Joint Task Force #3: France

by David E. Meadows

  People just didn’t fight with swords anymore, in this era of guns. Holman always wondered why Yalvarez went with a sword when a fully loaded M-16 would have been more effective, but the impact of that photograph sent Yalvarez’s popularity soaring past rock stars and movie stars. Women wanted his baby. Several men did, too. Movie companies wanted his life story. Nike offered him a contract, but the shoes weren’t Navy regulation and that was where Yalvarez confessed his loyalties lay. In another first, he was the youngest Chief of Naval Operations, surpassing the great Admiral Zumwalt, who in the seventies was leapfrogged over many senior flags to lead the Navy. The same thing happened with Yalvarez. Sure, the CNO had his detractors—those who believed him to be too political, or too self-serving. Holman didn’t know the admiral other than through word-of-mouth reputation and newspaper articles, of which there were many. Christ! Being too political didn’t sound like a negative point to Holman. You wouldn’t survive a junior officer tour in the Pentagon if you didn’t have some political savvy.

  Admiral Yalvarez leaned forward, resting his elbow on the table, so he could look around Duncan James. His eyes stared directly into Holman’s. “Dick,” he said, “what’s the latest on the loss of those Air Force F-16s? I read the latest in your Operations Report series this morning, but OPREPs seldom tell you everything.”

  No greeting. Just down to business. Another reputation Admiral Jay had was for directness and a paucity of small talk.

  “Sorry, Admiral. I don’t have any additional information other than what is in the OPREP. I know Captain Bennett has already started a JAGMAN. The MISHAP report was issued yesterday—”

  “I know all that, Dick. I want to know what you and he are discussing informally. Surely he has an idea as to what happened and if the French used some sort of laser weapon to destroy them?”

  Holman shook his head.

  “Laser weapons?” James asked.

  Admiral Yalvarez waved his question away. “Later, Duncan.”

  “Sir, we’re still leaning toward the idea that the pilots were fatigued after such a long flight, and one or more of them collided in mid-air, causing a cascade effect that sent the four aircraft crashing into the sea.”

  “I talked with the Air Force Chief of Staff and he disagrees with the theory.” Yalvarez fingers tapped the table a couple of times. “Of course, he has a reason to believe it was something other than fatigue. If those pilots crashed because the flight time is too tiring, then it has a direct impact on Air Force strategy of being able to reach anywhere in the world within seventy-two hours. And that is from bases within the United States.”

  “I’ll ask Captain Bennett to add more detail to his reports.”

  Yalvarez raised his hand off the table, palm toward Holman for a couple of seconds. “The reports are fine, Dick,” he said with a smile. “They’re right on target. They meet expectations. I just wanted to know what you and Captain Bennett are discussing informally. Wanted to know the rumors you’re hearing. What’s behind the facts that we haven’t been able to substantiate yet. All of those are questions I would prefer answered before reading about them, if you get my drift.”

  Holman glanced at Duncan, who had leaned back in his chair so the Chief of Naval Operations could talk to the Commander Amphibious Group Two. James’s lips were pursed together and he stared at the ceiling.

  Gee, thanks, Bud, Holman thought as he turned his gaze back to the CNO.

  “Admiral,” Yalvarez said, a hint of steely firmness in his voice. “Duncan can’t help you. He wasn’t there. You weren’t there either, but you have a more rounded picture of what happened than what the OPREPs will be showing.” When Yalvarez said “rounded” he cupped his hands for a moment as if he were holding a ball.

  Holman cleared his throat. The problem with relaying third-hand information about something as serious as this is you risk having it confused with known facts. He knew how rumors, innuendoes, and partial facts of events such as this one could cloud the truth. He kept to himself these rumors and half-truths, waiting for Mary to lay out the events in chronological order. Time is always the deciding factor when determining fact from fiction. Events always unfolded to second- and third-hand listeners in chronological order, and when displayed in that way, why certain things were done or why things happened became clearer.

