Strike Force

by Dale Brown

  “I had absolutely no doubt of that, Mr. President,” Barbeau said. She looked at Patrick and Boomer, who were sitting farthest away from her. “The committee will be very anxious to hear from General McLanahan as well, and I in particular will look forward to his testimony with much anticipation.”

  “The general’s not scheduled to testify, Senator,” Defense Secretary Gardner said.

  “He’s not?” Barbeau made a show of looking completely surprised, although as ranking member she had certainly seen the list of government witnesses scheduled to appear before the committee and would have had to approve each one. “May I ask why, Mr. President? Patrick McLanahan is the nation’s acknowledged expert on long-range aerial attack. He’s been in charge of your fact-finding mission to replace the assets lost after the American Holocaust…”

  “Senator, as I’m sure you well know, General McLanahan is an active-duty Air Force officer who has been temporarily assigned to the White House as a military adviser,” the President said. “He receives no compensation from the White House and has no budget. He serves at my pleasure but his service here is dependent on the needs of the Air Force. While here he reports directly to me, and to the best of my knowledge his activities haven’t been announced publicly.”

  “This is all very mysterious, Mr. President,” Barbeau said, her smile returning. “I’m sure I don’t recall where I heard of what Patrick’s responsibilities might be, but my sources are mostly well-placed and accurate. I didn’t mean to presume.” The President nodded but said nothing. “Patrick’s thoughts and opinions would be of enormous value to the committee, I’m sure. Could you please add him on the witness list, Mr. President? One day would be more than enough time, with minimal written follow-ups.”

  “I respect the needs and wishes of the committee, Senator, and I appreciate your consideration, but in my opinion it’s not General McLanahan’s decision—it’s the National Command Authority’s,” the President said. “As you rightly pointed out, General McLanahan’s the expert, but he’s not the decision-maker. It’s his job to answer my Cabinet’s questions.”

  “We have hundreds of experts, agencies, analysts, and consultants advising the White House and Pentagon on this very important matter, Senator,” Minden said. “We can recommend a number of them to appear before your committee…”

  “Thank you, Mr. Minden, but as the President acknowledged, General McLanahan is the expert in the field as well as a national hero,” Barbeau said rather testily. “His testimony would add unlimited authority and weight to any argument you’d care to make to the committee, watched and listened to by millions around the world. If he didn’t appear, everyone would want to know why. Do you intend on putting him on the Sunday morning talk show circuit instead?”

  “Senator, our witness list is complete,” Carl Minden said firmly. “It’s always possible that we could add witnesses later, but at this stage we don’t anticipate doing so. We know the debate will go on for quite some time—we don’t need to waste ours or the committee’s time with a parade of witnesses all saying the same thing.”

  “If there is such a thing as a ‘parade of witnesses,’ Mr. Minden, I would think General McLanahan would be leading that parade—in fact, he should be in the grand master’s limo, being bombarded by confetti and ticker tape,” Barbeau said. “Speaking of which, Mr. President, as you recall, I presented a proclamation on the Senate floor after the general returned from Russia, congratulating his courage and dedication and recommending he be given a hero’s parade in his home town. The proclamation was unanimously approved. Yet the White House kept him hidden away. If anyone deserved to be honored, it was General McLanahan.”

  “As you recall, Senator, the nation wasn’t celebrating anything in those days—especially anything having to do with the Russian attacks or the extreme losses the nation suffered,” Vice President Hershel reminded her. “We were going to over a dozen funerals or memorial services a day for weeks; half the government was spread out in secret reconstitution facilities; the citizens were too busy building bomb shelters to be out throwing confetti…”

  “I am well aware of that horrible time, Miss Vice President,” Barbeau said in a clipped voice, only glancing at Maureen as she spoke. “But America is strong and we have proven once again that we can take a licking and still prevail with honor and pride. The incident may have been years ago, but Patrick still deserves the honor.”

  “We’ll consider it, Senator,” the President offered.

