Armageddon Mode

CHAPTER 6

An Army lieutenant colonel stood in the doorway, resplendent in his Class-A dress uniform, complete with gold aiguillettes. “Admiral Magruder?”

Rear Admiral Thomas J. Magruder looked up from his desk, wary. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Colonel Haworth, sir,” the man said. He advanced three steps and handed Magruder an envelope.

Magruder’s eyebrows raised when he saw the seal on the envelope. His eyebrows crept even higher when he saw the letterhead on which the note was written.

“This says I’m to accompany you right now.”

“Yes, sir. I have a car and driver downstairs.”

Magruder wasn’t entirely sure that this was not some kind of elaborate joke, but he stood and retrieved his uniform jacket and hat from the coat rack by the door. “Very well, Colonel. I’m at your disposal.”

Magruder was glad for the chance to escape. He hated the Pentagon. Men and women who had worked there for years had a variety of names for the place. “Puzzle Palace,” “Fudge Factory,” and “Fort Fumble” were a few common ones. His favorite, though, was “the five-sided squirrel cage.”

He’d been stationed in Washington before during his career, and always he had detested the politics, the back-stabbing scramble for larger cuts of the appropriations, the humbling inefficiency.

He was ushered into a typically black Cadillac limousine waiting in a staff parking area underneath the Pentagon. It came fully equipped: car phone, TV, stereo, CD, air-conditioning, an Army staff sergeant as chauffeur, and an anonymous-looking man in a conservative dark suit and sunglasses riding shotgun in the front seat. Magruder got into the back with Haworth. The driver guided the vehicle out into blazing sunshine, then neatly threaded the cloverleafs that led to the Shirley Memorial Parkway, heading toward the 14th Street Bridge.

“How do you like your new assignment, Admiral?” Haworth asked as they accelerated smoothly into the traffic flow. Perhaps he was simply trying to make conversation, but the question galled Magruder. “it sucks, Colonel. It goddamn sucks. I’d rather be conning a carrier than a desk any day.”

That effectively ended the conversation. Magruder gazed out the window at the ultra-modern glass towers of Pentagon City flashing by to the right. It was late enough in the morning that traffic was mercifully light. In moments, the Potomac River opened beneath them as they sped across the Rochambeau Bridge. The dome of the Jefferson Memorial rose above trees to the left that were not yet showing any green.

His new assignment was a particular and special purgatory for the fifty-seven-year-old admiral. Assigned to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he’d quickly found himself caught between the lines of the war currently raging in Washington over cuts in the U.S. military.

Within the walls of the Pentagon, the OSD was considered to be the enemy by the Joint Staff and other departments that were primarily military in orientation and personnel; the majority of managers and directors within the OSD were political appointees, civilian bureaucrats who tended to look down on, ignore, or simply mistrust the military members of the department.

To make matters worse, Magruder had come to Fort Fumble straight from the command of a carrier battle group. Before that, he’d been captain of a supercarrier. Battle groups and supercarriers together were coming under especially heavy fire as Congress and budget-management people at the White House looked for big and expensive military programs to cut.

With the Soviets no longer an immediate menace, procurement programs were being slashed right and left, bases were being closed everywhere, and men were actually being paid bonuses to leave the service early. The B-2 Stealth Bomber, Star Wars, new supercarriers already under construction, the Sea Wolf attack sub program, all had come under savage attack during the past five years.

What made the whole situation seem like an exercise in complete futility was the fact that every program or base or weapon system also had its defenders. There were congressmen determined to kill the V-22 Osprey, which was already in production after millions had been spent on its development … yet who were fighting tooth and nail to keep an Army post open that served no tactical or strategic point whatsoever, simply because that post was in their district.

It was frustrating, and frightening. No one in the entire city seemed to understand that political realities could change overnight, while weapons programs took years to implement. A coup in Moscow, and America could be back in a shoving match with the Russians who were still gun-for-gun, tank-for-tank, and plane-for-plane the most powerful military force in the world.

A nuclear carrier could not be turned on or off so quickly. The budget for the U.S.S. Nimitz, for instance, had been approved in fiscal year ‘67. Construction had begun in June of ‘68, she was launched in May of ‘72, and she was commissioned on 3 May, 1975. Eight years from start to finish. And there were loud cries in Congress now to retire Nimitz and the other Nimitz-class carriers, Jefferson among them, because they were big, expensive to operate, and no longer had a part to play in the world political arena.

Magruder snorted at the thought, as the limousine exited the freeway and headed north on 14th Street. The green openness of the Mall caught him, as always, by surprise. To his left, the white concrete spike of the Washington Monument stabbed into the blue March sky. One mile away to his right, the Capitol Building rose in white magnificence beyond the Mall and the museums lining it.

In the years since communism had begun visibly crumbling, the world had become far more dangerous and uncertain, not less. The brief horror of the Gulf War had proven that. Now Pakistan and India were at each other’s throats again.

