The Blockade

by Darrell Maloney

  “So you’re saying, if I understand you correctly, that your beginning strategy is to try to talk some sense into my big old dumb man’s head. But if that fails you’re ready and willing to beat my butt if you have to?”

  He said it with a smile.

  She wasn’t smiling when she answered, “Something like that, yes.”

  “Just for the record, Hannah, you have the gift of gab yourself. But I follow you. And I’ll listen to your argument.

  “Exactly how am I responsible for Tim Wilcox’s suicide?”

  “Because you railroaded him with trumped up charges just because your feelings were hurt. You behaved like a spoiled child when another child played with your toys. You pouted and yelled and screamed and then tried to get even with them.”

  “Please, Hannah. Don’t hold back. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “Do you think this is funny, general?”

  “No, as a matter of fact I don’t. I think this is decidedly unfunny. But you have to admit your becoming so hostile toward me regarding matters you know absolutely nothing about borders on ridiculous.

  “Don’t you agree?”

  His calm retort was meant to disarm her, and perhaps to disappoint her a little if she was expecting him to come at her with both barrels.

  But it didn’t faze her. Not one bit.

  “No, Lester. I disagree. I may be a civilian who doesn’t know beans about military law or the way things work around here. But I’ve done my homework.”

  -23-

  General Mannix was an experienced negotiator. And a practiced debater.

  Over the years he’d polished his craft and become quite good as a tactician.

  Instead of returning Hannah’s volley; instead of giving as good as he got, he called an immediate but temporary halt to the skirmish.

  “Time out, Hannah. I forgot something.”

  Hannah stopped short, a puzzled look on her face.

  Mannix faced Captain Krebbs, who immediately went to attention.

  “Captain, I seem to have forgotten my manners completely. Would you mind offering our guests something to drink?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  She addressed Hannah and Captain Wright.

  “We have soft drinks and bottled water, and adult liquors if you’d prefer.”

  The general added his two cents.

  “Don’t worry, Captain Wright. Drinking with the Chief of Staff is not a court martial offense. If anyone in your command chain complains I’ll bust ‘em down to airman. And you can tell ‘em I said that.”

  Hannah merely asked, “You have soft drinks?”

  “Coke, Dr. Pepper and Sprite.”

  “But I thought all soda went flat years ago.”

  “We purchased a considerable amount of syrup from the manufacturers and preserved it. We also have several compressed gas cylinders of carbon dioxide. We operate our own mini bottling plant.”

  Hannah’s mouth watered. She’d wanted a Coke for years and told the captain so.

  Captain Wright said, “A bottle of water, and thank you.”

  Krebbs nodded and disappeared.

  General Mannix merely smiled, though neither of the people sitting across the desk from him knew why.

  Mannix knew that to call a temporary ceasefire just as his opponent got going was a very effective tactic to knock the opponent off his game.

  Just like a boxer, after taking a series of damaging punches, will take a defensive stance and back away, a tactic to disrupt an opponent’s momentum can disorient him. Coming back after a few seconds his momentum is gone. And the boxer who took the punches can catch his breath and build his own offense.

  By cutting Hannah short just as she pitched her argument, Mannix collapsed her sails. She lost her momentum. She came crashing back down.

  Now, such a tactic sometimes worked and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes an opponent who’d practiced his argument for days was so caught off guard he’d become flustered. He’d forget where he was. He’d forget what he’d already said and what he was about to.

  He’d get knocked to his knees and lose the fight before it really got started.

  Sometimes the general’s opponent wasn’t bothered at all. Sometimes he was able to regroup and pick up exactly where he left off.

  Or better yet, he’d punish the general by starting over again; making the general sit through his arguments a second time.

  Mannix wanted to know who he was dealing with. What kind of opponent he was up against.

  He was toying with her, hoping to knock her off her game.

  She wasn’t having any of it.

  She wasn’t here to play games.

  She was here to win.

  And winning to her meant saving the life of Colonel Medley.

  Captain Krebbs was gone for less than a minute. When she returned she handed the visitors their beverages.

  Hannah sipped hers, then closed her eyes and savored the taste. They say there’s nothing better in the world when you’re thirsty than cold clean water.

  That may be true.

  But a cold Coke isn’t far behind it.

  She put the glass aside and picked up exactly where she left off, unbothered by the general’s delay and proving herself a more than worthy adversary.

  “For starters, Lester, I looked up the book definition of treason. Since I believed it to be a military term and not a civilian one, and since the internet is no longer working, I had a bit of a time. But then I remembered we bought an old copy of the UCMJ and placed it into our library when we stocked it years ago.

  “You can imagine my surprise when I found out there is no specific article regarding treason in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It’s a breach of civil law under 18 U.S. Code, Paragraph 2381. It’s something you have no authority to prosecute by military court martial.

  “And even if you could, it wouldn’t apply to this case anyway. The specifics of the charge require us to be at war, and the defendants to give aid and comfort to the enemy. Since we’re not at war, we have no enemy. Therefore the colonels could not have offered aid and comfort.”

