Peacemaker

by Gordon Kent

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Damn right. Let me tell you about Peacemaker. No! Let me tell you about intelligence. Intelligence and the modern battle. Now, you’re an intel guy. Wha’d you do in the Navy? Carrier intel—what do you guys call it, CAG AI? Right. You got lots of intel from this source and that, you patched it together and strained it and shaped it and you looked at the target lists and the briefing books that Uncle provided, and then you made up something comprehensible for the jet jocks, and they took off and did what B.F. Skinner tried to get pigeons to do, which is use your intel to carry a weapon to target. Now, that’s asinine.

  “Here’s my theory of intelligence. Intelligence and force projection in the electronic world are the same thing. To have a thought should be the same as to use that thought. Idea is action. Stay with me here: the usual model, the model you used on your aircraft carrier, is pre-electronic. It’s all about the failure of intelligence that’s built into slow communication. The great example is the Battle of New Orleans. The British come up into the swamps and Andrew Jackson and a lotta people shoot the ass off them, and the British tuck their tails and go away. Only trouble is, the war had been over six weeks before they started.

  “When you got slow communications, you in effect got no intelligence worth the name—everything happens the night before the battle, the day of the battle, the moment of the battle. The intel guy is just some no-respect major who can read maps. Who matters is the guy who has the muscles to carry the weapon.

  “But come up to the 1980s. Now I can take a photo and have it come up simultaneously on a missile that’s already in the air. The missile don’t need any pigeon to drive it; it’s got the electronic brains to drive itself, using satellite positioning and my photo. I drive it to the target. Me—the intel guy. But do they let me do it? No—they turn it over to the guys who used to carry the weapon and still want to get their rocks off.

  “Now come to the 1990s. What’re we doing, mostly? We’re giving jet jocks briefing books and briefings and kneepad maps and photos and satellite coverage, and they fly off and make the same fucking mistakes that they and the pigeon could have made without all that help. Who’s still the least respected officer in a squadron? The intel guy. But who’s the one knows the most about the target? The intel guy.

  “So, here’s my theory of intelligence: cut the crap. Cut out the middleman. Put your intel guy where all the electronic fields come together, and give him the button.

  “That’s what Peacemaker is—the world’s first intel-driven killer. War with an arrow and no archer. George tell you how it works?”

  Suter shook his head. He was a little dazzled.

  “See, the problem that we saw was, you put stuff into a high orbit, you got a major launch involvement, and still you got a hell of a weight problem. You can put up your electronics, sure, but conventional weapons are heavy stuff. So we come up with something out of a sci-fi novel, no shit. What makes a conventional weapon heavy? Fuel and explosive. Okay, do away with both a them, you got your problem licked. Whatcha got out there in orbit instead of fuel for your weapon? Gravity. Whatcha gonna put up there instead of explosives? Manmade meteorites. Like a goddam cafe-curtain rod, only made of either ceramic or spent uranium, we ain’t decided which—doing tests next month from the high-altitude research aircraft out in Nevada. I favor the uranium, because I know that at Mach 5 that stuff will explode hardened concrete, I mean not just knock pieces off it, but fucking explode it!

  “With the weight problem solved, we conceived Peacemaker as a low orbiter so it can be launched any old place. But low orbit means it won’t stay up long, maybe five days. Long enough. Peacemaker 1 will carry forty rods and will be in-orbit maneuverable plus or minus five hundred klicks. Above the range of all known missiles and aircraft. It’ll carry an onboard computer not much shabbier than an early Cray, plus receivers direct for optical, side-look, satellite TV, infrared, or digital data. I won’t say the thing will be able to think, but it’ll be able to compare and prioritize, and it will always be in direct contact with here.”

  “Expensive,” Suter said. What he wanted to say was, That’s the greatest thing I ever heard. “Awfully expensive.”

