Payback

like it’s a boxy antenna, a Stinger, that we’re seeing, but it could be another enemy-made MANPAD.” He was recalling what Aussie Lewis had said about the similarity of the Stinger antenna to that seen on the missile in the Dallas/Fort Worth video. The missile that Mikey Lesand and the admiral were convinced was a Stinger could well be an improved Chinese Anza.

“How about the eyewitnesses, General?” retorted the CNO, the President, listening intently, giving no indication how much this Stinger/non-Stinger debate counted in what would ultimately be his decision following the Joint Chiefs’ and his National Security Advisor’s input.

“These eyewitnesses,” asked Freeman, “civilian or military?”

“Civilian, I believe,” answered Eleanor crisply.

“Not worth a damn,” said Freeman. “They’re not trained.”

“One was a member of the press,” the CNO retorted.

“Huh!” grunted Freeman, sitting back in exasperation, but in what Eleanor, her nerves frayed, was afraid might look like plain insolence to those in the Oval Office.

“Media types are even worse than civilians,” continued Freeman. “If I had a dime for every time some correspondent called an armored car or a Bradley a tank, I’d be a wealthy man. The State Department’s made serious foreign-policy blunders believing some radio report of enemy ‘tanks’ invading some foreign burg.”

“So, General,” cut in Eleanor, her no-nonsense tone reinforced by her stony stare into the Oval Office’s camera, “some witnesses make mistakes. But let’s get back to the point, shall we? Even if this third rocket, MANPAD, or whatever you call the thing that murdered over three hundred Americans at Dallas, is a Stinger, the CIA tells us the launchers we’ve found for these—” She glanced down at her notes. “—Vanguard and Igla, both come from the same source. North Korea, a place called Kosong.”

“Yes,” said Freeman, charmingly agreeable, as if he’d known the name of the place all along. “Kosong.”

“Good!” said the President, relieved by Freeman’s unqualified concurrence with his Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I just don’t want you guys to go into Kosong,” said Freeman, “and have the attack get into trouble because of incomplete CIA intel, Mr. President.”

The Joint Chiefs were trying to conceal their surprise with, and their resentment of, Freeman. The gall of the man! How in hell did he know they had already decided on an attack, before the suggestion had been finalized, the CNO in particular noting that Freeman had said the attack, not an attack, as if the self-assured son of a bitch could read their minds.

“I just thought it prudent,” Freeman continued, “that it should be a matter of record for the administration that, if anything was to go wrong with the mission, the White House had to act on the incomplete information it had at the time, but with due deliberation. Like the allied attack on Iraq. The WMDs.”

The general’s phrase, “incomplete information,” and his mention of WMDs, the supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, produced dead air in the Oval Office, the silence pregnant with the WMD nightmare.

“You think,” said the President in a tone of deceptive calmness, “we should wait — try to find the third missile’s remnants? We already have the three launchers and their MIDs.”

The President and the Joint Chiefs were expecting the usual unequivocal answer from the no-holds-barred general, but instead Freeman replied, “I don’t know, Mr. President. I’m a soldier, not a politician — and I say that with respect, sir, for you and the awesome responsibility you have.” And the general meant it. He was thinking. He habitually railed against government ineptness as much as any other taxpayer in the country, but he was too smart not to know how different a politician’s lot was, trying to legislate in a sea of competing interests.

“Personally, Mr. President, I don’t think we’ll ever find the missile fragments after the kind of heat generated by the explosion of the planes’ fuel tanks. And…” He left his sentence uncompleted until the President, sensing Freeman’s as yet unspoken reservation, asked him to continue. The general wasn’t a man who normally held back. “Sir, you know how sometimes — maybe during a campaign — my uncle was a congressman—”

“Yes, I know. Go on.”

“Well, sometimes something bugs you, like a grain of sand in your sock. You search for it but you can’t find it.” He paused. “I’m not putting it well, but the truth is, every time I think about those missiles I think that something’s wrong.”

“Hundreds of Americans dead,” put in the Air Force’s Lesand. “That’s what’s wrong.”

That did it for Freeman. No way was he going to tell them about the onions. They’d think he was nuts.

“A hunch,” pressed the President.

“Yes, sir.”

The President nodded, his fingers pressed together like a church spire as he thought. “I appreciate your honesty, General. I do know the feeling — a hunch that something’s not right.” He paused, then looked directly into the cam. “Up in Topeka, Kansas, in one rally, I had a gut feeling something was out of whack. Tell you the truth—” He turned in his swivel chair to the Joint Chiefs and Eleanor. “—I thought there was going to be an assassination attempt.” He turned back to face the camera. “But nothing happened, General, despite my hunch. Everyone’s on edge. Times in which we live.”

“I won’t argue with that,” agreed Freeman.

“What we need, however, if we do an in-out job on Kosong, is launcher evidence brought back from that damned warehouse. Or something else concrete that nails the bastards, like the U-2 photos Kennedy got of the Cuban missile sites that were pointed right at us. Something that we could present publicly, as our U.N. ambassador Adlai Stevenson did with the U-2 photos in the U.N. just after the Soviets had denied it to the world. ’Course,” the President continued, “half the world’s not going to believe us, and never will, but it’s our allies I’m thinking of. They should be shown hard evidence.”

No one said anything for a moment, Freeman glancing at Eleanor Prenty, both of them knowing that everyone in the room recognized the importance of hard evidence, given how the difficulty of finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction had proved to be a massive headache for George W. Bush during the Iraqi war. The President turned back to Freeman. “Would you organize such an attack, General?”

Eleanor saw the sudden fire in Freeman’s eyes. “Yes, Mr. President. Gladly.”

“Good.” There was an audible sigh from the Joint Chiefs.

“Good man, Douglas!” It was the CNO, any previous sharp exchange forgotten.

“General,” said Air Force General Lesand, “we’ve picked you because you’re not officially on the books. You’re retired.”

Freeman was ahead of them. “I understand, Mike. No ID. And nontraceable weapons — off the shelf, commercial.”

“North Korean if we can get ’em,” put in Marine Commandant Taft.

The voice-directed camera in the Oval Office panned to the President, his red-and-blue Yale tie against the pin-striped navy blue suit immaculately matched. “I’m going to leave all the details in your hands, Douglas, which of course means I don’t want you in the raid itself. I want you at mission control offshore, making sure everything comes together.”

Son of a bitch. Freeman was stunned. He had expected to be on the point, but here they wanted him in some damn CCC, Combat Control Center, his eyeballs turning red from staring at one mini TV monitor after another, staying in constant contact with his men, who would be doing the tough, physical commando action, the “hard yakka,” as Aussie Lewis called any on-ground combat, where you actually saw the enemy’s faces, or the begoggled gas masks that protected identity as well as gas-porous skin.

“General,” added the President, seeing Freeman’s acute disappointment, “the Joint Chiefs think you’re the perfect man to set this up. I concur. Your experience and knowledge of that part of the world are as legendary as your military successes.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” said the Legend graciously, but his face was funereal. He craved action. Yes, he understood the need for a high degree of coordination, that a team without a good coach on the bench could fail, but he craved the battle, the ear-dunning sounds, the smell of shot and wrenching clash of steel that terrified most men and terrified him. But it was there that he sought reassurance, reaffirmation that he still had it, still possessed the internal fortitude that, like the great hidden bulk of the enormous bergs that were calved at the ends of the earth, he could sustain himself through the roughest seas that either man or nature could throw against him.

“When can you have a force ready, General?” asked the President, adding, “you’re on the retired list, which politically speaking is good if, God forbid, anyone gets wind of it. We can simply say truthfully that you’re no longer