“How many more do you think we’ll have to take down?” one of the gang members asked.
“We never know. We just wait for our orders. You know that.”
“But with the military exercises going on right now, don’t you think they’ll attack the island pretty soon? And if they do, they won’t need us any more.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We’ve got such a good network set up here, they would be fools not to use us.”
“For what, if we’re not shooting down airplanes?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’ll decide to contract us out to others,” Wei speculated. He turned off the engine, got out of the driver’s seat, opened the back door and retrieved the long metal cases.
“Others? What others?”
“Do you think the general is the only one who wants to cause trouble for the United States? Don’t you read the headlines?”
“Yes, but I thought …” the young man said, closing the garage door and hurrying after his leader.
“You think too much, Just like that piece of shit we got rid of a while ago.”
The young man cowered behind Wai and stopped talking. This wasn’t a time to ask questions. It was a time to simply comply with any order the man happened to give.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
THE WHITE HOUSE
“Here’s Plan B,” Jayson Keller said, striding into the Oval Office and pulling up a chair.
The president grabbed the page and furrowed his brow. “I’ve been inundated with paper all day long. First I got the manifest and phone numbers of the people on that plane. I’ve called all the families.” He looked up at the vice president. “When you take over this office, that’ll be the hardest part of the job. Trust me.”
“If I ever take over this office,” Jay said, shifting in his chair.
“I know how you feel. At the rate we’re going, they’ll kick everybody in our party out of office next time around. But let’s not talk about that right now. Tell me about this Plan B you’ve got here.”
“After you talked to Stan Bollinger over at Bandaq about his employees, I called him myself to ask about his production line of Q-3 components. He said that they have several because they’ve had inquiries from a number of other governments. He’s been ramping up production in case he gets the go-ahead to export them.”
“And?”
“And so that means that he could still put a usable system together that we could ship to Taiwan.”
“But what about the people to man those systems?” the president asked.
“There are still a few who know how to handle it, if they agree to go over there, that is. Stan is checking on that right now. Anyway, they could outline the process to the Taiwanese defense crowd. And I have another ace in the hole here,” the president said.
“I can’t imagine we have any aces right now. So what do you mean?”
“If we can get Bandaq to go through the whole drill all over again, and I think we can because Bollinger is anxious to sell that system anywhere he can, then we get them to load up the components on another military cargo plane. And since the only controllers working are military ones, they could leave from Andrews again, but refuel at Hickam, not Travis.”
“Then when I leave here to go to Japan,” Jason added, “I could stop at Travis since we’d keep a lid on my schedule. I’d want to refuel anyway. At Travis I could pick up Dr. Talbot and fly her to Taipei. That would give me a chance to reassure their president that we’re standing with them right now. I’d leave Cammy there to supervise the situation. She could get their engineers and scientists squared away on the whole Q-3 system. I’d fly to Tokyo and after I’ve wrapped up the agreement with the Japanese, I could swing by Taiwan again, pick her up and fly her back to San Francisco. The other Bandaq people could stay as long as they’re needed to finish training the Taiwan Defense Forces.”
“I’m with you so far, but if the controllers are still out in San Francisco, you couldn’t land there,” the president said.
“Not unless we sent a few military controllers over from other bases. And we could do that. We did it the last time they walked.”
“You’re right. We did. Why not land at Travis?” the president asked. “No, wait a minute. Bad idea. They’ve already hit there once. So they’ve already scoped that out. No, you’re right. It would be better to land at San Francisco.”
“Yes, I could work. And remember I have that speech to the Commonwealth Club scheduled. I’m thinking that if I land at SFO, we can pick up on the original plan to have Col. Hunt fly the F-16 over, give me a demonstration of the laser …”
“Which better be working by then,” the president said.
“Yes, it should be,” Jay agreed. “Then, you make a major announcement that we now have a good defense against this terrorist threat, and right after that, I give the speech to try and reassure the business community. You know the Commonwealth Club is a base for the West Coast heavy hitters. It’s a perfect venue to make the case.”
“I know. I’ve always gotten a fairly decent reception when I’ve given a speech out there, in spite of the general nuttiness of the city government.”
Jayson chuckled. “Last time I checked they were still giving government grants for sex change operations.”
“Speaking of nuttiness,” the president said, “have you seen those demonstrators over in the park?”
“How could I miss them? They were there early this morning when I came in.”
“Did you read the signs and hear the chants?”
“I saw a couple that said, ‘Controllers are right. We have to fight.’”
“And there’s one that says, ‘Don’t be insane, protect our planes.’”
“Actually, there was one that wasn’t so bad though,” Jay ventured.
“What did it say?”
“Missile defense makes good sense.”
“And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do for God’s sake. By the way, even if Dr. Talbot’s laser works, it’ll take a while to get the pods produced and retrofit all our carriers. What’s the latest on Sterling’s airport protection system?”