  “There’s enough pork in the Star Wars budget to do this little old thing ten times over. There’s so much pork, I oughta get some hickory sticks and start me a barbecue place. ‘Touhey’s Hog Heaven’!” He laughed. He was excited, too, just talking about it. “That’s why I need George. George can carve a pig about as good as anybody in Washington.”

  “How far along is the project?” Suter found that his voice was hoarse.

  “We’re going to prototype in six weeks; legal is cleaning up the contracts. They got a model upstairs, I expect Jackie whisked you by that, but you’re welcome to see it. I want to test the end of this year.”

  “But—”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s destabilizing as hell.”

  Touhey grinned. “Direct contravention of the ABM treaty. That’s my view of it, although there’s controversy in-house. I’ll let the lawyers work that out. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. Neither does George, who’s in it—between you and me—precisely because it’s destabilizing. It fits old George’s ideology, and he ain’t exactly over there on the far left. But you hit the sore point, yeah, and that’s why the only word we’ve leaked on Peacemaker is that it’s an intel-comm satellite. Not a weapon. That’s the way it’s gonna stay for the public and part of the Congress for the foreseeable future. But sometime we gotta go public with the weapon part, because what this is, is a weapon of fear. It don’t do squat if people don’t know about it.”

  “A deterrent.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you be deterred if you knew somebody could position an untouchable machine over your house and drop meteorites on it at Mach 5?” Touhey leaned back and began to scrabble in a drawer, coming up with a pack of cigarettes. “That’s why we’re gonna sell this as a support to UN peacekeeping. Our likeliest demo will be Yugoslavia—pardon, the former Yugoslavia. We’re gonna put a Peacemaker up in the Mediterranean, current plans are the Gulf of Sidra, coordinate with Navy’s Sixth Fleet—I expect you to be a help there—and we’re gonna put it up and juke it around in orbit over some of their real estate and suggest—merely suggest, meaning we’re gonna do a little discreet leaking—that this little toy might be compatible with some kinda weaponry. We think it’ll get their attention. Meanwhile, in secret, we’re gonna drop some rods on a pile of rock in the South Atlantic and see what survives.” He fiddled with a ball of paper. “You can imagine the UN debate if it’s the UN that thinks it’s gonna benefit. They won’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

  “Give it to the UN?”

  “Now, you know we’d never do that. We may say we will, but we won’t. Remember Reagan’s offer to give Star Wars to the world? Like that. But we’ll use it in a good cause, you bet, and I for one am not at all happy about a set of tough guys kicking ass, including women and kids, in the name of what they call ethnic cleansing, when their ethnic ain’t much to look at to begin with. And we need the PR, ’cause this is gonna be one mother of a fight when it goes public.”

  “I’m supposed to be part of that.”

  Touhey grinned at him. “You’re gonna be the targeting officer.” He grinned even more when he saw how startled Suter was. “George wants you to be. You’re gonna be the oversight on his investment. You got an office on this floor for the duration of the project, plus you’ll get space at our DC connection. You’re gonna ride along with me on some trips up there. You play golf?”

  “Some.”

  “‘Some’ don’t get the hay in. Learn to play. We get a lot of our support over a good game.” He smiled. “Not too good, mind.” He stood. He had worked a cigarette out of the pack, was now holding it in his fingers and getting ready to work a lighter with the other. There were No Smoking signs all over the building. “You’re gonna liaise with George, but in-house here you’re part of the t
argeting and data flow ladder. You can be useful there. Work hard.”

  “I always work hard.” Suter said it proudly, but it brought an unreadable glance from Touhey—maybe slightly challenging?

  “We’re about to expand. You’re part of the expansion. In the empire-building business, if you don’t keep getting bigger, they cut you off at the knees and all of a sudden you’re small.”

  The lighter flared.

  The Med.

  USS James Madison was going home.

  The great wheel turned, and in the Adriatic, the carrier battle group began its move toward home port; in Norfolk, the outgoing battle group that would replace them, BG 6, was making its final preparations to sail.

