Primary Command

by Jack Mars

“About us?”

  She shook her head. “No, silly. About the job. I ran a search on this man they call Crazy Joe. Like I told you I would. His real name is Joseph Earl Pattinson. He’s forty-four years old, and has a long history of mental illness, apparently schizophrenia combined with bipolar disorder. He’s a long-time denizen of Lafayette Park. He’s been arrested many times, but it’s always been for minor infractions. Public drunkenness. Disturbing the peace. That sort of thing. As far as anyone can tell, he’s never hurt a fly.

  “But here’s the strange part. I checked with DC Metro Police. I checked with Capitol Police. I checked with National Parks security. I checked with the Secret Service. None of them have any record of arresting him, detaining him, or even interacting with him yesterday. I rewatched the video of him being led away. The men with him have no identifying markers on their clothes, and there is nothing on the SUV they drove to identify it, either.”

  “Well, someone took him,” Luke said.

  Trudy nodded. “That’s right. Someone did. It’s almost like he saw the president of the United States getting in a taxicab, and someone didn’t like him talking about that. Personally, I’d like to believe he’s back in the park today, yelling about ham sandwiches, but I have a hunch he isn’t.”

  Luke started to move down the hall again. “I’d go with your gut on that.”

  She made a move as if to kick him. Suddenly, Luke felt as if he was back in the fifth grade. “Don’t try to run away from me, Luke Stone.”

  “Never,” he said, and laughed.

  “What do you want me to do about Crazy Joe?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Find him. If he’s got a mental illness like schizophrenia, any testimony he gives will be suspect. But he might be able to point us in a direction.”

  And as he said those words, Luke realized that he hadn’t given up on this case. Someone wanted to make the country believe that the Russians killed David Barrett. He had no idea if it was possible, but Luke wanted to stop that person.

  * * *

  “I’ll tell you what I’m willing to do,” Don Morris said. “Then I’ll tell you what I need you to do for me.”

  Sitting across the desk from him were Luke Stone and Kevin Murphy. It was a little like being a school principal, with two juvenile delinquents in front of him. Both of their faces were still lumped and bruised from the fight they’d had.

  Stone looked exhausted. Don was going to need to send him home after this. He might even need to hire him a car on the company dime. He didn’t look like he was going to make it home.

  Other than his bruises, Murphy looked fine. He was dressed in a sports jacket, tie, and slacks. He almost looked like he already worked here. You might even say that Murphy looked relaxed, well-rested, and like he was keeping himself in good condition. A life of crime seemed to agree with him.

  And Murphy had been a decent soldier. Competent, professional, generally calm under fire. He’d seen a lot of combat. He was fearless instead of courageous. Like many Delta guys, he didn’t need courage—he lacked whatever genetic material made people afraid in the first place.

  Murphy was not the top Delta Force operator Don had ever seen under his command, but he was nowhere near the bottom, either.

  Murphy nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Don said. “Here’s what I’m ready to do. And bear in mind that this is entirely because Stone is vouching for you. You had an excellent military record, Murphy, but you screwed the pooch by walking away. Even so, I’ll take you on, as soon as today if you’re ready. We’ll call you a consultant, and we’ll pay you by the hour, or by the operation. It depends on the work you’re doing.”

  “That sounds good, Don,” Murphy said. “Really. I’m just happy to…”

  Don raised a finger. “Wait a minute. We’ll do this for a month. At the end of that month, we’ll reassess. If I’m happy with what you’re doing, I’ll offer you a real job here. But I don’t like how you left Delta. In the old days, we used to call that desertion. Times have changed a bit, I understand that.

  “But while you’re here working for me, I’m going to contact your final commanding officer and try to negotiate an exit for you from the Army. I imagine that’s going to include a punishment of some kind. I’ve thought about this a bit, and I think that given your performance, six months at Leavenworth is a fair trade for an honorable discharge. And I think they’ll go for it.”