“Thorne hasn’t checked in lately?” Jay asked.
“No. In fact, come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in days. Can you find that idiot?”
“I’ll do my best. Now, about Plan B. What do you think?”
“I think it’ll work,” the president said. “Get things moving with Bollinger. I’ll talk to the Travis Base commander again and see if he can send us another transport plane. Oh, and on this particular trip, I know your staff usually puts out an advisory on your travels. Well, not this time. Don’t even tell the press pool. Just give ’em a few hours’ notice to pack up and get out to Andrews. Don’t tell them where you’re going or where you’re stopping. And for God’s sake, don’t mention Dr. Talbot’s name to anybody. Got that?” the president asked.
“Absolutely. I was going to suggest the same approach. This mission is going to be so shrouded in secrecy, they’ll end up calling me Nicolo.”
“Nicolo?” the president asked, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s Machiavelli’s first name.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE
“After all the tragedy here, I’ve been telling myself I have to stop replaying the scene of the C-5 exploding and try to concentrate on my job here. But it’s so hard,” Cammy said, shifting forward in the chair in her room to look directly at her principal assistant. They were comparing notes about next steps to take before the test flight took off.
“I hear you,” Sarah said. “I’ve been doing the same thing. And now they’re sending another shipment and more of our people on another flight. Let’s just pray there aren’t any crazies in Hawaii when they stop to refuel.”
“Exactly. Maybe we can try to change the subject. At least for a few minutes,” Cammy said. “Fr example I learned a few things about traveling to Taiwan. That is if I ever get there safely.”
/> “Stop. You said we’d change the subject,” Sarah said.
Cammy sighed and said, “You’re right. Before we left Rockville to come out here, the White House sent over a briefing memo from somebody at the State Department. It was some sort of travel advisory with all sorts of things in it about customs, even clothes, like taking your shoes off whenever you go inside somebody’s house.”
“Do you take them off when you go to a restaurant?” Sarah asked.
No. Not usually. Oh, and it’s not a good idea to wear sandals to a business meeting. They dress better than we do, I guess.”
“Okay. No flip flops.”
Cammy nodded. This was the first time she could even think about anything except the ghastly crash. She had spent the previous day crying her eyes out, thinking about her friends and trying to figure out why anybody would want to keep shooting down plane loads of innocent people. She’d had a fitful night and woke up with a headache. So she’d taken a slew of Tylenol and tried to concentrate on her laser project. Anything to get her mind off the explosion and fireball she’d seen in the sky.
Then tonight, she had made her mind up to try and concentrate on her upcoming trip to Taipei on Air Force Two. Even though she hated the thought of flying again, she was glad when Jayson had called her to ask if she would go over and supervise the installation of another shipment of the Q-3 missile defense system.
They’d had a long talk about security. He assured her that nobody would know she was on the plane. She would get to Taiwan quite safely, work there a couple of days, maybe have a chance to see a bit of the city and get her mind off the loss of her friends.
She had told him that the laser was ready to be tested in flight, and now it was up to Hunt and the crew chiefs to see that it worked, so yes, she’d be free to go over there with him. She was relieved that he was going to all the trouble to stop and pick her up at Travis, but then he had told her he had to refuel anyway. Still, she was getting a lot of attention from this man.
The trouble was, she was also getting attention from Hunt. Ever since the crash, he had been so nice to her. They didn’t have much time together. They were both working hard with the crew chiefs and everyone else involved in the F-16 project. But still, he had acted very protective toward her, and now she was really conflicted about him, about Jay, about everything.
Ever since she had dinner at Jay’s home when he had kissed her goodnight, he’d never made another move or even another suggestion, so maybe she should stop worrying about some sort of triangle developing here. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. The vice president of the United States was not going to be romantically involved with someone a good deal younger than he was. Besides, he had to concentrate on all the problems facing the country right now. He could hardly think about an affair.
Then again, he was coming to pick her up. Coming to take her overseas on a special mission. Then he’d be coming back for her. That meant they’d be flying together for hours and hours. What would they talk about? How would he act? What would happen on board Air Force Two? She wondered if there were any private compartments on board that plane or if it was all wide open like a regular airplane. She knew he’d have press people with him. No, he’d have to be pretty careful with all those probing reporters on board.
She realized that Sarah was asking her a question. “Oh, sorry,” Cammy said, “I was just thinking about my trip again.”
“I was asking what else they told you to do, or not to do, when you’re over there,” Sarah said.
“Well, let’s see. After you finish your dinner, you never leave your chop sticks sticking up in the rice bowl.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s what they do when they offer food to their ancestors, and if you did that in a restaurant or somebody’s house, it would mean a curse on the owner, because maybe he should be dead too. Or something like that.”
