“You’d attack the Jefferson?” Drake asked, her voice astonished. “Isn’t that a little out of proportion?” She saw the look on his face, and waved her hand impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, the civilian ship and fifteen Russians. It’s a tragedy — it bleeds, it leads in the news. But you’re talking about attacking an American ship of war! Tell me why this makes sense!”
The Russian general regarded her gravely. “Talk to others on the staff here, Miss Drake. I think you will see that America committed two acts of aggression. First, by deploying this system despite the protests of the rest of the world. And second, by targeting our ship with fire control radar. You may not understand it, not as we do, but we consider ourselves already at war. You would be wise to remember that and to convey it to the battle group commander, Admiral Grant.”
Drake spent the next five hours interviewing other members of the Russian staff, but as far as she was concerned, she got what she came for in the first interview. Later, as her helo lifted off to return to Jefferson, she stared back at the Russian ship. The real task now was sorting out the Russian manipulation from the American manipulation. For just a second, she wondered if Winston didn’t have it right.
SEVENTEEN
Wexler could not recall a time when she had ever been quite so tired. Or so discouraged. Nothing in the world seemed to make any sense anymore, least of all what had happened at the United Nations in the last week. Beginning with the equivocation of Great Britain, proceeding to Liberia’s motion as seconded by India, and finally to this — the complete and utter desertion of the United States by all her purported allies.
I will not look in the mirror. I will not. She did not need to see her reflection to know that her eyes were bleary and bloodshot, her face pale and drained. She could feel the results of too little sleep and too much caffeine in every inch of her body.
But what were the options? During a crisis, no one slept.
Forty-five minutes left. What will I tell them?
The prospect of announcing to the world that the United States would not—could not? — pay its just obligations was simply unthinkable. So was the option of withdrawing from the United Nations. There had to be a middle ground — there had to be.
There was a knock on her door and Brad stepped in without waiting for an answer. If anything, he looked worse than she did. But there was a note of hope in his voice when he said, “Captain Hemingway to see you, Ambassador.”
“I hope she brought her own tea leaves,” Wexler answered, glancing at the antique can on her credenza. She’d run out of her favorite orange oolong three hours ago.
Captain Jane Hemingway stepped into the room. She held out a small brown paper bag. “As it happens, I do. We can drink it and then stare at the dregs and try to figure out what’s going on.”
“Divining answers from tea leaves requires a fresh pot, I think,” Brad said. He plucked the bag out of her hand. “I’ll take care of that.”
He left, shutting the door behind him. Without waiting for an invitation, Captain Hemingway sank down on the comfortable couch. “Hell of a long week, isn’t it?”
“For everyone, I suspect. Have you come to offer moral support, or just drop off a going away present?” Wexler could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Hemingway yawned and looked suspiciously, like she wanted to stretch out on the couch for nap. “Neither, really. Actually, you may consider me the cavalry.”
“Want to explain that?”
Hemingway shook her head. “Nope. I mean, no, Madam Ambassador.” Hemingway opened her briefcase, fumbling with the security latch for a moment and then extracting a sealed brown envelope. She raised it to her lips, kissed the seal, and passed it to Wexler.
Wexler felt an unreasoning flick of hope. She took the envelope, broke the security seal, and extracted the contents.
“Just read. Get all the way through it, and then I can answer any questions.” Hemingway yawned again.
“Go ahead,” Wexler murmured, already running her finger down the front page. “Crash out. I will wake you when I need you.” Before she turned to the second page, Hemingway was asleep.
The first two sentences were sufficient to flush every trace of fatigue out of her body. It was the section entitled “Executive Summary,” a quick overview intended to convince the reader to probe into the details.
Analysis of the electromagnetic spectrum during the attack on the Montego Bay indicated the ship was destroyed by a Silkworm missile. Trajectory reconstruction indicated that the missile was fired from the Russian amphibious transport.
Wexler started to ask, “They can really prove this?” Instead, she glanced at the sleeping Navy captain and began to read the supporting documentation.
Minutes later, Brad reappeared with a fresh pot of tea. He took in the situation at a glance, quietly poured both women large mugs, avoiding the delicate teacups that Wexler favored, slipped a cozy over the pot, and withdrew without comment. Five minutes after that, Wexler said, “Jane.”
Hemingway’s eyes snapped opened. There was a microsecond of disorientation and then she was alert. She sat up, moving smoothly, and picked up the mug of tea. The fifteen-minute nap appeared to have worked magic.
“Cavalry, indeed,” Wexler said. She tapped the sheaf of documents. “Since when did the cavalry carry dynamite?”
“There’s more,” Hemingway said. She yawned, then took another large gulp of the tea. “Don’t ask me where I got this information from, okay? Just don’t.”
“Provisionally, I agree,” Wexler said cautiously. “As long as there’s nothing criminal about it.”
Hemmingway shrugged. “Define criminal for me and I’ll tell you. Just listen first, though.”
She took a deep breath and shook off the last vestiges of sleep. “Has it occurred to you that damn little has been said about what started all this. That the Russians tested their TBMD system by taking out an American satellite? Doesn’t it seem odd to you that nobody’s screaming bloody murder about that, but they’re up in arms about a fire control radar?”
“Yes, it does,” Wexler said.
“What if I told you that the president told them they could take it out?”
“Impossible. What in the world would he gain by doing something like that?” Wexler asked.
“This.” Hemmingway passed her another folder, this one containing a single sheet of paper.
Wexler looked at it, then felt her face turn pale. She stared at the information, just two short paragraphs and a photo. “He traded the satellite for this information,” she said slowly. It made complete sense to her now.
“Yeah. That’s the way it looks. And I think we got the better end of the deal, don’t you?”
Wexler snapped the folder shut. “I know who needs to see this.”
“You can’t tell them where you got it.”
“I won’t. They won’t care. And,” Wexler continued, her voice now grim, “it’s going outside of the usual channels. It’s going straight to the man who ought to have seen it first.”