“How long you going to be here screwing around with my operation?” the sheriff asked as he followed Fullbright into the office. “I’m not running some secret military training camp here, ya’ll know. This is the Harvey county prison, not some CIA headquarters. You’ve already caused me a lot of trouble. So why don’t you just tell me what the sam hill is going on? I think I deserve some kind of explanation.”
Fullbright cocked an eye toward the sheriff. The colonel was wearing a white shirt and tie, as were all of the other members of his party. They had shown no identification. No papers to use the prison had ever been served. A quick e-mail message from the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., was the only authorization the sheriff had ever received.
But of course, inside his shiny, bald head, the sheriff’s mind was already racing. Who were these men? What were they doing? Whatever it was, it had to be big. Direct orders from Washington, D.C.! Had to be CIA. Or some kind of paramilitary operation. This was so cool. He couldn’t wait to get home and tell his wife. And maybe even his brother-in-law, Jake. There were a few people he just couldn’t keep a secret from.
Fullbright didn’t waste time with the man. “Yes sir, sheriff. You certainly do deserve some answers. But don’t expect any. Now if you’ll just leave us alone, we’ll soon be out of your hair. Then, I promise you, we’ll never bother you again.”
The sheriff started to protest as one of Fullbright’s aides stood up and opened the door. Then, changing his mind, he shrugged his shoulders and walked from the room, shutting the door quickly behind him.
Turning to a captain who stood by his side, Fullbright commanded, “Get Oliver Tray in here! Now! And you,” he turned to another captain, “get Milton Blake on the phone. Then all of you, clear out of the room.”
A guard brought Ammon a tray of corned beef and mixed vegetables, and Ammon dug into the food. He was feeling much better. His head was clear, and the feeling was rapidly returning to his arms and legs. He was famished. And very thirsty. He felt like he hadn’t eaten or drunk in days. Col Fullbright disappeared and came back with a couple of Cokes from the machine at the guard station on the other side of the double doors.
“How did you know about Jesse? How did you find out about the cabin?” Ammon asked. He avoided looking into Oliver Tray’s eyes. It was a very uncomfortable question. But still, he needed to know.
“Really, we got very lucky,” Oliver answered. “It was just a shot in the dark. I remembered you telling me about spending weekends up in some cabin together, but I didn’t have any idea where it was. I knew it was somewhere in eastern California, but that was about all. We finally found it through tracing the deed. The FBI is pretty good at such things. But to be honest, even once we found out the location of the cabin, I still wasn’t very optimistic. It was my own feeling that we wouldn’t find Jesse there. Fortunately, it turned out I was wrong.”
Tray thought back on the scene of Jesse hiding in the bush, while Clyde took pot shots at her through the trees. It had been very close. Two minutes later, and Jesse would have been dead. Someday, he would have to tell Richard Ammon. But not now. There were more pressing matters at hand.
“You know, Richard,” Tray continued, “it would have helped if you had told us about your plan. If we had just known what you had intended to do, we could have helped. You should have trusted us to take care of her.”
Ammon stared at his plate. He knew that now. But that wasn’t the only harsh lesson he had learned over the past few weeks. And it wasn’t the last time he would feel guilty for what had happened to his wife.
He scooped up a forkful of meat and shoved it into his mouth, wanting to move on from the subject.
“You know, Oliver, I called the number you gave me. On the day that they brought me in. I called and left you the code. Do you think that Morozov might know? If he had my lines tapped, could he have traced the call?”
Tray thought about that for a moment, then shook his head in reply. “Perhaps, but I really don’t think so. Even if he were to trace the call, it wouldn’t lead him to our organization. We are very careful about that. Having an untraceable number might have caused him to be suspicious, but it would give him nothing concrete to go on. Nothing he could point to with any degree of certainty.
“So, no. I’m certain that you are still clean. I don’t believe that Morozov knows that you have been working for us. Now, he might have suspicions, but that would be all. You and I both know that if he did know for certain, you would already be dead.”
