by James Phelan
“On screen in two, one…”
The screen showed the real-time image of the La Fayette, sailing full steam across the ocean. It was a thermal image, the frigate a mix of bright colours ranging from warm to the white-hot rim of the exhaust stacks. The sea around it was an eerie black-blue, as if they were watching the ship flying through space.
“Course?” Vanzet asked.
“Same course, sir, she’ll be inside Greenland waters in fifteen minutes.”
“Where are the F-15’s?” Secretary of Defense Larter asked.
“Eighty-five minutes west of combat station,” the Air Force JCS said, referring to the point of firing.
“Mr President, the French ambassador is rolling up the driveway now,” McCorkell said, relaying the message from a marine corpsman.
“Good. Adam, Tom, come with me,” the President said, the Secretary of State and Chief of Staff rising with him. “Bill, I want you down here on this. Anything happens in the next ten minutes, I want to know.”
“Mr President, such a pleasure,” the French ambassador said, rising from his seat on a couch in the Oval Office in greeting. He put out a hand but the President ignored it. The two secret-service agents who had escorted the ambassador in left the room.
“What’s a French warship doing entering Greenland waters?” the President asked, not bothering to sit down and the others following suit.
“Excuse me, Mr President?”
“Your frigate the La Fayette. It has sailed from France on a direct course to Greenland,” Fullop said, his short stocky body puffing up a little in his oversized suit.
“I’m afraid I don’t—”
“Laurent, your navy exercise in the South Pacific, is it a cover for something else?” Baker asked. The Secretary of State knew this guy well.
“Adam—Mr President—” The ambassador was blinking hard, looking from face to face. Being in this room, with these men, was having its effect. “We gave your Department of Defense a full briefing on our exercise two months ago—”
“Well they failed to mention a submarine entering New Zealand waters,” the President said. “Mr Ambassador, this is serious situation and I need straightforward answers, right now. What is your navy up to?”
The ambassador paled as the words and mood of the men sank in.
“Laurent, we go way back,” Baker said, playing good cop. “Tell us what you know, or this will escalate to the next level fast.”
“The next level?” the ambassador replied. “I’m not sure—I don’t—”
“If we don’t get an explanation, soon,” the President said, taking a step closer to the ambassador, “that frigate of yours will be on the bottom of the ocean.”
61
GREENLAND
Gammaldi knocked again, the pounding of his double-gloved fist on the steel door reverberating through the airlock beyond.
“Fuck’n’ Greenland,” he said through chattering teeth to Beasley. “Fuck’n’ shit cold arse-end of the—”
The door creaked open to reveal the technician, who eyed them suspiciously.
“G’day!” said Gammaldi, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Nice beard. Our ride broke down. Can we come in for some hot cocoa?”
The technician nodded, nervous.
That was easy, thought Gammaldi, as he walked through the door with Beasley close behind.
“Bit smelly in here—” Gammaldi stopped as he saw the heavily armed soldiers appear from around the corner.
The door slammed behind him and he was pushed face first into a wall, a gun to the back of his head as hands patted him down.
“We—just—want—cocoa—”
62
THE WHITE HOUSE
“La Fayette class frigates are purpose-built to deploy commandos,” the Navy JCS said.
“NSA confirmed there are two unarmed technicians at the station,” an aide called out. “Still can’t get through to them due to weather at their end.”
“Well keep trying,” Vanzet said. “The Danes just got their helos in the air.”
“Force strength and ETA?” McCorkell asked.
“Two platoons aboard four Black Hawks, eighty minutes out from the north-east, weather permitting. A mechanised company ready to roll as backup, they’ll take a good four hours to get to the station.”
“What’s—what is that to the aft of the helo pad?” Larter said.
McCorkell squinted at the screen. It looked like two big boxes.
“Zooming in,” the audiovisual aide said, typing in commands to the laptop, the image on the screen tracking fast to keep up with the target.
“Can anyone make that out?” McCorkell asked, looking at two boxy shapes on the aft deck of the frigate.
“Can we get closer?” Larter asked.
The screen zoomed in, closer, out of focus for a moment and then out of shot, as the aide worked double-time with the mouse to catch up with the feed that was slipping to the left of screen.
“Ski sleds?” an aide said. McCorkell looked at him puzzled.
“Snowmobiles,” Vanzet clarified for the room. “That’s their way in. Helo them and two squads ashore for a fast, below-the-radar incursion.”
The room looked at the two white snowmobiles coming into sharper focus.
“I’ll tell the President,” McCorkell said, picking up a phone on the desk.
63
GREENLAND
“Our Hummer stopped about ten minutes to the north-west of here—”
“—frozen gas lines, I bet—” Beasley added, nodding to Gammaldi.
“Yeah, so we thought we’d look for some help,” Gammaldi said. “What is this place, Area Fifty Two?”
The Delta commander eyed them sceptically. They’d been searched down to their underpants, and were just now getting dressed again.
