiate, but if Hazelton was correct, negotiations would only lead to more aggressive probes by the Chinese. “Perhaps,” she finally said, “it would be best if Martini was replaced with a more senior general.”

“Without increasing our forces on Okinawa,” Bender said, “that would send the Chinese the wrong message. Commanding officers are replaced when they have failed or done something wrong. General Martini is not a cowboy. The selection process weeds them out by the time they reach flag rank. By replacing Martini, you are telling the Chinese that he did the wrong thing by defending the C-141.”

“Can you be sure of that?” Turner asked.

“There is always a degree of uncertainty,” Bender replied.

Turner looked around the room. “What do you suggest I do?”

Hazelton answered. “For the next twenty-four hours, nothing. Make them respond to this incident, not us.”

Turner listened as the discussion went around the room. But the more she thought about it, the better she liked Hazelton’s advice. It gave her the one thing she wanted most of all: time. Her decision made, she said, “For now, we wait. We’ll reconvene this afternoon.” The meeting over, the Oval Office rapidly emptied.

Outside, Overmeyer stopped Hazelton. “Mrs. Hazelton, I appreciate what you did in there. We could have said the same thing and she would not have listened to us.”

“Are you suggesting,” Hazelton said, “that she listened because I’m a woman?”

“Exactly so.”

“You’re wrong, sir,” Hazelton said. “She may not have felt so isolated because another woman was in there, but if my advice proves wrong and we don’t hear from the Chinese very soon, I’ll never set foot in the White House again.”

Two hours later, Turner received a phone call from Chairman Lu Zoulin asking that Bender meet with Wang Mocun in Paris to discuss issues of mutual concern. Mazie Hazelton was off the hook.

It was a “walk and talk” shoot as Liz walked through Lafayette Park. Ben was in front of her, walking backward, careful to keep the White House in the background. “In what may be the coldest winter on record, a hearty band of demonstrators has taken up residence here.” Ben panned to the lone Native American sentinel standing with a heavy blanket wrapped around him, his drum on the ground beside him. A similarly dressed man took his place. “What you have just witnessed is the changing of the guard,” Liz said, “which takes place every one to three hours, depending on the temperature and weather.
So far, no one has learned what these men wish to accomplish.

“Other demonstrators,” Liz said, her breath misting in the cold air, “have joined them, then- cause more obvious.” Again, Ben panned the park and zoomed in on a small group of women carrying a series of signs proclaiming:

TURNCOAT TURNER
TURNOUT TURNER
MADDY, WE ARE YOUR FIRST CONSTITUENCY

The women saw Ben swing the Betacam on them and started chanting, “Maddy come home, Maddy come home.” Ben gave her the cut sign and handed her a cellular phone. The network was calling. She spoke to her editor and nodded.

“Come on,” she told Ben. He followed her to the lone drummer. When Ben was ready, she spoke into her microphone. “Excuse me, sir. Have you heard that our aircraft have engaged and shot down sixteen Chinese aircraft over the East China Sea?” She jammed the microphone into the drummer’s face.