Ammon looked up and shrugged his shoulders, then turned back to his food. “What about the drugs? Why did you have to drug me up? Had you decided I couldn’t be trusted?”
“No. It was nothing like that. It’s pretty simple really. We were running out of time. We knew that we had to take you fast. It had to be an extremely clean operation. No mess and no fuss. And we wanted everyone alive. But we figured Morozov to be very unpredictable. Not the type to go down without a big fight. And we didn’t have time to do a thorough examination of the tactical situation inside your hotel room. We didn’t know how many were in there. We didn’t know who. We weren’t even certain you were still with Morozov. So we made a sweeping generalization that everyone would go down the same way, then, when everything had settled down, we would sort the good guys from the bad.”
Richard Ammon nodded again, then sat back and smiled.
He was feeling as good as he ever had in his life. His nightmare was over. Jesse was safe. Even now, she was sitting out in California, protected from Morozov and his goons by a detail of FBI agents. It was over. And Morozov was had.
He sat up and squared his shoulders. “So, when can I leave?” he asked. “When can I get out to California? What else do we have to do to button this thing up? I know the debrief will take some time, so let’s get on with it.”
Tray looked uncomfortably over at Col Fullbright, who cleared his throat and said, “Well, Richard, there’s something that we need to tell you. And the truth is, you won’t like what we have to say.”
Ammon looked up with a start. His eyes clouded over and his face shaded just a hint as suspicion began to burn in his eyes. Fullbright continued, “You see, we need you now, Captain Ammon. We really need you. More than you ever could know.”
“Oh, no,” Ammon pleaded. “Please don’t say it. Don’t tell me this thing is not over!”
Tray shook his head and jumped in. “We can’t tell you that, Richard. I guess that will be up to you. We can’t promise you protection. We can’t promise you safety. But for the first time in your life, we can offer you this: a real opportunity to do the right thing.”
Ammon looked into Oliver’s face. There was no way to miss the look in his eyes. Ammon’s heart leapt into his throat and his stomach dropped to his knees. “Oh, no,” he mumbled. “What are you guys thinking? What do you want?”
Oliver lowered his voice and told him.
When he was finished, Ammon sat back and swore. He leaned against his seat and stared up at the ceiling, shaking his head. He hated them for even asking. All he wanted was to go home. He hated Morozov and all of the Russians. He hated the danger and risk of the mission. He hated his deep sense of honor. He hated the Air Force. He hated it all.
But all of these feelings didn’t change one simple fact. He had to do something. And he knew he could never say no.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ninety minutes later, the President of the United States folded his arms across his chest and rocked back in his chair.
“So, you’re telling me that this is our only option?” he asked with suspicion. “That this is really what you think we should do?”
Milton Blake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Weber Coy, the director of the CIA, stared off into space, as if he didn’t want to answer the question.
“Sir, it isn’t our only option,” Blake replied. “There are other things we are looking at, some of which we have already discussed with you. But this is a new and radical
development. The heavens just seemed to have opened and dropped this thing into our laps. Now what we do with it is left up to you.
“But sir, I urge you, in the strongest of terms, to seriously consider our recommendation. As I see it, and I think that I have considered every angle, it is our best hope, perhaps our only real hope, to eliminate the threat of a nuclear war. Fedotov is taking significant losses—much more than we ever expected. And he won’t allow the Ukrainians to wear his army down. They are his one golden asset. His ticket to the big show.
“Our satellites show him to be in the final stages of his preparations. He has already fueled and positioned his missiles.
“As it stands, we have to do something. Unless...“ Blake paused for a moment, “unless we are willing to let him start lobbing around his nuclear weapons.”
The President frowned. “Perhaps that’s exactly what we should do.” he mused. “Let the idiots fight their own battle. Ugly as it is, perhaps there’s nothing we can do.”
Blake shrugged his shoulders.
