“You run with that, Luke,” Barbeau agreed. “But see if you can filter that angle out through our allies in the media. Let them make the case for us first. That way it’ll look more like unbiased analysis and less like special pleading.”
The New Yorker nodded. There was always a revolving door between the media and an administration like Barbeau’s. Political people leaving the White House found jobs as pundits, reporters, and even news anchors on the networks. And, in turn, friendly journalists rotated in to act as press secretaries or speechwriters. Incestuous the process might be, but it guaranteed the president and her staff a first crack at spinning any story in the direction they wanted.
Barbeau turned back to Rauch. She offered him a wry smile. “You may be better suited to political infighting than you imagined, Ed.”
He didn’t look quite as pleased by that as she expected.
“We’re still going to bleed every time Farrell slams our big-ticket weapons procurement programs,” Cohen warned. “The flyover country rubes he’s whipping into a frenzy are buying his crap about crooked deals with defense contractors.”
“We need those new fighters, strategic bombers, and missiles,” Barbeau said flatly. “My unlamented predecessors, like that scumbag Martindale, ran around the world picking senseless fights. And every stupid war they started ate deeper and deeper into our force structure. Those glory-grabbing morons left this country with a hollowed-out Air Force. For Christ’s sake, we’ve been limping along with a handful of aging bombers and fighter squadrons full of F-15s and F-16s that were old twenty years ago! So now it’s my job to put the pieces back together.”
Left unspoken were the obvious political benefits of pumping tens of billions of federal dollars into states whose electoral votes she was going to need in November. Not to mention the hefty contributions the big defense companies and labor unions were funneling into her reelection campaign and those of her political allies. All of which just made her strategic rearmament program a win-win-win situation as far as she was concerned.
Rauch looked pained, which meant he had something to say that she wasn’t going to like hearing. “Governor Farrell is not opposed to rebuilding our defenses, Madam President,” he pointed out. “Instead, he’s arguing that there are better, faster, and cheaper ways to do the job.”
“Oh, let me guess. Big Tex is a fan of all those pie-in-the-sky wonder weapons Sky Masters peddles,” Barbeau said with icy disdain. “All the super-duper combat drones, hypersonic missiles, and other Buck Rogers baloney they’ve been pushing at the Pentagon for years. Right?”
Rauch nodded reluctantly.
Cohen snorted. “Well, that’s a dead giveaway as to who’s pulling Farrell’s strings.”
“Martindale.” Barbeau’s lip curled in disgust. As president, Martindale had been a big believer in the cutting-edge military hardware developed by Jon Masters, the founder and chief scientist of Sky Masters. Masters himself was dead, killed years ago by domestic terrorists. But with his ex-wife, Helen Kaddiri, at the helm, the Nevada-based company kept rolling out new concepts for manned and unmanned aircraft, sensors, weapons systems, and other equipment. And despite her best efforts to stop them, Sky Masters was still selling Martindale the high-tech weapons and combat robots he needed to fight his own private, highly profitable wars.
She frowned. No wonder Martindale and his corporate allies wanted her out… and Farrell in. They were counting on the Texas oil man to shovel billions in new Pentagon contracts their way come next January. She looked at Cohen. “Well, now we know what good old John D. was really doing in Warsaw last fall.”
He nodded.
Shortly after announcing his candidacy, Farrell had jetted off on what he called a “fact-finding trip” across Europe and Asia. Pundits and bloggers on Barbeau’s side had mocked him for the obvious effort to paper over his total lack of foreign policy experience. When he added Warsaw to his itinerary, Barbeau had privately dismissed the visit as a publicity stunt designed to embarrass her. She should have known better. Besides hobnobbing with Poland’s president, Piotr Wilk, and other leaders in the Alliance of Free Nations, he must also have been making a deal with Martindale for his support.
From the dubious expression on Rauch’s pale face, she knew he didn’t buy the idea that Farrell was acting as a stalking horse for Martindale and Sky Masters. She ignored him.
Like many former academics, her national security adviser still longed for the life of the ivory tower where truth was determined by agreed-upon facts and clear evidence. Politics was a very different game — one where intuition reigned supreme and where taking an opponent’s actions and words solely at face value was never the smart play.
“If Farrell is tied in with Sky Masters through Martindale, they’ll pull out all the stops to make him look good,” Cohen said thoughtfully. “They could put on one hell of an air show with some of those experimental aircraft and drones they’re sitting on.”
Barbeau nodded slowly. After she learned that Kaddiri and her new chief engineer and CEO, Jason Richter, were shipping arms and equipment to Scion’s mercenaries, she’d ordered a full FBI-led investigation into the company. Reading those reports had been an eye-opener. Sky Masters had at least one hangar full of flyable prototypes.
Common sense told her that most of those X-planes must be duds, either unsuited for real-world military use or too expensive to mass-produce, operate, and maintain. Unfortunately, none of those considerations would matter much to the voters Farrell was wooing. They’d only see a slew of futuristic-looking aircraft and drones already winging through the air… while most of the new fifth-generation air-superiority fighters and long-range bombers her administration backed were only on drawing boards, or, at best, crawling through the Pentagon’s interminable review processes. The contrast would be damning.
Irritably, Barbeau swiveled away from her desk and glared out across the White House lawn. What could her administration do to counter a Sky Masters dog and pony show? Static models, mockups, and computer animations weren’t going to wow anyone. While F-35 Lightning IIs were finally coming off the production line in reasonable numbers, individual examples had already been seen at air shows in the States and around the world for years. The only thing different now was that the Air Force could finally field a complete active-duty squadron of the stealth multirole fighters.
Suddenly it occurred to her that she’d been coming at this from the wrong direction. She didn’t need to counter whatever Farrell, Sky Masters, and Martindale had planned. She needed to preempt it. The old axiom about the best defense being a good offense was as true in a political campaign as it was in war.
Barbeau swiveled back. “Dr. Rauch,” she said formally. “Am I right that the defense contractor for the new B-21 Raider long-range stealth bomber has promised us a flyable prototype by midyear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rauch said guardedly. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “But schedules tend to slip, especially in a program as complex and expensive as the Raider.”
Her eyes went stone-cold. “Then you are going to get on the horn to those gentlemen and inform them that there will be no such slipups in this case. That bird will fly as promised. Or heads will roll… and contract penalty clauses will be invoked.”
The national security adviser winced. “With respect, Madam President, there’s no way I can make that a serious threat. Merging all the electronics, weapons and flight controls, navigation and communications systems, and passive and active defenses in a totally new airframe is a massive, incredibly intricate undertaking. There’s no way any court will uphold a judgment against a defense contractor for unforeseen delays in so difficult a project.”