Balance of Power

by James W. Huston

  Dillon chose his words carefully. “You know, Molly, I was also hoping that we could put the whole rivalry thing behind us. I kinda thought we could start dating again, this time….”

  “So did I…”

  “But,” he continued, “this Letter of Reprisal thing seems to have charged you up like nothing before. And you’re holding it against me.”

  Molly played with her coffee cup. “You’re making a big political play. To make your splash in the world of politics.” She looked hard into his eyes. “It feels like you’re losing your judgment.”

  “That’s unfair,” he said, trying not to respond as harshly as he felt. “Isn’t there some way we can at least try to go out?”

  Her face showed warmth and regret. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until this political crisis is over. Whatever happens, I think it will be fast. Especially now that you’re leaving…”

  “So we’re going to leave it like that? I won’t know anything until I get back?”

  She looked at him directly. “Call me when you get back, but remember, until then I’m on the other side. It’s nothing personal, and it’s not our rivalry or competition. It’s my job.”

  The waitress returned and put their food in front of them. Dillon looked at his waffle for a moment, then started to eat. Molly cut her grapefruit expertly. She didn’t glance at him as she quickly ate each section of the grapefruit. She drank her coffee and finished her English muffin before she finally looked up. She spoke, with obvious difficulty. “I have to ask you something,” she said haltingly.

  He noticed that she was troubled, “What?”

  “Will you accept service of process?” She looked directly into his eyes.

  “What?”

  “As soon as the Court opens this morning, the President is going to file a lawsuit against the House and the Speaker to declare the Letter unconstitutional, and ask for a temporary restraining order.” She looked away. “Will you accept service of process on behalf of the Congress and the Speaker of the House? Can I have them just deliver the lawsuit to you?”

  Dillon stopped eating, put his fork down, and shoved his plate away. He tried to catch her eyes, but she was not cooperating. “Molly, look at me.”

  There was a hint of moisture in her eyes.

  “What is this?” he asked, trying to read her and not her words.

  “You heard what I said.”

  “Who put you up to this?” he said insistently.

  She shook her head vigorously. “I’ve got to go.” She began sliding out of the booth.

  Dillon grabbed her arm. “Who put you up to this?” he demanded again.

  Molly looked at his hand on her arm and into his face. “I’ve got to go, Jim.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The lawsuit was my idea.”

  He sat back and thought about the implications of the President suing Congress to have its Letter of Reprisal declared unconstitutional. It could bring the process to a screeching halt. “And it was your idea to agree to have breakfast with me on a pretense, then ask me if I would accept service?”

  Molly pulled her arm away slowly. “It wasn’t a pretense. I did want to see you.”

  “Who put you up to this?”

  “The Chief of Staff wanted me to ask you to accept service, but I wanted—”

  Dillon smirked. “Well, that figures, he’s such a worm….”

  “He’s just trying to do his job.” Molly stood up at the end of the table.

  “Just doing my job,” Dillon repeated, mocking. He stood next to her, pulled his overcoat off of the metal rack, and tossed some money on the table. “Well, you can give him my answer. Tell him I said he can go screw himself.”

  Dillon packed, showered, and dressed, then returned to the Hill. He hurried down the halls of Congress to his office and dumped his bag on the floor.

  Grazio wandered in and said, “So you’re taking the Letter down to the Navy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How come the Pentagon won’t deliver it?”

  “If you were the Speaker, would you give it to the Pentagon, controlled by the President? You don’t think they could find the one guy who would take it on as a matter of principle to buck the House of Representatives? The Speaker doesn’t trust the Executive Branch right now.” Dillon sat down and began unplugging his laptop from the wires that connected it to his large monitor and keyboard. “He figures that the President is going to start issuing orders to keep us from pulling this off. It might get ‘lost’ at the Pentagon and never get delivered. Then where would we be?”

  “So you have to go all that way and carry this thing by hand?”

  “Yep.”

  He looked at his watch. “Anybody in there with the Speaker?”

  “I have no idea. I was down there about an hour ago. This place is like an anthill with a whole new group of ants trying to get in. There’s press everywhere, the phones are ringing off the wall, people are calling from foreign countries, it’s a complete zoo.” Grazio thought for a moment. “Kind of fun actually.”

  Dillon left and ran down to his boss’s office.

  Robin looked up and nodded toward the Speaker’s door. Dillon needed no other words as he walked right in. Reporters were waiting in every chair in the exterior office as well as up on the wall outside. There were television crews with idle equipment, radio crews with recording equipment, and countless newspaper writers.

  As he closed the Speaker’s door behind him, he could hear them starting to approach the door, assuming the Speaker would now be out shortly.

  Stanbridge had no pleasantries for his assistant. “Where the hell have you been, Dillon?”

  “I had to stop by my apartment to pick up my stuff so I could be ready to go.”

  “Did you see anybody from the President’s office?”

  Dillon hesitated.

  That was enough. “Who did you see?”

  “I think you know, Mr. Speaker, I have a friend, Molly Vaughan. She’s in the office of the Counsel to the President.”

  “No. I didn’t know that. I knew you had a…friend…but I think you failed to tell me that she worked at the White House.”