  He and Murphy looked at each other for a long minute. Murphy was a good poker player. His face didn’t give Don much to go on.

  Stone said nothing.

  “Will you do that?” Don said. “Will you do some time to clean up this military record? Because I’ll be honest with you. I hate that you walked away. We’ve got a lot of vets coming on board here, and not a single dishonorable discharge among them. I don’t plan to break that pattern, no matter what Luke Stone says.”

  Murphy smiled. “Don, I think I’m in the best shape of my life right now. Better than when I was in Delta. I feel like a million bucks. And I want to get my life back on track. If you’re willing to go to bat for me like that, I’ll do six months at Leavenworth standing on my head.”

  Don nodded. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear from you.”

  After they left, Don sat quietly for a little while. He was in a reflective mood. He thought of everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. He thought of the things Mark Baylor had said. This was a dangerous time, and it was possible that Baylor had been installed to push that danger to the limit.

  But Don had seen world events pushed to the limit before, and they had never gone past it. That fact alone made him hopeful.

  He thought of Murphy, and the second chance the man was getting. He thought of Stone, and his counterintuitive instincts. He swam upstream more than made sense, but it worked. Despite the heat it brought down, this morning’s raid could ultimately become a feather in the SRT’s cap. It showed an agency that had obtained inside information and had acted on it in decisive fashion.

  His phone rang. He hit the button on the console, putting the call on speakerphone. A female voice spoke.

  “Don?”

  “Yeah, hi, Ginger, what’s up?”

  “You’ve got a call from a man who wouldn’t reveal his name to me, but says you’re going to want to talk to him.”

  “Terrific,” Don said.

  “Do you want the call?” Ginger said.

  Don shrugged. “Sure, why not? It’s been a crazy day. Let’s make it a little crazier.”

  “Okay, here he is.”

  The phone beeped, indicating an open line.

  “How can I help you?” Don said.

  “Colonel Morris?” a male voice said.

  “Yes.” For a brief second, Don was concerned about a repeat performance of this morning’s crank call, or whatever that had been. But this man’s voice was not encrypted.

  “Sir, my name is Lawrence Keller. Until recently, I was President David Barrett’s chief of staff.”

  “Yes,” Don said. “I remember you. My condolences. President Barrett was a good man. This has been a tragic day.”

  “Sir,” Keller said, “I served in the United States Marine Corps, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, from 1967 to 1971, with two combat tours of Vietnam. I tell you that so you know where I’m coming from. You can access my service record, if you like.”

  Don shrugged. “I doubt that’ll be necessary.”

  “I’m calling to tell you that I met with David Barrett after he left the White House grounds two nights ago. We met at the Lincoln Memorial. It was late. Believe it or not, he had run away from his security detail. I didn’t think he was in his right mind. I handed him over to American intelligence agents, at least one of whom I can identify by name, and by agency. At the time I thought they were going to see to it that the president received the care he needed. I also thought they would… cover up the situation, let’s say, so the American people di
dn’t find out about it.”

  There was a brief pause over the line.

  “But now I believe they killed him. I know they did.”

  Don sat and listened to the man’s voice. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “I made a digital recording of the entire event,” the man said now. “I’ve listened to it, and it’s of exceptional quality.”

  This was a rare moment in Don’s life. He was still looking for words.

  “I want to give it to you,” Keller said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  2:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  The Situation Room

  The White House, Washington, DC

  “Come to order, please,” someone said. “Order, everyone!”

  It did no good. The chatter went right on.

  The room was packed. Coffee cups, empty food trays, and discarded sandwich wraps littered the conference table. Staffers huddled with decision makers, talking, looking at printouts, pointing at data on BlackBerries.

  The seats along the walls—smaller red linen chairs with lower backs—were filled with young aides and even younger assistants, most of them slurping from Styrofoam coffee cups or murmuring into telephones.

