The End

DECEMBER 12, 2014

USS Makin Island, Indian Ocean

Barone was abruptly awakened by banging on his stateroom door. He sprang from his rack and opened the door. Wiping sleep from his eyes he said, “What is it?”

“Sorry to disturb you sir,” a nervous lance corporal said.

“Well, what is it?”

“Sir, there is an important call for you.”

“A call?” Barone asked, looking confused. He stepped away from the door and walked over to a chair in the room. “Come on in lance corporal.”

The lance corporal nervously stepped in.

“Since it required you to come down here and wake me up, who may I ask is on the call?” Barone asked, with a hint of sarcasm.

“Sir, it’s the president.”

Barone stopped tying his boots and looked at the lance corporal. A myriad of emotions came over him, shock, fear, anxiety. He went back to tying his boots and cleared his mind. Not wanting this young man to see him nervous he abruptly finished the conversation by saying, “Lance Corporal, you may leave. I will be there shortly.”

Barone sat up and exhaled deeply. It was obvious that the call was prompted by the raid on Diego Garcia. He never expected he’d received a call from the president. He would have expected to hear from some general. If the president was calling then he assumed that they wanted to come to some type of settlement. Now curious to find out what the president wanted, he quickly grabbed his blouse and headed toward the CIC. The usual short walk seemed to take forever; his anxiety was at an all time high. In his entire career he had never spoken to a president. Now he would, but the circumstances were extraordinary. When he entered the darkened command center all eyes were on him. Maj. Ashley stood up and said, “Sir, we have a secure line in the back room.”

Barone just nodded to Ashley and walked briskly to the back room and closed the door. He looked down at the receiver on the desk. He paused for a moment to get his bearings. On his walk he had run through how the conversation would go. With anticipation that the new president would toss around words like traitor and mutiny, he promised himself to remain calm and keep his composure.

He cleared the onslaught of thoughts, sat down and picked up the receiver. Swallowing hard he spoke into the receiver, “Lieutenant Colonel Barone here.”

Silence.

“Lieutenant Colonel Barone here.”

Still silence.

“Is anyone there?”

“Colonel Barone?” a voice asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, Colonel Barone here.”

“One moment,” the voice said.

Barone was tapping his foot with nervous energy. The anticipation was excruciating.

Seconds felt like minutes. Then a familiar voice filled his ears and brought back memories of a congressional hearing he was subjected to years ago. He now remembered he had met the president during a hearing about the shooting of an unarmed Iraqi in 2004. Barone had volunteered to testify on behalf of a Marine who had been indicted from his unit. He recalled that the president was fair in his cross-examination and only wanted to get to the truth.

“Colonel Barone?” Conner asked.

“Yes, this is him.”

“Colonel Barone, hello; this is President Conner.”

“Hello, sir.”

“Colonel, I don’t know where to begin, so let’s begin with, what the hell are you doing?” Conner asked.

“Sir, first let me say that what I am doing is in the best interests of my men and their-.”

Cutting him off, Conner asked him with a scolding tone; “What about the best interests of your country?”

“Sir, sending us back to the East Coast to dig up dead bodies is a fool’s errand. You know the magnitude of what has happened. I voiced my thoughts before we made our decision but no one would listen. I therefore deemed it necessary to act in the best interests of Americans that are alive in the hopes of keeping them alive.”

“So you thought that it more important to defy a presidential order and mutiny?”

“Sir, I —”

“So you thought you would seize US naval vessels and then lead those ships in an attack against a US military installation stealing even more US ships and property?” Conner asked, his tone becoming more aggressive and angry.

“I thought —”

“You thought what, colonel? You are now an enemy of the American people; you have committed mutiny and treason!” Conner yelled.

Barone paused for a moment before he attempted to respond. His assumptions about the accusations he’d hear were correct.

“What am I to do with you, colonel?”

Barone did not answer; he wanted to make sure he could answer without being interrupted.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Well, colonel?”

“Can I answer without being interrupted?”

“Go ahead, colonel.”

“I looked at the entire situation and felt that—” Barone paused and then completed his thought. “No; I knew that going back to the East Coast to assist in a recovery effort was futile. What about our families back in California, who is taking care of them? I feel it is more important to keep as many people alive instead of digging up dead bodies. I did voice my concerns but the plan was in place and so I did what I knew was the right thing.”

