President Lloyd Taylor shifted in his seat. “Cut to the chase, son. The election will be over before your report is. What are the odds of the covert action working?”
Jed literally gulped as his mind shifted gears. He had prepared long arguments for and against each option, including the Madcap Magician operation the President had just referred to. That plan – removing the surface-to-ship and surface-to-air missiles in Somalia with a ‘sanitized’ covert-action team – was, in fact, his recommendation. But he’d come expecting to have to argue for it, and only now realized that the President might actually already had discussed and considered it in great detail with Ms. O’Day.
He coughed, the jumped to what he had planned as the conclusion to his presentation.
“By knocking out the missiles we can demonstrate a firm hand. Resolve, I mean,” said Jed. “At the same time, the diplomatic solution can proceed. The covert, I mean, Madcap Magician, is preferable because it can move quickly and provides at least a veneer of deniability. In any event, full military intervention would take days if not weeks to pull together, by which time the price of oil will have risen catastrophically. Madcap Magician has positioned and trained units under the Ironweed contingency; they need only a few hours’ notice. As far as negatives go, we’re working without real-time satellite coverage and the intel –”
“Odds of success,” prompted Ms. O’Day in a stage whisper.
“The simulations,” he said, “have shown a seventy percent chance of success.”
“Seventy percent?” said the President’s Chief of Staff.
“I think it’s work the risk,” said O’Day.
“What does our Harvard whiz kid think?” asked the President. He said Harvard the way someone who had graduated from Yale would.
“Well, sir.” Jed fumbled with his tie as memorizing he speech. “I, uh – concur with Ms. O’Day. However, we have to –“
“However, you feel that the possibility of failure is higher than the models indicate,” said the President. “But that we should proceed anyway.”
“Well, see, it depends on what you’re measuring. There’s a built-in prejudice in any such model. I mean, I tried to keep it out of this one, O’Day had warned him, above all else, not to use the word ‘coefficient.” “But the real issue here goes beyond the computer model.”
“I agree. Computer modeling of political situations is absurd,” said Taylor’s Chief of Staff.
“Well, that’ a bit far,” snapped Jed, momentarily forgetting where he was. “I mean, the thing is, we do need tools to qualify certain factors. See, my point is, Mr. President, we have to meet this aggressively. To a certain extent, we have to be willing to risk partial military failure. And we also have to anticipate adverse reaction from the other Arab states. Saudi Arabia will feel particularly vulnerable, as will Egypt. They’ll definitely bar their bases to us. We’ll end up having to rely on Israel for the military buildup, and that will have even more consequences. But if we do nothing – if we fold – the results will be disastrous. We should be prepared for a measured but aggressive response. When Libya joins the coalition – and I say when, not if – we should attack with everything we’ve got. There are a dozen contingency plans drawn up for that. At that point, the Greater Islamic League folds. I’m certain of that.”
“Where’d you get this punk kid?” Taylor growled to O’Day. “Excuse us,” he said harshly, dismissing Jed.
Confused and impotent, Jed slipped out of the room. He felt like he had been punched in the stomach.
Worse. Maybe hit in the head with a baseball bat.
He walked down the hallway in a daze. Ms. O’Day somehow materialized behind him. With a stern look, she motioned for him to follow her downstairs. He did so, despite the searing pain of his insides. Never in his life had he screwed up so badly.
And the thing was, he wasn’t even sure precisely how he had screwed up.
Too many coughs and stutters. Not enough respect. Mentioning the computer simulations, even though they were one of the reasons he was here. And above all, using that damn word ‘coefficient.”
Neither Jed nor his boss spoke until they were back in the NSC basement, walking toward her office.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry? For what?”
“I didn’t mean to, uh, make the President angry.”
“O’Day laughed. “Jed, you may be a genius at foreign policy and computer science, but you have a lot to learn about Washington.”
“Washington?”
“There’s an election in three weeks, remember?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Ms. O’Day shook her head.
“Was I supposed to check this with polls or something?” Jed asked. He had a vague notion that military action would hurt the President’s chances at getting reelected. On the other hand, rising gas prices would effectively kill them.
wouldn’t they?
“Jed, Ironweed is proceeding,” said O’Day. “Madcap Magician has already gotten the okay to move. We’re ratcheting up for the reaction. Two carrier groups are moving into the Mediterranean for training missions. Everything you suggested is proceeding. Hopefully, it won’t be needed,” she added. The National Security Advisor pursed her lips. “But if it is, we’ll deal with it the only way possible – aggressively, but with a measured response. In the meantime, Cascade is being detailed to the Middle East to keep an eye on things.”
“Cascade?”
“My personal representative. Unofficially, of course. His assignment is to observe the routine training procedures, familiarizing himself with them.”
“But the President was angry. And he certainly didn’t authorize –”
“Keep that in mind,” she said sternly. “And don’t forget about the election, okay?”
she glanced her watch. “Your flight leaves from Andrews in a half hour. If you hustle, you may be able to hitch a ride on Marine One with the President’s wife.”
“The President’s wife?”
“Don’t be surprised if she doesn’t make the flight,” added O’Day, “even though she’s the only one on the passenger list. Probably just as well. She would definitely want you to change that tie. Good God, Jed. We have to go shopping when you get back.”
Dreamland
21 October, 0700 local
Ordinarily, Colonel Bastian didn’t have much use for donuts, especially the crème-covered, choke-your-arteries kind. But Ax had insisted that hey were mandatory morale boosters for early morning staff meetings, especially when the people gathering were going to hear things they didn’t like hearing. And so he’d let the sergeant go ahead and ring the damn things to the conference room, along with the coffee tankers and an oversupply of semi-hard bagels. It was a good thing too – they’d been going at this now for nearly an hour without letup.
Long enough for Dog to concede, if only to himself, that the donuts weren’t that bad an idea.
“Colonel, I’ve gone over the numbers at least ten times with the contractors,” pleaded Major Cheshire. “There’s just no way we can sustain the EB-52 project with this little money. The flight-computer system for the three new planes alone will cost ten million dollars.”
“There’s got to be a way,” said Bastian. “The budget committee is reluctant even to grant that much.”
“What’s another ten million to them?” groused Rubeo. “They probably spend more than that on lunch.”
“Each computer has to be designed specifically for the individual plane,” explained Cheshire. “The gallium-arsenic chips that control flight functions are made by the NSA plants, which sets the price. That’s where the expense comes in. It’s absurd. I know, but they’re padding their own budget.”