“They may be in for a real shock, Frank. If the satellites go they’ll lose a big piece of that. You know, it seems to me that we ought to be taking some polls, getting a sample of public reaction.”
“There are some in the works, Mr. President, but no definitive results yet. The only place where an effect really jumps out at you is in the markets. Baribeau and Holloway are having kittens, and I don’t blame them. World investment in spatial facilities amounts to trillions of dollars. A threat to that menaces human civilization itself. This is as serious as a nuclear war.”
This brought a raised eyebrow from the president.
Marsh felt constrained to elaborate. “It started in the Far East and Europe, naturally, since their exchanges have been open longest. Telecommunications shares dropped dramatically as soon as the markets opened, but the extra business this crisis generated caused a rally and they’ve stabilized for the time being, although they are lower.
“From there it spread into commodities. Baribeau says these are highly sensitive to climatic conditions, and naturally, if anything happens to inhibit our ability to forecast weather, production will go down. The commodities markets feed on shortage, you see. Now it’s beginning to dawn on investors that they could get hurt badly in enterprises that space technology formerly made secure.”
“I was afraid of that. That’ll cause big problems for countries with marginal economies, and those are the same countries that have caused a lot of our problems with drugs.”
“Is there anything you especially want me to watch, Mr. President?”
“Yes, Frank, there is. I want you to watch congress. I know we’ve got a lot of enemies over there. I suspect some of them are in bed with the bunch who did this. I expect these will be the leaders of an appeasement movement and I don’t want defeatism to get a toehold on the public’s mind. That could be disastrous.”
“I understand. I’ll keep on top of it, Mr. President.” Marsh turned and walked out of the room.
That left Sumpter alone with his thoughts for a moment. He had learned to cherish such times since taking office. In this job, with all the bright people he had available to advise him, it would have been very easy to surrender to the temptation to let them make the decisions. He resolved that would never happen in his administration.
Sumpter saw the economic consequences as long-term problems. The acute effects would be very transitory if a way were found to eliminate the threat. More immediately vexing were the political implications. Uncle Sam had long been the world’s scapegoat, getting blamed for every adversity simply because he was the biggest kid on the block.
He knew it would happen in this case too, the superman syndrome would eventually infect the rest of the world. We’ll be blamed because they think we can fix it, he thought. They ’ll resent us if we don’t.
Sumpter gave a little shiver. As the nation’s leader he should not empathize, but as an individual he could hardly help himself. People envied superior ability or intellect but nobody genuinely loved a superman. The very existence of such superiority relegated all others to inferiority, and the human ego was not very good at handling things like that.
History was full of examples where societies had turned on such individuals for no other reason than that their intellects embarrassed their neighbors. Sumpter often wondered where the world would be today if Socrates had not been murdered, if da Vinci’s studies could have been shared instead of kept secret, if Galileo had been allowed to publish what he knew.
The rudeness of the intercom buzzer shattered this brief moment of tranquillity. Sumpter answered, learned the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was on the line. He pushed the button that was blinking.
Admiral Richard Vogel was a man of few words, and those he used he didn’t mince. “It’s happened,” he announced. “We’ve got our first revolution out of this and it’s right on our doorstep.”
“Mexico?!”
“Yes, sir. It’s pretty well coordinated too. Three different spots. Guerrero, between Taxco and Acapulco, Baja California Sur, and of course, in Chiapas. All the usual trouble spots, places we’ve been watching for quite a while. We think this is a mere preliminary, sir. None of these areas is what you could call strategic. They’re all a long way from anywhere so this could very well be just a diversion. Logically, the main effort should be a drive up the gulf coast by conventional forces.”
Sumpter knew what he meant by “conventional forces.” They were a legacy from the last administration, whose chickens were now coming home to roost. His predecessor’s saber rattling, intended to intimidate the Castro regime, had alarmed it instead, and it had had better sense than to stay bottled up on an island.
Its response to that increasingly bellicose behavior had been to abandon indefensible Cuba, where it had been relatively harmless, and flee to Southern Mexico, where there was a budding revolution to hijack.
The Cubans had had no difficulty whatsoever in subverting the Mexican military, which would cut its own throat for money, and looked the other way while huge quantities of arms were smuggled in. After that the Mexican government couldn’t stop them by itself, and the US military, chilled by its recollection of Viet Nam, opposed intervention.
Until now, maybe, Sumpter thought. Aloud, he asked, “what are the joint chiefs recommending?”
“Caution, Mr. President. We believe it would be a grave mistake to intervene, not only because the current government is sure to fall whatever we might do but because we might need our forces elsewhere, perhaps in the Middle East.
“But,” he hastened to add, “it would be extremely unwise not to close the border. We can do that with organized reserves and National Guard units. Also, we think it might be helpful to show the flag offshore, since there is a carrier task force stationed in the Gulf anyhow.”
“Then do it.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, may we have a written order?”
Cagey! Sumpter thought, but he’s right to cover himself. He’s one of the bright ones, and he knows he may be making history. He doesn’t want himself, or the country, to wind up on the unpopular side of the war. “It’ll come through your fax within the hour, Admiral.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. We’ll keep you advised.”
Sumpter then made a call himself, to the director of the CIA. He wanted a briefing on this revolution. If there was an obvious drug connection he wanted to know about it. If the timing had been mere coincidence he wanted to know that too.
Satellite launches were expensive, and even the drug cartel would have had to strain a little to finance one. Looting the national treasury was second nature to Latin leaders and Castro had left his native country flat broke, so there was a better than even chance he had collaborated and that he had contributed funds. It would be a cheap way to bloody the Yankee nose and punish the United States for frustrating his imperial ambitions.
But the CIA disappointed Sumpter. It didn’t agree. It didn’t share Sumpter’s hunch.
Sumpter’s suspicions were aroused. He was keenly aware that spooks were strange creatures, who had strange notions about what was important and what wasn’t, and who not infrequently pursued goals of their own. If there was anyplace where treachery and intrigue could be expected it was with the clandestine services. Sumpter did not exclude the possibility that dirty money had turned some of the top people, as it had so many others in government. In the past, the agency was known to have collaborated with drug dealers in Southeast Asia as well as in South America.
The experience drove him to a decision to trust none of the civilian organizations. Sam’s sage admonition about bureaucrats and dirty money had been driven home.