October's Ghost

CHAPTER THREE SKIRMISH LINES

The West Wing of the White House was built as a much-needed addition to the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1902, forty years before the smaller East Wing was completed during the Second World War, and had developed into the second tier of power in the executive branch. The various working spaces of the President’s executive staff are there, spread over two levels, none more than a quick jaunt from the Oval Office in the southeast corner. Traditionally the ground floor housed the offices of the closest and most visible advisers, with the upper level saved for policy and council positions designated by the President. Located in the northwest corner of the roughly square wing, the office of the President’s national security adviser was farther in steps from the Oval Office than any of the close crowd on the ground floor. Only a few policy assistants one level up had to travel as far, though they were unlikely to ever have the access to the President that Bud DiContino had. That was something that transcended being simply “near” the Man. Bud had his ear, and his trust.

Sitting behind his dark wood desk in the office that he had spent more hours in than his own bed during the previous year, the NSA noted the time. The morning meeting called the night before by DCI Anthony Merriweather was not completely unexpected considering the fireworks that had erupted in Cuba within the last twelve hours. Bud’s head had barely hit the pillow in the wee hours when the call came notifying him that “something is going on in Cuba.” He was a bit surprised that the call had come not from Langley, but from the National Security Agency out at Fort Meade, the government monolith that did amazing things with communications and cryptographies. Signal intercepts of chaotic communications between Cuban military units had been the first indication of a “Significant Event,” to use intelligence parlance.

Why the word hadn’t come from the Agency, however, could be summed up in one word — Merriweather. The DCI had not taken anything close to a liking to Bud, who often found himself arguing the opposite side of positions held by the former senator from Massachusetts, who had also chaired the Joint Congressional Committee on Intelligence Oversight. That had been his path to the position he now held; that and some strategic arm-twisting by friends of the President on the Hill. Others should have been considered before Merriweather, Bud believed. Greg Drummond, for one, though his “junior” standing in the Agency had worked against such a move. The same for Pete Miner, the CIA’s number-two man. This had been a political appointment, it was clear. A return of favors not yet performed. Those would be delivered in two years— campaign time.

This was D.C., after all.

The NSA took his briefing folder and jacket and walked into his deputy’s adjoining office. “Nick, I’m heading over.”

Deputy NSA Nicholas Beney looked up from the computer. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. Don’t fry your eyes on that thing,” Bud said.

His boss was computer paranoid, which was funny considering the high-tech work he had done in the Air Force. Or maybe because of it. Beney found it quite amusing. “I can order one up for your office.”

“That’s all I need,” Bud said, turning away and beginning the same walk — right turn, left, then right again— he had made twice that morning already. One was for the President’s daily intelligence briefing — nothing much on the platter, other than the scant information on the fighting down South — and the other for a brief update on the modernization of the Russian BMEWS about to begin in earnest. He had handled both well, as usual.

Bud was last to enter the Oval Office. The President, DCI Merriweather, and DDI Greg Drummond were already there. There was a good-sized security case resting upon the single coffee table to the left of the President’s desk, its contents obvious to the NSA. Imagery. The Agency must have turned the cameras on Cuba real fast to get pictures this quickly. It wasn’t really a surprise. Ninety miles south of Florida there was, according to preliminary reports from the intelligence services and the four major networks, intense fighting. That was close, and worth keeping an eye on.

“Bud, good morning again,” the President said, standing as his NSA came in. The others stood also. “Have a seat.”

A couch was aligned along one side of the low table and two chairs along the other. The President sat at the head of the table, nearest the room’s center, in a chair the woodworking of which dated to the late 1700s. The DCI and his deputy were on the couch, leaving a simple choice for Bud, who took the chair closest to the President.

Drummond gave Bud a subtle nod and a smile. The DDI was a straight shooter and knew the NSA well. They had worked closely during the first six months of Bud’s tenure but not much since Merriweather’s arrival. The new DCI had pulled his people in, in an effort to define their roles more clearly as he saw them. In reality it was a semi smart move, as Congress was trimming the intelligence agency’s budget with a sharp, unselective budget axe. To make the Agency lean and productive was essential, as some on the Hill were trumpeting for the dissolution of the Agency, arguing that it should be consolidated into some pseudo-diplomatic/information-gathering arm of the State Department. The idea was a crock, but at least Merriweather was playing smart to stave off any serious effort to do away with the CIA. Despite the director’s aloof manner with him, Bud had to credit the man with having some foresight.

“James, you’re looking good,” Merriweather commented, looking up while laying the case flat and zipping it open. His eyes were a foggy brown, with small black centers that were further miniaturized behind the thick glasses he wore. The old-fashioned thick black frames looked awkward on his small head, which was covered by a full crop of short hair that matched closely the color of his gray tweed jacket. By appearances he could have been a college professor or a car salesman.

“I’m getting back into my morning jog.” And the name is Bud. The DCI took his educational and social lineage, which stretched from Exeter to Yale, quite seriously. Nicknames were not among his repertoire of verbiage, and only recently had he taken to calling those Agency personnel closest to him by the more casual forms of their given names, much to the delight of “Gregory” Drummond.

The DDI looked up from his own set of materials. “We’ll have to do that crack-o’-dawn run thing again.”

“None of that sprinting crap at the end like you did to me last time,” Bud insisted with a chuckle. “I’ve got almost a decade on you, remember.”

The DDI smiled. “Old men need motivation.”

The President watched the exchange with amusement. His advisers were normal people, just like him, though his California background had not lately manifested itself in the kind of relaxed, playful banter he was witness to. Just a week shy of his thirty-ninth birthday, he was the youngest President ever to serve, and, if all went well, in two years he would be the youngest elected. Age, though, had been warped during his short tenure. To look at him was to see the aging process accelerated, just as it had for each man to hold the highest elective office in the land. Responsibility brought with it work, and worry, and planning, and so many other elements of the job that he was certain his main recollection of his term in office would be the constant state of tiredness.