  The general seemed unflustered; unaffected by her argument.

  “I think the Judge Advocate General has strong reason to argue we are in a de facto war against the cold, and that exposing our reconstitution team would subject it to attack by other nations aiming to kick us while we’re down.”

  “Oh, come on, Lester. I’m no attorney, and even I can see the weakness in that argument.”

  “The charges against Medley contain a lesser included offense of mutinous behavior.”

  “Again, Lester, I disagree.

  “Article 94 of the UCMJ covers mutinous behavior and sedition. The elements of each charge are spelled out within the article in black and white. It very clearly states that to be guilty the accused created an act of violence or disturbance with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority.

  “The problem with that argument, general, is that the accused wasn’t usurping or overriding lawful military authority. In this case, Wilcox and Medley were the commander and vice commander of a military base.

  “They had been informed a vast underground bunker was on that base. A bunker they did not authorize and in fact hadn’t known existed.

  “Further, they were given information that a rogue Army colonel named Travis Montgomery had constructed the bunker and was stealing food from the civilian citizens of San Antonio and Bexar County to stock it with. And that he and his cronies planned to occupy the bunker during a coming cataclysmic event.

  “Given that set of circumstances, Lester, I ask you what you’d have done in their place?”

  -24-

  General Mannix started to speak and she held up her hand.

  It was precisely the same gesture she used on her son, Mark Junior, when he created an outlandish excuse to justify his bad behavior.

  “Hold on, Lester. That question was rhetorical, and I’m not quite finished.
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  “If you were in the situation those colonels were in… if you were a lowly colonel and a base commander and you were presented with that set of circumstances, you’d have done exactly the same thing.”

  “That section of land was off limits by all JB Lackland personnel. Including the base commander and his deputy. The base commander was notified by Top Secret message more than a year before construction was started. He was directed to install double fences topped with concertina wire, sound sensors and motion sensitive infrared cameras around the area and given six months to do so. Then he was to declare it a restricted area.

  “He did all of that, just as he was told. Now how in the world can you argue that base command didn’t know what was going on, when my instructions were followed to the letter?”

  “Lester, your instructions were carried out by Colonel Bettis, the previous commander. By all accounts he was a fine officer, and it’s no surprise he completed the task you gave him. But he was long gone when the bunker was breached, killed by his own hand.”

  “That doesn’t matter. As a civilian, Hannah, you’re probably not aware of the lengths the Air Force goes to provide for continuity.

  “The military is big on two things: continuity and redundancy. Take away either one and we can’t win wars, we can’t survive as a military service.”

  “I don’t understand, sir. Would you mind explaining?”

  “Okay, first is redundancy. We have backups to our backups to our backups. Any time we send airplanes into a combat area we send pilots as well.

  “And we send backup pilots in event the primary flyers get sick, wounded or incapacitated. Redundancy in action. And just in case the backup pilots are similarly incapacitated we make sure there is another set of pilots at a nearby base to back them up as well.

  “As for the aircraft itself, same goes. A set of highly qualified mechanics deploys with the flying squadron. They are each trained and certified in several tasks so one mechanic can step in and perform the duties of another mechanic when needed. Redundancy. And if too many mechanics are taken out, we make sure there are qualified replacements somewhere else in the theater but close by, where they can recalled on short notice.

  “As far as parts, we have people in a deployed location who are proficient in what we call ABDR. Aircraft Battle Damage Repair. Say a jet comes back with flak damage to its starboard side horizontal stabilizer. These guys will try to patch it the old fashioned way: with sheet metal and rivets. If that can’t be done the aircraft will be placed in a revetment until a replacement stabilizer can be brought in from a spares site.

  “As far as parts, what we call a bench stock is deployed with every squadron, along with people to manage it. A bench stock is a small supply store, if you will, that contains critical expendable parts for the maintenance crews. Nuts, bolts, rivets, etcetera. Each time a mechanic draws two bolts or a spool of safety wire from the bench stock, a bench stock specialist immediately orders replacements for them.

  “As for bigger parts, each squadron is deployed with a war spares kit which might contain hundreds of aircraft parts of all types. The same rules apply. When a mechanic goes into the spares kit and draws out a gyro or a stator, a new gyro or stator is immediately ordered to replace it. Redundancy. Without it we wouldn’t be able to fight and win a battle. We’d soon run out of pilots or mechanics or parts, and it wouldn’t matter that we had the best aircraft in the world. We’d still be dead in the water, to use an old Navy term.

  “Now you understand,” he said with a smile, “that I despise the Navy. But I like that term, so I use it occasionally.”

  “Now, the second thing which is absolutely essential to helping us fight and win wars is continuity.

  “We spend a lot of time in the military thinking about continuity. How to ensure we keep humming along in the event of war, when any of us could be a casualty at any time.