  “Don’t worry,” Yalvarez said, making a downward motion with his hand. “I know how to keep fact and hearsay separated.”

  Holman had heard that mantra before, only to discover that those who believed themselves capable of doing it didn’t do it well at all. Maybe he was in that group; he hoped not. Yalvarez, three years younger than Holman, wearing the solid gold epaulets with four embroidered stars, and who was his boss, was asking for insider information. This wasn’t like the stock market where they made you do the perp walk and sent you off to jail for insider information, but you sure could find yourself in cold waters if you didn’t share what you knew when asked.

  Holman took a deep breath and let it out. I hope this doesn’t backfire. “Sir, there is one thing that I have asked Captain Bennett to chase down, and that is the precise events surrounding the anti-cruise missile exercise the Winston Churchill was conducting at the time the F-16s disappeared.”

  The CNO leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about it,” Yalvarez ordered in a voice that seemed to Holman to say “I already know, but I want to see if you’ll tell me.”

  “Admiral, from what I’ve been able to find out, Mesa Verde had an officer on board Churchill as an exercise observer. When the officer returned to his ship, he turned in an unsolicited report accusing the Winston Churchill of locking its fire control radar on a French Atlantique reconnaissance aircraft flying in its vicinity. This, coupled with the intelligence reports suggesting that a laser weapon—a laser weapon based on stolen U.S. technology—may have destroyed the Air Force fighters, led me to ask for more information.”

  “Thanks, Dick,” Yalvarez said, his head nodding in agreement. The CNO leaned back in his chair, his finger drumming on the table. “You’ve confirmed what the director of Navy Intelligence told me this morning.”

  Holman swallowed. So, I was right. He knew all along and was testing me. Holman leaned forward so he could see the CNO’s face. Maybe the CNO knew something concerning his Expeditionary Strike Group. If so, then he wanted to know, too. Before he could ask, the door to the Tank opened and the burly Air Force sergeant from outside announced in a loud voice, “Gentlemen, the Chairman.”

  They stood, their chairs creating a muffled sound as the legs slid back across the thick carpet. Holman’s chair snagged, nearly causing him to fall back into it.

  General “Halfpenny” Baines entered, wearing the Air Force blue tie.

  Holman loved the Air Force tie for the great uniform concept it carried. The Air Force blue tie was the centerpiece of their uniforms. Without the tie, the uniform was just the working uniform of the day. But, when emergent occasions dictated, an Air Force member could jerk that tie out of a top desk drawer, whip it around his neck, and, while on the run toward the wine and nibblies, tie it. Tie it so fast and neat that by the time he reached the end of the passageway, voila, he was dressed for any confrontation on the dance or dinner floor. Holman kept such observations to himself. Somewhere, out of sight, during boot camp, they probably practiced the art of the quick tie.

  “Morning, Admirals,” Halfpenny said, strolling quickly along the opposite side of the table. Behind the Chairman trailed his Director of the Joint Staff, Army Lieutenant General Winifred Hulley, displaying the slack-jowl scowl political cartoonists had satirized during the Colombia police actions. He nodded at Holman.

  Holman returned the nod, wondering if he heard a growl with that nod or if it was his imagination.

  “Admiral Yalvarez, good to see you, sir,” Hulley said, his voice deep and vibrating.

  Holman thought, Must know each other from the Colombia police action.

  “We’re waiting for Miss Chatel
ain-Malpass, gentlemen,” the chairman said. He reached forward and twisted the plastic top off the water bottle near his nameplate. Instead of pouring it into the glass, he took a deep swig. “Ah, that was good.” He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his forehead. “You gentlemen will have to excuse me, I just came from the POAC. Managed to get in a few miles this morning.”

  POAC was the acronym for the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club. The POAC was a holdover from the era when Holman was a young lieutenant and it had been shoved into a separate building near Pentagon North Parking. The new one was named the Pentagon Athletic Club, but old-timers like the chairman still referred to it as “POAC.”