  Mark Baylor took a seat in a leather chair at the closest end of the oblong table. The seats around the table were all full.

  At the head of the room, Richard Stark of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stood near a video screen. His face was jagged and hard. He was thin and he was very fit, but he was beginning to look his age. It had been a stressful couple of days. An aide was whispering in his ear.

  “General Stark,” Baylor said.

  Stark looked up. He nodded when he saw Baylor.

  “Order!” he shouted. He stood erect. “Order! The president is here.”

  The room went quiet nearly instantly. A few people continued to murmur, but that died out quickly.

  Baylor was impressed. He liked the way Stark could seize command of a room. The man projected authority, as he should.

  “Mr. President,” Stark said, “I was proud to watch your speech on television today. And I want to tell you…”

  Baylor raised a hand. What he didn’t want was a speech from Stark. He didn’t want a standing ovation from the people in this room. He didn’t want well wishes. He didn’t want smoke blown up his ass. He wanted to get on with it.

  “Okay, Richard,” he said. “Never mind the preliminaries. We all know what’s happening. We all know what has happened. We know the risks in front of us. I want to send the Russians a message. Give me a message to send them.”

  Stark slipped a pair of black reading glasses onto his face. He looked down at the sheets of paper in his hand. He took a breath.

  On screens around the room, a satellite photo of a body of water appeared. Baylor recognized it instantly as the place where all of this had started just a few days ago.

  “What you’re seeing on the screens is the Black Sea,” the general said. “Pan up, please. I want Crimea and Tuzla Island.”

  On the screen, the image moved to the north. It showed a large landmass on the left side of the screen, and another large landmass to the right. The two landmasses were nearly kissing. There was a narrow sliver of water between them, connecting two larger bodies of water.

  Stark used a long black pointer. Baylor liked that about him, too. Mark Baylor had been around the block a few times. He didn’t like laser pointers. He didn’t like PowerPoint presentations. He didn’t like BlackBerries or Motorola Razrs. None of this new technology impressed him. As far as he was concerned, it was so many fancy gadgets for the toddlers to play with.

  “The Black Sea has another sea which sits on top of it,” Stark said. “The Sea of Azov. The Kerch Strait is this very narrow body of water that connects them. To the west of the strait you see the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine. To the east you see Krasnodar Krai, part of Russia.”

  He looked at someone along the wall. “Zoom in, please. Right on the strait, right on Tuzla Island.”

  The image zoomed in, focusing on a long, narrow spit of land.

  “Tuzla Island, which you see here, is in the middle of the strait. It is technically part of Ukraine, and is administered by the Crimean city of Kerch. However, it is in a strategic position, and is a constant source of dispute.

  “The island is basically a strip of sand, and there is currently no permanent settlement. There were two small holiday resorts on the island, reachable only by boat, during the time of the Soviet Union. Those have closed.

  “There are basic dock facilities with diesel-generated electric power, and both Russian and Ukrainian fishing boats stop there. There is an old, unused helicopter pad and a few paved roads now in disrepair. One road runs the length of the island.”

  An aerial shot of the island appeared. It showed a triangle of land in the foreground, with what appeared to be a few buildings and a couple of vehicles. A dusty road ran the length of the triangle, and at the top of the image where the triangle narrowed to a point, the road disappeared into the distance. To the right of the triangle was bright blue water. To the left was dark green and brown water. There seemed to be some sea grass and low scrub bushes, but not a single spot of shade.

  Baylor found this island frustrating. He wanted to punch the Russians in the eye. He didn’t want to split hairs about a little piece of nowhere.

  “Get to the point please, General.”

  Stark nodded. “Of course, Mr. President.”

  A square of images appeared on the screen. The first, in the upper left-hand corner, was of a tank, painted in sandy brown camouflage, splashing through a muddy bog. The next image, moving clockwise, was of two similar tanks, on pallets and trussed with netting, being pushed out of the open rear hold of a large cargo plane. The third image showed a drawing of the same tank from the side, with arrows pointing to various features of it. The fourth and final image showed a missile standing upright, and next to it some typewritten specifications.