But it was times like these that gave value to all the exhaustive efforts, particularly when a President was able to be witness to something historic that he might not have started but that he had offered assistance to. There were actually two such things happening; that which his NSA had taken from concept to reality, and that which the same man had no idea of. It was time to change that

“Bud, I’m afraid we’ve left you out of something.”

Left me out… Bud saw there was some regret in the President’s eyes, but more satisfaction. Merriweather had only the latter expressed on his face. Greg Drummond was without either, just a flatness to his expression. “What is that, sir?”

“Operation SNAPSHOT,” the DCI answered for his boss. “The liberation of Cuba.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know this may be a little hard to fathom, but hear Anthony out, Bud. This was too good to pass up.” The President leaned to one arm of the chair, a single finger coming to his chin as he turned his attention to the DCI.

Too good? Something in Bud clicked at that characterization. A quick look at the wooden DDI confirmed his intuitive addition of “to be true” to the phrase.

“Some months back we received word from one of the Cuban-American exile groups that they had been contacted by a representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.” Merriweather stopped momentarily, as if there was nothing more to explain. “They wished our assistance in removing President Castro from power.”

“What members?”

“The leader of the rebellion is Colonel Hector Ojeda,” Merriweather answered. “Do you know who he is?”

Bud nodded. Ojeda was probably the most highly decorated and best-trained officer the Cubans had. A veteran of Angola, the not-so-secret secret detachment sent to Afghanistan, and every special training program their former “brother Soviets” had to offer. He was the cream of a very sparse crop.

“And to him you can add thirty-two thousand. Sufficient, wouldn’t you say?” the DCI inquired unnecessarily.

“More than, actually.” Bud looked back to the President. “Sir, why was this kept from me?”

“It is a CIA operation,” the DCI answered out of turn.

Bud acknowledged the DCI with the briefest glance. It wasn’t from him that the NSA wanted an answer. “Sir?”

“Bud, like Anthony said, this began as an Agency operation. The two ranking members of the Joint Select Committee have given the Congress’s stamp to it. My belief was that you had a full plate working with the Russians, and this really does not fall under your area of National Security.” The President saw his adviser’s jaw drop at that. “This is low risk, Bud.”

“Sir, a war raging ninety miles from us is precisely what I see as in my domain. That is a national-security issue, with all due respect,” Bud said firmly. He had never backed down when he believed himself to be right in any disagreement with the Man. He owed the nation’s leader no less.

“Your point is noted,” the President responded with no malice. He had expected his NSA to react just this way, which had partly influenced his decision to keep him from the initial stages. “It was my call, Bud.”

“Understood.” Bud’s eyes swept over the DCI. A slight expression — never a smile — edged up from the wrinkled folds at his mouth’s corner. And your prompting. “But ‘low risk’ is not always as low as we’d like to believe.”

“Our exposure here is one man. Anthony, if you would…”

“Of course, Mr. President.” Merriweather faced the man he’d seen as his nemesis in the West Wing since day one, guessing correctly that James DiContino now was party to that analysis as well. “What the rebellious faction wanted from us was intelligence. The location and movement of loyalist forces once the fighting began, and similar reports. That was all they asked for, but with that they would be at a distinct advantage. To accomplish that, we attached a field officer to the rebel command staff some months ago. His job was first to validate the viability of the proposal — it would do us little good if this was all a crazy show to be put on by some disgruntled officers. His job now is to receive the reports from here — all the information is to be gathered by satellite reconnaissance, of course — and give them to the rebel command staff.”

“And what prompted Ojeda to do this?”

“The economy, the miserable living standards, among other things. But the execution of General Eduardo Echeverria Ontiveros appears to be the real spade that lit this fire.” The DCI could see recognition on the NSA’s face. “Castro was none too happy with his support of that Russian after the hijacking, you remember.”

How could he ever forget? His baptism by fire. And the forced demise of the general, one of the more pragmatic and capable commanding officers the Cubans had, was easily reason enough to foment a revolt. Good soldiers were loyal to good, competent leaders, and equally disdainful of deskbound commanders who passed judgment upon them and their actions. Ontiveros might not have been a friend in the eyes of Cuba’s neighbor to the north, but he certainly was to the men who had served under him.

“And what do we get from this? I mean other than a new leadership in Cuba…if the coup succeeds.”

“It will succeed,” Merriweather said with an arrogant confidence, as though a suggestion that any other outcome was possible was somehow blasphemous. “And we were able to choose the new leadership.”

“Choose?” Visions of Panama after Noriega flashed in the NSA’s mind. “How so?”

“Bud, it’s not like that,” the President interjected. “It’s not some insertion of a puppet regime. The rebels agreed to accept civilian leadership drawn from the exile community here.”

“And how were they selected?” Bud asked.

“It was logical to choose members of the group contacted by the Cubans to serve in an interim government,” the DCI explained. “I brokered the arrangements personally with Jim Coventry.”

He’s “Jim” and I’m still “James.” I see… “You told the secretary of state, but not me?” Bud sat back and blew out an exasperated breath. “Who else is in the loop?”

“That’s it, until you brief Secretary Meyerson,” Merriweather said, passing a task rightly his own to the NSA. “We are going to need certain assistance from the military very shortly.”

The “low” in low risk was rapidly losing its accuracy in describing what the NSA was being told. “Assistance.”

Merriweather nodded. “Greg will fill you in after the presentation.”

Drummond gave a courteous nod when his boss looked his way but said nothing. His place in this had been made perfectly clear without explanation.

“And the purpose of this presentation?” Bud inquired, motioning to the case before the DCI.

