“No, sir. Never would do that,” Hulley said, a slight twinkle in his eyes. “What now, Chairman?”
Halfpenny braced his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands under his chin. He bit his lower lip as he stared at Hulley, who was standing in front of the desk. Finally, he took a deep breath and put his hands on the table. “Not a goddamn thing, Mr. Director. We can’t court martial the skipper who was responsible for the deaths of four”— he held up four fingers—“Air Force pilots—one of whom is the son of an Academy classmate of mine. We can’t tell anyone of our success in reclaiming our own technology because we can’t let anyone know we ever lost it.”
Hulley reached forward and lifted the clipboard. “Let me take this and make sure it’s filed where you’ll never have to see it again, sir.”
Halfpenny stood. “There ought to be some way we can recognize this Navy Commander . . .”
“Raleigh, sir.”
“Raleigh,” Halfpenny finished, the anger gone from his voice. He chuckled. “That must have been something, using Seabees for a special operation such as this. You know, Win, the Navy may have more SEAL-type ops than they like to admit.”
“Like their—”
“Yes, just like their claim of having only ten aircraft carriers. But those flattops they call amphibious ships carry more Harrier fighters than most other countries’ aircraft carriers are capable of carrying.” He came around the table, leaned back against the desk, and crossed his arms. “You know something, my fine Army friend, you gotta watch the Navy. If they had their way, they’d be in charge of the Space program also.”
“The important thing is we regained the laser component, Chairman.”
Halfpenny Baines nodded. “You know what we’re witnessing, Win?”
“No, sir.”
“In every era of human history, there is one weapon that determines an army’s power and when that weapon rests with an adversary, only overwhelming might complemented with an overwhelming countermeasure will give you even a chance of victory.”
Hulley agreed. “If a single weapon can clear the skies of fighter aircraft—”
“Then we may be witnessing the transformation from the information age to the age of physics warfare.” He uncrossed his arms and pointed at the director. “We’re even looking at particle beams as a ground weapon for our soldiers. Now, you tell me, Mr. Director, what is the impact of weapons of such profound battle damage; of weapons that can remove whole armies, navies, and air forces from the skies, on us old timers who are grounded in the physical components of what we think is modern warfare? It means we’ve come full circle.”
“Full circle?”
“Full circle. In the early age of warfare, it was the ground pounder, the infantryman, who determined victory by taking an enemy’s land. It was muddy boots slugging through the fog of battle, marching to the sound of gunfire. Then, we reached this technological era where information combined with military strength and operational superiority allowed us to win battles and wars with minimum casualties. Now, we’re going to be faced in the next few years with weapons that exponentially use physics to defeat military strength and overcome operational superiority. How will we defeat those types of weapons that render our hardware— our weapons—meaningless? We’ll have to defeat them by returning to the individual soldier.” Halfpenny Baines pushed himself away from his desk and walked to the window overlooking North Parking. “Director, I’ll talk with the Vice Chairman when he returns from Europe. Meanwhile, I want to put this question to our think tanks and to our best and brightest. How do we defeat weapons in the Age of Physics? What should be our strategy for national security? If ever there was an argument for transforming something other than North Parking, this is it.”
The conversation passed on to several other Joint issues, including the war in Indonesia and a staff morale issue in one of the directorates. Twenty minutes passed before Hulley tucked the metal clipboard under his arm.
“Sir, I’ll take care of those issues.” He reached over and tapped the board. “About the mission, sir. Are you going to call across the Potomac and tell them?”
“I did, just before you came through the door. I put out a feeler to SecDef’s office to see if he wanted to do it, but got a run around about their failing to fully understand what I was talking about. How about that, Win. A fully successful mission no one wants to take credit for. What is our political leadership coming to?”
Hulley nodded. “You talk with our NSC friend, Ms. Alice Chatelain-Malpass?” he asked with irony.
“I did, and you want to know what she said?”
“If the Chairman wouldn’t mind.”
Halfpenny shook his head and laughed. “She told me she had no idea what I was talking about. She thanked me for calling, and assured me that we had never met, but she had heard a lot of nice things about me.”
“Amazing how selective political appointees’ memories are.”
“They’re definitely in a profession that would benefit from higher unemployment.”
“At least we still have the Tank schedule that shows she was here.”
“Not really, General. I thought about that a couple of days ago. I thought if the mission went to shit, what did we have that the inevitable congressional inquiry would want? The schedule was one. It doesn’t reflect her by name nor as coming from the National Security Council. Just identifies someone from the administration receiving a brief on the current war in Indonesia.”
“Who changed it?”
“No one did. Our administrative types enter attendees by their own identification. Apparently, she or her office just identified her as a staff representative coming here to receive a war brief. Never occurred—”
Baines waved him away. “Never mind, Win. Just get on with the tasks at hand and figure out a way to recognize Commander Raleigh and his Seabees without giving away the covert nature of the mission.”