  “Then may I suggest, Mr. President, that one way to honor Patrick’s service and patriotism is to allow the American people to hear what he has to say regarding the future of America’s ability to strike back at our enemies,” Barbeau said, a bit more insistently this time. “You could pick no better point person for this very important campaign, Mr. President, I assure you.”

  “Thank you for your advice, Senator,” the President said. “I’ll consider it very carefully as well.”

  The outer office secretary came in, escorting someone else, who dropped a note into Barbeau’s hand and scurried away. “I feel it would be an insult to General McLanahan to subpoena him to appear before the committee,” she said, casually glancing at the note, “but I suppose that is always an option—unless you intend on exercising executive privilege.”

  “That is always an option,” the President said. “But I’m sure we can come to some understanding to avoid any appearance of confrontation.”

  “That is always our desire, Mr. President,” Barbeau said, giving the President another heart-melting smile. She then immediately turned to Patrick and said, “General, I know you’ve been out to Eighth Air Force headquarters many times, but just three or four times in the past six months. Are you getting all the information you need? I asked General Zoltrane to give you anything you require, any time, day or night.” Eighth Air Force, based at Barksdale Air Force Base near Boissier City, Louisiana, was the command responsible for all of the surviving long-range B-52, B-1B, and B-2A bombers—and the northern Louisiana districts were her base of power too.

  Patrick glanced quickly at the President, whose smile began to dim but nonetheless nodded his assent to respond. “I receive outstanding support from General Zoltrane and all of the units, Senator,” Patrick replied.

  “I had absolutely no doubt. But if there is anything at all you need, Patrick, please do not hesitate to call on me. At any time.”

  Patrick noticed everyone in the Oval Office sigh and squirm with pleasure at Barbeau’s invitation, sad that it wasn’t directed at them. “Thank you, Senator. I will.”

  “I was quite surprised to see you here this morning, General,” Barbeau remarked. “If I recall correctly, my staff had tried to make an appointment to speak with you just yesterday afternoon, and was told you’d be available later this afternoon. Yet here you are in Washington. My, you do get around, I must say.” Patrick said nothing but merely smiled and nodded. Barbeau’s eyes flared a bit as she added, “Almost as if they shot you out here from Nevada on a rocket ship.”

  Patrick again glanced at the President and Vice President, who had both adopted stony expressions. Carl Minden stepped over to Patrick. “I hate to interrupt, Senator, but if we’re going to get that report in to your committee on time, we’d better get back to work.”

  “Can I speak plainly, Mr. President?” Barbeau asked. “We are aware of the three major proposals being bandied about by the pundits for a long-range attack force: rebuilding the manned stealth bomber fleet, building a fleet of unmanned attack planes, and converting cargo planes to cruise missile launchers. But we have heard inklings of another proposal, using untested and very radical spacecraft technology.” She stepped a bit closer to Martindale. “I want to work very closely with you on this, Mr. President, very closely.”

  To everyone’s surprise, the President responded, “You’re right, Stacy. We’re developing a fourth option, one much more advanced than the others.”

  “The spaceplane, I do believe
?”

  “It’s called Black Stallion,” the President said. “It’s a single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft that can take off and land from any conventional runway in the world but boost itself into low Earth orbit, fly coast-to-coast in minutes, or around the world in less than two hours.”

  “It sounds incredible, Mr. President!” Barbeau exclaimed. She looked at McLanahan and Noble and immediately understood how and why they were in Washington now. “I can’t wait to hear more. When can my subcommittee get a briefing on this amazing aircraft?”

  “We’re still making the decision about whether or not to present it as an alternative to the others for the next long-range strike force,” the President said.

  “And I do believe you have the most qualified man working on it—Patrick McLanahan,” Barbeau said. “Wonderful. Well, I hope it doesn’t hold up the bill for too much longer, but I completely understand the need for careful deliberation—we’re talking about a lot of money. The subcommittee staff would be happy to assist the general in writing his reports and gathering data, Mr. President.”