The President shifted forward in his chair. “Validation. I insisted that we have some proof that the coup could succeed beyond just the planning stages.”

Someone was thinking half-smart, Bud thought. The Man was no slouch in the brains department. Maybe he’d looked at this all carefully enough to ensure that nothing stupid was being done. Maybe, he thought, looking as the DCI reached into the case. Hopefully.

“Mr. President, are you ready?” Merriweather saw the chief executive nod, an anticipatory smile on his face, and laid out a series of four twelve-by-twelve-inch photographs.

Bud leaned forward, as did the President after putting on the reading glasses he had come to hate.

“Sir, these are images from a KH-12 pass two days ago,” the DCI began. “All four are of the military airfield near Santa Clara in the central part of Cuba. The first two are shots from about forty-nine degrees above the horizon. Distance is one hundred and seventy miles.” Merriweather directed the President’s attention to a line of aircraft obvious in the picture. “These are MiG Twenty-threes, all operational. This angle shows clearly their lineup, all on three good sets of landing gear.”

Bud studied the images with his head and body cocked to the right. The shots were clear, with only a hint of clouds that had been digitally removed, he suspected. “These are a combination IR and visible?”

“Correct,” the DCI answered. He noticed the President shoot a quizzical look his way. “Sir, this is somewhat of a hybrid photograph. The satellite, as it came over the horizon, focused both its visible light sensors, the cameras, and the heat-sensitive receptors, what is called imaging infrared, on the airfield. Pictures, if you will, were taken by both systems in sync, then, once the images were downlinked, NPIC — that’s the National Photographic Interpretation Center — processed them together to enhance the portions of the visible light photos that were degraded by cloud cover and other atmospherics.”

“I see,” the President said. “Go on.”

The DCI jumped right back in. “The second pair of images are from a ninety-degree aspect — straight overhead. It’s a wider view of the airfield, so the same aircraft are visible in relation to the other facilities.”

“What are these and these?” the President asked, pointing with his pen to two groups of what he surmised were aircraft.

“These objects nearest the maintenance hangar, here, are cannibalized MiGs. They’ve had to strip perfectly good aircraft to keep the others up and flying.”

“What’s their rate of removal from service been?” Bud asked.

Merriweather turned to Drummond. “Wasn’t it fifty percent over the previous two years?”

“That’s right,” the DDI confirmed. “At that rate they’d—”

“That point is moot,” the DCI interrupted.

Another look was exchanged between Drummond and Bud, this one not hinting at anything friendly or pleasant.

“And the others, sir, are something we’ll touch on in a few minutes.” Merriweather motioned to the Oval Office’s television and video player, which he already moved to a position where the group, other than Bud, could watch it unobstructed. The NSA would have to look over his shoulder to see what was going on. “Before that, though, are these.”

The President noted that the four photos the DCI had just laid before him corresponded in views to the ones just covered up. Bud noticed this, too, and something else. Damn.

“Sir, these were taken from the same KH-12 just over an hour ago. Look carefully at the front of the aircraft in the low-angle views.”

What Merriweather wanted the President to see was obvious. All twelve of the MiGs, while appearing intact, were nose-down on the tarmac. Some had odd-looking bulges in the area aft of the cockpit.

“What was done here?” the President asked. “It looks like the front landing gear is gone, but I don’t see any other damage.” He looked alternately at Bud and the DCI.

“Bud, you have extensive BDA experience from your Nam days, right?”

“Right.” The word was spoken flat and quickly. He would have preferred no part in the validation of this, but that wish was now out the window. “Mr. President, what you see before you is artwork.” Bud swallowed imperceptibly.

“Explain.”

Both Merriweather’s and Drummond’s eyes were on him, though each subtly expressed very different emotions. The DDI’s showed empathy; the DCI’s, satisfaction.

“What has happened is the same thing the Viet Cong sappers did when they snuck onto Tahn Son Nhut airbase back in ‘69. The aircraft’s nose wheels have been severed, actually the entire strut. Apparently the rebels were able to get their own people close enough to place a small amount of explosives on the upper portion of each strut. It can be placed up in the wheel well with a simple timer so that no one would notice it unless they took a real close look. That probably gave them time to get away or do other damage.”

“So what does this mean? Are these planes out of commission?”

Bud was hoping the DCI would answer the President but the silence dictated that he finish his line of thought. “Down for the count Mr. President. It’s a smart way to disable an aircraft. When the strut blows, the weight of the aircraft comes straight down. The strut then impales the fuselage and does major damage to the airframe and the innards. That’s the bulging you see at the back of the canopy there. The strut is pushing equipment up and to the sides and deforming the fuselage.”

“But why not blow the planes up completely?” the President wondered. “Wouldn’t you get a bigger bang by tossing a bunch of explosives in the air intake? I admit I saw that in some shoot-‘em-up movie somewhere, but it seems logical. Couldn’t these be repaired?”

“Not really, sir,” Bud responded. “If you’re trying to just take out a target, you want to use the minimum force necessary. As for repair — not with the reduced capability the Cubans are exhibiting. There’s not much left to cannibalize.” The NSA let it sink in, for himself as well as the President. “And the most intelligent aspect of this is the fact that the aircraft will be able to be repaired in the future, when they might want them. It appears the rebels have thought this out. They’re being very, very smart.”

The President was obviously pleased, very much so. He allowed a slight smile, then looked to the DCI, whom he had had doubts about before being convinced to nominate him to fill the position. The critics, however, were being proved wrong.

“You saw this in Vietnam, Bud?” the President inquired.

The NSA nodded. “A very effective technique.”

“Proven by the winners, you might say,” Merriweather commented.

