'We're too damned thin for all the commitments we have. If we had to go to Kuwait again, for example, like we did in 1991, we can't do it. We literally do not have all that force to project anymore. You know what my job is, sir. I have to figure out how to do the things we have to do. Okay, operations against Japan took us as far as we could go, and—'
'Mickey Moore said a lot of nice things about the plan you put together and executed,' the SecDef pointed out.
'General Moore is very kind. Yes, sir, it worked, but we were on a shoestring the whole time, and that's not the way American forces are supposed to go out into harm's way, Mr. Secretary. We're supposed to scare the bejeebers out of people the moment the first private steps off the airplane. I can improvise if I have to, but that's not supposed to be my job. Sooner or later, I goof, or somebody goofs, and we end up with dead people in uniform.'
'I agree with that, too.' Bretano took a bite of his sandwich. 'The President's given me a free hand to clean this department out, do things my way. I have two weeks to put the new force requirements together.'
'Two weeks, sir?' If Jackson were able to go pale, that would have done it to him.
'Jackson, how long you been in uniform?' the SecDef asked.
'Counting time at the Trade School? Call it thirty years.'
'If you can't do it by tomorrow, you're the wrong guy. But I'll give you ten days,' Bretano said generously.
'Mr. Secretary, I'm Operations, not Manpower, and—'
'Exactly. In my way of looking at things, Manpower fills the needs that Operations defines. Decisions in a place like this are supposed to be made by the shooters, not the accountants. That's what was wrong at TRW when I moved in. Accountants were telling engineers what they could have to be engineers. No.' Bretano shook his head. 'That didn't work. If you build things, your engineers decide how the company runs. For a place like this, the shooters decide what they need, and the accountants figure out how to shoehorn it into the budget. There's always a struggle, but the product end of the business makes the decisions.'
Well, damn. Jackson managed not to smile. 'Parameters?'
'Figure the largest credible threat, the most serious crisis that's likely, not possible, and design me a force structure that can handle it.' Even that wasn't good enough, and both men knew it. In the old days there had been the guideline of two and a half wars, that America could deploy to fight two major conflicts, plus a little brush fire somewhere else. Few had ever admitted that this «rule» had always been a fantasy, all the way back to the Eisen-hower presidency. Today, as Jackson had just admitted, America lacked the wherewithal to conduct a single major military deployment. The fleet was down to half of what it had been ten years earlier. The Army was down further. The Air Force, ever sheltering behind its high-tech, was formidable, but had still retired nearly half its total strength. The Marines were still tough and ready, but the Marine Corps was an expeditionary force, able to deploy in the expectation that reinforcements would arrive behind them, and dangerously light in its weapons. The cupboard wasn't exactly bare, but the enforced diet hadn't really done anyone much good.
'Ten days?'
'You've got what I need sitting in a desk drawer right now, don't you?' Planning officers always did, Bretano knew.
'Give me a couple days to polish it up, sir, but, yes, we do.'
'Jackson?'
'Yes, Mr. Secretary?'
'I kept track of our operations in the Pacific. One of my people at TRW, Skip Tyler, used to be pretty good at this stuff, and we looked over maps and things every day. The operations you put together, they were impressive. War isn't just physical. It's psychological, too, like all life is. You win because you have the best people. Guns and planes count, but brains count more. I'm a good manager, and one hell of a good engineer. I'm not a fighter. I'll listen to what you say, 'cause you and your colleagues know how to fight. I'll stand up for you wherever and whenever I have to. In return for that, I want what you really need, not what you'd like to have. We can't afford that. We can cut bureaucracy. That's Manpower's job, civilian and uniform. I'll lean this place out. At TRW I got rid of a lot of useless bodies. That's an engineering company, and now it's run by engineers. This is a company that does operations, and it ought to be run by operators, people with notches cut in their gun grips. Lean. Mean. Tough. Smart. You get what I'm saying?'
'I think so, sir.'
'Ten days. Less if you can. Call me when you're ready.'
'CLARK,' JOHN SAID, picking up his direct line.
'Holtzman,' the voice said. The name made John's eyes go a little wide.
'I suppose I could ask how you got this number, but you'd never reveal your source.'
'Good guess,' the reporter agreed. 'Remember that dinner we had a while back at Esteban's?'
'Vaguely,' Clark lied. 'It's been a long time.' It hadn't actually been a dinner, but the tape machine that had to be on the phone didn't know that.
'I owe you one. How about tonight?'
'I'll get back to you.' Clark hung up and stared down at his desk. What the hell was this about?
'COME ON, THAT'S not what Jack said,' van Damm told the New York Times.
'That's what he meant, Arnie,' the reporter responded. 'You know it. I know it.'
'I wish you'd go easy on the guy. He's not a politician,' the chief of staff pointed out.
'Not my fault, Arnie. He's in the job. He has to follow the rules.'
Arnold van Damm nodded agreement, concealing the anger that had risen in an instant at the correspondent's casual remark. Inwardly he knew that the reporter was right. That's how the game was played. But he also knew that the reporter was wrong. Maybe he'd grown too attached to President Ryan, enough so that he'd actually absorbed some of his flaky ideas. The media, exclusively composed of the employees of private businesses—most of them corporations with publicly traded stock—had grown in power to the point that they decided what people said. That was bad enough. What was worse, they enjoyed their jobs too much. They could make or break anyone in this town. They made the rules. He who broke them could himself be broken.
Ryan was a naif. There was no denying it. In his defense, he'd never sought his current job. He'd come here by accident, having sought nothing more than a final opportunity to serve, and then to leave once and for all, to return to private life. He'd not been elected to his post. But neither had the media, and at least Ryan had the Constitution to define his duties. The media was crossing the line. They were taking sides in a constitutional matter, and they were taking the wrong side.
'Who makes the rules?' Arnie asked.
'They just are,' the Times answered.
'Well, the President isn't going to attack Roe. He never said that he would. And he's not going to pick Justices off park benches, either. He isn't going to pick liberal activists, and he isn't going to pick conservative activists, and I think you know that.'
'So Ryan misspoke himself?' The reporter's casual grin said it all. He'd report this as spin control by a senior administration official, ' 'clarifying, which means correcting, what the President said,' the article would read.
'Not at all. You misunderstood him.'
'It sounded pretty clear to me, Arnie.'
'That's because you're used to listening to professional politicians. The President we have now says things straight. Actually I kind of like that,' van Damm went on, lying; it was driving him crazy. 'And it might even make life easier for you. You don't have to check the tea leaves anymore. All you have to do is take proper notes. Or maybe just judge him by a fair set of rules. We've agreed that he's not a politician, but you're treating him as if he were. Listen to what he's really saying, will you?' Or maybe even look at the videotape, he didn't add. He was skating on the edge now. Talking to the media was like petting a new cat. You never knew when they'd reach up and scratch.
'Come on, Arnie. You're the most loyal guy in this town. Damn, you would have been a great family doctor. We all know that. But Ryan doesn't have a clue. The speech at National Cathedral, that loony speech from the Oval Office. He's about as presidential as the chairman of the Rotary in Bumfuck, Iowa.'
'But who decides what's presidential and what isn't?'
'In New York, I do.' The reporter smiled again. 'For Chicago, you have to ask somebody else.'
