The Price Of Power

by James W. Huston

  “The evidence will show that the American missionary was killed by an F-18. Its missile hit the reinforced bunker, penetrated it, killing the only occupant, a missionary from the United States.

  “That death was Admiral Billings’s fault.” Once again, he made eye contact with each admiral on the court. “You will hear testimony that the missionaries had not been harmed by their captors. They had apparently been kidnapped, but they had not been harmed and they were under no immediate threat of death or bodily injury.

  “Yet death is exactly what Mr. Carson received—at the hands of his fellow countryman. He and his wife went off to Irian Jaya, one of the most distant corners of the earth, to convert an unwritten language into a written one, and then translate the Bible into a book in that written language. To enable the native people of Irian Jaya to read the Bible for the first time in their lives. That was all he was doing. Now he’s dead because Admiral Billings disobeyed an order. This court must convict him and show all military officers and enlisted men and women that orders are to be taken seriously.” He stopped and closed his notebook. Returning to his seat, he sat down quietly.

  The room was silent. Everyone waited for Dillon to begin his opening statement.

  Dillon buttoned his suit coat, and fiddled with his notebook. He could feel eyes on him as he walked slowly to the podium. He had never been so afraid in his life. The musty smell of the refurbished gymnasium mixed with the new paint seemed stifling. He tried to focus on the paper in front of him. He couldn’t read any of it. His mind wanted to read it, his eyes wanted to read it, but he couldn’t. He took a deep breath. Deliberately he picked up the water pitcher under the top of the podium and filled his glass. Slowly he took a drink. He took another deep breath, trying to disguise his nervousness. People in the gallery began whispering. The television cameras lingered on his every move. Captain Diamond watched him and was about to say something when Dillon finally spoke. “Good morning. May it please the court, Admiral Ray Billings stands for everything that is good about our country. He stands for everything…”

  The prosecutor stood up quickly. “Excuse me, but this is opening statement, Your Honor. Mr. Dillon is clearly arguing, and trying to bring sympathy into the equation—”

  “I’m doing nothing of the kind—” Dillon said.

  Captain Diamond put up his hand. “Please proceed, Mr. Dillon. Remember it’s opening statement.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Dillon responded, glancing over at Pettit, who was sitting down slowly. “Admiral Ray Billings did not violate a direct order, at least not one that is enforceable or legal—”

  “I object, Your Honor,” trial counsel said in disbelief.

  “This court has already determined that this order was not illegal. It is, therefore, completely inappropriate and improper for Mr. Dillon to come in here and make the illegality of the order the focus of his defense. He cannot make that argument. He cannot make it in opening statement or in closing—”

  Captain Diamond interrupted. “I understand, Mr. Pettit.” Then to Dillon: “Mr. Dillon, I do not want to hear an opening statement dealing with whether or not this order was illegal. That has already been determined by the court.” He stared at Dillon. “You need to be concerned with whether or not the facts indicate that he disobeyed it.”

  Dillon swallowed and yearned to wipe the perspiration beading on his forehead, but he wasn’t willing to let anyone see him do it. “May I have a moment with my other counsel?” Dillon asked.

  “Please be quick,” Diamond said.

  Dillon crossed over to Molly and whispered into her ear. “What am I supposed to say?” he asked, desperate.

  “Make your opening statement,” she replied, stalling.

  “What opening statement? We have nothing to say except it was illegal!”

  “I don’t know,” she said angrily. “I thought you had this all figured out! You said you didn’t want any help on your opening!”

  “I didn’t. But my argument has always been that this order was not legal!”

  “You’d better come up with something fast.”

  “Like what?” he said, louder than he meant to.

  “I don’t know.”

  Dillon returned to the podium. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have written an opening statement arguing the same point they had lost in the pretrial motion? Dillon’s mind raced. He suddenly knew what he should do, but he wasn’t sure he had the nerve. On the other hand, he didn’t know what else to say. He looked up at Captain Diamond. “Your Honor, defendant reserves opening statement.”

  Pettit stood up to object, but realized he didn’t have anything to object to.

  The spectators gasped and Captain Diamond surveyed Dillon curiously. “That is certainly your right, Mr. Dillon. Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “Yes, sir, I’m sure. We’d like to give our opening statement at the commencement of our evidence.”

  “You are so empowered, and it is so ordered.”

  Dillon closed his notebook and returned to his seat. The judge looked at Commander Pettit. “Trial Counsel, call your first witness.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Lieutenant Jody Armstrong, the officer in charge of the Navy Special Warfare Detachment on board the USS Wasp, and the SEAL who had headed the operations against George Washington, studied the recent electronic monitoring information from the ES-3, which narrowed his possible target down to two islands.