And the bureaucrats wanted to trash the very ships and aircraft and men that could make a difference. Magruder leaned back, fingers pressing against his eyes. It was a losing fight.

Months before, in the Sea of Japan, he had faced personal and national disaster as he replied to a North Korean challenge with a military response. But the day-in, day-out struggle for sanity in the Pentagon was infinitely harder to bear.

The limo turned left at E Street, then swung north again onto Executive Avenue. Parts of the street had been closed off to vehicular traffic, but a Marine sentry ushered the limo past a checkpoint to a stretch of road that had been turned into a parking lot. The sergeant stayed with the car, but Haworth and the civilian accompanied him. Ahead, the White House stretched across green grass between the Treasury and the Old Executive Office Building. Magruder found himself staring like a tourist and had to tear his eyes away to watch where he was going.

“Ever been in here before, Admiral?” Haworth asked.

“Never have,” Magruder replied. He gestured toward a colorful line queuing up for the daily tours. “Never could stand to wait in line that long.”

“Well, you get the special tour today.” The colonel seemed amused.

Magruder felt his stomach knot. The President of the United States had asked for him by name, had sent a driver and car to pick him up. Why?

As they showed their ID cards to Marine and Secret Service personnel and were signed in at the east door, the questions grew more urgent.

They passed several more checkpoints before a civilian dismissed Magruder’s escort. “Admiral Magruder?” the man said. “I’m George Hall, White House Chief of Staff. If you’ll come with me, sir?”

The Oval Office was much as Magruder had pictured it, though it was smaller than he expected. The windows overlooking the Rose Garden and the South Lawn were heavily tinted and so thick he could barely see through them. He remembered reading that they were designed to stop heavy-caliber rifle fire. A TV monitor set into a wall cabinet was tuned to a cable news channel. The President rose behind his desk.

“Admiral Magruder,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. He was considerably shorter than Magruder had imagined. He had the warm smile of the practiced politician. “We meet at last. Welcome.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

Hall showed him to a chair and he sat down. He’d not felt this out of place since the first time he’d attended a formal military ball. He was an ensign at the time.

“Well, Admiral,” the President said, seating himself behind the desk.

“How do you like your new assignment?”

That was the second time in the last thirty minutes someone had asked him that question. His eyes shifted to George Hall, then back to the President. “It’s not quite what I expected, sir.”

The President chuckled. “I daresay it’s not.” The politician’s smile faded. “Listen, Tom. I know what you must be going through over there, across the river. And I’m sorry things worked out this way for you. But something has come up … something new, and right now I’m damned glad you’re here in Washington. I need you.”

Magruder waited. He could hear the undertone of worry in the President’s words.

The President nodded toward the TV screen. “I’m sure you’ve been following the news. You know where your battle group is right now.”

“Last I heard, they were in the Indian Ocean. Gonzo Station, I imagine.”

“Actually, it’s east of Gonzo Station, a couple of hundred miles south of Karachi. We call it Turban Station.

“CBG-14 was ordered there a week ago. Purely routine, in light of the events over there lately. We wanted to send New Delhi and Islamabad both a strong message, that we would not tolerate any threat to American lives or interests in the region.

“Twenty-seven hours ago, the U.S.S. Biddle sank an Indian submarine.”

“My God-“

“What’s worse is, even though the Indians fired first, they seem to think we provoked the action. Their ambassador was here in my office not two hours ago. He point-blank accused me of taking Pakistan’s side and said that India would tolerate no interference in her … ah ‘military exercises along the Pakistan border.’”

“Then there’s a possibility that CBG-14 could come under attack. Is that what you’re saying, Mr. President?”

“Partly. There’s more bad news.” He glanced at George Hall. “What I’m about to tell you is classified. We’re keeping a lid on this one, for rather obvious reasons.”

“Well, Mr. President, I’m cleared for-“

“I know your classification, Tom. I’m just reminding you that this is hot. Very hot. Yesterday evening, Pakistan exploded a nuclear device.”

“What?”

“It appears to have been a test … and a warning.”

“And India already is a nuclear power.”

“Exactly.” The President leaned back in his leather chair and sighed.

“My predecessors in this office have all wrestled with nuclear proliferation. I guess we all knew that things would get out of hand sooner or later. Now they have, big time. We could be looking at a nuclear war over there if we can’t work something out between these two countries, and damned fast!”

“What’s being done about it?”

“The matter went to the United Nations yesterday afternoon. The UN Security Council voted fifteen to nothing to censure India as an aggressor and called for her immediate withdrawal from Pakistani territory.”

“I imagine India’s feeling rather isolated right now.”