  They watched, but no one spoke as the chairman pulled out his chair. When he sat down, they followed suit. The chairman crossed his legs, left ankle over right knee. “Admiral James, we’ve met, but Admiral Holman— Dick, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good to meet you, Admiral.” Holman nodded. “Now, I know you two,” he said, pointing at Duncan James and Holman, “are both wondering why you’ve been unceremoniously invited to the Tank, and the fact that I’m sitting here with you probably makes you even more nervous about why you’ve been called. Well, I’m not even in your shoes and I’m nervous. Admiral Holman, first let me apologize. I know it must have been quite an obstacle to break away from the battle groups you command to fly here today, but I think once you hear what Miss Chatelain-Malpass has to say, you’ll understand why Admiral Yalvarez insisted on your presence.”

  Holman glanced at the CNO. Yalvarez’s eyes were on his hands in his lap, one hand working slowly on the nails of the other.

  “Before our distinguished visitor arrives, let me give you a heads up on what I think she is going to tell you and then ask you to do something which has the blessing of the Secretary of Defense. SecDef won’t be joining us, but as you listen to what Miss Chatelain-Malpass has to say—”

  The door to the Tank opened. General Halfpenny Baines abruptly stopped talking. The Air Force sergeant stepped into the room and held the door. A woman stepped inside the Tank, stopped briefly, and nodded to those around the table.

  This must be Miss “however you say her name,” thought Holman. She was tall, what his mother would have called a ‘drink of water,’ and she moved gracefully toward the seat beside Lieutenant General Hulley, standing beside the chair with her nametag in front of it. Her body was a plane of symmetry as if the slightly above-knee bluish-green dress had been purposely designed to hide any curves, though it failed to hide a pair of thin, shapely legs.

  Holman was momentarily caught off guard by the men standing and barely made it to his feet by the time the lady sat down in the chair that the director pulled out for her. You never knew what reaction you would get from some women in power when they were honored with a traditional gentlemanly act. Holman watched Chatelain-Malpass’s face to see what the reaction might be, but she nodded with a smile, thanked General Hulley, and sat down as if this was normal wherever she went. The five of them followed suit.

  She pulled her chair closer to the table as the men adjusted theirs.

  Holman shifted slightly. Chatelain-Malpass’s brown hair was pulled tight into a bun, almost as if intentionally tight so the skin on her face would have no flexibility to reveal any emotion. This was not a woman he would want to wake up with in the morning. Where in the hell did that thought come from? All she needed was a pair of half-moon bifocals and she’d epitomize his perception of a stereotyped librarian.

  “Gentlemen,” General Baines said, “allow me to introduce Ms. Alice Chatelain-Malpass from the president’s National Security Council.”

  “Please call me Alice,” she said. “I cringe when I hear people try to pronounce that hyphenated name of my parents.”

  Single, thought Holman, and wants people to know the hyphenated name isn’t a married one. She smiled at Duncan James and nodded at Holman. A nice voice, smooth.

  Holman twisted his wedding band several times.

  “Alice, this meeting is yours, ma’am. As you know, the president’s National Security Advisor asked for this meeting late last night,” the chairman announced. “The secretary sends his regrets.” Halfpenny pointed toward Holman. “This is Admiral Holman. He commands the Amphibious Group Two out of Little Creek Amphibious Base in Norfolk; and sitting between him and Admiral Yalvarez— Chief of Naval Operations—is Admiral Duncan James, head of Navy SEALs.”

  She nodded, a thin smile across her lips. Was there anything about this woman that wasn’t tight? He felt a slight blush along his neck.

  Holman took a deep breath, glancing down at the table a moment. When he looked up, she was staring at him, as if she had read his thoughts. He felt the red creep up his face. Don’t tell me I’ve got to watch my thoughts, too.

  General Baines paused.

  “Thank you, General,” she said, the forced smile still on her lips. She turned her attention to Admiral Holman and Admiral James. “I apologize for taking you away from your important jobs on such short notice, and on behalf of the president, I would like to extend his compliments and his knowledge that you will perform the mission which you are about to be assigned with courage, stealth, and success.”

