Robert Goff stayed behind after the vice president departed. He walked with the president to his study, adjacent to the Oval Office. “Mr. President, I think we need to sit down and have a talk with Kercheval,” Goff said. “Invite him to dinner in the residence. Feel him out, find out what he wants.”
“I think I know what he wants, Robert,” Thorn said. “He wants me to act more like a traditional president. He wants me to be engaged in world affairs, not passive. I respect that. But I can’t do it his way. He has every right to quit.”
“No, he doesn’t have a right to quit,” Goff insisted. “The vice president said it: Accepting a cabinet post is a position of trust and responsibility, not only to you but to the government. There are times and ways to leave the post — in case of illness or between terms. Resigning just because you disagree with a particular policy is not right.”
“I’m sorry he resigned, and I know it’ll be hard on us, especially with an election coming up,” Thorn said, “but it can’t be helped. Let’s get his replacement up to speed as soon as possible, and I’d like to speak with the leadership so we can get through the confirmation hearings quickly.”
“They’ll be waiting for you, that’s for sure,” Goff said. “Thomas, let me make a suggestion—”
“All right, Robert, I’ll call Edward and find out if he wants to meet and talk,” the president said resignedly. “But I don’t think it’ll do any good.”
“I was going to suggest something else,” Goff said. “Morgan seems pretty sure of something stirring over in Central Asia. I know you said you don’t feel that events in Turkmenistan warrant sending American troops….”
“That’s right. I don’t.” The president looked at Goff. “But you’re not talking about troops — you’re talking about something else. Robot planes, perhaps?”
It was scary, Robert Goff thought, to consider how intelligent Thomas Thorn was. A guy with a mind and a body as sharp as his would make a very, very dangerous adversary. “We’ve scheduled a campaign swing out west anyway for next week — that Lake Tahoe environmental forum speech, followed by appearances in Reno, San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, and L.A. I suggest we make a stop prior to arriving in Reno.”
“Battle Mountain?”
Goff nodded. “General McLanahan did a great job standing up that unit so fast,” he said. “His first mission over Afghanistan was a success, despite what Morgan suggested. I authorized a mission to recover the drone shot down out there, and I predict that’ll be a success, too.”
“I agree, and I’m proud of McLanahan. He’s suffered a tremendous loss recently, he’s suddenly become a single parent, yet he’s worked hard and done well,” the president said.
“I know we’ve already got the travel schedule built,” Goff said, “but McLanahan might be able to give you some options in case we do need to conduct operations over there.”
“I don’t foresee conducting any military operations in any of the ‘Stans, Robert,” the president said. “But… you are considering McLanahan’s facility as an alternate national command center, correct? Battle Mountain is the underground air base, right?”
“It certainly is,” Goff replied, smiling. “And it does have a very sophisticated communications system — extensive satellite earth stations, microwave, extremely low frequency — for communications with their robot aircraft. It’s also far from any other major target complexes or population centers, and it has a twelve-thousand-foot-long runway — the facilities to handle the Airborne National Command Post as well as Air Force One. It would make an ideal alternate command center.”
“Then get together with Lester and build in a visit,” the president said. “I imagine you’ll get a briefing from him beforehand on his Afghanistan operation and his take on the situation in Central Asia. If you think I’ll need to hear his report, build that into the schedule, too.”
“Yes, sir,” Goff replied. He paused and then looked carefully at his friend. “You don’t need an excuse to go talk to your troops, Thomas.”
“I know.”
“You also don’t have to come up with excuses to visit a military base just so you don’t appear as if you’re placating Edward Kercheval.”
“Do you think that’s what I’m doing?”
“I think you’re more disappointed than you let on about losing him,” Goff observed. “It’s important to you to give your cabinet a lot of responsibility, but it’s also important to show you’re in charge.”
“Do you think I rein Kercheval in too much?”
“Kercheval is a type A, action-oriented guy, Thomas,” Goff replied. “He’s also accustomed to being in charge. Secretaries of state in recent years have been very powerful individuals. Kercheval probably wishes he were as powerful and influential as Madeleine Albright, James Baker—”
“Or Robert Goff.”
“Or Robert Goff,” he echoed. “I encourage you to talk with Kercheval, sir, even though I know you won’t. There are plenty of folks just as well qualified as he. I only wish we didn’t have to take the flak I think we’re going to get.”
Damn, it was good to be alive, Anatoliy Gryzlov thought happily. He clasped his copilot on the shoulder and headed aft to stretch, have a cigarette, and enjoy life a bit before things got busy again.
Air Force General Anatoliy Gryzlov liked to get out of the office at least once a month and fly. With training hours in short supply, it was a luxury even most Russian general officers could not manage. But Gryzlov was different: Because he was the deputy minister of defense for the Russian government and the chief of the general staff of the military forces of the Russian Federation, he got everything he wanted. The troops loved seeing the former bomber pilot, test pilot, and cosmonaut at their base, and they were absolutely thrilled to see the fifty-nine-year-old chief of the general staff take command of a mission.
Unlike many Russian military men, Gryzlov was slight of stature, slender, and quick, with light brown hair cut short — he actually looked good in a flight suit, even a bulky winter-weight one. He found it easy to maneuver inside his favorite aircraft, the famed Tupolev-160 long-range strategic bomber, the one the West called the “Blackjack” bomber. Originally designed to attack the United States of America with nuclear weapons, the Tu-160 was still by far the world’s largest attack aircraft. Capable of supersonic dash speeds in excess of two thousand kilometers per hour at midaltitude and near-supersonic speeds at terrain-following altitude, the Tupolev-160 could deliver as many as twelve cruise missiles or a total of more than forty thousand kilograms of weapons at unrefueled ranges of well over fourteen thousand kilometers. Only forty were built, but the little wing at Engels Air Base near Saratov, six hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow, was the pride of the Russian air force.
Gryzlov made his way back from the cockpit and sat in the instructor’s seat between the navigator/bombardier and defensive-systems officers, who sat side by side in their ejection seats behind the two pilots. Although the Tu-160 was a dream to fly, and the best seat in the house was definitely the cockpit — except during landing, when the long nose and very high approach and landing speeds made landing the Blackjack very, very hairy — all the action was back here. He stopped at the “honey bucket” in the rest area between the pilots’ and systems officers’ compartments and took a pee, glancing wryly at the toilet-paper holder hanging on a wire next to the bucket — the only piece of wood, it was said, carried aloft on a Russian attack plane.