Scimitar SL-2

“Yeah. Just imagine…one small section of volcanic rock, amber in color, in the middle of all that gray… Dewar’s Rock. Now that’s a landmark.”

“According to Don McKeag’s program, you might be running for state governor in a couple of years,” said Arnold. “Could be your first major act on environmental issues…renaming the rock at the foot of Mount St. Helens.”

1030, Monday, August 24

Second Floor, The Pentagon.

One by one, they filed into the private conference room of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. There was Adm. George Morris and Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe. Adm. Alan Dickson; Rear Adm. Freddie Curran; Admiral Morgan; and Tony Tilton. Gen. Scannell had invited the Air Force Chief, Gen. Cale Carter, plus Maj. Gen. Bart Boyce, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, and Gen. Stanford Hudson (Readiness Command, U.S. Army).

No politicians were present. But as military brainpower goes, this was a solid roomful, deep in the most secretive inner sanctum of Pentagon planning, directly above the office of President McBride’s dovish Secretary of State for Defense, Milt Schlemmer, formerly of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The man’s name alone brought Arnold Morgan out in hives.

There were only two men from outside the U.S. Military’s High Command — an Air Force colonel from U.S. Aerospace Command HQ, who waited in the reception area with Tony Tilton. Positioned outside the office were two Marine Corps guards, with four others on extra duty in Corridor Seven, which leads directly to E-Ring, the great circular outer thruway of the Pentagon.

The ten men sat at the large conference table, and General Scannell called the meeting to order by informing everyone this was a gathering of the most highly classified nature, and that no one — repeat, no one — was to be informed that it had even been convened.

For reasons that would become obvious, he declared that Admiral Morgan would chair the meeting, and he cited Arnold’s long and detailed involvement in the subject. He also explained that Adm. George Morris had been “on the case” for several months, and that Lt. Comdr. Jimmy Ramshawe, the Fort Meade Director’s assistant, had “essentially made the running throughout the unofficial investigation.”

General Scannell had issued only the most cursory briefing by coded E-mail to the senior officers around the table. But each man sufficiently understood the grave suspicion that now surrounded the eruption of Mount St. Helens, and each man had been furnished with a copy of the letter from Hamas, demanding the United States’ formal evacuation from the Middle East.

“Each of you understands,” said General Scannell, “the distinct likelihood that the crater, high on Mount St. Helens, was hit by four oncoming cruise missiles on the morning of August 9. Only one man was near enough to bear any kind of witness to this event, at least only one man who survived. And he is with us this morning — Mr. Tony Tilton, the President of the Seattle National Bank.

“Now, because I would like to fly him home as soon as possible, I am inviting him to speak to us and explain exactly what he witnessed in the foothills of Mount St. Helens on that morning. Mr. Tilton has already debriefed Admiral Morgan, so I invite Arnold to steer our visitor through his account of the incident.”

Admiral Morgan introduced Tony formally to the group, and then invited him to recount, in precise detail, everything he had told him on the previous evening. And he did so with a lawyer’s clarity. At the conclusion of his story, Admiral Morgan asked if anyone would like to ask Mr. Tilton any further questions, but there were none. The bank chief and the former National Security Adviser had, between them, delivered a detailed, virtuosic performance.

They formally thanked Tilton for coming, and then Admiral Morgan stood up and escorted him from the room. Two young Naval officers were waiting to walk him out to the helicopter pad for the five-minute journey to Andrews, and the flight back to Puget Sound.

Back on the second floor of the Pentagon, the group was listening to the summing up of the Air Force psychiatrist who had been examining the long letter from Hamas. His conclusions were very clear…“While the demands of the letter are plainly outrageous, I detect no sign of hysteria or dementia of any kind. This letter was not written by a disturbed person. It was written by an educated man, whose natural language was most certainly English.

“I do not detect one instance of difficulty or confusion in writing past and present tenses — the classic sign of a foreigner trying to write in another language. Nor, indeed, one instance of a discordant word, nor a colloquialism that we would not use. Or even the slightest distortion of a common colloquialism. Also, there is no sign of heightened excitement anywhere in the writing. The language is straightforward, even in its demands…‘immediate steps’…‘immediate undertakings.’ He talks of ‘entering the final stage.’ He wants to see ‘clear signs.’

“There is one sentence in which he points out that if he and his men can explode ‘the biggest volcano in the United States, we can probably arrange a large rockfall into the deserted ocean.’

“The key word here, gentlemen, is ‘probably.’ Because it represents irony, perhaps the most elusive of thought patterns, the ability to understate, yet have equal effect. People think Americans sometimes lack this subtlety. The educated British seem to practically live on it.

“And I would remind you of the phrase ‘intimated in my communique’—those are the words of a trained military officer or even a diplomat. That sentence could have been written by anyone in this room.

“Gentlemen, this letter was written by a very serious person. Very sane. Very cold-blooded. I suggest we ignore this guy at our peril. And for what it’s worth, if the writer of this letter told me he just blew up Mount St. Helens, I’d have no reason to disbelieve him.”

The psychiatrist was followed by Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe, who outlined the problem of the missing Barracuda, then pointed out the most recent sightings and detections, and gave his conclusion that the boat was probably on its way down the west coast of South America.

General Scannell then steered the meeting towards the demands of the terrorists, and he requested General Hudson of Readiness Command to outline the deployment of personnel, plus stockpiles of equipment and munitions in the Gulf.

The General immediately distributed a single sheet of paper to each man around the table, and read from his own, for everyone’s benefit:

“Bahrain. Headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and 4,500 personnel. This is the nerve center for all U.S. warships deployed in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea.

“Kuwait. U.S. Army Command, approximately 12,000 military personnel. We have a large training base at Camp Doha, which is now our top-favored desert-training area. We’re building another near-identical facility at Arifjan. The U.S. Air Force flies from Ali Al Salem and Ahmed Al Jabar air bases.

“Saudi Arabia. Reopened. U.S. Air Force Command, approximately 10,000 personnel. Combat aircraft, including fighter and reconnaissance. We have E3-AWACs and air-refueling aircraft based at Prince Sultan air base, protected by two Patriot missiles batteries.

“Qatar. Around 4,000 personnel. Al Udeid air base, which has the region’s longest runway, is available to us. We’ve built aircraft shelters there, and we operate the KC-10 and KC135 air-to-air refueling aircraft. Central Command (CENTCOM) of all forces in the Gulf has been established at Camp Sayliyah.

“Oman. We use the docks and Al-Seeb International Airport as transit points for onwards movement, either to Afghanistan or to the Gulf. Approximately 3,000 personnel are based there.

“United Arab Emirates. We have 500, mostly Air Force personnel, based here.

“Djibouti. Way down there on the Gulf of Aden. Up to 3,000 U.S. Special Forces, Marines, and Air Force personnel, all part of the counterterrorism task force. This is the base for the CIA unmanned Predator aircraft.

“Diego Garcia. There’s around 1,500 U.S. personnel there. It’s our base for the upgraded B-52 heavy bombers and the B-2 stealth bombers.

“In addition, we’ve always got three Carrier Battle Groups in the area, on a rotation basis, depending on the political climate.”

General Scannell interjected, “Which adds up to one hell of a lot of people and equipment to move out of the area on the sole demand of one Middle Eastern freedom fighter.”

“Unless,” added Admiral Morgan, “that freedom fighter really does have the capability of destroying the entire East Coast of the United States. Then, of course, the evacuation of our military in the Middle East would be a very