leaders were too quick to send their bloated military forces off to war. Martindale had always faulted others for not seeing the signs and reacting in time—he was determined not to let that happen again.
History would not treat him kindly if some disaster occurred before the bad guys started hostilities. If the B- 2A crashed over Iran while doing a secret reconnaissance, or if one of those anti-radar missiles hit a school or hospital and killed innocent civilians, Martindale would be labeled a warmonger. When he had been Vice President, he’d gladly accepted that title—now he wasn’t so sure such a name would be good for his political career.
But if the presence of the B-2A kept a conflict from escalating, if it was at the right place at the right time, it would be a major military and foreign-policy victory for him “Do it, Philip,” the President said. “Quietly. Form a team, map out a plan, bring them together, then report back to me. I’ll brief the Cabinet myself after I’ve heard your plan. This plan might die at birth, but get things moving. Baby steps, General. Quietly and gently. Full security.”
“Yes, sir,” Freeman responded.
He saw Whiting close her eyes, and said to her, “I’ve answered your question, Ellen—yes, I’ll take the heat. If it’s legal, I’ll do it. I need to do something—I can’t wait for the Middle East to blow up in our faces before we act. I want something in my hip pocket ready to go, to try to stop the hemorrhaging before it’s necessary to go to our allies and to Congress to authorize an act of war.” He hit the button to the outer office, instructing his personal secretary to give him a list of the most important callers. “That’ll be all, ladies and gents.
But he was wrong, the President knew as he had his secretary dial the first number on his growing priority phone list. This was not all—this was only the beginning.
AIR FORCE ONE, SOMEWHERE OVER TEXAS LATER THAT DAY As was his custom when traveling on Air Force One, the President wandered back to where several members of the White House Press Corps were busy preparing news items, and he spent a few moments with each person over coffee and bran muffins that had been freshly prepared in one of Air Force One’s two kitchens. The President had ditched his usual dark blue business jacket and red silk tie and was wearing a blue cotton Air Force One windbreaker, with two buttons open on his white business shirt underneath.
“How’s it going back here this afternoon, folks?” the President greeted them. They all came to their feet as he entered, preceded by a Secret Service agent, and he heard an unintelligible chorus of words and lots of smiling, so he assumed they had all said, “Fine, Mr. President,” or something to that effect. Traveling with the President of the United States aboard Air Force One had to be the ultimate assignment for a reporter, and he rarely heard a complaint.
“Please, take your seats, thank you. Got enough coffee back here?” Nods and smiles all around. “Got enough work to do? I could use a hand with this National Education Association speech.”
He got a faint ripple of laughter. “Anybody got anything for me?”
“We noticed Miss Scheherazade didn’t join you on this trip, Mr. President,” one lady reporter asked. “Everything OK between you two?”
“Well, according to the briefing I got this morning, I hear some of you in the press have been saying that Monica was mad at me because I didn’t attend the premiere of her new film,” President Martindale said with a boyish smile. “I feel like a hunk of raw meat in the tabloids sometimes. The truth is that Miss Scheherazade is filming this week in Monaco … oops, I wasn’t supposed to reveal that. Sorry, Monica.” His mischievous grin told the reporters that he enjoyed playing these media-public relations games. “Anything else?”
“I know the country doesn’t seem to care too much about anything else but your love life, Mr. President,” a veteran news anchor-person chimed in, his cameraman dutifully behind him taking pictures, “but there are reports from Reuters that Iran attacked a vessel and possibly an aircraft last night in the Gulf of Oman, near the Persian Gulf. Any information on that?”
“No,” the President replied. “It apparently wasn’t an American or allied ship, because I’ve received no complaints or protests about it. Anything else?”
“Are you concerned that Iran is apparently operating this aircraft carrier so close to the Persian Gulf, and they apparently have it fully armed with very sophisticated aircraft and missiles?”
