Adams had quickly checked the officer’s name tag, stitched onto the flight suit, and remembered George Duke from the year Adams had spent as an exchange student at the Air University in Alabama. They had both been on their way then, he to being a Navy captain and Duke to being an Air Force colonel. Their on-base houses had been back-to-back.
“Don’t I remember your little girl was Shawndra? My Jackie had a big crush on her,” Adams said, getting up from the edge of the bed where he had been sitting in the aft of the aircraft.
“Yeah, my wife wasn’t too happy about that interracial dating stuff. She’s old-fashioned. Well, little Shawndra made me a grandfather last year. Wow, that made me feel old. You wanna tour?” General Duke said, motioning toward the bulkhead door. Adams followed him forward.
“This baby’s just been refurbished. It’s still a 747–200, but it’s been zero-timed. Airframe rehabbed. New engines, new comms, new computers. It used to be called Kneecap back in the Cold War, designed so we could run the nuclear war from up here. We could launch the ICBMs directly from this cabin. Still can, of course, but that’s not our primary mission. We are a ‘mobile crisis response’ asset. We still call this cabin the Battle Staff and I’m the director of the Battle Staff, but when we get used, it’s usually to fly in a FEMA team to a hurricane area and provide them with an office and communications until they can get things set up.”
The Battle Staff cabin was filled with desks with multiple computer consoles, headphones, and microphones. The seats were like mesh cocoons dangling from the ceiling. The lighting was subdued, the cabin quiet, with just the noise of the air-distribution system and the hum of an aircraft at altitude. Only a few seats were occupied. Adams had seen much of the crew bunking out in the aft cabin.
“We’re supposed to meet a KC-10 around now to get a drink. If you’ve never seen two jumbos mating in midair, I’ll get you upstairs for the refueling,” Duke offered as they continued to move forward in the long fuselage. They went through another door into a smaller room that looked as though it had been designed for briefings or conferencing. “We call this the Sit Room, because that’s all you can do here. No, really, it’s supposed to have been modeled on the White House Situation Room.” The room was devoid of people.
“Very nice, George,” Adams said and followed the general’s cue, sitting down in one of the big leather chairs that were bolted down around the highly polished wooden table. “But tell me, why is SECDEF using this thing to fly to Turkey?”
“Well, we’re going to be flying anyway. If he weren’t using it, we’d just be doing lazy eights over Oklahoma for forty hours at a stretch. SECDEF is the guy this plane was built for. Unlikely that the President would use it. Even in a crisis he’d probably stay on Air Force One or go to a cave somewhere. SECDEF has all the authority the President has to order forces around, even to launch nuclear weapons. If anything comes up while he is traveling, better to have him on this than on some vanilla 757 with two satellite comm channels.
“Besides, Brad, you should see people’s reaction to this thing. In Turkey, all the other NATO ministers of defense will come in Gulfstreams or some other executive jet. Our guy arrives in a big blueand-white 747 that says ‘United States of America’ in big letters down the side. It ain’t Air Force One, but it kinda looks like it.”
“Well, I guess that makes sense. It’s also probably a lot more comfy up front than some plane we bought to take Congressmen around the world on junkets.” Brad laughed.
“Secretary Conrad loves it.” Duke beamed back. “He’s booked this bird for the next four weeks. We go from Turkey to Egypt. Then we are open-ended. Told to bring aviation maps and airport plans for the Arabian peninsula. How’s that for a definite destination?”
“Well, if you get to Bahrain, look me up,” Adams said, thinking about locations on the Arabian peninsula. “I’ll give you a tour of my emergency command post. It’s a little bit longer, not as nice, but it floats better.”
Major Chun entered the cabin. “Admiral Adams. The Secretary will see you now.”
Chun led Adams forward into yet another conference room, then through another door that had the letters ‘NCA’ on it. “This is the National Command Authority suite, sir. Around the corner here is the Secretary’s office.”
“Brad, Brad Adams, isn’t it?” Secretary of Defense Henry Conrad said, turning the corner into the narrow corridor. He thrust a hand forward. It was firm, callused. The Secretary was wearing an Air Force leather pilot’s jacket, a blue button-down oxford shirt, and tan khaki pants. He looked slightly like he should be at his fiftieth reunion from prep school. “Come on back. Dju eat yet? I was just about to chow down here. Join me, will ya?”
The Secretary’s cabin was small, with a table for two, a king-size bed, and a wall of flat screens and telephones. One flat screen showed a map with a little white airplane moving slowly across it. Two others showed dark images of clouds — the view from the nose forward and the view immediately below the aircraft. Two dinners were set out on the table, being kept warm under metal covers.
“Hope you like steak, Admiral. I’m a red-meat man. Don’t trust a guy who isn’t.” The SECDEF removed both covers, revealing two New York strip steaks with mashed potatoes. An Air Force steward appeared with two bottles of cold Heineken. “Salut,” Henry Conrad toasted.
He talked as he ate, and carved up the big strip steak. “Sorry to dragoon you like this, but I ran out of time at the office. Got dragged off to the White House for some goddamned NSC principals’ meeting on Colombia. Like I give a shit about Colombia. The Middle East is a powder keg, the Chinese are stealing our lunch, and the National Security Advisor has to have a hurry-up meeting on Colombia because some of the State Department’s counterdrug guys got taken hostage and they want us to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.”
Adams had grabbed a sandwich in the aft cabin earlier, but the steak was so good he was working his way right through it as he listened to this big, gregarious man. He could not remember having had a Heineken on board a U.S. military aircraft or ship before.
“Now here’s the thing, Brad. The Chinese are coming on like gangbusters. Their economy has been white-hot now for almost two decades. Their economic espionage in our country has been fantastic. Stole every company’s recipes, formulas, designs. They created an automotive industry and are now exporting cars. Amazing. Their cars at home, plus their industry, are sucking down oil and gas like there’s no tomorrow. They’re importing as much oil as we are.
“That was okay when most of the world’s reserves were Saudi and we had long-term deals to get it. Now the Chinese are after an exclusive, first-dibs deal for that oil. We’ve been paying through the nose for it since the coup there, ’cuz we gotta buy it on the spot market.” He spit out a piece of gristle. “But if the Chinese pull it off the market, we will be left with hind titty and paying top dollar.”
The steward reappeared with cheesecake covered with raspberry sauce. Conrad passed him the empty steak plate. “So now we hear from this Chinese admiral the Aussies got that Beijing is gonna sneak troops into Saudi to be a kinda Praetorian Guard for these terrorists who have taken over in Riyadh. It will be damn hard for our freedom fighters to throw out the terrorists if they’re protected by the People’s Liberation Army!”
Adams wondered who our freedom fighters were, but Conrad was on a roll and was not to be stopped for questions.