Balance of Power Page 6

  Armstrong looked at him and narrowed his eyes. Lee returned to his position and attached his chest ring to the eye hook on the SPIE. As Armstrong hooked on, he and the rest of the SEALs were nearly knocked off their feet as another mine went off three decks below them, disabling the engines, gearing, and steerage.

  “Stand fast!” Armstrong said, reassuring them as they watched the helicopter pull up over the fantail and hover directly overhead. The helicopter crew chief kicked out a length of rope, which touched the deck near the front of the SPIE rig. Chief Lee reached down and connected the rig and gave the helicopter crew chief a thumbs-up as another explosion went off in the bow. Every one of them heard it and the helicopter pilot saw it. The crew immediately began pulling up. Half the SEAL platoon was lifted quickly off the deck of the Pacific Flyer. The second CH-53E raced in behind the first. Its crew chief threw the line out and Davidson hooked up the second SPIE rig. The Super Stallion jerked the eight remaining SEALs off the deck and pulled away from the ship. The SEALs hung from the Special Insertion and Extraction Rig underneath the helicopters like a clump of grapes, as the helicopter banked away and flew toward the horizon.

  Armstrong thought about Prager and allowed the rage in his belly to climb to his head. Whoever hijacked the cargo ship and slaughtered the crew had set a trap to kill anyone who came to the ship’s rescue. The Pacific Flyer receded as they gained altitude and pulled away. Almost instantaneously, explosion after explosion rocked the Flyer.

  5

  IT WAS DILLON’S TURN TO HOST MOLLY AND BOBBY at his place to watch the basketball game. They had considered canceling after the hijacking was announced. But a couple of hours after the President’s news conference they thought they would sneak out for the last half of the game.

  Dillon helped Molly take off her coat in the entryway to his apartment. He loved the opportunity to study her from behind, to stare without being noticed. He caught the scent of her perfume and thought it might be a good sign, since she rarely wore a scent. He also knew that he would have to maintain the appearance of perpetual nonchalance.

  They went way back—Dillon, Molly, and Bobby Nichols, who came in a few minutes after Molly. They had gone to law school together at the University of Virginia and had been in the same study group, commonly known as Dillon’s Study Group.

  He and Bobby had been close friends, sharing dreams and fears. They had played basketball and taken classes together during the last two years of law school. There wasn’t any ambiguity or conflict about their friendship. When Dillon moved to Washington, reuniting three fourths of their study group—the fourth, Erin, had gone to New York—he had reestablished his friendship with Bobby. He frequently walked across the street from the

  Capitol building to the Supreme Court where Bobby was the Chief Justice’s clerk. Bobby and Dillon would play basketball in the Supreme Court gym.

  But with Molly it had been different. They had been rivals: intellectual, political, and academic. Even though they were very close and had feelings for each other that were often confusing, those feelings had for the most part gone unexpressed. They had dated a few times, and Dillon had found her not only stunningly beautiful but also challenging. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman. But for a reason he couldn’t identify he wouldn’t let her get close to him. After three years of ambiguity and unexpressed feelings, they had graduated and gone their separate ways, each knowing that they could become more than friends if they made the effort, but neither wanting to be first. That was four years ago. Now they were back in Washington on opposite sides of everything.

  “Y’all mind if we turn on the damned game?” Bobby asked as he took off his jacket and threw it in the corner. “Got any food?” He turned on the television and changed the channel. The noise from the fans filled the room. “I’m starved,” he said as he sat down on the couch beside Molly and Dillon. “Got any brew?”

  Dillon looked at him, “Why, I’m fine. Thank you. Nice of you to ask. Yeah, I’ve got brew. Get it yourself.”

  Bobby smiled enthusiastically and got up. As he walked into the kitchen, he yelled over his shoulder, “Hey, what about Indonesia? What is that?”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about that,” Dillon replied as he reached out to turn down the television. “It doesn’t look like the usual terrorist game at all.”