  “The Pentagon and the White House national security staff are on it, Senator.”

  “Yes, of course. But couldn’t we convince you to let General McLanahan make a closed-door presentation to the subcommittee and give us a sweet little taste of this mysterious new technology.”

  “I promise you, Senator, that your committee will receive all of our proposals and supporting data as soon as it’s available, at the appropriate time,” the President said. “We are certainly not going to waste your time or keep you in the dark.” He glanced quickly at Minden, an obvious signal to get McLanahan and Noble out now.

  Minden didn’t miss his cue—he stood behind them and tapped them on their shoulders. “General, we’ll be looking forward to your report. Thank you for…”

  “Mr. President, may I take General McLanahan and Captain Noble to lunch?” Senator Barbeau asked sweetly. “It would give us an opportunity to get acquainted.”

  “I’m afraid I have to excuse myself, Senator,” Patrick said. As he rose to his feet, he was surprised to feel the room seem to move and spin a little, and he had to concentrate to stabilize himself. “I really do have a lot of work to do.”

  “Then we’ll have lunch right here in the White House dining room—with your permission, of course, Mr. President?”

  “I’m going to have to defer to the general’s busy schedule, Senator. Have your staff give Carl a call and I’m sure he’ll have it set up right away for the earliest possible time.”

  “I want the spaceplane impounded and a full investigation started, including complete details on the mission it just flew, who authorized it, and who’s paying for it,” Senator Barbeau said to her aide, Colleen Morna, as they exited the West Wing of the White House. “And I want a full background check on Captain Hunter Noble.”

  “Noble? Who’s he?”

  “He could be the back-door source I need to break Dreamland and HAWC wide open,” the senator said. “I thought I could get to McLanahan, but the guy is a clueless Boy Scout, and I can’t waste the time on him. Find out everything about Noble—where he comes from, his family, his girlfriends or boyfriends, his schooling, what he drinks and smokes, who he fucks, how often, and how.”

  “What he smokes?”

  “You can learn a lot about a man just by smelling him—and how he reacts when you do,” Barbeau said. “McLanahan likes the occasional cigar, but Captain Noble likes cigarettes—and he’s not afraid of making a pass at a woman, even a U.S. Senator standing in the Oval Office in front of the President and Vice President of the United States. That means he’s a partier, a ladies’ man, a player. If he’s got a weakness, or ambition, I want to know about it.”

  “He made a pass at you?”

  “His eyes had me undressed faster than I’ve had in months,” Barbeau said with a pleasured smile. “He’s no shrinking violet, that’s for sure. McLanahan might be the goody-two-shoes, but Hunter Noble is more like the captain of the swim team—and I like jocks, a lot.”

  OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF,

  ARMED FORCES OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC,

  TEHRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

  A SHORT TIME LATER

  “This is more than a major blunder, Buzhazi—this is an embarrassment to the entire Iranian military and leadership,” the commander in chief of the Iranian Armed Forces, General Hoseyn Yassini, thundered. Younger by eight years and shorter by several centimeters than the man standing at attention before him—and, the man noticed, much softer around the neck and middle since leaving the field for headquarters in Tehran—Yassini was obviously not accustomed to dressing anyone down, and it appeared that he had to put some effort into doing so now. He glared at the man standing at attention before him. “And I thought I ordered you to change your uniform before you came here.”

  The man standing at a brace in the center of the office was General Hesarak al-Kan Buzhazi, still wearing his field utility uniform stained with blood and dirt and smelling strongly of smoke, gunpowder, and a large dose of fear. “I thought since you did not see fit to go to Orumiyeh yourself,” Buzhazi said, “that I should come directly to you and give you a little taste of what’s happened out there.”

  “I don’t need a lecture or a demonstration from anyone, Hesarak, even you,” Yassini said. “If you look like a jihadi reject here in headquarters, you’ll be treated like one.” He picked up the casualty report, glanced at it, and shook it in Buzhazi’s face. “Two hundred thirty-seven dead, five hundred and eight wounded, most critically, including the brigade commanding officer and three Majlis members.” The Majlis was Iran’s Parliament. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I say give me a single Shock Battalion and I will round up and present you with all of the terrorists—or their heads—within two weeks,” Buzhazi said.