It was an effective jab, notching up Bud’s internal “Nam meter” to a place it hadn’t been in years. Veterans of the Indochina experience had dealt with crap of the sort the DCI had just dished out frequently in the years following the fall of the South, but not so much recently. Bud was fully aware that Merriweather, a fervent Yalie who had ironically held the History chair at Harvard in the late sixties, was no fan of the war. It was becoming more apparent now that, despite any effort to counter it, the DCI was never going to be a fan of Bud’s.

“Well, not everybody who wins deserves to,” the President observed. “Anthony, what about these other aircraft? They look like helicopters.”

“Mi-24 Hinds. Russian-built gunships. They’re wonderful against insurgents, like they proved in Afghanistan.”

Jesus Christ! Bud was having trouble believing his ears. Merriweather was using positive examples of the Viet Cong and the Cold War era Russians to flavor his little performance.

“They lost in Afghanistan, Anthony.” Bud’s retort was sprinkled with the barest amount of sarcasm.

“And the mujahedeen were left fighting the crony government in Kabul for how long?” The DCI sniffed a quiet chuckle, with no smile attached to it. “Then again, we pulled out of South Vietnam also. But it didn’t take the North Vietnamese Army that long to take what they wanted after that.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. “Anthony,” Bud began, his head shaking slowly from side to side as a smile that could only be one of disgust came to his lips, “some of us were there, you know, unlike—”

“Hold on. Hold on.” The President leaned farther forward, looking alternately at both of his advisers. Drummond had shifted back to an upright position on the couch. “We are here to discuss Cuba. Not Vietnam. Christ, I was barely out of high school when all that came to an end. But I am here now, and we may be able to do something to put one of those checks back in the ‘democracy’ column. All right?”

To be castigated by the President was not entirely unheard of, but it had not happened to Bud. Worse yet, he deserved it, and he had allowed Merriweather to advance his apparent agenda that much further by behaving as a reactionary. Bud looked to the DDI but did not engage in any eyeplay to test the situation. There was no need to draw Drummond into this if he was able to maintain a working relationship with his boss. God dammit, Bud. Play smarter.

“Go on, Anthony.”

“Yes, sir. If you’ll watch the monitor.” The DCI lifted the remote from the coffee table and clicked on the video player, pausing it as soon as a picture appeared. The scene was in black and white, very high contrast, and was filmed from a very high angle. “This is a video record from the KH-12 on a pass over the same airfield as the stills, except this was timed to concur with the beginning of the attack. It was taken using the same type of IR imaging as the stills. Remember, this is in darkness, with low moonlight, so what you will see are the heat signatures of objects.”

The President nodded while keeping his eyes on the screen.

“Watch the left top corner of the screen.” The DCI started the video. From where he had indicated, several objects came into view, their forms growing in a white intensity as the camera slowly crossed the area. “Those are the Hinds. They’ve just fired up their engines — that’s the heat you’re seeing there as it bleeds off of the exhaust and radiates from the engine through the body of the helicopter. And there.” Merriweather noted several small white blobs crossing into the frame. “Those are people, probably soldiers, running to where the aircraft were blown.”

Bud was watching with interest. As a spectator in a game where he should have been on the field, it was all he could do.

“See how the heat signature is growing in intensity? They’re readying to take off.” Merriweather paused for just a moment, a look of anticipatory satisfaction obvious on his face. “Watch carefully.”

Two of the Hinds moved slightly, a perceptible jump upward, then each turned to the right and began moving low above the ground. Suddenly, from the tail of each helicopter, within a second of each other, a bright flash and shower of white erupted, and instantly each Hind changed attitude and spun violently to the right. The motion ceased abruptly a few seconds later, an obvious crash.

“It’s amazing to watch this without sound,” the President commented. “Can you imagine what that sounded like on the ground?”

“Impressive,” Bud had to admit. “How did they do it?”

Drummond sensed that it was his turn to join in his boss’s presentation. “It looks like some sort of tail-rotor failure. Not an explosive of any kind; otherwise, that bloom you saw when it failed would have been a hell of a lot brighter. Somehow they tampered with the rotor housing or something, because when it came up to speed, the thing just came apart. If you look real closely, you can actually see blades flying off as it disintegrates.”

“And the other two Hinds suffered the same fate a few minutes later,” the DCI added. “The Cubans must have thought the first two were shot down. You can imagine the confusion there. Unfortunately the satellite was not able to keep its sensors on that area of observation.”

Bud perked up at that comment. “Why not?”

“There’s a problem with the stabilization system for the real-time sensors,” the DCI explained. The “real-time sensors” were the video camera systems, which were often used to transmit images as they happened, hence the name.

Fantastic! The only platform to observe and provide the intelligence the rebels wanted wasn’t fully functioning. There were three KH-12s in orbit, two of which were tasked with monitoring the removal of the former Soviet ICBMs from the Ukraine. The more capable KH-12 ENCAP (Enhanced Capability) was almost out of fuel. It was presently, as it had been for the previous year, running a straight orbital path at five hundred miles altitude. Budget cuts and the lack of any real threats had resulted in the refueling flight by the Space Shuttle being postponed indefinitely. Bud knew there were other means to maintain the country’s “eye in the sky” capability, but this situation damned sure didn’t warrant the risk of exposure or the expense.

“Would the information we can get from the satellite still serve the purpose?” the President asked.

“Absolutely,” Merriweather answered without hesitation. “The still imagery is what we need in order to provide information to the rebels.”

The President sat back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the frozen image at the end of the video. “What about other facilities in Cuba?”

“We have stills from seven major airfields taken on the same pass as these,” the DCI responded, pointing to the second set of photos on the table. “Sir, the Cuban government effectively has no air force remaining.”

It was really happening, the President thought. The second-to-last bastion of communism was finally crumbling, and it was on his watch.