  To Lieutenant Commander Lawson, the intelligence officer and former SEAL, who was sitting across the table from him, he said, “We’ve got these guys down to two islands, Tyler.”

  Lawson agreed. “Two islands with no information. We should be getting some satellite imagery soon though,” he added.

  “Kinda looking forward to getting reacquainted with these guys,” Armstrong said.

  “Maybe we will and maybe we won’t. Nobody is saying what we’re doing, are they?”

  “I know what I’m doing. I’m going to have the platoon ready to go. I don’t think this is going to be another Marine Corps amphibious assault. They’re going to leave this job to the snake-eaters.”

  “That would be us.”

  “Exactly. We need more data though. We can’t get beach studies on these places—we need some low-angle photos. Think we can put in a request for a TARPS pass?”

  “I don’t know. The admiral is kinda skittish since they got shot down last time. Won’t hurt to ask though.”

  “Run the request up, let’s see if we can get something done.”

  “You heard SEAL Team One’s getting a platoon ready to augment?”

  “If we can get two SEAL platoons on the island, Mr. George Washington will be in some seriously deep shit.”

  “I think that’s the idea.”

  “It’s certainly my idea,” Armstrong said.

  Pettit, at the podium, felt as if he had already won the case. In a loud voice, he said, “The United States calls to the stand Admiral Hart, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” A sailor went out into the hallway and summoned the admiral, who entered and took in the room quickly. He was large, but not obese, and not at all awed by the setting. He had testified before Congress on numerous occasions and didn’t think much about this event, other than being annoyed at having to travel this far.

  Admiral Hart walked to the witness box to the left of the admirals, directly in front of Billings, and was sworn in by the clerk. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” Hart replied.

  “You may be seated. Please state your full name for the record and spell your last name,” the clerk said, raising the microphone in front of Hart.

  The admiral adjusted the wooden chair in the witness box and made himself comfortable. His glittering gold shoulder boards were greatest among several in the room. A stack of ribbons, capped by his Navy gold pilot wings, was on top of his left breast pocket. He gave his name, speakin
g clearly into the microphone.

  Pettit began his questioning. “Thank you for coming so far, Admiral Hart.”

  “You’re welcome,” the admiral said, giving no sign he identified with the prosecution. Hart glanced at Billings and kept his expression unchanged.

  “Would you please state your current position in the Navy, sir?”

  “I am an admiral in the United States Navy, and I am Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, having already served a term as Chief of Naval Operations.”

  “Would you please summarize your career in the Navy before becoming CNO?” Pettit walked Admiral Hart through his Navy career from the day he was commissioned, less to impress the members of the court, all of whom knew him, than to give additional, unspoken weight and authority to his testimony. Pettit continued, “Now, Admiral Hart, during the time that the Pacific Flyer was attacked and sunk, you were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you were aware of the situation in Indonesia and the Java Sea during that time?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  “At some point the decision was made not to pursue the perpetrators of the Pacific Flyer attack. Is that correct?”

  “Well,” Admiral Hart said, shifting in his chair, “I’m not sure I’d put it that way. A decision was made to allow Indonesia to pursue them and take them through their criminal process, and also that we would help in whatever way we could.”

  “But by helping, you do not mean attacking them with military forces.”

  “That’s right. President Manchester had decided not to attack them, but rather to assist Indonesia in locating them, so they could undertake whatever process was appropriate to bring them to justice.”

  “Sir, during the entire time that you were aware of the presence of those believed to have perpetrated the Pacific Flyer incident, were they on foreign soil, by that I mean non-U.S. soil?”

  “Yes, they were in Indonesia as far as I know, unless you count the Flyer itself as American soil. It was an American-flagged vess—”

  “After the decision was made not to pursue them militarily, did you learn that Congress had a different idea in mind?”

  “Certainly, we knew that Congress disagreed with that approach and had decided to issue a Letter of Reprisal.”

  “As far as you know, a Letter of Reprisal has never been issued to a U.S. Navy battle group in the history of this country, has it?”

  “Objection,” Dillon said, standing up. “Irrelevant. If he says we can’t argue about the order’s illegality, then neither can they argue the illegality of the Letter of Reprisal.”

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “Go on.”

  “Were you aware that a Letter of Reprisal had been issued by Congress?”

  “Yes. It was the President’s intention to stop the Navy from going forward with that Letter of Reprisal.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “We prepared a direct order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President of the United States, to the task force under Admiral Billings’s command, ordering them to return to Pearl Harbor.”

  “And who drafted that message?”

  “I did.”

  “May I approach the witness. Your Honor?”

  “Yes.”

  Commander Pettit strode to the witness stand and handed Admiral Hart a single sheet of paper. “I’m handing you what has previously been marked as Exhibit One. Could you identify this for me?”