The President’s mouth quirked. “Try surrounded. Anyway, the wrangling on the East River is going to go on for a while. In the meantime, Indian troops are still advancing into Pakistan, Indian planes are still hitting targets from Karachi to Islamabad. The Indians know they’re going to be branded the villains in this, but they’re determined to end the Pakistani threat to their internal stability. CIA believes they intend to install their own government in Islamabad.”

“Pretty drastic.”

“Yes. But from India’s point of view, this is just an extension of what they call the Indira Doctrine. They want a Pakistan that is strong enough to serve as a buffer between them and the Soviets … but that is too weak to challenge them directly. Maybe they think the only solution is to put their own people into power in Pakistan.”

Magruder nodded. India had long presented the Indira Doctrine as an expression of national policy. New Delhi maintained the right to intervene in the internal affairs of any neighboring country if disorder threatened to cross India’s national boundaries. With that sort of thinking, their invasion might seem justified. Both countries had been engaged in a sharp buildup of arms lately.

“But the Pakistanis have the bomb. What does that mean … that India presses too hard, Pakistan incinerates New Delhi?”

“It’s a possibility. If the Pakistanis get pushed hard enough, well, the CIA tells me they’ll use it. Desperate people do desperate things.

As soon as the Pakistanis start nuking Indian troops, of course, we can expect the Indians to retaliate. There’s a very real danger that the Indians might even welcome a nuclear exchange-“

“Good God, Mr. President,” Hall interrupted. “No one wants a nuclear war.”

“Okay. Maybe ‘welcome’ is too strong a word,” the President agreed.

“But look at it this way. If Pakistan launches a nuclear first strike, the world is likely to forget that India was the aggressor, the one who started this war. Pakistan becomes the guy who nuked some Indian city.

If it comes to an arms race, well, India can produce more warheads than the Pakistanis, and they can strike anything in the entire country, while Pakistan’s reach is limited to the range of their F-16s, a few hundred miles or so.”

“Three hundred forty miles,” Magruder said, quoting automatically from memory. “Assuming round-trip, three-thousand-pound ordnance load, and no drop tanks.” He hesitated. He still wasn’t sure why the President had brought him here from the Pentagon to hear all of this … and the President’s earlier words, about needing him, were still tugging at his curiosity. “So where does all of this leave us, Mr. President?”

“We’re beefing up our military presence in the area, of course, for starters. I’m putting the 82nd Airborne and other rapid-deployment forces on immediate alert. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot that ground-based forces can do in a situation like this, not until the UN can set up a multinational peacekeeping force. We’re going to push for a UN resolution to force the two sides to back away. Disarm them if we have to.”

“That could take time, Mr. President.”

“Yes. And that’s time we don’t have. If things go nuclear over there …” The President shook his head. “It’s going to be up to the Navy, at least at first. I’m redeploying fleet elements to the region, effective immediately. Eisenhower is in the Med and has just received orders to join them. So has Nimitz, off the coast of Spain.”

“Too far, sir. They can’t get there in two days.”

The President closed his eyes. “Don’t I know it. A week for the Ike.

Maybe ten days for the Nimitz. In the meantime, well, Jefferson is the only one on the spot.”

Magruder frowned. “Are you asking my advice, Mr. President? One carrier battle group … compared to what India has, that’s not a very large force.”

“It’s damned thin, Tom,” the President said. “But it’s all I have right now.”

“Where do I come into this, sir? I mean, I’m flattered that you called me, but-“

“Flattered, hell, Tom. That’s not my style and you know it! For the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, your old command is going to be the only goddamned thing I’ve got over there that might make the Indians and the Pakistanis back down or at least lose interest in each other!

And you know the people in the CBG, know how they’ll react, know how far I can push them.” He looked at Magruder hard. “Tom, I need to ask something of you. It’s the real reason I called you here today.”

Magruder felt a surge of sudden excitement. He was getting his command back!

The President seemed to sense the question in Magruder’s face and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Admiral,” he said gently. “No. I can’t put you back out there. If I start swapping my admirals around like chess pieces, it’ll make a shambles out of our defense establishment.”

“Bad for morale too,” Magruder said, nodding. He understood, but … “Exactly. No, what I need from you is your help. I’d like to appoint you as a special military advisor over here at the White House. You’ve commanded CBG-14’s ships, their men. You know them. Know how they’ll take the heat. I’ll be dropping a lot of shit on them in the next couple of days, and I’d like your advice when I do it.”

Magruder opened his mouth, but the words refused to come. How could he refuse such a request?

The President didn’t seem to be phrasing it as a request in any case. He was already reaching for a phone. “I’ll give the word to have your things transferred over from the Fudge Factory,” he said. “We’re going to set you up with an office in the White House basement.”

Magruder gave a slow, inward sigh. At least he was getting out of the Pentagon!

But he felt little in the way of joy or relief. His thoughts were already focused on ships and men ten thousand miles from the Oval Office. They’d be facing long, long odds, and they’d be facing them alone.