And now it was time to commit. “Anthony, get things moving. Our investment in this may be small, but the return could be tremendous. I don’t want to miss this opportunity.”

“Gladly, sir.” Merriweather looked to the NSA with a look that begged of a challenge, but there was none.

“Then let’s do this,” the President said. He stood, as did the others in his presence, and wished them well before going to the adjoining study to complete work reviewing several policy papers.

Merriweather headed out, leaving his deputy and the NSA alone in the Oval Office. The younger man avoided the NSA’s stare for a moment. “Sorry, Bud.”

“Just what does he think he’s doing?”

Drummond looked to the door that had closed behind the President. “Not here.”

“Come on.” They were in Bud’s office a minute later, Old Executive partially visible through the windows facing west. “Your boss is now officially on my shit list. What in the hell does he think he’s doing advising the President to do this!”

The DDI knew it wasn’t a question, despite the wording. It was a release. “Anthony is out to prove history wrong, Bud.”

“What does that mean?”

Drummond took a seat on the liberally cushioned couch. “You remember old Professor Merriweather’s book, Victory in Vietnam: Winning the War We Lost. He crucified Kennedy and Johnson for failing to seize the initiative in the early stages of involvement. For some reason he left Ike out of the equation, which is kinda funny, considering his politics. Attacking two Democrats must have seemed more salient, I guess.” Drummond, the conservative Republican, let his personal politics slip into an official conversation. It was a rare enough happening that Bud’s expression changed from one of anger to one of wonder. “He thought we should have been more aggressive in trying to destabilize the North by insurrection, rather than let them do the same thing to the South. Remember the final four chapters.” A nod signaled him to proceed. “My esteemed director explained in detail how such a plan to defeat the North could have worked. First, commit minimum resources. Second, find disgruntled officers in the military. Third, use the carrot on the stick to get those officers to take out their own government. Kind of like ‘We’ll give you this, but you have to do this first.’” He looked to the dark carpeting at his feet. “When the Cubans practically walked in ready to fulfill his twenty-year-old prophecy, well…”

Bud leaned against his file-strewn desk. “Jesus, Greg. Does he have any idea what…” He stopped in mid-sentence. “Stupid question.”

“Anthony knows exactly what this could mean, but he chooses to ignore anything that might get in the way of his theory of ‘baited revolution’ being proven. He chooses to ignore a lot of things.”

“I can’t believe this. I really can’t.” Bud walked around his desk and fell into the high back chair. “Do you know what the Russians would do if they found out about this? Christ, Greg, Cuba may not be their little brother anymore, but that doesn’t mean they think there’s an implied carte blanche to kick Castro out. Dammit!” He spun the chair to face the window. “Any hint that we’re involved in Cuba would make trust a moot point. The modernization program would be down the tubes.” Bud turned back to the sullen DDI. “And Konovalenko, and his reforms, well, he doesn’t need any other pressures right now.”

“I argued for a timing change,” Drummond explained. “But Anthony wouldn’t go for it.”

“You should have gone to the President.”

The DDI raised an unsure eyebrow at the suggestion. “Right. I bypass my boss and go to the Man. Aside from the fact that I like to be able to feed my family, you know as well as I that he wouldn’t have bought it. You saw him. He’s as much into this as Anthony. Mainly because of Anthony.”

Bud knew his friend was right. It was a suggestion, really a wish, born of frustration. “Dammit, Greg. Why now? Even if it is going to work, why now?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” Drummond said. The characterization might have been harsh, but he could have said worse at the moment. “All he sees is success, and he’s got the President believing that, too. And they want it now.”

It wasn’t hard to see why the President was going along with this so willingly. Merriweather had carefully orchestrated it so that only he would advise the President on SNAPSHOT until it was actually under way. Then it would be too late to do anything about it.

So that was the reason for the show. The realization of what had really happened a few minutes before in the Oval Office came to Bud very suddenly. “Your boss is no idiot, Greg. He’s smart.”

“How do you figure?”

Bud laughed openly. “He keeps the President isolated from any negative analysis of SNAPSHOT by restricting knowledge only to those who won’t or can’t challenge the plan. Namely he was worried about me. You know as well as I that he’s never been a fan of mine, and he knew I’d have serious reservations about his operation. He also knew that the President would listen to me. So what does he do? When it’s time to let me in, he uses me to give credibility to the results we saw in there by asking for my analysis. I couldn’t lie; it looked impressive. The rebels were obviously well prepared for this, and that imagery didn’t just give Anthony the validation the President wanted — he used it to solicit my tacit approval for the President. Like you said, all they see is success, and now he’s negated the person who would have squawked the loudest.”

“I’m used to the abuse part from him,” Drummond said. “How does it feel being used?”

“It’s not so bad when you don’t know it for ninety-nine percent of the time it’s going on,” Bud joked.

Drummond couldn’t see where his friend was finding humor in this. “I wish I could laugh it off like you.”

“ ‘Once the derby starts, the horses don’t run backward,’ ” Bud said, the familiar quote bringing a smile to his face and a slight lump to his throat.

“Herb Landau sticks with you, doesn’t he?” the DDI said. He had heard the same words from his former boss in some of the darker times when events seemed to be overtaking those who were supposed to be in control. “So what now?”

“We try and keep any major fuckups from happening,” Bud said confidently. “If I know you, you’ve kept Anthony as much on the straight and narrow as is possible.”

“Except for his choice of who’s to take the reins down there.”

“Some things will have to straighten themselves out once this is done.” Maybe like in Panama, Bud thought to himself. That was still to be resolved.

“I hope so,” the DDI said. “Now would be a good time to fill you in on what we need from the military.”

“Shoot.”

It took only a few seconds to explain. “Sort of a bodyguard and escort service.”