  “Yes, this is a copy of the message that was drafted.”

  “Did you write every word of it?”

  “All the body of the message, yes. There are several headers and footers that are rather standard Navy verbiage, but I wrote the language of the order.”

  “Did you do that at the insistence of the President of the United States?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you to do that?”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Dillon interjected.

  “Overruled.”

  Hart glanced at Captain Diamond, then answered, “Yes.”

  “Did he review the message before it went out?”

  “No, he told me what he wanted and I wrote the language to do that. I reviewed it before it went out at his request.”

  “Did he authorize you to send a message of this content on his behalf?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is this a true and correct copy of the message that you had sent?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you see the date/time/group at the top of that message?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that accurate? Was the message sent on or about that date and at that time?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Was it received by Commander Billings’s battle group?”

  “Objection, lack of foundation,” Dillon said, rising.

  “Commander Pettit?” the judge asked.

  “There is a confirmation code on the message that shows it was received.”

  “He has laid no foundation of this witness that he can identify the code at all,” Dillon argued.

  “Admiral Hart, is there any way to tell whether this message was actually received?” Pettit continued.

  “Well, all you can tell from this message confirmation is that it was sent. I can’t say that Admiral Billings actually received it, at least not from this document.”

  Pettit screwed up his face. “We’ll show that another way. For now. Your Honor,” he said, taking the message back from Admiral Hart, “I move that Exhibit One be admitted into evidence.”

  “Any objection?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, lack of foundation.”

  “Overruled, Exhibit One is admitted.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said.

  “Admiral, did Admiral Billings comply with this message?”

  Hart’s eyes shifted to Billings and then moved back to the prosecutor. “No.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, by the series of events, and also by the message that he sent.”

  “What message was that?”

  “After we sent this, and apparently after he received the Letter of Reprisal from Congress, he sent a message to us indicating that he was not going to comply with our message because he had received the Letter of Reprisal. We, therefore, knew that he wouldn’t. That turned out to be exactly what happened.”

  “I’d like to show you what’s been marked as Exhibit Two and ask you to examine it.”

  The admiral reviewed it. “Yes, this is the message that we received in response.”

  “And in this he said that he did not intend to comply with the order you had given him, correct?”

  “Objection, leading,” Dillon said.

  “Sustained,” Captain Diamond said.

  “Forgive me, Your Honor. Did Admiral Billings tell you in this message anything about his intentions?”

  Hart shrugged. “Well, it speaks for itself. He said he does not intend to comply with the order.”

  “And he did not comply with that order, did he?”

  “No, he did not.”

  “Thank you, no further questions. Move for admission of Exhibit Two, Your Honor.”

  “Objection?”

  “None, Your Honor,” Dillon said.

  “Exhibit Two is admitted.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Dillon—Oh, I do have one other thing, Your Honor.” Pettit addressed Hart. “Is it reasonable for the court to infer from Exhibit Two that Admiral Billings received Exhibit One?”

  “If he didn’t get our message, I don’t know how he could send us a message saying he wasn’t going to follow it.”

  Pettit took his seat, and appeared pleased with the way the testimony had gone.

  Dillon opened his notebook and turned to the Hart tab. His cross-examination outline lay in front of him on the podium. “Admiral Hart, you were selected by President Manchester to be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, correct?”

&
nbsp; “Yes.”

  “And you serve at his request, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You serve at his whim.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you mean by ‘whim.’ He could terminate my position if he so chose.”

  Dillon nodded, starting to feel the adrenaline settling down in his body. “You drafted the message, correct?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And you knew at the time that you drafted it that there was a good chance that it would not be obeyed. Correct?”

  “No.”

  “Admiral Hart, isn’t it true that you knew what a Letter of Reprisal was long before President Manchester?”

  “Objection. Calls for speculation,” the prosecutor said, appearing disgusted.

  “Overruled,” the judge said quickly.

  “You knew what Letters of Marque and Reprisal were before this all happened, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew that it was a commission that entitled a ship to act within the scope of the commission, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The only thing about this Letter of Reprisal that differed from, say, one back in the War of 1812 was that it was issued to a U.S. Navy combatant. Correct?”

  The prosecutor stood up again. “What is the relevance of this line of inquiry? This sounds like a back door attempt to get to the legality of the order.”

  “Your Honor, I’m trying to establish whether or not the very people who wrote it and issued it knew that it was a futile order when it was issued.”

  “I’m not following your thinking, but go ahead, Counsel,” Captain Diamond said.

  “You knew at the time this order was issued that it would contradict the Letter of Reprisal, correct?”

  “No, I didn’t see it that way. A commission is a commission. An order is an order.”