  “People are pretty uptight at the White House,” Molly added. “I just can’t imagine what they hope to accomplish by taking an American ship.”

  “Notoriety, I guess. I just hope they’re able to get the Americans off the ship without anybody getting hurt. What do you think will come of it?”

  “I don’t know,” Molly said. “I’m not even sure what happened.”

  “How are things at the White House?” Bobby asked Molly as he returned and sat in the overstuffed chair next to the couch, placing three beers in front of them. Although the Chief Justice of the United States, for whom Bobby worked, had been appointed by President Manchester and was therefore automatically expected to be liberal, Bobby wasn’t.

  People’s politics were important but not critical to Molly. She was more interested in their integrity and honesty. “Fine. How are things at the Big Court?”

  “Fine.”

  “Okay. We got that out of the way,” she said.

  They watched the second half of the game between the University of Virginia and North Carolina and tried not to think about the hijacking that dominated the thoughts of each of them, particularly how each might be involved.

  Dillon went into the kitchen to get some snacks.

  “You dating anyone?” Molly asked Bobby.

  “Not a soul. You’d think that in Washington, D.C., capital of the country and the world headquarters for professional black women, I could find one, but no. Not me. Must be my looks.”

  “Right.”

  “What else could it be?” he asked.

  “Molly? Could you give me a hand?” Dillon called out.

  She stood up and headed for the door. “What?”

  “Could you carry that tray, please?” he said handing her one full of dip and cut vegetables as he carried another with chips and pretzels.

  The familiar voice of Johnny Hines, the ACC basketball announcer, filled the room. The crowd in Charlottesville was yelling so loudly the announcer was pressing his headphones against his head to hear himself. Molly placed the tray with vegetables and guacamole next to the chips. Dillon carefully removed the sagging cellophane from the bowl.

  “What’s with the soggy cellophane?” Bobby asked.

  “Keeps the air out,” Dillon replied. “Air turns guacamole brown.”

  “What are you, the guacamole expert?” Bobby asked.

  “Sure. We had avocado trees in our backyard the whole time I was growing up.”

  “Where’d you find avocados in February in D.C.?” Molly asked.

  “You can find anything in D.C. if you’re willing to pay enough for it.” Dillon heaped guacamole onto a large potato chip. His eyes fixed on the television as the Virginia point guard hit a three-point shot from the corner. The crowd screamed its approval.

  The phone rang and Dillon reached for it without looking away from the television screen. He punched the button on the portable phone and grunted with his mouth full, “Umhm.”

  He suddenly stood up and grabbed his beer, taking a deep gulp to wash down his food. After a pause, he blurted, “Yes, sir. Sorry, I had my mouth full…. No, sir, just watching the basketball game.” He covered the phone with his hand and mouthed to the others: “The Speaker!”

  Molly and Bobby looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

  “Yes, sir. Any military nearby?…What did…” He listened. His face became more and more serious, then angry. “Damn. Yes, sir…I don’t know, sir. Whatever you say. Want me to call…okay. I’ll see you then.” He looked at the phone, then pressed the button to hang up. He walked over and turned off the television. The eerie silence accented the grim look on Dillo
n’s face.

  “What?” Molly said.

  He spoke reluctantly, “You know that ship that was hijacked?”

  They nodded.

  “Well the Navy had an entire battle group nearby, including an Amphibious group with SEALs, Marines, the whole thing. The SEALs went to take the ship back, and they found it booby-trapped with dozens of mines or bombs. Every member of the crew was executed. Murdered. Shot in the head.”

  “Holy shit,” Bobby said.

  “The SEALs tried to disarm the mines. One of the SEALs was killed. He got blown up. The rest of them got off the ship. The mines exploded and the ship sank.”

  Molly sat back stunned. “What are we going to do about it?”

  Dillon breathed deeply, “Don’t know. Up to the President. I’m sure we’ll have to do something. Probably something pretty drastic. Especially with that much force already in the area.”