ALICE CHATELAIN-MALPASS GRINNED AS SHE GENTLY LAID the receiver back in the cradle. Conscientiously, she glanced at the digital readout to ensure the telephone was no longer securely connected to General Baines. Humming, she moved through the crowded spaces of the National Security Council, mumbling greetings to a couple of staffers who had just returned from the Hill. They were scheduled to debrief her later in the day.
She stopped at the Ladies’ on the way down the hallway. Afterwards, she stood in front of the mirror and straightened her full-length dress so the seams rode down the sides of her body. She pulled up her pantyhose to tighten it against her legs. She wiggled her toes and looked down at her brown business shoes, made in America; she wouldn’t have it any other way. The shoelaces fell over the top two eyes on both shoes. She opened her purse, pulled out a comb, and touched up the bangs across her forehead. Then she ran her hand over her ponytail, tightening the band, and flipping the hair up so it spread out, so it’d bounce when she walked into the head of the National Security Advisor’s office and told him the good news. Satisfied she looked her best, she took a deep breath and exited the bathroom. Exactly ten steps later, she entered the outer office of her boss. Within the NSC, only he and she knew about the mission.
Alice Chatelain-Malpass was ushered into the man’s office. Ten minutes later, she left, her mouth still open, feeling tears fighting to free themselves of her willpower. The man had thrown her out of his office. Told her he had no idea what she was talking about, but thanked her for telling him whatever it was the Defense Department had done. Furthermore he assured her that it had nothing whatsoever to do with him and, if by her words, she thought otherwise, she’d be wise to keep quiet and never mention this again. Especially if she enjoyed the job she had and the authority he entrusted to her in protecting our great nation.
She went back to her desk and sat down. For a long time she stared at the computer screen in front of her. Periodically a new email shifted the screen upward, boldfaced to remind her it hadn’t been read. After a while, she pulled a 3.5-inch disc from her desk draw
er and inserted it. Then, she began to download the information on this mission. The mission had been a success. It had recovered the laser technology. It had blown up the aircraft, and it had managed to focus the blame on this African National Army; but successful missions have a way of going awry, if not immediately, then years from now. She raised her upper arms slightly, appalled to discover her armpits damp with a slight spreading stain beneath each arm.
Someday, someone would be searching for a fall guy on a mission that never was, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Alice Chatelain-Malpass. She knew the Joint Staff could point at her; the navy could raise its finger in her direction; and, sitting down in Norfolk was that fat little Admiral whom she had instantly disliked at the Pentagon. She didn’t know why she disliked him, but it mattered little to her why she did. Alice Chatelain-Malpass didn’t need a reason to dislike someone, just because she disliked them was reason enough. She had worked too many years to reach this pinnacle in her political career. She glanced through the glass walls of her small office, watching to make sure no one was headed in her direction while she made copies. She took her time. For each item she called up from the archives of the server or within her own computer, she erased every classification, including individual paragraph classifications. She even removed the ‘ unclassified’ classifications. Alice Chatelain-Malpass didn’t get where she was today by being someone’s patsy and she wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow and find her name in the headlines of The Washington Post. If nothing ever happened, then this insurance would never be needed. She smiled as she downloaded the notes from the three meetings they had had on this one subject. The notes identified who was there, who made what comments, and the positions taken on the proposed mission that never was. The smile turned into a smirk as she read the one comment about making sure that if Special Forces were used, they had to be released from the Special Forces, because under the new Department of Defense guidelines approved by Congress, only the President could authorize the use of Special Forces such as Navy SEALs.
The slight knock on her door startled her. She glanced at the door and then back at the computer. She glanced at her clock. It was the two from the Hill with their scheduled debrief. She was copying the last document on the fourth 3.5-inch disc. She could have copied all of them on a CD, but after the arrest of the spy in Arlington, periodic security inspections of CDs were occurring with more frequency.
“Come in,” she said, popping the disc out.
The door opened. She looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s already four o’clock?”
“Time flies fast when you’re having fun,” the young man said.
She popped the disc in a separate protective cover as she asked them to sit down. Alice Chatelain-Malpass was ready for whatever the future brought. She smiled. Minutes into the debriefing about the meeting, the two staffers saw Alice Chatelain-Malpass as her usual acidic self, full of questions, full of directions, and full of the first person pronoun.
Captain David E. Meadows, U.S. Navy, was recognized by Writer’s Digest magazine as one of its twelve “First Success” authors for 2001 and profiled in the Writer’s Digest Guide to Writing, Fiction (Fall 2001) yearbook. Captain Meadows is still on active duty serving as Deputy Commander, Naval Security Group Command.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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