  “I’m pretty sure I did tell you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe you just didn’t see it as being very important….”

  Stanbridge stared at Dillon. “Why would I not think it was important if you were dating someone from the enemy’s camp?”

  “She’s an old friend, sir. And I never realized that the President was the enemy, Mr. Speaker,” said Dillon.

  “He is now,” said the Speaker. “You know who is out there in the outer office?”

  “Well, there are about a million people from the press, but other than that, no.”

  The Speaker got up from his desk and began pacing. “There is a guy out there from the George Washington Attorney Service.”

  Dillon felt a chill run through him. He said nothing.

  “Do you know what he is here for?”

  “What?”

  “He is here to serve me personally with a lawsuit.”

  “A what?” asked Dillon, feigning surprise. “From who?”

  The Speaker turned and looked at Dillon from across the large office. The Washington Monument was bright in the background behind him. “Who do you think?”

  Dillon said nothing, hoping the Speaker would answer his own question as he usually did.

  “From the President. The President is suing me, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the Congress of the United States. As the Chief of the Executive Branch of the United States Government, and as an individual—a regular citizen—he is suing me.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No, Robin saw it and told me what it’s about. She refused to let the man into my office.”

  “Well, what’s he going to do?”

  “He said he’s going to sit there until I leave the office and then he’s going to personally serve me,” the Speaker said, visibly agitated.
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  “I’m not sure that it makes much sense, Mr. Speaker, to try and dodge ser—”

  “I am not trying to dodge service! Do you understand the implications of this?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “This could kill the entire thing! It’s a lawsuit for a temporary restraining order, and an injunction to have the court determine that our Letter of Reprisal is unconstitutional and unenforceable. How could they have known we were going to move this fast? How could they have known that you were going to be on your way this morning to the East Indies to deliver this to Admiral Billings—that is his name, by the way, that is the guy you are going to see. I checked.”

  Dillon’s face had more color than usual. “Molly and I had breakfast together this morning. I told her I was leaving.”

  The Speaker stared at him, motionless for what seemed like an hour. “You did what? You had breakfast with someone from the office of the Counsel to the President and told her you were taking Congress’s Letter of Reprisal to the South Pacific this morning?”

  “Basically…yeah. I…she…yeah.”

  “What the hell were you thinking about?” asked the Speaker, his voice rising.

  “I didn’t think anything about it, Mr. Speaker,” Dillon said defensively. “She’s a friend of mine and I told her where I was going. This thing has been on the news for a day and a half, and they know we are going to give it to the Navy. I didn’t know this was a secret.”

  The Speaker waved his hand at him in disgust. “It’s not. I just don’t like getting outmaneuvered.” He clenched his teeth as he put his head back and closed his eyes. “So what should we do about this lawsuit?”

  Dillon filled his cheeks with air and looked at his watch. “Mr. Speaker, my plane is leaving for Singapore in less than an hour. I could get to National Airport and take off before you let him serve the papers on you.”

  “I want you on that plane!” He reached out and picked up the wine-colored leather folder. An imposing thick, rich leather binder that exuded importance and solemnity. The Speaker handed it to Dillon.

  “Here is the Letter of Reprisal, Dillon. The original is to be delivered to Admiral Ray Billings in person by you. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir, I sure do.”

  “Good. So what should we do about this stupid lawsuit the President has filed? Can he do that?”

  Dillon looked mystified. “I’m not really sure, Mr. Speaker. I know there was a lawsuit filed by Congress years ago against President Reagan when he sent troops into Grenada, so I guess turnabout is fair play. There was one against George Bush for Desert—”

  “But what happens, how does this work?”

  “Well, they asked for a temporary restraining order. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did they give notice of a hearing?”

  The Speaker walked to his desk and picked up a note in Robin’s handwriting.

  “Yeah. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Then you have to have somebody show up tomorrow morning to argue your case before whatever judge it’s set before.”

  “What if we ignore it completely and say that it’s none of the court’s business?”

  “You could do that, but then the court might rule against you and issue a restraining order against the use of the Letter.”

  The Speaker balled up the note and threw it across the room. “Get out of here. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be in touch.” Dillon turned and walked toward the door.

  “Dillon,” the Speaker said. Dillon turned. “Should we get the House Counsel to answer this thing?”

  “I wouldn’t, sir. I’d get the best lawyer in Washington.”

  The Speaker nodded. “I know just the guy.” He looked up suddenly. “Does the process server know who you are?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I want to make sure you’re out of the building before he serves me with this thing. Get your stuff from your office and head straight to the airport. Don’t let anybody stop you. You got that?”

  “Yes, sir.” Dillon pulled the door open and walked quickly out of the Speaker’s office.

  He grabbed his computer, briefcase, and bag.

  “You off?” Grazio said, passing him in the hall.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good luck.”

  Dillon nodded, thinking luck was unlikely to have much to do with whatever happened after this. Things were under way, and neither he nor luck was in control. Other forces were.

