Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  Joseph Gardner, the “engineer of the American twenty-first century Navy,” was suddenly regarded as a true visionary and the nation’s savior. In Martindale’s second term of office, Gardner was nominated and unanimously confirmed as Secretary of Defense, and he was universally acknowledged as the de facto Vice President and National Security Adviser rolled into one. His popularity soared, and there were few around the world who doubted he would become the next President of the United States.

  “Greetings, gents,” Gardner said after positioning himself just so before the videoconference camera. “Thought I’d drop in on your little chat here.”

  “Welcome, Mr. President,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Taylor Bain said. He was obviously perturbed at this very unexpected interruption of his meeting, but tried hard not to show it. “We’d be happy to start the briefing over again, sir.”

  “Not necessary,” the President said. “I have information that is pertinent to the purpose of this meeting, and I thought the best and most expeditious way to get it to you was to just break in.”

  “You’re welcome at any time, sir,” Bain said. “Please go on. The floor is yours.”

  “Thanks, Taylor,” the President said. “I just got off the phone with Russian president Zevitin. General McLanahan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He claims you fired a missile at one of his reconnaissance planes in international airspace, and when the missile missed you seriously damaged the aircraft with high-powered radioactive beams called T-waves or some such thing. He also claims a missile fired by one of your aircraft killed several dozen innocent civilians in Tehran, including women and children. Care to explain?”

  “He’s lying, sir,” McLanahan replied immediately. “None of that is true.”

  “Is that so?” He held up a piece of paper. “I have a copy of the Air Force chief of staff’s summary of the incident which seems to say pretty much the same thing. So both the president of Russia and the chief of staff are lying, and you’re telling me the truth, General? Is that what you want me to believe?”

  “We’ve just discussed the incident and the issues brought forth by General Huffman, sir,” Bain said, “and I’ve ruled that McLanahan acted properly and as directed and was not responsible for the civilian deaths—”

  “And as for Zevitin or anyone else at the Kremlin, sir,” McLanahan cut in, “I wouldn’t believe one word any of them said.”

  “General McLanahan, scores of innocent Iranians are dead by chemical weapons and a Russian reconnaissance pilot is badly injured by radiation fired at him by one of your bombers,” the President retorted. “The world thinks you’re starting another shooting war with Russia in the Middle East and is demanding answers and accountability. This is no time for your bigoted attitude.” Patrick shook his head and turned away, reaching for his water bottle, and the President’s eyes widened in anger. “You have something else to say to me, General?” Patrick turned back to the camera, then looked at his outstretched arm in confusion, as if he had forgotten why he had extended it. “Is something the matter with you, McLanahan?”

  “N—no, sir…” Patrick responded in a muted voice. He missed the water bottle, felt for it, grasped it, then used too much force to rip it from its Velcro mooring and sent it spinning across the module.

  “What? I can’t hear you.” Gardner’s eyes squinted in confusion as he watched the water bottle fly away out of sight. “What’s going on there? Where are you, General? Why are you moving like that?”

  “He’s on Armstrong Space Station, sir,” General Bain said.

  “On the space station? He’s in orbit? Are you kidding me? What are you doing up there?”

  “As the commander of his task force operating from space, I authorized General McLanahan to oversee the operation from the space station,” Bain explained, “just as any commanding officer would take charge of his forces from a forward-deployed command ship or—”

  “On the bridge or CIC of a destroyer, yes, but not on a damned space station!” President Gardner shot back. “I want him off that thing immediately! He’s a three-star general, for God’s sake, not Buck Rogers!”

  “Sir, if I may, can we address the question of the air strike on the insurgent rocket launcher and the actions against the Russian aircraft?” General Bain said, worriedly looking on as Valerie Lukas checked on Patrick. “We’ve conducted a review of the reconnaissance data, and we’ve determined—”

  “It couldn’t have been a very thorough review if the incident happened just a couple hours ago, General,” the President said. He turned to the National Security Adviser seated beside him. “Conrad?”

  “It’s a preliminary review of the same sensor data from the Global Hawk unmanned recon plane and the space station’s radars that General McLanahan and his crew saw before they attacked, sir,” Carlyle responded. “General Bain and his experts at the Pentagon reviewed the images as if they had been asked before the attack if the target was legitimate based on the rules of engagement established by us under the attack order, as is required if there is any uncertainty as to the safety to noncombatants due to weapon effects or collateral damage. The videoconference was convened as a preliminary incident review to determine if a more detailed investigation would be warranted.”

  “And?”

  “General Bain has ruled that, although it could have been possible for General McLanahan to anticipate civilian casualties, his order to engage was justified and proper based on the information at hand, the threat of more civilian deaths at the hands of the insurgents, and his authority under the attack plan,” Carlyle responded. “He is recommending to the Secretary of Defense and to you that no further investigation is warranted and that McLanahan be allowed to continue his operation as planned, with the full complement of missile launch bombers instead of just one.”