  Not that very moment. Not even that day. But the Madison had turned her bow away from the Bosnian coast, and she had headed down the length of Italy and around the boot, and her crew knew they wouldn’t come that way again, not this tour. Some of the tension in the ship began to ease, as if all at once people had got a good night’s sleep and nobody was quite so down.

  Alan Craik was going home. His air-intel team was finally turning to leave the Med, and just in time. The men and women were tired; the machines were tired. They had really pulled together after Suter had left—Alan didn’t kid himself that it was his presence that made things better; Suter’s absence was most of it—and now they were efficient and smart, but they were worn out. They were good kids; their shiny newness had worn off under the strain of constant planning and activity, and the N2, with Alan, had quickly repaired their gun-shy (or Suter-shy) attitudes. Alan had preferred to let them learn with minimal chiding. Now they were a solid team, and Alan reflected wryly that, like most military organizations, they had hit their stride just as their duty together was coming to an end.

  Peacekeeping was wearing. There wasn’t anything to strive toward; it was all just keeping on. There would never be any gongs for them for “winning” the war—or the peace—in Bosnia. It just went on. And would go on, he thought. We’ll be back, was what he thought but never said to his people.

  So the Madison rounded the toe of the boot and charged up to Naples, and when they pulled into the bay for their last run ashore, the whole battle group seemed to put Bosnia behind them. They poured ashore by the ferry-load and dispersed over the streets like ants on spilled honey. Alan, walking up toward the Royal Palace, could hear some of them whooping a block away. Bad PR, but—get a life!

  That night he took his gang to a small restaurant called Pappagallo. They pushed a lot of tables together and shouted back and forth, and some unabashed flirting went on between the men and women that had been suppressed on the boat. A couple of Italian songs and half of them will be in bed together, he thought, and he turned the subject to Bosnia and peacekeeping. It was always the great subject, and it had the same effect now as a cold shower. On the boat, it had almost led to people’s not speaking to each other—Why are we here? What’s our duty? Are we the world’s policeman? What’s wrong with the people in the Balkans? Why can’t we bomb the fuckers?—but now the tone was elegiac, as of people who had done their best and had to leave with things no worse, perhaps no better. Baronik summed up for them. “There’s hope,” he said. He was a little drunk, mostly a bit more laid back than usual, but maybe showing off for the benefit of LTjg Mary Colley. “Folks, there’s hope! Look at all the other places that have had this kind of shit. Neighbor killing neighbor! Village burning village! It does come to an end. It does! Strong government and economic prosperity can break the chain of violence.” His voice was passionate. Seeing doubt in some of the faces, he said, “Look at the Anglo-Scottish border between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries!” Somebody groaned. “Look at the Norman Vexin!” Everybody groaned.

  “Look at the time,” Alan said. He waved for the check.

  “It will happen, Al!” Baronik said. He glanced at LTjg Colley.

  “Of course it will.” Alan remembered the torture chamber in the Serbian zone. Well, maybe it would happen.

  Washington, DC.

  Mike Dukas pushed open the door of his apartment with a foot and heard his mail, just as it did every night, scrape along the floor as the door pushed it. As he did every night, he thought that the door was a stupid place to put a mail slot. Bending, groaning because he was a short, wide man, he picked up the mail and threw pieces of it at the wastebasket as he crossed the living room. Junk, junk, bill, junk, credit union, bill—and bingo!

  He felt his heart lurch. The top of the envelope had a return address for the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. When he tore the envelope, his hands were shaking. Why did it matter so much? Christ, he didn’t get this nervous with a woman!

  “… your very impressive résumé … hope to set up an interview within five days … speed of the essence because … suffering … criminals … a need for leadership and your professional skill.” There was a telephone number that he was asked to call during business hours ASAP.

  Dukas was grinning. Sonofabitch!

  He pulled the door shut and trotted to his car and drove the five miles to the mall where he knew there was a Borders. There, he leaned into the high counter and said to the very young, pretty attractive woman there, “How you fixed for a Bosnian dictionary?”