“I think they have a less flattering term for this kind of mission,” Bud commented. The boys in black were again being tasked for a mission that was a waste of their talent. But being special, he reminded himself, didn’t always guarantee the glory. “Drew is going to love being kept out of the loop on this.” Secretary of Defense Andrew Meyerson, though not always of the same mind as the NSA, was likely to have the same reaction at having been kept in the dark on SNAPSHOT.

“You can share some of your empathy,” Drummond suggested playfully. The feeling that he was alone in the world was finally subsiding.

“Time for teamwork,” Bud said. “I’ll keep the President from getting only a rosy picture of things, and you keep your boss from tripping over his satisfaction.”

“Mike will be glad to know it’s not just him and me against the world anymore.” The DDI got up and started for the door.

“Your duet just became a trio.”

“Wanna try for an orchestra?” the DDI asked with a smile, then left the NSA alone in his office.

Solitude was conducive to thought, and thought to worry, in situations such as this. What had begun could not be stopped. Herb Landau’s words might have said the same more poetically, but neither statement could tell Bud what lay ahead. That was his question of the moment and was sure to be the one of the hour, day, and week until there was a resolution to that which he really had no control over. Influence was the best he could hope to offer, and that only in limited quantities.

But he did have his own operation of sorts to see to, one that was itself gaining steam. He looked at the clock. The convincing move in the plan to assuage any final fears in the Kremlin was about to take place. After that things would happen too fast to turn back. That was his hope. It would also become his fear in short order.

“This is our force-monitoring panel, Marshal Kurchatov.” CINCNORAD gestured across the five-foot console and directed the two Russians to take the seats on either side of the watch officer, an Air Force major. “NORAD is an alternate command center, as you know. Our normal mission in any strategic conflict would be to monitor, track, and advise the National Command Authority. If necessary, though, we can run the show.”

“How do you say…redundancy?”

CINCNORAD nodded. “If the command center above is knocked out, the one below takes over immediately. And so on. The same as your forces, Marshal.”

“Yes, the same,” Kurchatov agreed, lying as best he could behind the smile. The Americans would be horrified to know how little redundancy their Russian counterparts had built into their strategic systems.

“For our purposes today, though, we will not actually have control. We will be monitoring orders given by Strategic Command. These displays will show you the status of every strategic system we have. Even the missile subs,” Walker added with some coolness. “This is the first time even I’ve known where they all are. They usually go where they want within a very large patrol area.”

“It is true, then,” Kurchatov said with some surprise. “Your raket submarines elude even you?”

General Walker nodded. “That’s their job: to disappear. Except for right now.” The general’s plaster-like smile masked the difficulty he was having with this as he noted the positional notations of the United States’ ballistic-missile subs, which were out of their element, not hiding in the protective waters of the oceans but tied up at dock. Up and down both coasts the subs were spread, many at bases that usually handled only attack subs. This was done to keep observant eyes from noting unusually large numbers of the metal leviathans at their usual ports of Bangor, Washington, and Kings Bay, Georgia.

Colonel Belyayev took the one eared headset lying on the console’s flat deck and slid it on. There was none for the defense minister, but then, he was an observer. His presence was to add credibility and surety to the operation, so that any unforeseen happening would not need to be explained to Moscow by a junior officer. The fact that there was none more senior than Kurchatov made his presence all the more desirable.

Belyayev touched the trackball to his right, which operated a digitized pointing device on the large display before him, though not as large as the screens in a separate room — actually more of a theater — of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex where the activities of “enemy” missiles inbound on the United States would be watched. He deftly moved the arrow-shaped pointer to each of the notations that corresponded to the subs, his lips moving as he counted. Russian satellites had done passes over the ports on both coasts that serviced the American missile subs, verifying that the electronic images Belyayev was seeing were not just ghostly manipulations. One leg of the American strategic triad — land-based ICBMs and long-range bombers were the other two — was being temporarily taken out of service. Except…

“Pennsylvania,” Belyayev said, the pointer circling the sub base at Kings Bay, Georgia. “He is not here.”

General Walker knew this was coming. The last Russian satellite pass, whose information had been quickly transmitted to his two guests from Moscow, had shown the USS Pennsylvania, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile sub, still not in port. When the orders went out two weeks before instructing individual subs — none knew that all of their kind were coming in — to return to port and tie up by a specified time, Pennsylvania had acknowledged the transmission as expected. But now she was overdue, though not technically in Navy terms. Missile subs generally had a twenty-four-hour window in which to arrive when returning to base. This was no ordinary return, however, and Pennsylvania’s twelve-hour delay was beginning to sound alarms.

“She may have some mechanical problems,” CINCNORAD posited. It was both a guess and a sincere hope.

“She.” Belyayev remembered that the Americans referred to their ships and submarines the opposite of the Russians. “She was due in Kings Bay, yes?”

CINCNORAD nodded. “She and four others.” Norfolk and Groton would split the remainder of the missile boats in the Atlantic.

“You do not know where she is?” Marshal Kurchatov inquired seriously. The joviality had left his manner.

“Like I said, their job is to disappear. Strategic Command doesn’t even know.” The Strategic Command, a joint-service command headed by a Navy admiral, had replaced the Strategic Air Command, and was keeper of the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal.

“Have you tried communicating with hi— her?” Belyayev asked.

General Walker paused for just a second. “Yes, we have, and there has been no reply.”

“It is possible, then, that Pennsylvania is lost?” Marshal Kurchatov wondered, looking briefly to Colonel Belyayev.

“We hope not. In a few hours we will have to assume the possibility, though, and begin a search.” The United States had never lost a boomer, and now was by far the worst time for that first to occur.