“Sir, two days ago, I might have agreed with that contention. I have never pushed for us to defend the Ukraine, nor argued that we should involve ourselves in the war. We have always drawn the line of our interest along the borders of our NATO allies.
“But everything has changed. In light of Fedotov’s recent actions, in light of what has been given to us out in Kansas... well, I think it would be cowardly to just sit on our hands. In my mind, it would be nearly an act of treason to just pretend that there’s nothing we can do. Sir, I know you have no military training, but it doesn’t take a warrior to see... .”
Blake immediately caught himself and shut his mouth. Weber Coy visibly bristled in his chair. Allen raised an eyebrow and straightened his back. Blake lowered his head in regret. He knew that he had just struck a nerve. He should have been smarter than that.
He swallowed and looked quickly around the room, hoping the moment would pass, then continued in a low and cautious tone.
“Sir, just for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that I’m wrong. Let’s say that he doesn’t go nuclear. I think that it is highly unlikely, but let’s say that it turns out that way. Now let me ask you. Wherc would that leave us? With a nuclear madman barking at our door. A maniac in control of all of Eastern Europe. And where will he stop? What next will he do? It’s like a global game of Russian roulette. Someone will die. We just don’t know when. We just don’t know who. But the possibility of carving out a long-term peaceful existence with Vladimir Fedotov is absolutely zero.”
The President pushed himself away from his desk. For a long time no one spoke. Then the President said, “Do you want to know what I think?” The two advisors sat forward in their chairs.
“I think it’s a stupid idea,” he said in a sarcastic tone, pointing an accusing finger toward Milton Blake. “Milt, I can’t believe you are sitting here, proposing this plan. I think that it is absolutely crazy. It fails every logic test that I know.
“Look! We were lucky to have stopped the Ukrainians in the first place. There is no doubt in my mind that, had their operation been a success, we would be facing all-out global war! The Russians would have thought we had attacked them! Fedotov would not have hesitated to respond. And how could we have blamed him? With an American bomber roaming around the heart of his country, he would do the only thing he could do.
“Now, maybe I’m not as smart as you gentlemen are, but I fail to see how your plan is so different. How does it keep us from starting a war?”
Blake was very quick to respond. “Many things are different for us, sir. First, keep in mind, the primary objective of the Ukrainians was to provoke the Russians. To force them to respond, hoping to thrust us into the war.
“With that goal in mind, they designed the mission, not based on sound tactics and military doctrine, but to guarantee a Russian response. They selected targets deep within Russia to ensure that the B-1 was eventually detected. They selected targets other than the missile launching facilities—like armor rally points, troop concentrations, and Russian command bunkers—all designed to look like the first wave of a major attack. And they made everything time-critical. Very time-critical. The Russians would see the missiles and bombs exploding, and only have a few minutes, maybe only seconds, to decide how they were going to respond.
“But,” Blake continued. “we have a very different priority, and I promise you, they’ll never even know we were there. Unlike the Ukrainian mission, we will never penetrate their radar coverage. It’s one missile, one shot, and we’re gone. One quick baaam and we’re out of there and heading for home. Ammon only has to get eighty miles behind the enemy...” Blake stopped and corrected himself, “excuse me... the Russian border, at which point, he would be within range to launch the missile and then turn and run. And although we do penetrate the border for a very short time, we have designed the mission to take advantage of the gaps in the Russian coverage. If Ammon stays low, if he takes advantage of the terrain to hide from the Russians’ radar, if he lets the B-1 do what it was designed to do, then he will remain always hidden, hunting between holes in the Russian radar sites. And they’ll never even know he was there.”
“What about the missile itself?” Allen asked. “Won’t they see it coming? I mean, its target is in the very heart of Moscow. How could it penetrate so deeply without being detected?”
