Balance of Power

by James W. Huston

  Bacon spun the small brass wheel to the left.

  “All ahead full,” Bonham said resignedly.

  “Tell crew to come to front of ship. Down there, where we can see them,” he said pointing to the deck on the bow. He saw the hesitation on Bonham’s face. “Now!”

  The captain grabbed the PA microphone, “All hands to the bow. All hands to the bow.”

  “How many men are on the ship?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Shipping records say twenty-six,” the leader said disapprovingly.

  “Twenty-six includes me,” Bonham said.

  The door to the bridge burst open and the two terrorists who had left earlier came in dragging Bart Jenkins. They held a gun to the side of his head and spoke quickly to their leader.

  Washington turned to Bonham, “Get men to bow. Now!”

  The crew had begun to assemble on the bow in confusion.

  The phone from the engine room rang. Bonham answered it. “Yes, I mean all hands. Leave the engines unmanned for now. I want everyone on the bow.”

  Washington stood in front of Bonham and looked at him with his cold brown eyes. “Crewman transmitted on radio. Mistake.” He looked at the bow, counted twenty-four. He looked back at Bonham. “There should be twenty-two on bow. Four here.” He frowned. “Why?”

  “I have no idea,” the captain answered, intentionally not saying that two Indonesian port officials were on board. Bonham was grasping for anything that would confuse or slow the terrorists.

  Washington spoke to his men rapidly. Four of the terrorists stayed on the bridge. The remainder followed him and the captain as they made their way down to the bow. Bart Jenkins and Phillips were behind the captain with their two personal escorts. The crew was startled as they watched their captain walk toward them surrounded by men in Ford coveralls with guns.

  Washington and the others stopped in front of them. Half the terrorists walked behind the group.

  “Do not speak,” the leader said in his steady, authoritative, and slightly high-pitched voice. “Do not move. My ship now. We go out to sea. Do what I say.” He spoke to the terrorists behind the crew, who began searching the crew members one by one. The sun was up behind Washington and bright enough that the crewmen couldn’t see his face well. “One man made bad decision,” he said, looking at Bart Jenkins. “Transmitted on radio.”

  Washington looked to his left at the two men guarding Jenkins. He looked at the Pacific Flyer crewmen standing terrified in front of him, and pointed to Franklin. The two terrorists holding Jenkins released him and grabbed Franklin by the arms. Franklin’s eyes grew larger behind his thick glasses. Washington looked at the rest of the crew, then at Franklin, and motioned for him to come forward, away from the rest of the crew. Washington looked Franklin in the eyes. “Anything to say?” he asked.

  “About what?” he asked desperately, suddenly and acutely aware of the ocean rushing by him, the wind on his back. “I didn’t do anything. What do you want?” Franklin looked directly at Washington, then at Bonham.

  “Get on knees,” Washington ordered.

  Franklin looked at him, disbelieving, not moving.

  Washington pointed the long silencer of his automatic pistol at Franklin’s forehead.

  Franklin went down slowly to his knees. The hard steel of the deck made him wince.

  Washington looked sideways at Bart Jenkins and asked him, “You send radio we taking over the ship?” he asked.

  Bart Jenkins began to sweat; he saw the terror on Franklin’s face. He didn’t know whether to lie or confess. “If I did something,” he said haltingly, his voice shaking, “you should deal with me…”

  “No!” Washington shouted. “I punish him instead of you!” His face changed into a ball of anger. “You talk on radio?” he yelled.

  Jenkins tried to swallow as he struggled to anticipate what would happen next and which was the right answer to avert a disaster. He watched Washington carefully while looking around for some way to escape. Over the side was the only thing even remotely possible, but that would only leave him in the middle of the ocean, miles from any shore, facing an almost certain death. Perhaps he was too worried. He stole a glance at Bonham, who gave a barely perceptible nod. Jenkins looked at Washington and nodded slowly.

