Felix tried to get some sleep, but he wondered. Was his team walking into an elaborate, clever trap? Had German advisers sent a ragtag guerrilla platoon after the other SEAL team to serve as patsies? Was a devious German gambit in play, intended to goad Felix and his team on, and lull them right into another ambush… one laid by kampfschwimmer, from whom the SEALs would not escape?
CHAPTER 3
Jeffrey was still at the reception at the hotel. As he approached the commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, for a chat, the four-star admiral was standing in a circle with other admirals and members of Congress. The admiral was himself a submariner, and yet Jeffrey got barely a nod from the man before his senior aide, a full captain, cut Jeffrey off. The admiral and his staff needed to rush back to their headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. The admiral’s helicopter was waiting for him and his group in an empty parking lot at nearby Georgetown University. Jeffrey got the impression some sort of crisis had just come up. This impression was reinforced when he saw commander, submarines, Atlantic, and several captains and admirals who worked in undersea warfare at the Pentagon also leave the party very hurriedly, but as discreetly as they could. Jeffrey buttonholed a friend on one of the admirals’ staff, but he wouldn’t reveal a thing.
Jeffrey was intercepted by two Secret Service agents. “Come with us, please, sir.”
Jeffrey couldn’t exactly refuse. He wondered if his travel arrangements back to New London were changing at the last minute, for security or because of whatever else was going on. He couldn’t spot his parents to make a quick good-bye.
The Secret Service agents led Jeffrey out of the ballroom. Along the way, seeing that he was leaving, some cabinet members and congresspeople moved in. A staff assistant dragged Jeffrey’s parents over from out of the crowd, almost physically. Other assistants or interns — or whoever the pushy young people were — insisted that the remaining TV crews come closer. Jeffrey and his mom and dad posed for handshakes and hugs and pats on the shoulder from people who spent more time beaming their glued-on smiles into the cameras than they did really looking at Jeffrey or his folks. This final feeding frenzy ended quickly.
Then the Secret Service agents whisked Jeffrey away, after telling his parents that their son would be back soon. They led him down a heavily guarded side corridor.
Passing through two separate steel doors, with an anteroom between them, Jeffrey was all at once in a temporary communications post. The president of the United States was there, speaking in hushed but urgent tones with some U.S. Army and Marine Corps generals.
The steel door shut behind Jeffrey, with the Secret Service agents stationed right outside. Also stationed in the anteroom, Jeffrey realized now, was an officer with the go codes, in case the president needed to launch a global thermonuclear strike; the thought of it sent shivers up his spine.
“Give us a minute alone,” the president said. The generals grabbed their laptops and hats and went out.
Jeffrey was left in a windowless room, standing on the scuffed linoleum, face-to-face with his commander in chief. Jeffrey came to attention.
“Take a seat,” the president said. He pointed to one of the beat-up metal convention-hall chairs. The president sat behind a drab desk covered with telephone banks and computer displays. He eyed one display for several seconds, then turned his full attention back to Jeffrey.
Jeffrey took a chair, but sat in it very erectly.
“Feels good to sit down, doesn’t it?” the president said.
Jeffrey nodded, cautiously; something was very irregular. Getting a medal and a handshake from the president in public was one thing — talking to him one-on-one with no set agenda was something else entirely.
“Relax, son,” the president said in a no-nonsense way. He set the tone by leaning back in his swivel chair, letting his posture loosen up. He gave Jeffrey a smile. Jeffrey perceived in that smile the same depth of character, compassion, humanity, and iron will that millions of voters had seen in the last election campaign. He tried to relax.
“That’s the problem with being a retired four-star general,” the president said. “All you military guys and gals go into your snap-to-attention mode and stop talking and start obeying. Leave the formalities outside the door for now…. Your commodore and my defense secretary were made aware I wanted this chitchat and pep talk in private. Executive privilege, if you will. You’ll get a formal briefing soon from your seniors.”
“Yes, sir.”
The president studied Jeffrey up and down. “You look wilted around the edges.”
“It’s been a long day, Mr. President.”
“Tell me about it. I can’t remember when the last time was I didn’t have a long day.”
Jeffrey decided to say something safe. “I guess it’s not just a cliché, sir, when people keep telling each other, ‘There’s a war on.’”
The president chuckled. “I want to show you something.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a thin billfold.
Jeffrey assumed he was looking for notes, or maybe would show Jeffrey pictures of his family. Instead the president pulled out a set of dog-eared little photographs and reproductions of paintings. He spread them on the desk as if he were showing Jeffrey his hand in a game of poker.
There were pictures of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Jackson, George Washington.
“Who’s this other guy?” Jeffrey was feeling somewhat more comfortable; the president had skillfully broken the ice.
“Zachary Taylor. Know what all these men have in common?”
Jeffrey thought for a second. “They were all elected president after being successful generals in wars.”
“Yup. I like to look at them. Role models. Helps keep me going in these difficult times… Compared to them I’m the odd man out.”
“Sir?”
“They won their biggest shooting wars before they became head of state. I’m the ex-general who got stuck with the Worst World War after I got elected.”
Jeffrey nodded. That phrase, Worst World War, came from a editorial in the Washington Post last summer. It was apt.
The president seemed to read Jeffrey’s mind.
“We got so fixated on the pillar or the post, conventional weapons or fusion warheads, we missed the awful middle ground of tossing around small atom bombs. The Russians never missed it. It was a big part of all their war plans, if they ever went up against NATO…. Making them an associate member didn’t change a thing. ‘Constructive engagement,’ my ass. Russian paranoia and jealous resentment of the West go back to the czars, for God’s sake. It’s burned into their national psyche, and it’s obvious now that’s one thing that won’t ever change.”
“I understand, sir.” Jeffrey wasn’t sure if the president was trying to express regret, or angry hindsight, or what?
“We were so focused on other crises and wars that had to be won. Terrorism, the Middle East, Asia… We treated Europe like nonplayers, looked down our noses at Latin America, and forgot about Africa altogether.”
Jeffrey nodded politely. Where is he going with this?
“The Berlin-Boer Axis bootstrapped themselves into existence very cleverly and we never saw it coming. They used their own twisted brand of voodoo economics to finance a hostile takeover of half the world. Prewar loans from all the big German and Swiss banks and rich insurance companies, to arms makers in Germany and South Africa, with off-the-books covenants saying repayment would come at some future date from war plunder yet to be specified… Building a hundred high-tech diesel subs on spec, supposedly for export, then suddenly turning that inventory into a modern U-boat fleet. Group simulator training in modern attack and defense, in secret, using teaching methods and software pioneered by our own Submarine School, to give ’em a cadre of German crews skilled and seasoned even though they’d rarely been to sea.” The president got more aggravated, and bitter, with every word.