  “Is that so?” The President paused for a moment, then shook his head. “General Bain, you’re telling me that you thought it was proper that McLanahan attack a target knowing that so many civilian noncombatants were nearby, and that such an attack is within the letter and spirit of my executive order authorizing a hunt for insurgents in Iran?” he retorted. “I think you have grossly misinterpreted my orders. I thought I was being very plain and specific: I don’t want any noncombatant casualties. Was that not clear to you, General Bain?”

  “It was, sir,” Bain responded, his jaw hardening and his eyes narrowing under the scolding, “but with the information General McLanahan had at the time, and with the threat posed by these insurgent rockets, I felt he was fully justified in making the decision to—”

  “Let’s get this straight right here and now, General Bain: I am the commander-in-chief, and I make the decisions,” the President said. “Your job is to carry out my orders, and my orders were no civilian casualties. The only proper order in this instance was to withhold because of the numbers of civilians around that launcher. Even if they had been told to leave the immediate area, you should have anticipated that they would be near enough to be hurt or killed by the explosion. They—”

  “Sir, there was no explosion, at least not one caused by us,” Bain protested. “The SkySTREAK missile is a kinetic-energy weapon only—it was designed to—”

  “I don’t care what it was designed to do, General—McLanahan knew there were civilians in the immediate area, and according to General Huffman, you were briefed that some rockets might have chemical weapons on them, so he obviously should have withheld. End of discussion. Now what is this about McLanahan firing a missile at the Russian fighter? McLanahan’s bombers have air-to-air missiles on them?”

  “That’s standard defensive armament for the EB-1D Vampire aircraft, sir, but McLanahan didn’t—”

  “So why did you fire on that Russian reconnaissance plane, General McLanahan?”

  “We did not fire any missiles, sir,” McLanahan responded as firmly as he could, nodding to Lukas that he was all right, “and it was not a reconnaissance plane: it was a MiG-2
9 tactical fighter.”

  “What was it doing up there, McLanahan?”

  “Shadowing our bomber over the Caspian Sea, sir.”

  “I see. Shadowing…as in, performing reconnaissance? Am I interpreting this correctly, General?” Patrick rubbed his eyes and swallowed hard, licking dry lips. “We’re not keeping you up, are we, General?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So the Russian aircraft was just performing reconnaissance after all, correct?”

  “Not in my judgment, sir. It was—”

  “So you fired a missile at it, and it returned fire, and you then hit it with a radioactive beam of some sort, correct?”

  “No, sir.” But something was wrong. Patrick looked at the camera, but seemed to be having trouble focusing. “It…we didn’t…”

  “So what happened?”

  “Mr. President, the MiG fired on us first,” Boomer interjected. “The Vampire just defended itself, nothing more.”

  “Who is that?” the President asked the National Security Adviser. He turned to the camera, his eyes bulging in anger. “Who are you? Identify yourself!”

  “I’m Captain Hunter Noble,” Boomer said, getting to his feet, staring in shock at the image of Patrick being helped by Lukas, “and why the hell don’t you stop badgering us? We’re only doing our jobs!”

  “What did you say to me?” the President thundered. “Who the hell are you to talk to me like that? General Bain, I want him fired! I want him discharged!”

  “Master Sergeant, what’s going on?” Bain shouted, ignoring the President. “What’s happening to Patrick?”

  “He’s having trouble breathing, sir.” She found a nearby intercom switch: “Medical detail to the command module! Emergency!” And then she terminated the videoconference with a keypress on the communications control keyboard.

  “McLanahan is having a heart attack?” the President exclaimed after the video images from the space station cut off. “I knew he shouldn’t be up in that thing! General Bain, what kind of medical facilities do they have up there?”

  “Basic, sir: just a medically trained technician and first aid equipment. We’ve never had anyone have a heart attack on an American military spacecraft.”

  “Great. Just fucking great.” The President passed a hand through his hair in sheer frustration. “Can you get a doctor and some medicine and equipment up there right away?”

  “Yes, sir. The Black Stallion spaceplane can rendezvous with the space station in a couple hours.”

  “Get on it. And terminate those bomber missions over Iran. No more cruise missile shots until I know for sure what happened.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bain’s videoconference link cut off.

  The President sat back in his chair, loosened his tie, and lit up a cigarette. “What a clusterfuck,” he breathed. “We kill a bunch of innocent civilians in Tehran with a hypersonic missile fired from an unmanned bomber controlled from a military space station; Russia is screaming mad at us; and now the hero of the American Holocaust has a damned heart attack in space! What’s next?”

  “McLanahan’s situation might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, Joe,” Chief of Staff Walter Kordus said. He and Carlyle had known Joseph Gardner since their years in college and Kordus was one of the few allowed to ever address the President by his first name. “We’ve been looking for ways to cut funding for the space station despite its popularity in the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, and this might be it.”

  “But it has to be done delicately—McLanahan is too popular with the people to be used as an excuse to cut his favorite program, especially since he’s been touting it all over the world as the next big thing, the impregnable fortress, the ultimate watchtower, yada yada yada,” the President said. “We have to get some congressmen to raise the question of safety on that space station, and if it needs to be manned at all in the first place. We’ll have to ‘leak’ this incident to Senator Barbeau, the Armed Services Committee, and a few others.”

