Let the politicians in Berlin come down here and fight if they want to. We just want to be left alone in peace."
Turning down the volume, Jan sat and looked at the television with a vacant stare while she thought about that story and allowed it to flow together with the bits of information she had gleaned from Terri and her own feeling that things were not what they seemed or were being reported as. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that her feeling, what old-time newsmen would call a gut feeling, was right. The military and the administration were up to something and they had no intention of telling anyone. In fact, Jan began to realize, there was the real possibility that the media, including her, were being manipulated in an effort to cover up some kind of operation aimed at saving American face and prestige or even, she thought, retrieving the weapons that the Germans had taken from the Air Force. That something was going on was to Jan a sure thing. What exactly it was, she could only guess.
For her, a savvy correspondent who had more than earned and re-earned her reputation for intelligence and journalistic skill and for meeting all challenges head-on, what to do with this revelation was the question. There was no hint in any of the stories jamming the news agencies that morning that anyone suspected that the situation wasn't as it seemed. Even the military "experts" and experienced correspondents crowding the WNN studios that morning didn't betray any sign that they saw anything beyond the immediate surface of the unfolding drama in southern Germany. Only she, Jan Fields-Dixon, seemed to see past the heavy official curtain that hid the true meaning of the actions shown on her nineteen-inch television monitor. But just as that knowledge pleased her, it also troubled her. Had this been another story in another part of the world involving different actors, she would have had no problem running her hunches and suspicions to ground until she had a story that would tear away the curtain of secrecy that she suspected hid the truth.
But this story involved the Tenth Corps, an organization led by a man she knew personally and to which her lover and husband belonged. What would happen, she thought, to Scott and his command if she was right about the conspiracy and a news story that she put together compromised it? Would her action save Scott from another foolish plan doomed to fail or would it condemn that venture to ultimate failure? Was it her duty to push a story that if true would further enhance her reputation, under the guise of defending the public's right to know the truth? Or did her first duty lie in allowing the suspected deception to continue without comment so that Scott and the tens of thousands of soldiers with him in Germany could carry on with their tasks? It came down, Jan realized, not to a question of what was truth and lie, or what was right and wrong, but to a question of responsibility.
She was still pondering all of this when an assistant to Charley Mordal, the senior producer, called Jan and asked if she had her notes ready for that afternoon's show. Looking down at the blank legal pad that sat in front of her, Jan told him, of course, they were just about ready. Hanging up, she looked at the television monitor one more time, then at the computer screen, before scribbling the first thing that came to her mind based on the information that she had pulled from the news stories from other news agencies. Until she had resolved her own concerns, she would stay with the pack and keep her own counsel. Too much, she knew, was at stake. Far too much.
From across the table, Pete Soares watched Abigail Wilson as she spoke to the German Chancellor. The conversation was conducted using speakerphones, which allowed the translators on both ends to hear not only the head of state whose words they were to translate but also to listen to the translation of their counterpart to ensure that the meaning was not altered by the translator's choice of words. This method also allowed both Wilson and Ruff to have selected cabinet members and advisors listen in, though they said nothing during the conversation between the two national leaders. Besides Soares, Wilson had her Secretary of Defense, Terry Rothenberg, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ed Lewis. With Ruff were his Foreign Minister Bruno Rooks, Defense Minister Rudolf Lammers, Interior Minister Thomas Fellner, General Otto Lange, Chief of the German General Staff, and Colonel Hans Kasper, Ruff's military aide.
From the very beginning of the conversation, initiated by an excited and fast-talking Ruff, he took every opportunity to remind Wilson that this current crisis was her fault. In between those condemnations, Ruff pointed out that the American habit of conducting unilateral and aggressive international adventures could not go unchecked or unanswered. All of this, plus his habit of cutting Wilson off in midsentence, left little doubt in Washington that Ruff had no intention of opening serious negotiations. Each time Wilson attempted to suggest a means of peacefully resolving the crisis, Ruff fell back to his initial position that no discussions between their two countries could even be considered until all American forces were either withdrawn from Germany or disarmed. Wilson, maintaining her composure, reminded Ruff that unfortunately she did not have at that moment the ability to stop the movement of the Tenth Corps. "As I have told you before," Wilson reminded Ruff, "General Malin is a maverick, an unguided missile. We have attempted and will continue to attempt to bring him and his corps under control, but at this time neither he, his staff, nor his subordinate commanders are responding to our attempts to communicate with them."
"And. Madam President." Ruff responded, with great emphasis on "madam," "as I have told you before, if you cannot control your own Army, the German Army can." In Berlin this statement caused both General Lange and Thomas Fellner to flinch. Both men, though for different reasons, were working to avoid a confrontation between the two forces in their own ways, though neither man knew of the other's efforts.
Unruffled by Ruff's threat, Wilson waited until Ruff was finished and then, in a voice that reminded Soares of a grade school teacher lecturing an errant student, attempted to put the seriousness of the situation in its proper perspective. "If I am to believe my own intelligence agencies, not to mention the international and German correspondents covering this situation, to date there have been no armed confrontations between your forces and mine. Except for a few unfortunate traffic accidents, no one on either side has been hurt. This fact alone, Herr Chancellor, leads me to believe that General Malin is doing exactly what he pledged he wouldmarching his command to the sea with as little disruption to the German public as possible."
"No! No. You don't understand," Ruff shouted. "You don't seem to appreciate my position. German sovereignty and national honor are at stake here. If I allow your mad general to go marauding through the heart of my country unchecked, Ino, Germanywill lose the respect of the rest of the world. That is, to meto the German peopleintolerable."