  Washington pushed the silencer hard against the side of Franklin’s head, pressing the skin against his skull, and pulled the trigger.

  2

  “HEAR THE NEWS?” JIM DILLON ASKED AS HE RUSHED into the office of the Speaker of the House.

  John Stanbridge turned slowly away from his evening view of the lighted Washington Monument to frown at his staff member. “I hate it when people quiz me. What news?”

  “Hijacking,” Dillon said, walking around Stanbridge’s desk and turning on the small television the Speaker kept there for just such emergencies. “It’s on CNN.”

  The news anchor was talking: “…it appears a largeU.S.-flagged container ship…”

  “It’s not a container ship,” Dillon interrupted.

  “…was attacked and taken over in Jakarta, Indonesia, early this morning Indonesia time. Just a few minutes ago we learned that the Pacific Flyer out of San Diego was transporting new cars to Indonesia for the grand opening of a Ford dealership. The Chairman of the Board of Ford and the Secretary of Commerce were both expected to attend the ceremony in Jakarta. But as the ship pulled into Jakarta it was hijacked by a large unidentified terrorist force. Our information comes from the Department of Defense. The U.S. Navy, which has a Battle Group operating nearby, intercepted a mayday call from the Flyer that it had been taken over. According to those sources, the radioman making the call sounded distressed. He has not been heard from since his first transmission. The President has called a news conference to begin in thirty minutes. The Pacific Flyer is the first of a brand-new class of ships built in San Diego. They are the fastest cargo ships in the world, called FastShips, and operate on the principle of a jet ski…”

  The narration went on as Stanbridge yelled, “Robin!”

  Stanbridge’s secretary ran around the corner. “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Get the President on the line. Now!” He stopped, seeing her confusion. “Tell him I want to speak with him before he goes on the air. Go!” he said, motioning with his hand. He turned back to Dillon. “I don’t trust him. He’ll say the wrong thing, give these terrorists the wrong signal. I know he doesn’t care what I think, but he has to when we face things like this…he’s never even been in the military.” He shook his head in disgust. “Commander in Chief,” he mumbled. “Only in America.”

  The phone rang. It was the Senate Majority Leader. Senator Pete Peterson was a fellow Republican and one of Stanbridge’s closest friends.

  “Yeah, I heard,” Stanbridge said. “I have no idea what he has in mind. He doesn’t consult…. I know….” He nodded.

  Dillon strained to hear the small television.

  “I know…” Stanbridge continued. “I’ve got a call in to him right now. If you’d get off the damned phone maybe I could talk to him…. No, I don’t need you in on the conversation…it won’t matter. Thanks, Pete, I’ll call you right back,” he said, hanging up.

  “President on line one, Mr. Speaker,” Robin announced from her desk.

  “Good evening, Mr. President.” Stanbridge looked out his window toward the White House even though he couldn’t see it. “I wondered if you know anything more than is on the news. If you do, I want to come over and hear it for myself…. Oh…Nothing at all?” he asked, looking at Dillon, who was listening carefully. “What do you plan…? I suppose you’re right…okay. I agree. Fine. Thanks for calling.”

  Stanbridge hung up and told Dillon, “He’s not going to say anything. He’ll condemn it, say how outraged he is, how cowardly they are, that we’re not going to negotiate with terrorists…the usual.”

  Dillon frowned, “What do you want him to say?”

  Stanbridge looked out the window again. “
Robin! Get the staff in here as soon as possible. I want everyone in on this,” he said, then turned his thoughts back to Dillon. “I’m not sure what he should say. I just know he can’t carry this sort of thing off. He has no ability to express outrage. He…I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to have any fire in his belly. It’s hard to describe. He doesn’t have any, any…sand.” Stanbridge stopped as he shook his head. “We need to keep all our options open at this point. We don’t know what’s happened, or what we need to do.”