  “That won’t be hard,” Kordus said. “Barbeau will know how to stir things up without slamming McLanahan.”

  “Good. After it comes out in the press, I want to meet with Barbeau privately to discuss strategy.” Kordus tried hard to control his discomfort at that order. The President noted his friend and chief political adviser’s warning tenseness and added quickly, “Everyone’s going to have their hand out for the money once we start the idea of killing that space station, and I want to control the begging, whining, and arm-twisting.”

  “Okay, Joe,” Kordus said, not convinced by the President’s hasty explanation, but not wanting to press the issue. “I’ll set it up.”

  “You do that.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette, crushed it out, then added, “And we need to get our ducks in a row soon, just in case McLanahan kicks the bucket and Congress kills his program before we can divvy up his budget.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  One does what one is; one becomes what one does.

  —ROBERT VON MUSIL

  AZADI SQUARE, OUTSIDE MEHRABAD INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TEHRAN, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF PERSIA

  DAYS LATER

  “No bread, no peace! No bread, no peace!” the protesters chanted over and over again. It seemed the crowd, now numbering around two or three hundred, was growing bigger and exponentially louder by the minute.

  “If they have no bread, where do they get all the energy to stand out here and protest?” Colonel Mostafa Rahmati, commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, muttered as he studied the security barriers and observed the crowds getting ever closer. Just two weeks earlier, Rahmati, a short, rather round man with bushy dark hair that seemed to grow thickly across every inch of his body except the top of his head, was executive officer of a transportation battalion, but the way commanding officers were disappearing—presumably killed by insurgents, although no one could rule out desertion—promotions came quickly and urgently in the army of the presumptive Democratic Republic of Persia.

  “More smoke,” one of Rahmati’s lookouts reported. “Tear gas, not an explosion.” Seconds later, they heard a loud bang! strong enough to rattle the windows of the airport office building he and his senior staff members were seated in. The lookout sheepishly glanced at his commanding officer. “A small explosion, sir.”

  “So I gather,” Rahmati said. He didn’t want to show any displeasure or exasperation—two weeks ago he wouldn’t have been able to tell a grenade explosion from a loud fart. “Watch the lines carefully—it could be a diversion.”

  Rahmati and his staff were on the upper floor of an office building that once belonged to the Iranian Ministry of Transportation at Mehrabad International Airport. Since the military coup and the start of the Islamist insurgency against the military government in Iran, the coup leaders had decided to take over Mehrabad Airport and had established a tight security perimeter around the entire area. Although most of the city east of Tehran University had been left to the insurgents, taking over the airport turned out to be a wise decision. The airport was already highly secure; the open spaces around the field were easy to patrol and defend; and the airport could be kept open to receive and send supplies by air.

  Besides, it was often pointed out, if the insurgents ever got the upper hand—which could be any day now—it would be that much easier to get the hell out of the country.

  The windows rattled again, and heads turned farther southeast along Me’raj Avenue northeast toward Azadi Square, about two kilometers away, where another billow of smoke, this one topped with a crown of orange fire, suddenly rose. Bombings, arson, intentional accidents, mayhem, and frequent suicide bombings were commonplace in Tehran, and none more common than the area between Mehrabad Airport, Azadi Square, and the famous Freedom Tower, the erstwhile “Gateway to Iran.” Freedom Tower, first called Shahyad Tower, or the King’s Tower, commemorating the two thousand five hundredth anniversary of the Persian Empire, was built in 1971 by Shah Reza Pahlavi as a symbol of the new, modern Iran. The tower was
renamed after the Islamic Revolution and, like the U.S. Embassy, was seen more as a symbol of the decadent monarchy and a warning to the people not to embrace the Western enemies of Islam. The square became a popular area for anti-Western demonstrations and speeches and so became a symbol of the Islamic revolution, which was probably why the marble-clad monument to Iran’s last monarchy was never torn down.

  Because the entire area was heavily fortified and well patrolled by the military, trade and commerce had started to revive here, and even some luxuries like restaurants, cafés, and movie theaters had reopened. Unfortunately these were frequent targets by Islamist insurgents. A few brave pro-theocratic protesters would organize a rally occasionally in Azadi Square. To their credit, the military did not crack down on these rallies and even took steps to protect them against counterprotesters that threatened to get too violent. Buzhazi and most of his officers knew that they had to do everything possible to demonstrate to the people of Persia, and to the world, that they were not going to replace one brand of oppression with another.

  “What’s happening over there?” Rahmati asked as he continued to scan the avenue for more signs of an organized insurgent offensive. Every insurgent attack of late had been preceded by a smaller innocuous-looking one nearby, which diverted the attention of police and military patrols just enough to allow the insurgents to create even more havoc somewhere else.

  “Looks like that new ExxonMobil gasoline station off the Sai-di Highway, across from Meda Azadi Park, sir,” a lookout reported. “A large crowd running toward Azadi Avenue. The smoke is getting thicker—perhaps the underground tanks are on fire.”