  “I already gave you one example, for redundancy is itself a type of continuity. We have backup pilots to our backup pilots so that if one gets shot down over enemy lines or comes down with the flu another can step in to replace him. It’s seamless and the enemy doesn’t see it, but it helps us keep up the fight.

  “Probably the best example of continuity I can give you is right here. You’re standing in it. NASA told us the meteorite was coming, and that many or most of our Department of Defense members, both military and civil service, would not survive.

  “That’s why we assembled the correct team of individuals we need once the thaw comes to bring us back up to combat readiness as soon as possible. We’ve got personnel specialists. Training and cross-training and retraining specialists. Recruiting specialists, pay specialists, you name it. We’ve got everyone we need to take a look around when the thaw comes to say, ‘We lost fifty seven F-16 mechanics,’ and find and train replacements.

  “And we took all those people and put them here… all of our reconstitution expert eggs in the same basket, so to speak. So that no matter how bad the freeze got, or how long it lasted, we’d have the team we needed to recover.

  “You know why we did that, Hannah? We did it because we knew the Chinese were going to do it. And those damned Russians were going to do it. And we didn’t want to come out of the freeze and have a Russian boot at our throat because they planned and we didn’t and now we were weaker than they were.

  “Make no mistake about it, Hannah. The Russians and the Chinese have always played the long game. They’ve been very patient and bided their time, looking for a way in to defeat us.

  “Our continuity efforts deprive them of one way in.”

  -25-

  Hannah was impressed. It was a nice speech and did a pretty good job of providing an inside view of military tactics.

  But if there was a point she missed it.

  “I’m sorry, sir. But how does your providing personnel specialists to replace dead soldiers relate to the colonels not knowing about the bunker?”

  “Because, Hannah, that’s just one example. It’s not the only one.

  “Every unit in the Air Force is required to dual-train its people in critical tasks. So that if one person is incapacitated or killed, someone else is ready and able to step up and replace him.

  “And every critical operation, every critical procedure, every critical task, is written down. Every unit has what we call a ‘continuity folder’ somewhere in a desk or a safe.

  “In that folder are detailed breakdowns of every critical task we perform. Say your unit used and maintained an encrypting machine. And the person who ran the machine was killed.

  “Say that by a bizarre coincidence his backup operator was also killed in the same skirmish. And that a replacement wouldn’t be brought in for four days.

  “Say the unit couldn’t wait for four days. Because the commander had to transmit his battle plans to higher headquarters so they could coordinate artillery support.

  “That’s where the continuity folder comes in. For within that folder are detailed instructions on how to operate or repair the encrypting machine. They are so detailed, in fact, that they can grab somebody who’s never even seen the machine before and sit him in front of it and give him the continuity instructions and he’ll make it happen.

  “He might not be as fast as the original operator. But he’ll get the job done.

  “The continuity folders are the way we can ensure that every job can be done the same way, every time, regardless of how many casualties we take and who’s left alive.”

  Hannah had a dazed look upon her face. The general knew he was losing her.

  “What I’m saying, Hannah, is that Colonel Bettis would have filed that Top Secret message regarding the bunker in his safe, to provide for continuity in the event he was incapacitated or killed. So that his successor, whoever it may be, could review the message.

  “And they didn’t, Hannah. They should have reviewed that message, but they didn’t.

  “The colonels were derelict in their duty. If they’d rea
d that message they’d have known the bunker wasn’t being built for Colonel Montgomery. It was built by order of the Department of Defense, for a very legitimate and very critical purpose.

  “Hannah, a bird colonel isn’t like a snotty-nosed recruit, fresh off the street.

  “A bird colonel is a man or a woman who has served his or her country for many years. They’re well aware of continuity procedures and the need for them.

  “There is simply no excuse for not following procedure, and their actions could have had devastating circumstances. They could well have destroyed the ability of the United States to get its military back up to speed after the freeze was over.

  “They could have put us at a severe disadvantage to the Chinese or the Russians, and you can damn sure bet Vladimir Putin would have taken advantage of it.

  “They could have enabled the end of the United States.”

  “Number one, Lester, that never happened. The worst thing that happened was you were rousted out of bed in your pajamas and forced to stand out in the cold with your wife and children.”

  The general’s face started to redden but he said nothing and she continued.

  “Number two, they looked in the safe and the message wasn’t there. After their arrest you appointed a new base commander and instructed him to retrieve the message and to turn it over to the Judge Advocate General to use as evidence in the colonels’ courts martial.

  “He verified the message wasn’t there.”

  “I’m convinced that Wilcox and Medley saw the message and had it destroyed. Or that one of their friends went in after their arrest and destroyed it on their behalf.”

  “General, you’re talking in circles.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Lester. Now, I’m sorry if what I’m saying upsets you, but you need to hear it.

  “On the one hand you’re telling me how experienced these men were. That they’ve served their country well and they know the procedures and they’ve been drilled about redundancy and continuity since day one. So they should have known to go into the base commander’s safe and read the message traffic before they go off half-cocked.”