  In the year Dillon had been working for the Speaker there had been no international crises, none of the gut-wrenching “what do we do?” sessions that he had hoped for. They spent most of their time doing what Congress had been doing for years—arguing endlessly over how much to decrease next year’s increase in the budget, and where the money was going to come from. He had begun to realize it was unlikely he was going to change the world in this job, or any other in Washington, for that matter. But he was trying to resist the irresistible conversion from idealism to ambition. The Speaker’s inability to distinguish between the two made it more difficult.

  Dillon’s excitement rose as the staff filed in. He tried hard not to look like the typical staffer with a blue suit and perfect haircut. His hair hung over his forehead, slightly uncombed, giving him that all-American-yet-mischievous image he liked. At six feet one, he was athletic, but more explosive than graceful. His smile could light up a room, but he didn’t always smile when expected from to. It made people look at him more than they otherwise might, almost for approval.

  The staff gathered on the couches and chairs, and many stood. Everyone was talking about the hijacking. Twenty bright young people, all trying in their own way to save the world. There was an equal number of men and women. A few were over forty—the professional staffers, the ones who had found their niche in politics without ever running for office. They wanted to be on the general’s staff, but never the general. They loved the derivative power they got from working for the Speaker of the House, the second most powerful elected figure in the world. Stanbridge was just a congressman, reelected from his home district every two years like all the others, but his position as Speaker told of longevity, durability, and ultimately of leadership. His staff shared his power without paying the dues, the decades of banquets and handshaking and smiling at people they didn’t care about.

  But they also knew John Stanbridge. They knew he was nothing particularly special. He was bright and capable, but all those in the room, including Dillon, believed themselves to be smarter than the Speaker and secretly thought more highly of their own abilities than they did of his. They also knew Stanbridge was irrepressibly ambitious. He wanted one more thing in life—to be President. His ambition gave him a sharp edge that cut in unexpected ways.

  Stanbridge stood to address them. “Listen up,” he said, waiting for a lull in the chatter. “This one could get hairy.”

  Stanbridge was in his late fifties. He was of average height with dark brown hair that was stiff and unruly. He wore it parted on the side, but the only time his hair looked neat was in the morning when it was still wet. He tucked his shirt in more tightly with the military tuck he used out of habit. He had served in the Navy in Vietnam in riverine patrol boats—one of the few places Navy officers actually got shot at. He looked reasonably trim, but his body was softening.

  “We don’t know who these terrorists are or what they have in mind. What we do know is that they’ve taken one of our ships and are out at sea with it, just north of Jakarta.” The staff was hanging on every word. He loved it. “The President is holding a press conference in half an hour,” he said, looking at his watch, “actually, twenty minutes. I want to be ready to help, if I can. You all know it’s the President’s job to act—we just help. Right?” He smiled. They smiled back.

  “Rhonda,” he said, turning toward a staffer in the back, a woman with a Ph.D. in American history from Stanford. “Do the history on all the hostage and terrorist crises we’ve had in the last twenty years. I want to know what the situation was, and what we did.” She nodded in response, having already started a file on just that topic. She adjusted her squarish wire rims and mentally patted herself on the back for her foresight. He always wanted the same thing—the history of what the United States had done in similar situations, and the history of the people on the other side. He thought policy consistency should be a guiding factor and might help predict the outcome. But he didn’t believe in slavish duplication.

  “Chuck,” he said to his staffer who had been an Air Force officer. “Get with the Pentagon. I want to know every military asset in the area. I want to know what our capabilities are.”

  “Yes, sir,” Chuck replied.

  “The rest of you, pay attention to what you hear, and if you think there’s something I need to know, or an angle I haven’t considered yet, let me know. This isn’t a contest to see who can look the best.” He sighed. “Questions?” There weren’t any. “Get started. Be back here for the press conference.” He yelled past them, “Robin—get the chairmen of the National Security and Intelligence Committees too. I want them in on this. And International Relations.” He looked back at Dillon. “I want you to be the point man for this entire thing.” He studied Dillon’s face, wondering if he was doing the right thing. “You up to it?”

