“It is not a revolution. It is treason.” He smiled coldly.
“And that. Miss Drake, is something you ought to understand.”
“But how will missiles help you deal with an internal affair?” she pressed. “Surely if Cuba is capable of handling this issue herself, the last thing you need is the United States annoyed and intervening.
Unless,” she said, pausing as insight flashed into her mind, “you’re having a problem with your Libyan masters. Are they holding out for more control over the legitimate government in exchange for quashing the rebels for you? Is that it?”
Bingo. She knew she’d struck gold by the flash of annoyance in his eyes. Exultation warred with an increasing feeling of uneasiness as she contemplated her position. She was in Cuba illegally, neither entitled to nor likely to get support from her own government, and trapped between three warring forces. The so-called legitimate government of Cuba, the Libyan “advisors” who were increasingly in evidence, and the guerrilla fighters whom Leyta represented on the mainland.
A hell of a story if she survived it.
“I don’t know how you can expect me to keep this up,” Admiral Loggins hissed. “There’s absolutely no chance I can keep the aircraft carrier out of it. Not after what’s happened down there. It’s not only impossible, but it makes no tactical sense whatsoever. None.”
“You’re going to be lucky if you’ve even got any carriers left after I’m through with you,” Senator Williams shot back. He pointed at the TV broadcasting ACN headlines in the corner of the room. “That footage of those SEALs is worth more during budget debates than five hundred pounds of briefings and testimony. You think they ever read all the material we send them? No they make their decisions based on sound bites and shots like that. And you can bet they’re going to be hearing from every Cuban constituent in every district over this one.”
“What you’re asking is unreasonable. With the Arsenal ship damaged, if we need to take action against Cuba, it’s going to have to be with the carrier. There’s no other way to do this safely; there’s just not” “Safety’ is a relative term. And you’re going to be thinking longingly about this conversation when the Senate subpoenas you about your relationship with Miss Pamela Drake and the film footage ACN broadcast.
Don’t cross me now, Keith. You’re in this too far.”
Admiral Loggins slammed his hand down on the desk and glared at the senator. “Don’t you dare threaten me. Not me, not Pamela not ever.
I’ve gone along with your plans because they were what I felt was best for the Navy, but you’ve gone too far this time. My relationship with Pamela has nothing to do with her work, nor does she have anything to do with mine. We’re just private citizens, trying” “The hell you are!”
Senator Williams shoved himself out of his chair and leaned across the desk to glare at Loggins, his hands planted and splayed on the blotter in front of the admiral. “You gave up a private life the day you put on those stars, and don’t you forget it. Just the way I did when I took my first oath of office in Congress twenty years ago. What you do, who you screw, all of it. It’s all career material.
And if you don’t understand that, then you’ve already been promoted two times too many. You got me?”
The admiral stood up from behind his desk slowly, his shoulders slumped. He stared out the window that gazed out across the Potomac, at the landscape spotted with fog and pollution, at the distant white figures of the various memorials scattered around Washington, D.C. There was truth to what the senator said but it wasn’t the whole story.
And if it were, then what did that say about the twenty-five years he’d spent in the military?
Duty, honor, country. Those were things that mattered, not the pork-barrel electioneering that Williams was engaged in. Not even his own career mattered more than duty.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen that before, what should have been so obvious to a man raised, educated, and tempered in the service of his country.
In the beginning, he’d seen the Arsenal ship project as something good for the Navy, an added capability that would give his country more options in coping with shattered nations and turmoil around the world.
He’d been proud to be one of the prime backers of the project, eager even to show the political powers why this was the right project to back.
When had that changed? He stared at the slimy senator opposite him and wondered at what point and how he’d let himself be drawn away from the honorable path and into a pattern of careerism and self-aggrandizement.
What had happened to his honor?
It might be too late for him personally, but it wasn’t too late for the Navy. To do the right thing, the honorable thing he felt a heavy burden lift as he reached his decision.
He straightened his shoulders and turned to glare at the senator. “No more private conversations. I’ve had it with you. And if it ruins my career, so be it. Three stars ought to be enough for any man and they will be for me if that’s what it takes.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you agree,” Williams snarled.
The admiral pushed a button located under the ledge of his desk. “Oh yes you are.” He moved around the desk quickly and slipped a half nelson on the senator before he could even react. Loggins shoved the man’s head down until he was half bent over, then wrenched the senator’s arm up behind him. With the senator completely under his control, the admiral goose-stepped him across the deep blue carpet to the door, opened it with his free hand, and shoved him into his anteroom. “Come back when you can get a civil tongue in your head.
And when you understand what your job for this nation really is.”
The crowd of visitors, petitioners, and those with appointments waiting in the anteroom gaped dumbfounded as Loggins slammed the door to his office. One of them, a short, sandy-haired man carrying a large manila envelope, stood up slowly. His boss expected him to use his best judgment, and if ever it had been called for, the aide mused, it was this situation. The budget information, the requests for information on sailors, and the rest of the weekly packets the aide was bringing over for the admiral’s attention could wait. He was certain that his boss. Senator Dailey, would be much more interested in what he had just witnessed in the anteroom.
Captain Heather leaned awkwardly against the missile tube, supporting his weight on his one good leg.
Getting down here with the help of the boatswain’s mate had been a bitch, but he’d done it; with this much on the line, there was no substitute for firsthand knowledge. He knelt down on the dirty deck, heedless of the damage-it was doing to his sharply pressed khaki pants. He stared at the launch tube, only vaguely aware of the engineering and weapons technicians around him. He ran one hand over the smooth metal, feeling for damage. It was as though he could feel straight through the metal, ascertain the delicate condition and structural integrity of each tube without really seeing it.
“This one’s fine,” he said finally. He looked up at the chief engineer and the weapons officer.
The engineer nodded. “I think so, too. That makes the figure about eighty percent. Captain, maybe a bit more.”
The captain straightened, winced as his splinted leg complained loudly.