  “Who did this?” Bobby asked.

  Dillon shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know if we can’t tell, or I just don’t have all the info. One other thing,” he said remembering. “They took the captain hostage.” He sighed and put his hands on his hips. “You guys can stay here if you want, but I’m going to the Hill. Speaker wants the whole staff there to explore the options.”

  Molly stood up. “I’m sure there’ll be some midnight oil at the White House. I’d better go, too. I left the President some material on international law before coming over here, but that may not be enough now.” She stood up and started toward the hallway, then stopped. An angry frown clouded her face, “Why do people do these kinds of things? It never accomplishes anything.”

  “Sure it does,” Dillon answered bitterly. “Terrorism pays big dividends. Look at the PLO. They blew up people all over the world, killed innocent children, and now they have their own country, right where they wanted it.” He paused. “They do it because it works. They do it because too often people like us don’t ever do anything about it.”

  “But it’s so cowardly,” she said, her eyes burning. She hesitated. “And we do too usually do something about it.”

  “We don’t even know it’s terrorists, really,” Bobby said.

  Dillon looked at him with surprise. “What do you think, some country is declaring war on the United States by attacking a defenseless cargo ship?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying, don’t assume you know what’s happening until you know.”

  “Fair enough,” Dillon said. “I’ve got to go.”

  Bobby reached for the remote control as Molly and Dillon were leaving. “I doubt this will involve the Supreme Court so I’m going to watch the game. I’ll lock the door behind me when I leave.”

  Dillon didn’t reply as he walked out the door with Molly right behind him.

  “What do we know, Admiral Hart?” President Manchester asked, looking carefully at Hart and the others gathered in the Situation Room on the ground floor of the White House. They sat around a table, like any ordinary conference table, but the walls were covered with screens, charts, and electronic information. The closest wall was at least ten feet from the table. The large map of the Pacific nearly reached the floor, allowing everyone to see clearly.

  The admiral walked to the map of the Southwest Pacific and Southeast Indian Ocean areas and looked at them for a moment, gathering his thoughts. He was a man in his fifties, of average height with graying brown hair. Known for his intensity and his brilliance, he had come up through NROTC and Penn State University, had had a stellar career in Naval Aviation, including command of a carrier and a carrier battle group, then CINCPAC—Commander in Chief of all Pacific forces. Now he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We know there were twenty to thirty terrorists aboard the Pacific Flyer, that they took over the ship posing as Ford employees when the ship docked in Jakarta, that they were well organized, knew the ship, and took it to sea.”

  He turned back to look at President Manchester and the rest, who included the Vice President, the Chief of Staff, the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Secretary of State. They all listened carefully. “They took the ship out to sea, then set sophisticated mines all over the ship, inside and out, mines like we’d never seen before, and murdered the entire crew, except the captain. They then abandoned the ship, were picked up by cigarette boats, and made their escape, leaving mines which later killed one of our Navy SEALs,” he said grimly.

  “What’s a cigarette boat?” the President asked.

  “It’s basically a very fast, offshore race boat. They’re capable of seventy knots or so in the open ocean. They’re used a lot by smugglers because there isn’t much that can keep up with them, other than an airplane. They were first used to smuggle cigarettes.”

  “Where’d they go?”

  “We don’t know, Mr. President,” the admiral said, casting a glance at Cary Warner, the Director of Central Intelligence. “A helicopter spotted them, but the E-2 never saw them after that.”

  “We didn’t have any birds in place to do any imagery during this event,” Warner said, picking up on the cue. “It isn’t exactly one of our hot spots….”

  Manchester stood up and looked at his group of advisers. “How could this have happened? We didn’t have any idea this was coming?”

  Warner shook his head, moving the unlit pipe he kept in his mouth. “No, sir. I’m afraid they caught us with our pants down.”

  “We don’t know who. Anyone care to speculate why?”