“Lots of nations have ships with extremely sophisticated weapons operating in or near the Persian Gulf, the United States included,” the President replied. “The United States and its allies can defend themselves if necessary, but there doesn’t seem to be a reason to be concerned. In fact, I’ve received a very interesting proposal from the Iranian Foreign Ministry to which we’re giving a lot of thought—a plan to remove all offensive, land-attack warships from the Persian Gulf entirely. I don’t have any details about the idea, but it sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?”
“It seems a bit incongruous for Iran to sail its carrier through the oil-shipment lanes, and then to propose that everyone do away with such vessels “Well, that might suggest that the carrier is nothing but a symbol of their resolve, of their desire to be a major player in the region,” the President offered.
“So you feel the Iranian carrier battle group is no threat?”
“Any nuclear-powered vessel with the firepower that ship apparently has is potentially a threat,” the President said, “but we’re prepared to deal with any threat. However, the prospects for peace look very promising. If President Nateq-Nouri has a proposal, I’m anxious to look at it. I like the idea of demilitarizing the Persian Gulf.”
“Even though you didn’t go to the premiere, do you plan to see Monica’s new movie, Mr. President?”
President Martindale breathed a silent sigh of relief. Good, he thought, they were moving back to the subject of his personal life again. As difficult as it was to have his private life under the media microscope every hour of every day, the topic of fran’s growing threat in the Middle East was even worse. The veteran anchorperson noticed his relief and nodded knowingly—smug bastard. When it was time for their short one-on-ones, the subject of Iran was sure to come up again. “Actually, I did see Limbo,” the President replied with a smile. “I had my own … private screening.”
There was a conspirational “Ahhhhh!” through the press corps.
“And what did you think of the nude scene?” he was asked for the two hundredth time since the movie opened last weekend. “Do you approve of the love of your life doing nude scenes with Brad Pitt?”
The President let loose one of his boyish, innocent-looking grins again, and replied, “I’ll bet Mr. Pitt was asking himself the very same thing about me.”
CHAPTER TWO BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, BOSSIER CITY, LOUISIANA WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL 1997, 1412 CT
One of the most beautiful places on earth had to be Louisiana in the springtime, thought Air Force Lieutenant General Terrill “Earth-mover” Samson. Little humidity, perfect temperature, cool, clean air—perfect. Too perfect for him to be cooped up in the office all day.
The big three-star general was having a great day. It had started with his weekly two-mile morning jog with about one hundred senior officers and NCOS, which he hoped would serve as a motivational fitness incentive for all base personnel. That was followed by a breakfast meeting with local businesspersons to suggest ways in which the Air Force could help improve and revitalize the community and cut down on crime; a rather productive morning in the office answering mail and reviewing paperwork; and an informal Q-and-A lunch with the students at the current session of Eighth Air Force’s Non-Commissioned Officer Leadership School. Now, Samson, forty-six years young with the heart of a twenty-year-old and with a cleared-off desk and calendar, was going to goof off this afternoon and do something he rarely had time to do these days—go flying.
Actually, this wasn’t going to be a purely fun flight—there was little money in anyone’s budget these days for taking a $2 million dollar jet just to punch holes in the sky. Samson had called up the Second Bomb Wing, found a young B-52H Stratofortress instructor copilot sitting around with nothing on the schedule, and asked him to give him a proficiency check. Every flying-qualified officer had to log so many hours, so many takeoffs and landings, so many instrument approaches, etc., every quarter, and Samson was woefully behind—this was a good day to get caught up. Scheduling had found them a plane, Samson had found his flight suit and boots in his office closet, and the checkride was on.
Normally rank has its privileges, and check rides for three-star generals are “pencil-whipped” to a great extent—do a couple of landings, maybe shoot a couple of no-brainer ILS approaches, and get signed off in just a few minutes—but the young IP Samson had tapped wasn’t going to “pencil-whip” the commander of the Eighth Air Force, and Samson wouldn’t stand for it even if the IP tried.
As with any check ride, the IP started Samson off with a fifty-question emergency-procedures written test, including space to write down all sixty-seven lines of “bold print” emergency procedures for the T-38 Talon jet trainer, the steps that were required to be committed to memory word for word. No one was allowed to step inside
