Strike Zone

Ordinarily, Jed might have bristled at Balboa’s taking over his presentation. But now he was grateful. In any event, the admiral was merely stating one of Jed’s own arguments.

‘Yes,’ said Jed. He didn’t stutter, a major victory.

Maybe he’d get through this after all. Why was he so unnerved? His boss would be back in a few days.

‘The problem with this plan,’ said Balboa, ‘is that it doesn’t go far enough. We need the Navy involved – if there is a UAV we have to take it out. Right away.’

‘That m-m-might be premature,’ said Jed.

‘Nonsense.’

‘Provoking the Chinese at this point is risky business,’ said the secretary of state. ‘The meeting with the Taiwanese is set for two weeks from now. The rapprochement should take priority.’

‘Why?’ said Balboa bluntly. ‘Why is it in our interests?’

Hartman’s face turned beet red. ‘Peace is always in our interest.’

‘It depends on what the terms are,’ said Chastain.

If Freeman were here, Jed thought, he would be mediating between the blustery Balboa and the more reticent Hartman. He’d also be pointing out that finding the UAV and dealing with it need not interfere with the summit between the two Chinas.

So why didn’t he say that?

He should.

Jed opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

‘What do you think, Jed?’ asked the President.

‘I, well – if the operation is run exactly the way Colonel Bastian outlined it, sir, it won’t provoke the Chinese any more than any routine mission would.’ Jed took a breath and then pressed his fingers together, one of the tricks he had learned in high school when the stutter first became an issue. If he didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be a problem.

The trick was not to think about it.

‘I don’t think that, urn, that the secretary of state is proposing that we stop gathering intelligence on the Chinese, or that we leave Asia,’ said Jed.

‘Of course not,’ said the secretary of state.

‘So this – if it were, say, wrapped up in routine maneuvers, in an exercise that they would be interested in, or that anyone who might have the ghost clone was interested in, I would think that would work.’

Jed glanced up and saw that Martindale was looking directly at him. He floundered, turning his eyes back down to the floor before continuing.

‘The, uh, the ASEAN, the ASEAN exercises are set to begin in two days. My thinking was that the Dr-Dreamland plan might fold into that, or we could use the maneuvers as a cover somehow.’

‘The Navy was ordered to take a low profile. We’ve only allocated a frigate.’ Balboa cleared his throat, obviously warming to the idea. While as the head of the JCS, Balboa was technically in charge of all the services, rare was the operation he didn’t believe should be spearheaded by the Navy. ‘We could get some assets there, a carrier, have some patrol craft. Yes. A P-3 in an Elint role, and we have two Vikings that have just been overhauled precisely for this sort of mission.’

‘Why don’t we just send the fleet?’ said Chastain.

‘We could do that,’ said Balboa, somehow missing the sarcasm in the defense secretary’s voice.

‘Jed?’ prompted the President.

‘I did some checking and, um, there was originally a request for B-52s in the exercises,’ Jed told them. ‘So we could grant it and, uh, the Megafortresses could go in their place.’

‘There is a bit of an issue with the Dreamland people,’ said Balboa. ‘Some folks feel Colonel Bastian and his people are cowboys who need to be reined in.’

‘That’s not fair,’ snapped Jed.

Balboa turned and stared at him. Jed realized that his dislike of Dreamland, born from a general prejudice against anything connected with the Air Force, had been fanned into a virulent hatred because of the Piranha affair. While the Navy had played an important role in preventing war, the Dreamland people were the ones actually taking the bullets, and for some reason that bugged him.

‘I didn’t say it was fair, young man. I’m just saying it’s the view.’ Balboa shifted in his seat, turning back toward the President. ‘We still haven’t reached a decision on where the command should be located. Technically, Colonel Bastian doesn’t answer to anyone at the moment. Except, of course, to the commander-in-chief.’

‘I haven’t reached a decision,’ said the President.

He smiled, as if apologizing for telling a fib. Jed knew that the ambiguous situation served Martindale very well and was therefore likely to continue indefinitely. Under the present arrangement, Dreamland’s Whiplash special operations team, its cutting-edge aircraft, and all its whizbang weapons answered directly to the President, with only one NSC staffer in between – Jed. All military personnel ultimately answered to the President as commander-in-chief, of course, but the chain of command could be tortuous. As things presently stood, Martindale could use the Dreamland people as his own attack squadron, sending them to hot spots around the globe with a direct phone call.

‘This plan calls for them to be based in the Philippines again,’ said Hartman, changing the subject. ‘The government there is still upset over the handling of the guerrillas we encountered. We need an alternative base.’

‘The, uh, uh –’ Jed wanted to protest about the alleged guerrillas, who had turned out to be simply displaced villagers, but his tongue tripped and he couldn’t get it out. The Dreamland people had insisted on protecting them until their identities could be proven; they were catching grief for doing the right thing.

‘All right,’ said the President. ‘Where else? Taiwan?’

‘Not Taiwan,’ said Hartman. ‘Far too provocative. What about Brunei?’

‘Brunei?’ asked Chastain.

‘The sultan is looking for signs of friendship and pushing for access to more weapons,’ said the secretary of state. ‘This might be a good gesture.’

Jed started to object. ‘It’s f-far from –’

‘It is far from China,’ said the President. ‘But according to the CIA, China may not be the country operating the clone at all. Besides, I’d like to show our friend the sultan that we value his alliance.’

The President’s tone suggested that the meeting had come to an end. He glanced around the room, then looked back at Jed.

‘Jed, set this up. I want Dreamland deployed as part of the ASEAN exercises – give it a cloak of respectability.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Barclay

‘We’ll supply a liaison,’ said the secretary of state. ‘There are important protocols. The sultan has to be handled with a certain amount of –’

The secretary stopped, glancing at Balboa. Jed realized that he was going to say ‘tact,’ then realized that might imply that Colonel Bastian had none.

Obviously, he didn’t want to give Balboa the satisfaction.

‘Protocol,’ he said instead.

‘Fine,’ said the President, rising to end the meeting.

Dreamland Personnel Building Two 1805