Never, Elliott thought, had he felt so damn helpless. He was getting no support from the Air Force Chief of Staff, he had just been in an argument with the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States apparently thought he was some nut-case hawk. Even Deborah O’Day, who must have been the one who leaked the information about DreamStar and Maraklov to the press, didn’t act supportive. Well, she said be ready with a presentation to knock the President’s socks off, and he had clearly failed to do that. And if he couldn’t support his own cause, he could hardly expect her or anyone else to do it for him.
He sat in the outer office for nearly an hour, jotting down occasional notes to himself on how to best organize HAWC for the upcoming investigation. There was a telephone in the outer office, and he considered using it to find out how Wendy Tork … now McLanahan … was doing, but decided against it. He’d do it on his way out. He had made a note to stop by San Antonio and Brooks Medical Center on his way back to Dreamland when the door to the Oval Office opened and Paul Cesare, wearing a grim face, opened the door for Elliott. “This way, General.”
When he was shown into the Oval Office he was surprised at the people assembled there. Deborah O’Day was standing beside the President, hands folded in front of her. Secretary of the Air Force Wilbur Curtis, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was there along with generals Kane and Board; only Curtis had a welcoming smile for his old friend. The other surprise addition was Speaker of the House Van Keller, the ranking Democrat in Congress. All but Curtis and O’Day were tight-faced as he made his way into the Oval Office.
“Great to see you, Brad, you old throttle jockey,” Curtis said. “Sorry I couldn’t be here earlier; they had me in Europe inspecting some old Russian missile silos.”
“Good to see you too, sir.”
“Can the ‘sir’ stuff, Brad. I’m wearing a suit now, and it’s not a blue suit, either. And don’t look so down in the mouth. We’ve just begun to fight.”
The President took a seat at the big cherry desk, and the others found seats around him. Curtis sat beside Elliott, arranged so that he could watch both him and the President.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” the President said. He turned to his National Security Adviser. “Deborah, go ahead.”
“As you know, Mr. President, the story broke a few hours ago. Along with questions aimed at this administration and myself, the media focused in on the Soviet Union. It was very well prepared — they had statements from our own FAA air traffic controllers, Mexican controllers, a few of our low-level military sources and local police authorities dealing with the F-15 crash near Yuma. They even got statements from air traffic controllers at Managua. The press has damn near re-created the whole sequence of events, and in very short order.
“But when asked directly, the Soviet Union still denies any involvement in the incident, denies that they have an American plane, denies they had a secret agent working in Dreamland, denies everything about James … Maraklov. But I’ve just received the preliminary report from Rutledge. His CIA confirms that the aircraft that flew through Honduras into Nicaraguan airspace did land at Sebaco Airbase.”
“So we’ve traced it from Dreamland to a KGB airfield in Nicaragua,” Curtis said, “and the Russians are denying it ever happened.”
“It’s not going to be another Belyenko incident,” O’Day said. “The Russians aren’t going to admit they have it.”
“I agree,” Speaker Van Keller said. “This is no disillusioned young pilot flying his jet out of the country. If they admit they have the XF-34, they admit to an international criminal act, an act of war, in effect …”
“It looks to me like we have no choice anymore, Mr. President,” Curtis said. “It would be a political and military disaster to allow them to get away with this. Even if they should later admit it, we must do something now. “
“Never mind the politics, Wilbur; that’s my business. As for the military, what were the Air Force and the DIA doing when this Soviet agent was planted, then allowed to exist so long in a place he gets to be the top pilot in our most advanced experimental aircraft? All right, I need a plan of action.” He looked at Elliott. “General?”
“Yes, sir … we need to do two things immediately: first, verify exactly where DreamStar is at Sebaco, and second, show the Russians that we know that DreamStar is there and that we’re prepared to do something strong about it. I propose a flyby of Sebaco by a single high-performance reconnaissance aircraft. No weapons except for self-protection. No ground-attack arsenal. It—”
“I want no weapons at all,” the President said. “Unarmed. If the thing crashes in Nicaragua I don’t want to see pictures of Nicaraguan fishermen dragging American missiles out of the water with their nets. Can you do it without weapons?”
“It’ll be more difficult, but it can be done.”
The President looked skeptical and irritable. This thing was more and more taking on the risks and implications of the Cuban missile crisis … “How? A high-altitude jet? I want one aircraft, remember — no escorts, no waves of aircraft—”
“One aircraft,” Elliott said. “And it will be at low altitude. We want there to be no question that the Soviets know we mean business.”
“Not another damned B-52?”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Elliott admitted, “but Managua is very heavily protected, and this would have to be a daylight mission. We would probably lose a B-1 or even a B-2 Stealth aircraft. No, no bomber aircraft.”
“How do you expect one aircraft to do the job and still survive?” Van Keller asked. “Use an unmanned aircraft? A drone? A satellite?”
“No, a single aircraft but a very special one,” Elliott said. “Twice through Sebaco on photo runs, in and out, perhaps sixty seconds over the base and five minutes in Nicaraguan airspace. We’ll have what we need.”
Paul Cesare moved closer to the President: “Mr. President, our meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee …”
“All right, Paul,” the President said. “Wilbur, General Elliott, this is what I want: a single aircraft, unarmed, not more than five minutes over Nicaragua. This will be the only chance you’ll get, so it had better be done right the first time. Wilbur, you have command authority. Brief me tonight.
“One more thing. If you people screw this up, I won’t wait until after the election to clean house.”
As Curtis and Elliott left the Oval Office for the elevators down to the White House garage, Curtis turned to Elliott and said, “I knew the Old Man couldn’t ignore you, Brad.”
“Thanks for the support. I haven’t seen much from the White House lately.”
“There’s more than you think,” Curtis said. “And I’m not just talking about the National Security Adviser.”
Elliott looked at Curtis. “What about her?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. The lady is quite taken with you, personally and professionally. Don’t ask me why — anyone who’d get involved with a pilot can’t have all their marbles. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cooked up this morning’s bombshell in the press. Am I close?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” Elliott replied with a straight face.
“Okay, we’ll leave it that way — it’s safer for her too. Besides, everyone around this place has a pipeline to some reporter. There’d be more double-dealing and backstabbing in this place than in the Kremlin if there wasn’t the occasional leak. But get caught at it, suddenly you’re a leper.”
In the garage they moved into waiting sedans. “I assume you’ll want to use the command center to run this operation, Brad,” Curtis said as they drove off. Elliott gave him a surprised long look.