  Nathaniel Corder, the professorial Secretary of State, spoke up. “I see this as a direct challenge to your new foreign policy, sir.” Corder had taught International Affairs at Yale, and then served as ambassador to Spain. He still wasn’t completely comfortable as Secretary of State, a position he had held only for six months. His forehead reddened when he spoke.

  Manchester interrupted him by saying to the chief of staff, “Arlan, would you get Ms. Vaughan here? I want her in on every meeting. Somebody needs to watch my backside.”

  “We’re all watching out for your interests, Mr. President,” Van den Bosch replied.

  “Well then, one more won’t hurt, will it?” Manchester said. “You were saying, Nathaniel?” he asked, watching Corder’s glowing forehead.

  “Your peace and diplomacy through commerce program’s goals are to have the military play less of a role in the world and increase our maritime presence in the world. To rejuvenate our shipping industry, you proposed a law that requires fifty percent of the goods carried into U.S. ports to be on U.S.-flagged vessels by the year 2010. And half of those had to be built in the U.S.”

  “So?” Manchester said, growing impatient.

  “Sir, I think it was the right strategy. But someone else out there may fear that the U.S. is going to expand its influence in the world through shipping and exporting U.S. goods. An American Empire, built on our new ability to facilitate trade. Like England’s of the nineteenth century, but with no colonies, no compulsion, no force. Simply put, sir, they don’t want you to succeed.”

  “But who?” said Van den Bosch impatiently.

  “Let me finish,” Corder said. “Which ship was it that was sunk?” he asked rhetorically. “The Pacific Flyer. The very first of the newest design of ships, built by NASSCO in San Diego, and a U.S.-flagged vessel carrying U.S. goods to a foreign port. A symbol if there ever was one. And not just any U.S. goods. The newest Ford, the Ascenda, designed to take on the global market. And not just any shipment of Fords. The first shipment to a brand-new Ford dealership in Jakarta. This one was being followed in the press. A new era in American business. A new way of doing business.”

  “But who?” Van den Bosch asked again.

  Corder shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to identify a possible motive. That may help us discover the who.”

  “My guess, if I may, sir,” said Warner. “This wasn’t done by someone who wants to remain anonymous. We’re going to hear from these
people again.” His dry deep voice showed no emotion whatsoever.

  Manchester nodded and looked at Admiral Hart. “Admiral, what are our options?”

  Hart looked at the President, then back at the chart. He studied the hundreds of islands of Indonesia, the immense area of ocean and finally said, “Frankly, to wait. We don’t know who did this, or why, or where they have gone. We’ll certainly be looking for the cigarette boats—we have every airplane with infrared and ISAR radar airborne right now looking for them, but it’s going to be very difficult. Inverted Synthetic Aperture Radar allows for good definition, so you can tell one ship from another with it; but there’s an awful lot of ocean there, and more islands than you can count.” He breathed in noisily through his nose. “And unless they decide to tell us who they are, it may be virtually impossible to respond.”

  “We got anybody on the ground in Jakarta that can tell us anything?”

  Molly opened the door quietly and sat down without speaking. They glanced at her, then back at Warner.

  Warner responded, “We have very limited resources on the ground in Indonesia. We had no warning of trouble brewing in the region. I’m not optimistic they’ll be able to find out much after the fact, but they have already been instructed to try, sir.”

  Manchester clenched his fists. “We are going to look like fools. We have the largest military in the world, an entire battle group in the area, and the best intelligence in the world. We are the only superpower left, and some terrorists can sink one of our ships, kill a score of Americans—and we can’t do anything about it?”

  “That’s about how I see it,” chimed in Dick Roland, the short and intense Secretary of Defense, then hurriedly tried to recover. “But it’s only because we have limited information. We’ll know more by tomorrow. We are working closely with the State Department and the CIA to identify all known terrorists and guerrilla organizations operating in the Southern Pacific. I expect we will hear from the terrorists themselves within the first twenty-four hours. They’ll want to tell the world who they are and why they have done this.”