Gammaldi looked to Beasley. Beasley shrugged and looked to the NSA technician. One technician looked to the other, who was busy staring at the commander’s M4 and various weapons strapped to his assault webbing.
“Can we—”
“You’re not getting fucking firearms!” the commander said to the bearded NSA techs. He turned to a Delta soldier: “Take these bananas into the mess—and watch the four of them.”
64
THE WHITE HOUSE
In the Oval Office the President hung up the phone. He looked at the ambassador, shaking his head. He pressed the intercom on his desk.
“Get the President of France on the line,” he ordered. “Wake the son of a bitch up if you have to.”
The French ambassador shrank a couple of inches before the President’s eyes.
“The La Fayette has two snowmobiles on its aft deck, hardly the usual complement of arms for a warship I would think,” the President said. He walked around and sat down behind the Resolute Desk.
“Mr President—”
“Perhaps you’re thinking that this situation is getting me pretty pissed,” the President said, checking his watch. “I was meant to be having dinner with my family for the first time in over a week. My wife is the one who’s going to be really pissed, and so help you God she doesn’t come over from the Residence.”
The phone rang and he picked it up.
“Connected through to his personal secretary at Elysée Palace now,” the secretary said. “Waiting on pick-up—here we go.”
“Mr President,” the President said.
“Yes, Mr President, to what do I owe the honour?”
“I’m going to cut to the chase, so please listen to me closely,” the President said. “We are tracking a warship of yours, the frigate La Fayette, which is about to make an incursion into Greenland.”
“An incursion?”
“Dropping off a military land force, which will be an unwelcome incursion of a foreign force on Danish soil,” the President said. “We know this as we have real-time visual coverage. We believe they are set t
o attack our satellite relay station there, which will be seen as an act of war. If we’re wrong about that, and this is a test of our tracking capabilities, then call them off before I put that ship on the bottom of the ocean.”
There was silence on the phone.
“Allow me to confer with my defence minister and be back to you within ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes. Any longer, we’re taking defensive action.”
“Understood, Mr President.”
“Yes, but it’s the why that beats the hell outta me.” Vanzet turned to an aide. “What else is on Greenland’s south coast that’s accessible by snowmobile?”
“Aside from a few small towns, there are a couple of oil depots, a couple of remote reserve air strips run by the Danish Air Force for NATO refuelling and geographic research purposes, and the NSA satellite relay station.”
“We have a visual yet on the station?” McCorkell asked.
“No. Our only asset is the Warfighter satellite tracking the La Fayette,” the Air Force JCS said.
“Leave the Warfighter on the frigate,” Vanzet ordered.
“It’ll take them under an hour to get there, less if the helo drops the snowmobiles in real close,” McCorkell said.
Boxcell entered the Sit Room, taking a spot where he could observe the LCD screens.
“I’ve got an agent heading to Elysée Palace with a CAVNET laptop,” Boxcell said, referring to the military remote-access computer network that proved so valuable to the soldiers on the ground in Iraq. “He’ll be at the French President’s ASAP, showing him this real-time footage that we’ve got.”
“Let him deny what’s going down live on screen,” McCorkell said. “We’ve got no navy assets nearby?”
“Seawolf is closest,” the Navy JCS said. “Heading in from the south, she was coming back to Virginia to re-crew.”
“I don’t like the prospect of an attack sub against the La Fayette’s ASW systems,” McCorkell said. “Nothing with a bit more grunt from the Second Fleet?”
“They’re too far south and east. Wasp is returning to Virginia from Portsmouth for a full shake-down, so she’s now steaming flank speed to back up Seawolf, and I’ve ordered the commanders of the Med and Atlantic fleets to cover the French coast. All our north-east Atlantic coast assets are closing a net from our side. That’s two Los Angeles and an Ohio class, and three Arleigh Burke destroyers.”
“I’m recommending to the President that we blockade the French coast until we know what’s going on,” Vanzet said.
“Good idea. Weird thing is, most of their blue-water navy has been exercising in their Pacific playground,” McCorkell said.
“Tell me about it. Our entire Seventh Fleet is off the Korean Peninsular doing standoff duty,” the Navy JCS said. “We’ve had to rely on the Aussies and Kiwis to keep us posted on their activities down their way.”
“Then why send an unprotected frigate on this mission?” Vanzet asked.
“La Fayettes are the most stealthy surface vessels afloat,” the Navy JCS said. “If we hadn’t been scouring the NRO and high-alt images, we wouldn’t have found her.”
“Good point,” McCorkell said, after hanging up the phone to the President. He studied the image of the frigate, like a sliver of ice in the frigid sea.
“Admiral.” An aide held a phone to the JCS Chairman. Vanzet hung up after a few seconds of listening intently.
“NSA flight order was a priority-threat reaction force, one C-130 dropping off two Delta squads from Bragg,” Vanzet told the room.
“Who ordered it?” McCorkell asked.
“Ira Dunn.”