The marshal, resplendent in his dress greens and breast of medals and ribbons, looked briefly to his subordinate. A decision had to be made. If the Americans were lying, concealing one of their missile submarines out in the waters of the Atlantic, then the Motherland would be vulnerable to a surprise attack once her radar-warning system was shut down. He glanced at the highly technical displays to his front. Could some electronic wizardry perpetrated by the Americans mask a secret launch by the Pennsylvania? Was he being duped?

Or were they telling the truth?

A brief moment of reflection convinced the marshal of the latter. “Let us hope it is simply a mechanical difficulty.”

“Yes,” General Walker agreed. “Shall we begin?”

“Yes.”

CINCNORAD gave the go-ahead to the duty officer. The major pressed a single button on his communication console. “Red Bird, Red Bird. This is NORAD Alternate Command Console.”

“This is Red Bird,” the major’s counterpart at Strategic Command acknowledged.

“Red Bird, CINCNORAD requests execution of RANDOM LANCE.”

There was a brief silence. “RANDOM LANCE approved.”

All eyes shifted to the largest display. Colonel Belyayev already had a zoom box squared around the area in southern Wyoming that they were watching. A click brought the magnification up to reveal an electronic representation of the missile fields surrounding Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. The Minuteman missiles of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing, spread over 12,600 square miles, had dwindled in number after the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) from two hundred to just eighty. The MIRVed LGM-30G Minuteman IIIs remaining had given up two of their three 335-kiloton Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles to comply with START, and one of those missiles, number six in Hotel Flight, had recently had its single warhead replaced with a benign-range instrumentation package, a common payload for test launches.

“Notify PMTC,” CINCNORAD ordered. The tracking radars supporting the Pacific Missile Test Center, headquartered at Point Mugu in California, normally watched launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, just miles from Mugu, or from White Sands in New Mexico. It took a few minutes for the radars to be slewed in the proper direction to cover the launch from the Northeast.

“PMTC is ready,” the major reported. “Red Bird, Alternate is ready.”

“Hotel One reports launch ready.” Strategic Command was relaying word from the launch control center of Hotel Flight’s ten missiles that number six was ready to fly. All that remained was for the two officers buried deep underground in the LCC to concurrently turn their keys jointly to the “enable” position.

“Colonel, on your word,” the major said.

Colonel Belyayev focused his attention on the informational readout printed next to the number-six silo on the display. “Launch.”

The order went through the open channel to the LCC. Miles from the underground control center, the heavy concrete blast lid was propelled away from Hotel Six, exposing the silo. Immediately the Minuteman III missile bolted upward from the silo using the cold-launch technique, which allowed the undamaged silo to be reloaded (in theory). Its first-stage solid-rocket engine ignited fifty feet above the prairie and rapidly accelerated the former weapon, now little more than a big radar target, toward the Pacific Missile Range in the Southwest.

“I verify launch,” Belyayev stated. The notations on his display changed as the missile left its silo. He looked away for the phone he was supposed to use.

“This one,” the major prompted. “Just pick it up. It’s pre-dialed.”

The colonel lifted the black handset to his ear and was immediately connected with the headquarters of Voyska PVO, the Russian Air Defense Forces. “This is Colonel Belyayev,” he said in Russian. “Have you detected a launch?”

“Yes,” the male voice answered in its native tongue. “Warren Air Force Base. Missile number six, Hotel Flight. We show a thermal launch signature.” Several minutes of silence followed as they waited for the still-operating Russian BMEWS to pick up the missile as it rose above the radar horizon. “We show a missile track, southwest course, high to low aspect. Confirm launch and flight, predicted target is in Pacific Ocea n.”

Marshal Kurchatov turned back to General Walker. “Very fine. Very fine.”

“You now have as much access to the monitoring systems for our strategic forces as I do.” And more than I would have given you… “If a missile is launched, it will be registered right here. If a bomber as much as taxis, you’ll know it. And the subs, well, you’ve seen it.”

“Except for the Pennsylvania,” Colonel Belyayev said, his eyes locked with CINCNORAD’s.

“That will not be a problem,” Kurchatov said. “Colonel?”

“Not a problem.”

“Good,” General Walker said. “Major, the duty officer is from this point forward to report any occurrences directly to Marshal Kurchatov and Colonel Belyayev. They will be in the VIP quarters.” CINCNORAD looked back to the Russians. “Right through those doors. You’ll be twenty feet away, and you are welcome to monitor the console with the duty officer at any time.”

“Very fine. Yes.” Kurchatov thanked the major and stood. “The colonel will remain here, General Walker. I must now inform my government to proceed.”

Maybe this was good, Walker thought. If the Russians were willing to trust them with one boomer still out there, then they might not just be blowing smoke. He sure as hell wouldn’t have trusted them had the situation been reversed. Things really were changing. He’d waited more than thirty years to believe it, and the feeling wasn’t all that bad.

“I’ll show you to the com center, Marshal,” General Walker offered. “Then maybe we can talk about those Siberian reindeer you’re so boastful about.”

He sat ramrod-straight in the chair, his hands loose at his side. Bad guys were on both sides and behind in the darkened room. A window was to his left, behind the reflective surface of which were the witnesses to his fate.

The beeper on his watch sounded, and he closed his eyes behind the polycarbonate glasses.

Boom!

The door was directly to the front of Major Sean Graber, ten feet away. It folded downward under the force of the entry charge. From both sides forms in black entered, four in all, their faces hidden by ungainly-looking devices that covered their eyes and protruded in a single Cyclops-like lens. Two went high, two low. Three fired in rapid succession, quick double taps on their pistols, long, oversized weapons that emitted little sound.

Sean kept his eyes closed until the shooting ended. Twelve shots, four for each bad guy. “Exercise over!”

The lights came up in the hostage room, and in the observation room behind the thick bulletproof glass. Sean stood and turned to the left. The five visitors were exchanging amazed looks and words of wonder at the display they had just seen. The major motioned to Captain Chris Buxton, squad leader of the unit that had just “rescued” the number-two man in command of Delta from three cardboard cutouts.