  Holman rested his right hand on the table. There it was—that sinking feeling in his stomach. He reached forward, grabbed the water bottle, and took a deep swallow, knowing as he did it that it wasn’t going to take away the dry feeling in his mouth. Missions weren’t assigned this way to naval forces—in the Tank, by the White House, and with the chairman acting as a benign observer. Missions were planned and re-planned; beaten to death in a compartment full of devil’s advocates in an attempt to identify everything that could happen. Even then, once a well-planned mission started, the fog of war sometimes made it go to shit in a handbasket. Bottom line was a mission may end that way, but you didn’t start it already in the handbasket.

  James and Holman exchanged a quick glance. Holman knew without asking that Duncan would be thinking the same thing.

  Chatelain-Malpass lifted her briefcase to the table, opened it, and removed several binders before setting it on the floor beside her. “I have some data for you to read while we are here, but I have to take everything back with me when I leave.” She shoved three of the binders across the table to the three admirals. Lieutenant General Hulley took another one and eased a fifth to the chairman, who immediately lifted it and flipped through the pages.

  Holman caught a flash of irritation on Chatelain-Malpass’s face when she saw the chairman flipping through her brief. So much for a tight bun hiding emotions. All the artificial tightening in the world couldn’t hide the momentary burst of fire in those baby blues. Holman pressed his lips together to stop the slight urge to smile.

  Chatelain-Malpass reached down and pulled a small black notebook from her briefcase. She opened it and, with a quick glance at Holman, started talking, never looking down at it again.

  “Before I start, gentlemen, the classification of this discussion and anything else said while I am here is top-secret compartmented eyes-only. We would also prefer that my name and presence not be mentioned in follow-on discussions after I leave. That means only you five, outside of the National Security Council, are aware of everything I’m going to tell you today. It’s not to be discussed outside this room. It’s not to be discussed with others as to how you came about the mission to be assigned today, and only the information necessary to do the mission will be used, and that information will be attributed to some unnamed intelligence source. Admiral Holman, this secrecy applies to conversations with your wife, also. We’re on the verge of a great success, if you do your job right.”

  He stopped turning his wedding band. “I beg your pardon.”

  She gave him a slight nod with that tight smile, but continued with her remarks. “Is that understood? I was never here today and what I am asking you to do did not come from the White House.”

  Don’t underestimate her,
Holman thought. Alice Chatelain-Malpass was a timber wolf. They ate men for fun. “On the verge of a great success”—is that kind of like nearly being a virgin?

  The vision of a clothesline with the caption “left out to dry” crossed Holman’s mind. Whatever he and Duncan were about to be asked to do was going to be something that, if it became “fucked up beyond all recognition,” fubar as the acronym goes, the blame wasn’t going to go higher than him and Duncan. Wonder why that sounds familiar?

  “Does everyone understand?”

  “I think you’ve made it clear, Alice. Bottom line is that whatever happens, it won’t roll uphill,” Lieutenant General Hulley said with a trace of anger.

  Holman could grow to like this gruff old warrior.

  Chatelain-Malpass turned her head and met the director of the Joint Staff’s eyes for a second before she returned her attention back to Holman and James. Holman patted his pocket. Obviously, she considered Hulley beneath her concern. He hoped his EA had his cigars, because he was going to need one after this.

  “First, we have a problem, gentlemen. The problem is that the French have gained possession of classified data on the development of a new laser weapon we were working on. As you are aware from your own closely held intelligence reports, there is an analysis circulating around the intelligence community at the higher levels of command that offers an opinion that the disappearance of the Air Force F-16s was caused by a laser weapon.” She paused for a moment, her eyes shifting from Holman to James. “The code name for the laser program is Phoenix Depth, not to be confused with some of the other more super-secret Defense Department Phoenix programs.”

  So far, nothing new. Holman took another sip of water. A cup of coffee would be nice.