65
GREENLAND
Gibbs and Sefreid crawled slowly to their position six hundred metres north of the station by the road leading in. They flattened out under the shrubs, pushing snow forward of their positions to form a low wall, blocking them from sight.
Gibbs clicked in the scope of her sniper rifle and sighted the weapon, chambering a round as she went about her task in automated fashion. She could make out the desolate NSA station, a small jumble of low concrete buildings surrounded by three big round radomes.
“Geiger,” she said over her throat mike. “Gibbs and Sefreid in position.”
Silence greeted them for a good ten seconds, and Sefreid repeated the call.
“Geiger, you copy that?” Sefreid said over their throat-mike system.
“Copy that, sorry for the delay,” Geiger said, turning down the INXS CD he’d put in the stereo. “Eyal Geiger is currently barrelling in southbound in the Hummer from hell. This baby is chewin’ the snow like nothin’ else!”
66
THE WHITE HOUSE
The President returned to the Situation Room with his Secretary of State and Chief of Staff.
“Mr President, report just in of an IED going off in Baghdad, two marines KIA, six wounded,” McCorkell said quietly.
The room took in the news in silence, all used to the world not stopping for anyone. Truth be told, McCorkell thought, they could all station themselves in this room and have enough ongoing work to never get any sleep. Bar the two world wars, since September 11th the world they found themselves in was a more threatening landscape than at any time in America’s history. At least the Cuban Missile Crisis was over with relatively quickly.
“Any luck with the French ambassador?” McCorkell asked the Secretary of State.
“He doesn’t know anything about it,” Baker said, sitting down. “I’ve known him for ten years, he’s telling the truth.”
“French President will be calling through in—” the President checked his watch “—three minutes.”
“He’ll probably play us on the agriculture tariffs from last month’s G8,” Fullop said, the Chief of Staff always considering the political angle.
“Let him see how productive his farms are when we have Abrahams churnin’ up his countryside,” Larter said, taking a moment to lighten the mood.
“Don, a massive what-if here,” the President said, “and I’m not seriously thinking about this option…”
“We could take them with conventional forces within seventy-two hours on your order, sir,” Vanzet replied. “And that’s without any direct European support, and you could bet your ass there’d be a conga line of NATO countries willing to take pot shots at their most reserved member. Brits and Germans would probably rather we left it up to them to handle.”
“Call from Elysée Palace, Mr President,” an aide said. “Line three.”
“Put it on the speaker,” he said; then loudly: “This is the President.”
“Mr President,” the President of France said through the speakers running down the centre of the table.
“Where are we at?” the President asked, his security advisors silent as they all waited for the update.
“I have the defence minister here, along with the chief of our defence force on another line,” the French President said. “Of the frigate La Fayette, it is indeed in the vicinity of Greenland. The minister of the navy has explained to us that it is a long-planned exercise.”
“An exercise in another country’s sovereign waters?” the President asked.
“I admit that it is unusual, and the minister will contact me momentarily with the exact details.”
Vanzet looked to the President to ask a question, and the President nodded.
“Mr President, this is Admiral Donald Vanzet of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Can you account for the rest of your navy?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Yes, Admiral, we can,” the French President said.
McCorkell said, holding down the mute button, “Vanzet, how far are the F-15E’s from the La Fayette?”
“Sixty-five minutes to combat radius,” Vanzet replied.
“Give ’em an hour?” McCorkell asked, to nods from the Secretary of Defense and Vanzet.
McCorkell released th
e mute.
“Mr President,” the President said, “we will give your navy exactly sixty minutes from now to get itself in order. After that, we will be taking action against the La Fayette and any other forces we deem as being hostile.”
“Mr President, with all due respect—”
“With all respect aside, that ship is going to the bottom of the ocean unless you convince me otherwise. No ifs or buts. One hour.”
67
GREENLAND
“Good cocoa,” Gammaldi said, smiling to the tech. “You know, you two guys are dead ringers for Harold and Kumar having a beard off.”
“Yeah, we’ve been getting that since the movie came out when we were at college,” the Harold look-alike said.
“Cocoa’s a home brew,” Kumar said, zoned out of the conversation. He passed over a Tupperware container. “Have a cookie.”
“Thanks,” Gammaldi said, taking two big homemade chocolate cookies and demolishing one in an instant.
“How long have you guys been here?” Beasley asked, passing on the cookies.
“Four months,” Harold said, looking to Kumar for confirmation, but the man was watching the Delta soldier at the door while nibbling at a cookie. He seemed mesmerised by the soldier’s weaponry hanging off his person.
“What do you guys do here?” Gammaldi asked.
“Play games, mostly. Grow a bit of weed in the north radome,” the technicians laughed.
Gammaldi and Beasley shared a look, and Gammaldi sniffed his cookie, smiled, and ate it in a couple of bites. Certainly not the recipe his mama would follow.
“Good, huh,” Kumar said, having another. Beasley helped himself.
“Freeze-dried,” Harold said, tapping his nose. The pair of technicians were clearly high. “Our patented method.”