“That’s weird,” Sarah said with a shake of her head.
“Oh and you can’t use red ink for anything.”
“Why not? We use it all the time, to highlight important stuff.”
“I know. But over there it means a protest or something.”
“What about the whole honor-the-old-people thing they do in Asia?”
“I think you’re supposed to address the oldest person in the group first. I’ll have to try to remember that,” Cammy said. “And one more thing, everybody says that they don’t show their anger very easily. In fact, they laugh a lot.”
“Guess Bollinger wouldn’t exactly fit in,” Sarah said with a slight grin.
“And the last thing I remember was something about presents,” Cammy said. “First, if somebody gives you a present, you don’t open it in front of them. And if you’re going to give somebody a present, you never give them a clock.”
“Why not? I like clocks.”
“I don’t know. You just don’t.” Cammy glanced down at her watch. “And on the subject of clocks, it’s getting late, and I still have some work to do tonight. I need to send a bunch of emails to the staff back at Bandaq, the ones who’ve agreed to go to Taiwan.”
“I can’t imagine that there would be very many who would sign up to go after all the others …”
“I know,” Cammy said. “There they are in the midst of organizing funerals, and they get asked to take the places of the ones who were killed. What a horrible exercise.”
“But as you said, there’s going to be no publicity on this trip. So everybody should be okay.”
“God, I pray you’re right. Anyway, thanks for letting me bend your ear tonight. It’s just been so hard all day. Well, you know that I mean.”
“Sure thing, Cam. Try to get some rest, okay?”
Sarah went to her own room and called over her shoulder, “Will do. Good night.”
Once she was alone, Cammy turned on her computer and started to write a note to one of the Bandaq engineers. There were only a couple who could man the radar and satellite units now. Would it all come together? Would they be able to train the Taiwanese to use Q-3 the way it was supposed to be used? She pondered that for a long while. Then she suddenly had a brilliant idea. At least she thought it was brilliant. But would it work? Would the White House let her do it? It was too late to call Jay. The man was so busy getting ready for his own trip to Japan. And with all the other troubles in Washington, she didn’t want to bother him with her crazy ideas.
She stared at the computer screen and thought about it some more. It could work. She just knew it could work. It could make the whole Taiwan project come together and be functional. Sure it would. Did she need permission? Probably? Could she get it? Maybe. Should she even ask? Or should she just try to pull it off all on her own? That was the question of the night.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
STERLING, VIRGINIA
“Stan, good Lord, my man. I’m calling to add my condolences about the people you lost at Travis. Nasty business these attacks. I’m very sorry.”
“Yes, well, I appreciate the call, but I’m pretty swamped right now. I can’t really talk.”
Nettar Kooner cradled the phone against his shoulder and pressed on. He desperately needed to keep Stan Bollinger on his good side since every other side of his business seemed to be caving in. “I’m sure. I’m sure. I just wanted you to know that we’re all in a state of shock over here. I’m hoping that when you get a chance to come up for air, we can get together again and continue our former discussion.”
“Former discussion? I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” Stan said.
“Out of the question? But that can’t be. The synergy between our two firms is just so obvious, the dual contracting, the cost savings, the personnel.” Why is Bollinger snubbing me now when I thought I had this deal wired? He probably got cold feet when he heard about our Taiwan missile defense boondoggle. I’ll just have to explain that away. “Look, if you’re worried about that problem with our system over in Taiwan, I can explain that.�
��
“How?”
“They wanted to deploy it on their own. Didn’t even want my tech reps on the scene. So we sent over all the specs but, well, you saw what happened. They obviously didn’t follow all the instructions and screwed it up all on their own. I’m sure that’s what happened. I mean, the entire system checked out perfectly in our test sites.”
“So I heard,” Stan said. “I just can’t talk right now. Sorry, but I’ve got so much going on, I’m afraid that everything we talked about is off the table.”
“You can’t mean that,” Kooner said, his voice sounding agitated. He rarely lost his cool, but now that his profits were heading south along with the rest of the stock market, he was reaching for his last lifeline here, and it looked like Bollinger was letting go of his end.
“Afraid so. Good luck with your other systems. I’m sure you’ll be pretty busy with your airport protection project. Now I have to run. Goodbye Nettar.”
Kooner hung up the phone and stared at it. Damnation! Unless we can figure out what went wrong with that hardware we sent to Taiwan, we’re toast. That stupid DHS Secretary Thorne has imploded now that I’ve cut off his payments, and the Hill is screaming about deficits and not having enough money to put new technology on the planes, to say nothing about ramping up our contract for airport security, which is nowhere near reliable.
Kooner sat back in his sleek leather desk chair and looked over at the wall. The framed diplomas from prestigious universities in India and the photos of launch sites and missiles blasting off were now just so much history. How could it have come to this?
Gambit Page 24