country after the partisan mess Martindale left it in.”
“And so I wouldn’t run against you in the last election.”
“That didn’t matter, Ken,” the president said earnestly-whether it was real or not, Phoenix couldn’t tell, which was one of the things that made Gardner such a formidable political figure.
“You’re a young guy. If you want to run for office in 2016, you’ll still be a young guy, in your midfifties, and with eight years of experience in the veep’s office. But let me give you some advice: If you resigned to run for office, you’d be committing political suicide, like you said, public and bloody. No one respects a quitter, especially a political quitter. You’d have less than one term in office, running against your former running mate, and you’d be forgotten in the dustbin of history except as the only guy to resign as vice president to run for president. Do you really want that?”
“I never said I wanted it, sir.”
“No, but you’ve never denied it either,” Gardner said. He affixed Phoenix with a direct gaze. “Start denying it. Forcefully. Or you’ll be spending a lot of time sequestered away in some undisclosed location. Understand?”
“Understood, sir.”
“And remember, there’s only one president in this country. Keep your opinions and directives to yourself unless I ask you a direct question or until you raise your right hand and say ‘So help me God’ with me either standing in the background at your inauguration or in a flag-draped box in the cargo hold of Air Force One. Don’t interfere with my Situation Room again. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
President Gardner shook his head and smiled. “‘Blast ’em from space,’ he says. ‘Don’t just sit there and do nothing,’ he says. We’re going to catch some shit for that, for sure,” and he departed the Situation Room and headed back to the Oval Office.
“Had your heart-to-heart with Phoenix, Joe?” Chief of Staff Kordus asked after the president entered his office. “I know you’ve been looking for just the right opportunity to tell him the score, and he sure delivered.”
“He came back from that nightmare in Iraq with a big head, and it needed to be shrunk down a few,” the president said. He longed for a cigarette and a glass of rum, but it was way too early in the day, even for him.
“What did he say about running for president?”
“Neither confirmed nor denied it,” Gardner replied. “But we know there’s an exploratory committee set up. I don’t know what he’s waiting for.”
“He’s not sure,” Kordus offered. “If you dropped him from the ticket, he’d go for it in a heartbeat.”
“I’m not about to do that, unless he does something really, really dumb and there’s such a loud hue and cry against him from the party or the public that I’m forced to drop him,” the president said. “And with what he went through in Iraq, he’s an action hero and rock star rolled into one.”
“Well, we’ve leaked so many hints about a rift between you and him that today’s outburst will put more pressure on him to shit or get off the pot,” Kordus said. “His speeches on your behalf are less and less about you and more toward your policies-rather, his take on your policies. Everyone is guessing he’ll leave. What’s Stacy Anne saying?”
“She’s getting real impatient,” Gardner admitted. “Her campaign speeches are packin’ ’em in like crazy-she’s a natural, and the public loves her sass. With her actions in Iraq and Turkey, the public really got a good look at her diplomatic experience in the face of hostile action-not at the same level as Phoenix, but pretty damned close. She keeps on saying that she wished it was her that got shot down over Iraq.”
“I heard that-and I don’t think she was kidding.”
“Me neither. But she wants in the West Wing in the worst way.”
“So like you said, Phoenix has to be forced to resign, or do something Agnew-like to voluntarily resign, or something completely egregious that you have no choice but to drop him from your ticket,” Kordus said.
“Too bad I can’t fire him.”
“Unfortunately he was elected, same as you, so he can only resign, be impeached, or die,” Kordus said. “But if he keeps on popping off at you in cabinet or NSC meetings, the others might force him to resign for the good of the country.”
The president waved a hand. “Enough about Phoenix -he’ll wait four more years, and then he’ll probably just waltz into the White House,” he said. “I won’t give a shit then-I’ll be at my beach house in Florida in between seven-figure speaking engagements. My bigger problem is how to explain what in hell we just did today.”
“Give it a week or two for things in South Asia to calm down,” Kordus said, “and then we’ll leak the existence of those Pakistani missiles-if it hasn’t already been leaked by India or Russia. You’ll look like a hero for taking them out. You can just tell everyone that you’re not at liberty to discuss how it was done. Then you’ll have to decide if you want to keep those space interceptors up there, or take them down.” He saw the president’s upticked eyebrows, indicating the silent question, and replied, “They sure as hell did the job, even if they missed the target.”
“They sure as hell did…and that’s what concerns me,” the president said. “If people start believing in space weapons, they may not want aircraft carriers.”
“There’s no comparison,” Kordus said. “It’s apples and oranges. I remember when the so-called experts were saying carriers were obsolete because of the cruise missile and the stealth bomber. It’s not true. Eventually we’ll have hypersonic flying ships and laser guns and then maybe the aircraft carrier will go away, but it won’t happen in our kids’ lifetimes.”
The president looked uneasily at his friend, chief political adviser, and idea machine. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I’m not afraid to say I was impressed. That Kingfisher thing is a game changer. But we’ve got a lot invested in building up the fleet again, and I don’t want some new cool technology to derail our plans.”
“If it looks that way, we’ll pull the plug on Kingfisher,” Kordus said. “It did miss, after all, and killed a lot of innocent people in the process. It may not be ready for prime time yet.”
SOUTH OF HAINAN ISLAND, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
DAYS LATER
The sea-launched ballistic-missile tube door opened on the spine of the USS Wyoming, the seventeenth Ohio- class ballistic-missile submarine, but instead of launching a Trident ballistic missile, a missile-shaped vehicle called a Grebe slowly eased out of the missile tube and began floating to the surface as the submarine moved away. It listened for any sign of collision or interference using passive sonars, even halting its ascent at one point when it detected a nearby fishing vessel.
After reaching the surface, it assumed a semisubmerged tail-low stance while it updated its navigation system using GPS signals and continued to listen for threats. Once it determined the coast was clear, wings and skis popped out of the Grebe’s body, two rocket engines fired to lift the vehicle out of the water, and a small turbojet engine started when the vehicle reached a thousand-feet altitude. It climbed slowly, using a spiral flight course to avoid flying too close to Hainan Island before it reached its cruising altitude. Once reaching twelve thousand feet, it activated its low-light television and imaging infrared sensors and set a course for the Chinese naval base on Hainan Island. The Grebe’s composite structure and small size kept it from being detected by air defense radars on the heavily fortified island.
The objective of the mission was the Wenchang Spaceport, the southernmost and newest of China ’s four satellite-launch facilities. Because Wenchang was closest to the equator and could therefore use the Earth’s spin to help shove bigger rockets into orbit, the launch facilities, seaport, and rail lines had been greatly expanded to allow launches of China’s biggest boosters, including the new Long March-5 heavy booster intended for manned lunar missions, and lifting larger parts of Tiangong-1, China’s growing military space station, into orbit.
There were four launchpads at Wenchang, and the Grebe got busy photographing them in detail. It was risky using the Grebe to photograph the base at such a low altitude, but even advanced satellites could not provide the extreme detail that the large drone could; also, satellites were too easy to detect and predict when they flew over the base, making it simple for the Chinese to hide a classified project from sight.
Along with optical and infrared sensors, the Grebe also collected electromagnetic signals such as radar, radio, microwave, and cellular telephone. It would avoid any areas of greater radar-signal activity, especially the naval port on the south side of the island, to avoid being detected. When it encountered a suspected air defense radar lock, the Grebe would automatically stow the electro-optical and infrared sensor domes to reduce its radar