“Sir, this new missile is one fabulous thing. It is extremely fast. It cruises at seven hundred knots and thirty feet. It is very small. And stealth was its primary design goal. From radar-absorbing paint to absurd and angular lines, it has it all. Nothing can pick it up. Nothing. Not even us. On its initial flight test, we couldn’t even find it, even when we knew it was there. So, no sir, the missile will never be seen.”
Allen stood up from his chair and began to pace around the room, stretching his arms out behind him and cracking his knuckles in his hands.
“How will you target him?” he wondered aloud. “That seems an impossible task. Think back on the Gulf War, my friends. How many Air Force sorties, how many missions did they send after Hussein, hoping to kill him in one of his bunkers? Fifty? Sixty? A hundred? And still, we never found him. Never even got close. Despite dozens of sorties from the world’s greatest Air Force, he was never in danger at all.
“Now, you tell me we can get Fedotov with one missile. How? He adheres to the same security measures. His movements are always top secret. He never sleeps in the same place. He spends a lot of time inside hardened bunkers. He only moves around late at night.
“Given these facts, how in the world will you find him? How do you program the missile? It has to have target coordinates. It has to know where to go. But how do you program a missile to hit the target when you don’t know where the target will be? Now, unless this missile is a lot smarter than we are, I just don’t see how this mission can be a success.”
Weber Coy, the director of the CIA, smiled and leaned forward in his chair. “Sir, do you remember the KY-400 satellite?”
The President frowned.
“The new EYE, sir. The reconnaissance bird. You were briefed on it last week at the SPACECOM conference.”
The President nodded his head.
Coy cleared his throat and began to explain. The President sat back and listened.
President Allen looked at his watch. Four-thirty in the afternoon. He was tired. He needed a nap. He hadn’t yet eaten any lunch. His head pounded at the base of his skull.
So much had happened in the past ten days. The invasion of the Ukraine. The Blackjack. The Nertrav with its eleven thousand Ukrainian soldiers killed. Since then, the U.S. and Russia had done nothing but pound their chests and rattle their swords. His life had taken on a nearly surreal edge, with middle-of-the-night meetings, a panicking press, endless military and intelligence briefings, preparations to defend Western Europe, while at the same time trying to keep the hawks in Congress at bay. It had stretched him to the absolute limit.
The President pushed himself back in his chair and propped his feet up onto the desk which had once belonged to James Madison and had been used to pen a large portion of the United States Constitution. Milton Blake winced as Allen’s shoes scuffed across the antique desk, perhaps one of the most valuable pieces of furniture in the world. The President ignored the look on Blake’s face as he brought his fingers up and gently rubbed his forehead, then spoke without opening his eyes.
“Okay, I think you’ve convinced me. I think there’s a chance it could work. But now let me ask you, if this is such a great idea, then why don’t we use our own men? We have B-1 crews sitting on the end of the runway, all loaded up and ready to go. We have the assets. We have the objective. Why not give them the mission and let them go?”
Blake glanced over at Weber Coy, who cleared his throat. This was, after all, his area of expertise. He had some experience with this question before, although years ago and with another administration.
“Sir, I know you already understand why we can’t do that,” was all Coy said.
The President raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Weber. I think I do. But why don’t you go ahead and explain, just in case one or the other of us might have missed the point.”
Coy answered in an even tone, as if reciting the lines from rote memory. “Sir, during peacetime operations, it is now, and has been for more than a generation, illegal for you, or I, or anyone else within our government, to order the assassination of a foreign leader, regardless of how unpleasant or dangerous they may be. In this matter, our hands are tied. It is simply illegal.” Coy paused and then added, “Sir... as you already know.”
“So what you are suggesting is we disregard our own law,” Allen sneered. “Take matters into our own hands. Just say screw the Congress and our Constitution. It’s cowboy time! And we’re running the show.”
Coy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hated the President’s sarcasm. As long as he had known him, he still wasn’t used to it. Blake glanced over to Weber Coy. Their eyes met quickly, then Coy looked away.
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