  “The Shock Battalions no longer exist, Hesarak, and you know it,” Yassini said. “They have been disbanded for years.”

  “I know that all regular army and marine special forces troops have been merged with the Pasdaran,” Buzhazi said. “You have them spread out all over the damned planet, in every lousy backwater mud pit, assisting psychopathic nut-cases who don’t know which end of a rifle is which.”

  “Watch your mouth, Buzhazi,” Yassini said. “You may have been the former commander-in-chief, but I am commander of the armed forces now.” He paused, then added, “The Pasdaran was created to protect, defend, and support the Islamic revolution throughout the world…”

  “Don’t give me that madrasa indoctrination crap, Hoseyn,” Buzhazi said. “The Pasdaran was initially created as the faqih’s private army to hunt down and assassinate any of the monarchy’s and republic’s sympathizers still left in the country after the revolution. When it was discovered that most of those sympathizers were in the military, the Pasdaran was transformed into a branch of the armed services so they could more effectively spy on fellow soldiers. When it was determined that the Shock Battalions were the greatest threat to the cleric’s regime, they were absorbed into the Pasdaran. I was there, Hoseyn—I saw it with my own eyes.”

  Yassini could not argue with Buzhazi’s assessment, although he was careful not to say or do anything that could even be construed as agreement—the walls had ears, and probably eyes as well. “The reason you were sent away to command the Basij, General, is because you have this habit of speaking before thinking,” he said. “I strongly advise you to stop.”

  “You know as well as I why I was allowed to command the Basij instead of being executed, Hoseyn—the Supreme Defense Council was hoping some enterprising young radical Islamist would assassinate me so the mullahs could disavow any responsibility for disposing of me,” Buzhazi said. “There were ten thousand such crazies willing to do it.”

  “You made sure any dissenters were eliminated.”

  “You’re wrong, Hoseyn—I didn’t have anything to do with the so-called ‘purges’ in the Basij,” Buzhazi sa
id. “What I did was simple: I showed the youth of Iran what real leadership was. I gave the really dedicated kids direction, and I isolated the rest. I turned that organization from nothing more than prowling gangs of murderers and extortionists into a real fighting force.” He shrugged and added, “When the true soldiers realized how badly the radicals and Islamists were hurting their organization, they took action. No one had to order them to clean house. It’s nothing more than natural selection and survival of the fittest.”

  “It was a purge, Hesarak—that’s what everyone believes,” Yassini said. “You may or may not have ordered it, but you certainly were the inspiration for the purges, and you did not punish the offenders as harshly as the Supreme Defense Council wished.” It was Yassini’s turn to shrug. “But, because of your record of service and your considerable political connections, you survived anyway…”

  “I survived, Hoseyn, because even the deaf, dumb, and blind idiots on the Council saw that my forces did exceptionally good work,” Buzhazi said. “While the Pasdaran and Air Force were busy scratching their crotches and fingering worry-beads, my national guard forces were capturing infiltrators and shooting down American spy drones.”

  “They were in the right place at the right time, nothing more,” Yassini said—but he knew that, again, Buzhazi was right: the Basij, what Buzhazi wanted to call the Internal Defense Force, had done some remarkable work in the past few years. Their biggest achievement was setting up an ambush for an American Predator-A spy drone near a nuclear research facility. Buzhazi set the trap, computed when and how the little unmanned aircraft would approach the target area, and set his forces in place at precisely the right moment. It was only a Predator-A, the lowest-tech version of the unmanned remotely piloted spy plane, but the catch yielded lots of valuable data on the plane’s capabilities and systems. Buzhazi’s forces had shot down another Predator-A and uncovered dozens of remote data collection and relay devices in the deserts as well, shutting down a good portion of America’s covert spy network in Iran.