“Unbelievable!” the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee commented as he entered from the observation room. The smell of gunpowder was heavy in the room but was purged by exhaust fans a few seconds after the entourage, all members of the congressman’s staff, entered.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Sean responded. He wasn’t really, but selling the capabilities of Delta to what his superior, Colonel William Cadler, called “the briefcase brigades” had become part of his duties. That meant occasional shows for whomever the secretary of defense deemed in need of convincing. Budgets! Now they were quibbling over how many rounds of ammunition Delta should be burning in their training!

“AN/PVS-7?” the lone female member of the group wondered aloud, looking at the monocular goggles flipped up on the four troopers’ heads. She was the congressman’s resident expert on the technology side of things.

“Antonelli.”

The big Italian lieutenant stepped forward at the behest of the man he had rescued a minute before. “No, ma’am. Our own modification. Well, our idea, but the EO lab at Belvoir put it together. You see, ma’am, the standard ‘seven’ is best for image intensification — taking what light is there and amplifying it. The IR capability — that’s infrared — was limited in a zero light environment. Not quite up to snuff to use with our new toys.”

“That toy,” the staffer said, pointing to the ungainly weapon at the lieutenant’s side.

Antonelli held up his unloaded weapon. “This is the OHWS: Offensive Handgun Weapon System. Basically it’s a specially designed HK pistol chambered to fire forty-five-caliber rounds.” The weapon was quite ordinary-looking from the grip to just before the trigger housing. There forward it jumped into the twenty-first century in appearance. “This thing under the barrel is an IR Laser Aiming Module, or LAM. It paints the area you’re aiming at with IR light that lets us see through our new goggles damn good in the dark. That was why we needed the new ones, ‘cause they are primarily tuned to the IR spectrum. We gave up some I2—that’s image intensification — capability for it. Trading some ‘low’ light for better ‘no’ light capability, you might say. So we can see what the LAM paints, and it also puts a focused aim point where our shots are going to hit. We have the same capability on our other weapons now, also.”

“Well, that explains some of the precision,” another member of the group commented.

“Some of it,” Captain Buxton observed. There was more to it than gadgets.

“And this long box coming off the barrel?” the lady asked, pointing to the device that lengthened the weapon considerably.

“Sound and flash suppressor, ma’am. We not only like to be accurate, but invisible and quiet also.” He smiled as his presentation ended.

“Look at this,” one of the aides said to the congressman, pointing to the four holes punched in the cardboard cutout. They were all within an imaginary two-inch circle above the nose.

“That’s called turning off the switch,” Captain Buxton explained. “Bad guys don’t pull triggers with four bullets in their brains.”

“My son’s a cop, Major Graber,” the Honorable Richard Vorhees began, turning to Sean. “They train them to go for center-mass hits. The bigger target, you know. Upper torso.”

“That’s correct, sir. But we can’t do that. We have to make sure the bad guys don’t get to pull the trigger. Our job is to make them dead fast, before they make some innocents dead.”

The congressman shook his head in some disbelief at the skill exhibited. He was not unfamiliar with things military, as evidenced by his slight limp. A Cuban mine had taken his leg off at the knee in the Grenada invasion, ending a planned military career with just a pair of oak leaf clusters on his collar. But that had led to a career in Congress, which he was now enjoying after a meteoric rise to one of the governing body’s most powerful positions. “That’s a pretty tall order, Major. The chance for a miss has got to be much greater.”

Sean smiled agreement at the analysis. “That is right, sir, which is why we have to be that much better. Our business functions on a zero-defect basis.”

“What’s that?”

“No mistakes. We hit everything we want to every time we try. Period.”

Vorhees’s eyebrows went up at that. “Come now, Major. Isn’t that a bit overstated?” He ended the question with a chuckle.

Sean’s expression went dead serious, something the visitors immediately picked up on. “Do you think I would sit inches from these targets and let my men shoot at them if I doubted their ability one bit?”

That hit home to the congressman. The men he was among were not just soldiers, as he had once been — they were technicians. The term “professional” did not do them justice. Their job, and their skill, were unique. And must remain so, he had just been convinced.

“Major, I think I can assure that you will get your full budget request. And I doubt Congress will quibble over it.” Vorhees offered his hand, which Sean gladly took.

“Then I can assure you, we’ll be ready if we’re needed.”

The entourage followed Captain Buxton and the four men from his squad outside to answer any questions about the tactics and equipment they had just seen employed.

Sean went into the observation room and sat down, removing the glasses that had protected his eyes from powder discharges during the exercise. Chalk another one up for being shot at, and for being able to display it. The new facility that housed Delta at Fort Bragg was known as Wally World, an homage to the mythical amusement park in one of the National Lampoon movies, and the moniker was appropriate. All kinds of wonderful “rides and attractions” were theirs to practice on. The hostage room with its viewing area was one of them. No such capability had existed at the Stockade, Delta’s former home at Bragg. Without it Sean wondered if he would have been able to demonstrate the unit’s-need for the millions of rounds of ammunition it used each year. Miss with a thousand to hit with one when it counts.

The phone in the observation room rang. “Graber here.”

“Major Graber.” It was Colonel Cadler, Ground Forces Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). “How did our little pre-sentation go?”

Sean marveled at how his boss, a Texas native, could make any word sound like someone in Waco had invented it. “We’ll get our ammunition.”

“Hot damn,” the colonel exclaimed. “Good work. Now that you’re done giving tours, we’ve got some real work to do. I want you to get a squad ready for deployment ASAP. Clear, Major?”

“Yes sir,” Sean replied. “What kind of job, Colonel?”

“Baby-sitting.”