  18

  THE USS CONSTITUTION BATTLE GROUP STEAMED west at twenty-five knots for Bunaya, two hundred fifty miles away. The most recent F-14 reconnaissance flights had confirmed the location of the mother ship in a covered cove, and infrared photography had confirmed at least two hundred people on what was supposed to be an uninhabited island. More troubling, though, was the existence of what appeared to be reinforced concrete buildings, and the synthetic aperture radar of an S-3 Viking had also shown outlines of trucks pulling what looked to be portable weapons systems.

  The news of the photos, radar reports, and infrared imagery had spread quickly through the air wing on board the Constitution. The response had been nearly universal enthusiasm; they were in a real fight instead of a turkey shoot. The fighter squadrons were disappointed so far because no fourth-generation Air Force had shown up to defend the island. But they could always hope.

  Caskey stretched out at his place in the CVIC, the intelligence center and nerve center of the air wing aboard the Constitution. All the squadron commanders were there with Captain Zeke Bradford. They all felt the buzz, that excitement from the anticipation of action. None of them was sure what lay ahead, but they all knew it would probably involve the expenditure of ordnance and flying fast, two of their favorite things to do.

  Zeke Bradford, the air wing commander, turned and pointed to a large chart of an island that was taped to the bulkhead. The island was approximately one hundred miles from Singapore, and sixty miles from the Strait of Malacca. He looked around for a pointer, then found it and slapped the rubber tip against the center of the island. “Good evening, gentlemen. This,” he said, emphasizing by hitting the chart again, “is where they are. As I am sure all of you know, our latest intelligence indicates that there are at least two hundred people, and maybe more, on this island. We will assume that they are all allied with the terrorists who attacked the Pacific Flyer. We hear they may not be regular old terrorists. We’re not really sure who they are….”

  “How many of them are just regular old inhabitants of the island?” asked Caskey.

  “Probably none. Until very recently, this island was uninhabited. Word we get from Washington is that Indonesia does not believe it has ever been inhabited permanently. Occasionally they’ve seen a transient fishing village there.” He scanned their faces. “For the slow-witted among us, reinforced concrete is not typical of a transient fishing village.”

  They chuckled. “What’s the plan?” asked Drunk Driver, the F-18 squadron commander.

  “We’re waiting to get the go-ahead from the President. But either the President is putting on a good show, or he has no intention of sending us in. The question then of course becomes whether this Letter thing, this—whatever Congress has done—will have any effect on what we do. That, of course, is up to the admiral. I have no opinion on that and don’t expect any of you to have any opinion on that. If told by the admiral to go, we go. Is everybody with me? Any of you want to second-guess the admiral and tell him he’s stupid?”

  He looked at each of the squadron commanders, who gave him no response. “All right. Here’s what I think will happen. This island is going to be as difficult a target as you will see for any kind of airborne strike. The buildings we’ve identified, at least those made of concrete, appear to be reinforced and sunk into the ground except for the top two or three feet. You won’t see any of that fancy footage of one of us putting an LGB down somebody’s smokestack,” he said, referring t
o the laser-guided bombs made so famous in Desert Storm. “There aren’t any smokestacks. We’re going to have to use penetrating weapons to get through any of these bunkers. For all we know, the bunkers are empty and the real weapons and people are in thatched huts elsewhere on the island and the bunkers are there just to suck us in. We’ll do the best we can to ferret that out, but assume we’ll be hitting reinforced targets for now. We’ve had some electronic emissions that appear to be a fire-control radar—we have yet to categorize them—so they may have some SAMs, or antiaircraft. We are trying to find that out too—where they might have come from, and whose they are. It does appear that these folks are serious.

  “It’s my guess that within the next two days we’ll launch a coordinated strike with the amphibious ready group going ashore.” He breathed deeply and blew out through slightly pursed lips. “Whatever weapons they have, I’m sure they don’t have any armor. They’ll be hard-pressed to deflect an attack by the Marines. Our role will be generally one of support. Flak suppression, if there is any, striking the buildings, and close air support when the Marines land. Questions?”

  There weren’t any.

  “All right. Tonight’s missions are on the air plan. Self-explanatory. One other thing—we might try a supersonic overflight to see if we can get their AAA or SAM battery to light up to identify it. Any volunteers?”

  Caskey and the F-18 squadron commander raised their hands simultaneously.

  Bradford smiled, his teeth brilliant against his dark skin. “That’s the spirit. I’ll let you know if we’re gonna to do that; otherwise go with the flight plan.”

  The SEAL leader, Lieutenant Jody Armstrong, and their intel officer, Lieutenant Commander Tyler Lawson, studied the same chart that Bradford had on the wall on the Constitution. The Wasp was humming with activity as the Marines prepared for the expected assault on Bunaya. The Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Special Warfare Task Unit, including the SEALs had gone from the routine boredom of preparing for the joint exercise in Thailand to the real thing. The difference was palpable. They had been told to be prepared to go ashore within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Armstrong had been told that he would be the first ashore prior to the raid—to reconnoiter the beach, do some preliminary surveillance of the island, take out suspected missile launchers, and with a follow-on mission as snipers. He didn’t like this at all. They were going against an unknown foe, of unknown strength, on an unknown island, with no intelligence. Welcome to the Navy. Unknown foe, unknown island, and no intel.