the casualties on Jefferson's flight deck in the accident that morning: four dead, fifteen injured.
Plus two SEALS, and the Navy aviators and NFOs… Mardi Gras, Frenchie, Dragon, Snoops. Brave men all, who had died for what they thought was right.
'Now hear this, now hear this,' a voice boomed out from the ship's 5-MC, faintly audible through the bridge windows. 'Stand by to receive helo.' One of Jefferson's Sea King SAR helicopters was approaching from the west. The admiral watched as the machine settled onto the deck. Through his binoculars, he could see two men on board, lying strapped into the wire mesh baskets of a pair of Stokes stretchers.
Jolly and Chucker. The SAR chopper had plucked them from the sea less than a mile off shore. They looked half-frozen and too weak to walk after spending hours adrift in the cold water, but the helo had already radioed that they were okay. Corpsmen lowered the stretchers to the deck, then hustled them toward the island.
Magruder remembered his nephew's outrage a five-day eternity ago. We do look after our own, he thought. When we can. When we possibly can.
Three American planes had been downed today, but the crews had all managed to eject and been rescued. The butcher's bill this day was not as high as it could have been, perhaps, but it was high enough. The brutality of the equation was appalling, and it raised a disturbing question. How many deaths can be justified in the saving of two hundred lives?
Admiral Magruder knew the answer to that question as soon as he'd framed it in his mind. The Marines, the Jefferson herself and every man aboard her… they were there to defend American rights and American lives, at the cost of their own lives if need be. There was no particular logic to the mathematics of the question, and damned little glory. But there was tradition.
And honor.
And that was enough.
The President swiveled his chair away from the desk and stared out past the Rose Garden toward the pinnacle of the Washington Monument in the distance. It was a glorious fall day, blue skies, puffy white clouds… with just a hint of autumn crispness to the early October air.
It was over. The speech, the pile of papers on his desk, said so. The last of the Marine and Naval forces had disengaged hours before and were now standing well out into the Sea of Japan, leaving the shores of North Korea behind them. Chimera and her crew were coming home.
He would read that speech on the special television broadcast scheduled for later that morning. He was certain the American public, at least, would support what had been done. Despite storms of controversy in the press, most Americans had cheered the Mayaguez rescue, Grenada, Panama, and the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait. They would cheer this time as well, and in the end, it was their cheers that mattered most. A former occupant of this office had once called the nation a 'pitiful, helpless giant.' Never again. By God, never again!
The tragedy was that things were never as neat and as orderly as they were in works of fiction… such as Presidential speeches. Crises were not neatly resolved when the President sent in the Marines… never. More often than not, the real problems were just beginning when the outward crisis was solved. The Marines might be out of North Korea, but the real fight was just warming up. The government of the Philippines was calling the Wonsan incursion an unjustifiable use of force to settle what was essentially a diplomatic problem; the People's Republic of China called it a serious provocation and a threat to stability in the Far East; Japan thought it an unforgivable reversion to the stupidities of gunboat diplomacy.
God only knew what North Korea would call it when they began addressing the world audience: war, murder, rape, and piracy, most likely, emotional charges which the logic of truth could never fully counter.
There was a knock at the door. 'Yes?'
A secretary stepped in. 'Mr. President? Secretary of State Schellenberg.'
'Send him in.'
Schellenberg looked drawn, and his expression was hard. The President rose from the chair and advanced to greet him.
'Good morning, Mr. President,' Schellenberg said. He fumbled for a moment with an envelope in his suit coat pocket.
'That had better not be what I think it is, Jim.'
'My resignation, Mr. President. I… think you know why.'
The President folded his arms, refusing the envelope. 'I don't want it.'
'But, Mr. President-'
'No. You ought to know me better than that, Jim. We didn't agree on how to handle the Koreans, but that doesn't mean I don't need you, or respect your opinion.'
'I was wrong.' He dropped the envelope on the President's desk, then closed his eyes. 'My God, when I heard they'd started shooting our people, one by one-'
'No. You were right.'
'Sir?'
The President picked up a folder, stamped TOP SECRET at top and bottom, and handed it to Schellenberg. 'The DCI brought this by this morning. Read it.'
Silently, the Secretary of State paged through the documents inside. Marlowe had briefed the President on the translated documents and the CIA's analysis of them only hours before. Taken from the body of a North Korean officer in the field, they offered a glimpse of P'yongyang's strategy. The plan, code-named Fortunate Dawn, had started as an attempt to embarrass the United States by capturing and quickly breaking the crew of a U.S. intelligence ship… but somewhere along the line things had gotten out of hand.
'You see, Jim?' the President asked when Schellenberg looked up from the papers. 'They set a trap and we almost stepped into it.'
'They wanted us to invade?'
'I think they wanted us to get so bogged down we couldn't pull out. Then the Russians or the Chinese would have come to their aid… and bailed out their economy. Thing is, if Righteous Thunder hadn't worked, they might have gotten their wish. Jefferson and the MEU gave us the flexibility to get in, accomplish our objectives, and get out… fast.'
'Thank God for the carrier battle group, then.'
'Amen to that. If I'd ordered a full military response…' He shuddered. 'No, you keep right on telling me what you think. Yes men I don't need, not in this job.'
'Yes, sir.'
The President grinned. 'Besides, I'm not about to let you off the hook. Hell, man! Our Asian allies are fit to be tied over this thing… and I'm supposed to break in a new hand now?'
Schellenberg smiled. 'Bad timing, huh?'
'Damn right it's bad timing.' He plucked the secretary's resignation from the desk and tore it into pieces. 'Now, I thought we should send some of State's best people over there. You know, smooth things over. I was wondering about that doctor who briefed us, what was her name…?'
'Dr. Chu. Yes, I'd thought of her for something like that myself. She's not afraid to give it to people straight.'
'Good. I've given you one hell of a mess over there, Jim, and I'm counting on you to clean it up.'
Schellenberg's resistance weakened as they continued to talk.
Mess it might be, the President reflected as they discussed the situation, and mess it would continue to be for weeks to come. But it could have been worse… much worse. If it had not been for the Jefferson and her battle group…
There was a major contradiction there… a U.S. Navy carrier battle group as an instrument of peace. But without Jefferson and the will to use her, America would have been held hostage ? again ? or been forced to go to war. The challenges to freedom included not only foreign invaders, but fear, indecision, and the willingness to sacrifice principles on the altar of appeasement, of peace-at-any-price.
More often than not, the cost of appeasement was too damned high. He hoped the men who had died on those beaches understood. Somehow, he thought they would.