After Barone had said his piece, there was silence.

After thinking about what Barone said Conner continued, “Colonel Barone, I have heard your excuse, I am giving you one chance to correct your errors and turn your ships around and go back to your original mission. As your Commander in Chief, I order you to do this. We will deal with you later. I need good men in the field and I need you to follow what is in the best interests of our country. Do you understand?”

Barone sat and thought about what the new president had ordered. He then felt in his heart that he was doing the right thing and told Conner, “Mr. President; I cannot. I have committed myself to my men and their families. I am sorry but your orders to go back east are foolish. I cannot in good conscience follow those orders. I accept full responsibility for this and my men are doing this because of me.”

“Colonel Barone, I am sorry to hear that. Here is what will happen. We cannot allow you to openly defy the government; we will be compelled to use force to stop you,” Conner said coolly.

“Mr. President, I would ask that you let us go peacefully, engaging in open conflict is not advisable.”

“Colonel you have done this, not us, we cannot allow this mutiny to go unchecked. We will stop you before you ever reach California.”

“Mr. President, I’m pleading, don’t take it to that level. We only mean to go home and take care of our families. We did not mean to get into a fight on Diego Garcia. We came under attack so we defended ourselves and will do so if we are attacked again. Sir, there does not need to be bloodshed. Please let us go freely.”

“Colonel, you have 24 hours to accept my offer. If after 24 hours you have not turned the ships around; we will consider you a hostile to the United States and an enemy of the people. We will use whatever means necessary to ensure you do not land in California.”

“Sir, I will not change my mind and again ask you for leniency. However; if attacked we will defend to the death.”

“You have 24 hours. We will await your reply. Goodbye Colonel Barone,” Conner finished then the line went silent.

Barone put the receiver down and sighed loudly. He needed to meet with his staff and work out a plan to avoid contact with any US military ships. He stood up, opened the door and before he left he looked back at the receiver. He had finally talked to a sitting president but not under the circumstances he would have wanted over the 18 years of his career. He chuckled to himself and closed the door.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

Conner slammed the phone down, “God damn it!”

He looked around at the staff that surrounded him. No one said a word, they all just stared. They knew by hearing just his side of the conversation that Barone was not backing down.

“As you heard, I am giving him 24 hours to change his mind and change course. If not we must stop him. General Griswald, if he continues what are our options?”

“Sir, we have a carrier group located in Hawaii that we can use and we have three attack submarines in the Western Pacific.”

“General, contact our command in Hawaii and move some ships out of port and have them prepared to engage Barone and his ARG, also contact those subs and get them in position as well.”

“Yes sir,” Griswald said.

Conner looked at each person in the room. He then said, “We cannot allow this to stand, we must stop him. If we do not, this will encourage others to defy us. God damn him. We have enough to worry about, now we have to dedicate resources to stopping him.”

“Mr. President, this is a wise decision,” Griswald said.

“General, do we have any more information about the attacks? Our time frame to do something is running short.”

“Sorry, sir, we are no closer than we were a day after the attacks. This will take time.”

Everyone was getting accustomed to seeing Conner act out in anger. So seeing him again display his anger by slamming his fist on the table was not shocking.

Conner scolded Griswald, “We don’t have much more time. Every minute that goes by without a response emboldens our enemies and makes them think we don’t have the means or the guts to do something about this. I am only being patient for you general; I need some answers and I need them soon.”

“We will continue to keep working on it sir,” Griswald responded.

Griswald was not being completely honest with the president. He did not want to give him what he had found out from his counterpart in Australia. From his conversations over the past week, the Australians had managed to secure information from one of the prisoners. The prisoner told them that he had been trained in Iran. He did not know where the bomb had come from as it was already there when they arrived. While this information was valuable he did not want to give Conner the excuse to nuke Iran just yet. He felt Conner had an itchy trigger finger. Griswald wanted to see if he could build a coalition amongst the new presidential staff to his mostly diplomatic and limited military option versus the president’s nuclear only option. Griswald realized what he was doing could be considered a violation of his duty to the president but he felt that going along with the president’s option would leave half the world a nuclear wasteland. He knew he didn’t have much time, so he needed to act soon.