The President looked up.
“It’s a go, Jimmy. The British are in.” He seemed older somehow.
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. But I just don’t see that we have any other real choice. “
Forrester felt his pulse accelerating. He rose from his chair.
“In that case, Mr. President, I’ll be on my way. Hurley has his group waiting for me.”
He glanced behind him as he left the Oval Office. The President sat still behind his desk-staring sadly at nothing in particular. Not for the first time, Forrester realized that it was a hell of a lot easier to follow orders than it was to give them.
EMERGENCY CONFERENCE ROOM, THE PENTAGON
At the President’s direction, the NSC’s Southern Africa Crisis Group had shifted its day-to-day operations over to the Pentagon. The basement
Emergency Conference Room there was larger, had better communications facilities, and allowed faster access to the latest intelligence data from the region.
Almost as important, the Pentagon had more parking and entrances and exits than the White House. And that, in turn, made it easier to hold a serious meeting without creating a three-ring media circus. The print and
TV reporters who prowled through the White House looking for fast-breaking news had limousine-counting down to a science.
Besides, the Conference Room looked a lot more like a
hightech command center than did the rather dingy White House Situation
Room. A bank of six-foot-high computer display screens, most of them blank at the moment, lined one whole wall, three across and two rows high. The length of a T-shaped table accommodated Crisis Group staffers and aides, while members of the Crisis Group sat across one end. A microphone stood in front of every seat at the table. Podiums, with as much audiovisual equipment as a small high school, allowed the entire group to be briefed on developments.
Doors led to the basement hallway outside, an adjacent communications center, a pair of small apartments with beds and washrooms, and a carefully guarded cubicle crowded with terminals linked directly to the mainframe computers at every major U.S. intelligence agency.
The Conference Room was supposed to be filled with organized chaos.
Instead, it was just chaos. Cuba’s attack into South Africa had caught the
Crisis Group in mid move turning what was supposed to be a smooth transition into a frantic scramble.
Officers and enlisted personnel from all four military services came and went in a steady stream, mixing with little knots of harried-looking civilian aides. Technicians clustered on one side of the room, trying to get the right images displayed on the room’s wall-mounted computer screens.
Maps for southern Africa were on file, but they hadn’t yet been converted to the Pentagon’s new computer format.
More enlisted men staggered in, carrying scaled boxes of highly sensitive intelligence reports. An extremely tense Air Force captain stood in the doorway to the tiny intel cubicle, checking off each report’s title and serial number. Under normal circumstances, he would have counted every page of every report to make sure that none were missing-but circumstances were clearly not normal.
A low whistle broke across all the activity. The assorted technicians, officers, and enlisted men scattered through the chamber turned to see a short, bowlegged Army sergeant major waving them out.
“Meeting’s on, gents.
Secure the room.
In the sudden exodus, pen flashlights, tech manuals, tools, and reams of paper were all left lying in place. They’d be needed again once the politicos and higher brass were done jawing at each other.
Flanked by his military aide and civilian chief of staff, Forrester entered at a fast walk-his hair still windblown after a wild, rain-drenched helicopter landing outside the Pentagon. Shrugging off his wet overcoat, he moved to the spot marked for him at the conference table. He nodded once to red-eyed Edward Hurley, plainly weary after a long, sleepless night spent monitoring developments, and took his seat.
All conversation around the T-shaped table died away.
Forrester glanced to either side, unsurprised to see that the Crisis
Group’s membership had expanded overnight to include the Joint Chiefs, the CIA director, the secretaries of defense, treasury, and commerce, and a small army of high ranking assistants. So much for the original idea of a small, manageable group. Washington’s political and military leaders were drawn to international crises like moths to a flame.
He rapped once on the table.
“I’ll make this short and sweet. I met with the President this morning.”
Everyone at the table opened notebooks and grabbed pens. Guidance from the Man would make their task a lot clearer. Not easier-jUSt. clearer.
Forrester paused briefly before plowing straight ahead.
“The President has decided to authorize direct American intervention in southern Africa.
Direct military intervention. “
He raised his voice, overriding the surprised murmuring coming from around the table.
“We have three objectives: One, bouncing Vorster and his goons out of power. Two, preventing Cuba from gaining control over
South Africa’s strategic minerals. Third, and most important, securing world access to those resources by restoring some kind of civil order over there.” He glanced at the wall clock showing local time It was already ten forty-five A.M.
“The President’s scheduled a full cabinet meeting for seven o’clock tonight. He wants our recommendations and preliminary plans by then.”
:,
“Good God. Christopher Nicholson broke the stunned
silence. The CIA director had been fiddling uneasily with the cap of one of his pens, pulling it off and pushing it back on.
“Mr. Vice President, we are still gathering information on the invasion, on Cuban intentions and capabilities. We don’t know how many troops are involved, we don’t know where they are located. We can’t possibly act without a better idea-“
“I’m sorry, Chris, but we can’t wait for you to produce some glossy intelligence product.” Forrester’s tone combined urgency and impatience.
“We just don’t have time to dot every i and cross every t. Hell, you’ve all seen the financial news this morning.”
Most of the men and women around the table nodded grimly. The world financial markets were in an uproar. Prices for South African-produced minerals were skyrocketing. Gold alone was trading at more than a thousand dollars an ounce. The New York, Tokyo, London, and other stock markets were all in sustained free-fall. Several governments had shut down their exchanges in a frantic effort to slow the collapse.
Commentators and self-proclaimed economic experts were openly predicting a new world recession. Others were using the word depression.
Forrester looked down the row of stunned faces.
“We simply don’t have any choice, folks. The President wants a solid plan he can present to the nation by this time tomorrow morning. Not a ‘spin’ and not a ‘slant.”
“
He nodded toward the one lit display screen-a map showing the known war zones in Namibia and South Africa.
“The world’s too small a place for this kind of crap.”
More nods. This wasn’t America’s first reminder that the nominal end of the Cold War hadn’t automatically ushered in a millennial age of peace and prosperity.