  “Bosnian?”

  “Yeah, like the country formerly known as Yugoslavia.”

  “I know what it is.” She smiled. “I read the papers, you know. But I don’t think Bosnian’s a language. It’s an ethnic group, but—” She was talking to the computer with her fingers. A really smart woman. “Uh-uh.” And smiled again. “We got Serbo-Croat, though!”

  “Whatever!” Dukas said. He reached for his credit card. He felt like a kid.

  Fort Reno, North Carolina.

  Harry O’Neill paused with his fingers on the envelope, a prayer on his tongue. But it was too late. Last-minute prayers wouldn’t change what was inside.

  He put his left index finger inside the flap at the end where it was ungummed, and it tore; he used the finger to tear raggedly the length of the envelope. He glanced around to see if anybody was watching him, but anybody from his class who was there at that time would have his own envelope and would have sought his own alcove in which to open it. O’Neill leaned still closer to the window, shielding himself almost inside the window drapes. He took out the single sheet of paper and unfolded its three sections.

  His assignment for the next three years. Paris? Marseille? Or—?

  He almost groaned when he saw it. He stifled real sound but wailed inside. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass.

  How will I ever tell my father? and then an instant later with a different kind of shame, How will I ever tell Al Craik?

  3

  June

  Norfolk.

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea. He had never learned much of the rest of it. Something about the hunter—“and the hunter home from the hill.” But he wasn’t a hunter. Dukas was the hunter. He was the sailor. And O’Neill? Had he been looking for O’Neill—?

  Alan woke. He was home. Relief and gratitude flooded through him. What had he been dreaming—sailor, hunter? He smelled his house, his bed, his wife. His left hand slid across the wrinkled sheet and found her. She made a pleased sound without waking. His hand went up her hip. Squeezed. The dog raised his head. The dog slept on the floor of the bedroom and would have got on the bed in a moment if he’d been encouraged. When Alan wasn’t there, he slept on the floor next to Rose, and he would wake when she did, just like this, raise his head, look at her eyes as he now looked at Alan’s.

  “Walk?” Alan whispered.

  The dog’s tail thumped on the floor. Alan slipped from the sheets and padded to the bathroom, then to Mikey’s room, the dog following, springing, ready to bark so hard the effort would carry him right off his front feet if Alan so much as murmured walk again. Alan hushed him with a hand on the huge head, caressing the ears, the side of the jaw. He got a big lick on his bare wrist in return
.

  His son lay on his back, seemingly asleep, but his eyes opened when Alan leaned over him. The light from the hall glinted on the eyes, and the child smiled. Alan’s heart turned over, broke, put itself back together. So this is what it’s like. He had been home for ten days. One night on the ship, drinking coffee on an all-nighter, a shipmate had told him about coming home from a sea tour, always finding his children changed, new. Kids who might one day, unless you were careful, remember mainly that their father was “always away.” He touched his son’s face.

  He put on the coffee-maker and got the dog’s leash, and the dog began to prance. The dog wanted to bark; cautioned to stay quiet, he sneezed. His head went up and down so enthusiastically that Alan could hardly get the leash on him. Then they were out the door and into the dawn; he had a momentary flash of dawns on the carrier, one morning when there were no air ops and the great deck had stretched like a field, and the eastern edge of the sky was a bright line like a hot wire. Did some part of him miss it already?

  The dog pissed on every vertical object between their house and the end of the block and then got more discriminating as his supply ran low. Beyond the second street was a wood with a kind of stream in it. He let the dog run. Walking along the dark path, listening for the scuffle of the dog in the old leaves, he thought about the dawn when they’d gone to the Serb house in Pustarla. He thought about it a lot, couldn’t get it to settle down into the understory of his mind. The smell of old blood. The tub full of bloody water. The victims. Shooting that guy.

  He clipped the dog’s leash to the ring on the collar and started for home. The dog’s pissing had now become purely symbolic—lifting a leg to show what he would do if he could.