wasn't all.
Another satellite, one more specialized than mere photo or infrared imagery, had the ability to track sensitive nuclear emissions from cargo. It was the same technology used to insure that garbage trucks didn't dump medical nuclear waste in landfills, only infinitely more sophisticated. I've never followed the technical details ? most of it is just magic to me. But the fellows whose job it was to be certain about these things had no doubts. There was nuclear material of some sort in those eighteen-wheelers, and not all that well shielded at that. They could tell me almost everything about the spectrum it radiated in, including a damned good guess about what might be in the other two vehicles. But there was one thing they couldn't tell me, and this is the always fatal flaw of raw intelligence ? what the Vietnamese intended to do with it.
The SAM site that had taken a shot at the E-2 was only ten miles to the south of the compound where the trucks and their cargo had disappeared into the deep jungle. At that point, not only had national imagery lost sight of them visually, but the radiation had disappeared from their displays as well. From there, things got murky.
One group of theorists said that it could be commercial power-plant fuel that was now safely installed deep inside shielding. Another claimed the radiation could have been caused by large quantities of medical supplies, although they had no explanation for the supplies' presence deep in the jungle. Still another argued that their cutting-edge technology wasn't all that accurate and there could be a programming fault or a data-transmission error that resulted in a spurious image.
It was the last group that worried me most ? and the ones I tended to agree with. Nuclear material of that grade means only one thing to me ? weapons. The location fit, as well as the disappearance off the satellites as it was moved into deep shielded cover and the involvement of the military. And now, the SAM site. This report was either a big mistake or a big problem.
'What if it is?' I asked, knowing that Lab Rat would follow my meaning immediately. He was a professional paranoid like I was. 'What do we do?'
It wasn't just a question for him, but a larger question for the entire United States. We'd never really formulated a national strategy for dealing with nuclear materials in rogue hands, not really. Oh, sure, there'd been the carrot and the stick, the promise of economic assistance and trade incentives to entice other nations to comply with the ban on these weapons. The reverse had also been tried, with trade embargoes and sanctions levied against rogue nations that refused to comply with any of the international treaties.
Sometimes it worked. Most times it didn't. Nuclear material lost in the breakup of the Soviet Union was scattered around the globe now, and technology was increasing so fast that the possibility of a high-yield manned portable device was virtually a reality.
'I'm not sure we're prepared to do anything,' Lab Rat answered after a moment. 'With the budget cuts in the last decade, we're strapped to even maintain a deterrent presence in the major hot spots of the world. We could just go in and bomb it, I suppose. And while, of course, it wouldn't explode in a nuclear reaction, the debris alone would contaminate that land for centuries. Eons, even. You saw how dirty it was.'
I nodded. The spectral analysis had shown a number of long-half-life compounds, and the prospects of that much refined atomic material seeping into the groundwater and gradually infiltrating its way into the world's oceans was not a pleasant one. It could very easily be a case of winning the battle but losing the war.
'So we'd have to go in and take it and hold it,' I said, thinking aloud. 'A long, bloody ground war ? one that we never really managed to win satisfactorily last time.'
'There's something else,' Lab Rat added. 'You know how long it would take us to gear up for such an action. Sure, we might try Special Forces, try to get there quietly and eliminate the problems. Or it could be a surgical strike just like the Israelis are always pulling on their neighbors but then there's the groundwater problem. Whatever we're going to do, it has to be done fast.'
'Why?' The shiver of alarm crossed up my spine. 'Do you have indications that they're intending to actually use them sometime soon?'
Lab Rat shook his head. 'No. Not use them. Sell them.'
After Lab Rat dropped that little bomb on me and left, I hung around my office. There was no need for me to do so really. My pile of paperwork had been reduced to a manageable level, and I felt an urgent need to get out on the flight deck, to walk around and feel the fresh ocean air, see my aircraft ? my aircraft ? lined up hard and hostile in lines on the flight deck.
It doesn't take very long to reach anyone on a carrier. After all, they're not going anywhere. But even in this massive floating office building, it can take a while to find someone without using the 1MC. And if there were any news on the survivors from the E-2 ? I knew in my heart there wouldn't be, not after this long ? then I wanted to be right where they could find me. Immediately.
There was something else too, an issue I was trying to avoid thinking about. It was completely out of my cognizance, and I had no power to effect the end result one way or the other. But a wingman never forgets his lead, and I couldn't rub out of my mind the fact that Tombstone was on the ground in Vietnam right now.
I looked up at the clock on the wall ? the minute hand had moved slightly since the last time I'd done it.
Tombstone would be on the ground now, probably still stuck in meetings with the officialdom there. There was no way to reach him, no way sufficiently secure to talk this over with him, to warn him that he might be stepping into the beginnings of an American return to Vietnam. We'd never managed to establish a permanent peace there before, not with a massive military machinery behind it, and I doubted we could do it now.
If ever a man had demons, Tombstone did. When you first meet him, you think there's nothing behind that impassive face but good reflexes and a sharp tactical mind. It takes years of knowing him, mission upon mission in flight, before you know who he really is.
Still waters run deep, they say, and I've never seen it more true than with my buddy Tombstone. Two questions in particular haunted him ? how much effect his uncle had had on his career, and the loss of his father over Vietnam so many years ago. I thought someday he'd learn to live with both of those ? now it looked like he'd have a shot at answering the latter. He'd told me a little bit about the leads, and I'd felt my heart sink as I realized just how little he had to go on. These anonymous reports of evidence ? hell, POW families around the U.S. had been tragically bilked for decades with those. The commission set up in D.C. to track down the rumors was always chasing some bogus report of an American still held captive in Vietnam, or one who'd settled in the countryside with a native wife, or of a mass grave turned up. They never amounted to anything more than a few shreds of metal remains or maybe some bones.
But Tombstone had to go check it out firsthand. In his shoes, I would have done the same thing. But I would have been prepared for what was to follow, and I think that Tombstone probably had no idea at all.
Yes, his uncle had let him go with his blessings, even provided some military assets to aid him in the search, as well as points of contact. Only a few people in the Pentagon knew what was happening. And they were sworn to secrecy.
If Tombstone's mission failed, the details would be lost in the eternal shuffling of paperwork within the Pentagon. But if he succeeded in turning up any trace of his father ? ah, now there was the rub.
Tombstone had spent most of his career at sea, in command of squadrons or battle groups. He'd spent one obligatory tour in Washington early on, but hadn't been back for the extended tutoring in intricate politics that a flag officer generally receives. He couldn't see it coming ? but I could.
If Tombstone turned up evidence that his father had been abandoned in Vietnam, the public outcry and political scurrying for cover was going to be beyond anything he imagined. People would be passing the blame, pointing fingers, and wailing loud and long about how they'd not been the ones to abandon our men in Vietnam.
And that was just if Tombstone turned up remains. But I knew what he was really after, and what he thought he would find ? his father alive.
One of the hardest things about command is pushing aside things like that that eat at your gut and turning your attention back to business. With possible nuclear weapons in the hands of the Vietnamese, either for their own use or for sale to any one of a dozen rogue nations around the world, I had more to worry about than the fate of my best friend.
'Admiral, an update from the SAR helo.' The Chief of Staff walked into my compartment carrying a brief summary of their last mission.
I looked at him, my hope evident on my face. 'Any possibility?'