  Dillon looked back at him hard, annoyed that his stomach had jumped. “Yes.”

  President Edward Manchester stepped to the podium and waited for the din to die down. He looked over the sea of anxious White House reporters. He had done this many times in his two years as President, but this was the first time he had responded to an act of terrorism. Like many others, he thought international terrorism had seen its day. For the most part he had been right. Except for the ongoing attempts by some factions of Palestinians to undo the peace treaty between the PLO and Israel, there hadn’t been a major terrorist attack in over two years, and nothing that involved the United States until now.

  His face showed the right combination of anger and sympathy. He had a very expressive face. He was tall, with big clear eyes that showed an uncommon gentleness.

  He looked at the cameras and the reporters. “Good evening,” he began firmly with a grim look on his face. “We have received word that the Pacific Flyer, the first of an exciting new American ship design called a FastShip, carrying the newest model Ford, the Ascenda, has been taken by terrorists while in port in Jakarta. Rather than recite the details, which you already know as well as I do, let me say this.” He furrowed his brow, looking severe and angry. “We will not tolerate acts of terrorism.” His eyes glowed. “The Americans must be freed immediately and the property taken returned. We don’t know the current status of the ship. We haven’t heard from it since the original call for help. We will do what we can to assess the situation, then take appropriate steps. That’s all I have at the moment. Now, if there are any questions…”

  Several of the reporters jumped up and began calling out.

  President Manchester called on them one at a time. “Bill,” he said pointing to an older reporter in the front row.

  “Sir, do you think anyone has been killed or wounded?”

  “We have no way of knowing. Those on the pier at the time said they saw no signs of violence. Apparently the terrorists—dressed as Ford employees, I might add—took the crew completely by surprise.” He looked around the room. “Sally,” he said pointing.

  “Mr. President, do you think it was too much to ask Ford to open a dealership in Jakarta, which is somewhat unstable since the death of Suharto and the imposition of martial law? Has your ‘diplomacy through commerce’ policy brought this about?”

  President Manchester looked at her intently. “I promised in my campaign that we would continue to be the leader of the world, but would change the emphasis from military leadership to commercial leadership, that we would be the business leader of the world. We already are actually, having had the largest economy in the world for a long time now
. But I wanted a new emphasis, a new image, if you will. I wanted to touch other countries through commerce. I promised that we would trade, not dominate; that we would give fair value, and expect to receive it. It would benefit everyone.” He shifted his weight and gripped the podium. “Until now it has been working admirably. Combined with our new laws designed to encourage U.S.-built ships delivering goods to and from the U.S., things have gone smoothly. But as we are reminded again, there is always someone there to tear down what we try to build up.” He stopped and shook his head slowly, as if he had planned such a dramatic pause for emphasis. “We can’t let them defeat us in our attempt to lift the economies of the world.” He paused. “Maybe I’m pushing too far too fast. But I think the faster we get the countries of the world trading with each other, the better off we’ll all be. I don’t think this changes that goal, even though it is clearly a direct challenge to my diplomacy-through-commerce approach.”

  “Have you ruled out a military response?”

  Manchester shook his head. “We haven’t ruled out anything. Over there. Elizabeth,” he said, pointing to Elizabeth Duke, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. The shutters on the still cameras clicked as she looked at her pad to find her question. “Sir, are there military forces in place that could launch an attack on the terrorists?”

  “I’m not going to comment on that, Elizabeth,” he said, looking away from her.

  “May I follow up?” she pleaded.

  “Go ahead,” he said reluctantly.

  “Is this the kind of thing the military could respond to? Do we even have the capability, whether or not they are in the area?”

  “I’m still not going to comment on that. David,” he said, pointing to the White House correspondent for CBS.

  “Sir, have you been in consultation with Congress on this?”

  Manchester nodded. “I have spoken with the Speaker of the House. We are of one mind on what to do at this point.”