  “In recent weeks, we’ve come to suspect that the Russians have airdropped an unknown number of BMD-1 amphibious armored assault vehicles onto the island, along with airborne infantry troops to man and support them. The BMD-1 is Soviet-era technology, essentially a light tank, armed with the Malyutka guided missile system. The tank also has two heavy machine guns, mounted in the front on both sides. Each tank takes a crew of four men.”

  Stark paused. “Tanks such as these can threaten any ships in the strait, as well as the city of Kerch, directly across the strait from there. Kerch is a city of regional importance with a population of a hundred fifty thousand people.”

  “Are the tanks there?” Baylor said. “Do we know that for a fact?”

  Stark nodded. “Last night, a two-man team from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, often called DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six, did a dangerous high-altitude skydive onto the island. The plane they jumped from never left Ukrainian airspace.

  “The men are from the highly professional Black Squadron, and they were able to confirm the presence of at least six BMD-1 vehicles, and perhaps thirty Russian troops. Our guys took cover in sea grass on the dunes on a distant part of the island during daylight hours, but it is now nearly ten p.m., and they can be on the move and operational again.”

  Baylor wasn’t sure he understood what Stark was saying. A fight like that seemed a mismatch, hardly the message he wanted to send. “Are you recommending that our men engage the Russian tanks, General?”

  Stark shook his head. “No sir. They are in touch with their support personnel through satellite communications. Their mission is reconnaissance. I’m recommending they pinpoint the exact location of those tanks, and we take the tanks out with drone strikes. All of them, the vehicles and the crews. The Russians have nothing like our drone technology, and we gave them a small taste of it during the rescue operation in Adler. This time we give them a bigger taste.”

  Baylor nodded. It was good. He had been hoping for something more
, maybe a small invasion of some kind, or a missile attack on a base somewhere. But this was certainly an ice breaker.

  “What are the odds of success?” he said.

  “Very high, sir. Quite frankly, those tanks are sitting ducks.”

  “And how do our men escape?”

  Stark nodded. “Good question, sir. Those men are Navy SEALs. They’re expert swimmers. Once they call in the strikes, they’ll swim across the strait to the Ukrainian side, and link up with deep cover intelligence agents along the Crimean coast. From there, we’ll evacuate them to neutral territory using standard protocols. They’ll likely be back home within twenty-four hours.”

  Baylor looked around the room. It was very quiet. Everyone was carefully following this conversation between him and General Stark. No one was daydreaming. Everyone appeared alert. This was good.

  “What,” Baylor said, “do we anticipate as the Russian response?”

  “We anticipate a feeble response, well short of nuclear war, sir. We know that hundreds of Russian ICBM silos across their heartland are reporting combat readiness. We know that their Strategic Air Command has nuclear-equipped bombers patrolling at the edges of their airspace, especially in the Arctic. But we’ve assessed this eight ways to Sunday. They are not going to launch Armageddon over a handful of tanks in the Kerch Strait, especially when the presence of those tanks constitutes an encroachment on sovereign Ukrainian territory.

  “Failing the outbreak of nuclear war, we are in a very good position. In any conventional scenario, we hold clear dominance. We control the skies. We’ve shown that. Our infantry is modern, high-tech, mobile, and largely unstoppable. Theirs is static, moribund, and more suited to set-piece battles during World War Two. Their equipment is mostly obsolete Cold War relics. And there’s really no sense in even comparing navies. Their navy barely exists anymore.”

  “What do you see as the end game here, General?”

  “We hit them with repeated jabs, sir, ones they have no obvious or easy response to. The rescue operation at Port of Adler was a grave embarrassment to them. The dogfight in the Bering Sea was a black eye. They lost three jets to our one, and they’re the ones who attacked first, without warning.