Sudden Threat (36 page)

“World peace will suffer,” Diamond added.

“We need to destroy Iraq so that we can rebuild it as a shining beacon of democracy on a hill in the heart of the Middle East,” Fox said.

The two men were machine-gunning Stone. They sensed that they needed to close him the way a real-estate agent gets a skittish buyer to sign the contract.

“Baghdad’s in a valley; the Euphrates River Valley. You guys aren’t even making any sense. Do you have any idea of what is happening in the world? Democracy in the Middle East is important, but can’t we wait a year? Develop a plan, maybe?”

“CIA says it’s a slam dunk. We need to go,” Fox said.

“What
is
a slam dunk is that Al Qaeda is still on the loose. We’ve captured or killed a few midlevel functionaries, but the big fish have just changed streams,” Stone said.

“Al Qaeda is incapacitated,” Fox said.

“Out of commission,” Diamond reiterated.

“Is this how you really feel?” Fox asked Stone. “Are you jumping ship?”

Stone sighed. Where were the Rolling Stones when he needed them? One might be dead; another was half a world away. Maybe Ronnie Wood would come to his rescue. He was really the most powerful of them all, but had asked for the Wood pseudonym to further disguise his participation. If Wood was ever found out, well, the whole thing might come tumbling down. That left Stone to carry the weight of the counterplan on his own shoulders.

“You guys are killing me,” Stone said, ignoring the question. “I’ve just ordered a Navy SEAL team to check out the ships the Japanese have supposedly loaded with tanks and helicopters.”

“All conventional weapons. Iraq’s got nukes,” Diamond said. “And, we’ll need the SEALS to get into Basra and other port areas immediately.”

“Yellow cake, aluminum tubes and rockets,” Fox sang.

Stone thought he might hear Fox mutter an “Oh my” à la
The Wizard of Oz
. He turned away and looked out of his window. He could see the Washington Monument standing erect in the middle of the Mall.

Yes, as soon as he could shake his leg loose from these two terriers, he would call Ronnie Wood and talk things through.

Indeed, it was rock and roll, but he sure didn’t like it just then.

Stone watched Diamond
and Fox depart, then ordered Meredith to report to his office immediately. He was going to see Ronnie Wood, and she could come in handy.

As the last person to see Rathburn alive, Meredith could be valuable to him, Stone figured. First, he didn’t know what, if anything, she knew about the Rolling Stones. Second, she would deflect attention from him. He had been concerned lately about being too obvious. And, if nothing else, she was beautiful, and that would cheer him up.

They made the quick trip to the Old Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House. It was an overly ornate structure, almost a medieval eyesore amidst the modern office buildings.

There they met Vice President Hellerman, who deemed it necessary to give the briefing personally to President Davis. He ordered the National Command Authority to convene in the White House Situation Room, a small room with a cherry conference table and a white phone where the president sits.

Eventually, the service chiefs of staff, the CJCS, SecDef, vice president, Central Intelligence Agency director, and Meredith all huddled around the table. The secretary of state was already on his way to Japan to discuss regional security issues and possible economic sanctions against the Philippines.

Meredith was dumbstruck. In her inexpensive dress, not a women’s power suit, with a stack of papers and books tucked in her arms, she looked like a schoolgirl. She felt like the country bumpkin that she was. She was clearly much younger than every other person in the room.

They all stood when the president entered, then sat quickly when he waved his hand at the group. The chief executive sat at the head of the table with the vice president on his right and the national security advisor on his left. Stone was next to the vice president and across from Sewell, the CJCS, and Frank Lantini, the CIA director. The chiefs of staff filled the other seats, with Meredith awkwardly positioned at the other end of the table, providing a weak counterbalance to the president, who was opposite her.

“I know almost everybody,” President Davis said in his smooth Southern drawl, looking at Hellerman, who smiled and stood.

“This is Ms. Meredith Morris. She’s an analyst, is it, with Bart Rathburn’s group?”

 Meredith stood, bashfully.

“No, sir. I’m his special assistant. I handle a broad range of issues for Mr. Rathburn.”

“I bet,” the Air Force chief of staff whispered loud enough for most to hear, prompting a scowl from the president.

“Everybody’s got to start somewhere, Ace.” The president smiled.

“Okay. Let’s proceed. The situation, as my national security advisor has advised me, is this: The Abu Sayyaf has taken control of the Philippines, President Cordero is in jail, Secretary Rathburn and two others are hostages.” The president went down the checklist as if he were grocery shopping.

Meredith winced when she heard Matt’s name fall into the “others” category.

“We have a Special Forces team on Mindanao and an infantry company on Luzon. We lost fifteen women, some military and some civilian, on an airplane at the Manila International Airport. The Japanese have arranged for us to use Subic Bay Naval Base for the next two days as an airport of debarkation only. No ships, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Sewell responded. “That’s a good summary. It’s also important to let you know that we have developed a joint task force under the command of Admiral Dave Jennings; he’s with Pacific Com-mand. Right now he’s got the majority of a light infantry brigade and division headquarters in Guam, a Marine expeditionary force moving south from Okinawa through the East China Sea, and a naval carrier group steaming from the Indian Ocean. They should be in the South China Sea in two days. We’ve got the fighter and bomber wings at Guam on alert. And, of course, portions of the Ranger regiment are waiting on the airstrip in Guam.”

“Okay, but we plan on a simple extraction of our personnel, correct? I mean, we just start flying airplanes in and taking them out. Right?” the president said. “I can see no reason for becoming militarily involved in the Philippines unless we can’t get all of our people out. I still want to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan as the main front in the Global War on Terror. I don’t want anything to divert our attention there.”

Meredith was convinced that he passionately believed what he was saying.

“We want democracy and market systems in the world, but not at the expense of American lives. While we prefer democracy, but communism is no longer our enemy, and last time I checked, these rebels were really communists just trying to hook on to the Muslim thing. So, it’s like Cuba suddenly saying, ‘Hey, me too.’ So, if these communists cum Islamists want to have it, then let’s find a way to contain it and get after the real threat.”

The president looked around the room and continued, “The point is that we will be able to use other forms of power to influence whatever regime is in control of the Philippines. We should let the Philippines go through the growing pains of revolution, assisting them in ensuring human rights and economic prosperity if possible.”

Communism?
Meredith was certain everyone in the room was having the same thought.
Where is he getting that from? Sure, they were communists twenty years ago, but Islamic fundamentalism has always been an issue in the Philippines
. Meredith leaned back in her chair as if blown away in slow motion.
And what about the Japan angle? Hasn’t anyone mentioned that to the president? If not, I wouldn’t want that ass-chewing afterward.

Sewell looked at Stone, motioning for him to take charge. There was something in the exchange that piqued Meredith’s curiosity.
What was it? A knowing look? A familiarity?
After all, they were counterparts. Davis also saw the interchange and asked the secretary of defense to respond.

“Sir, there has been a development that warrants our discussion in this forum. It significantly muddies the waters if our intelligence turns out to be true,” Stone explained, looking at Lantini.

“Go ahead,” President Davis said, kicking back in his chair with his hands behind his head and briefly resting against the nearby wall that made the room so cramped.

“We just received an intelligence report from the Special Forces team in Mindanao that they captured a Japanese auto executive jogging.”

The group chuckled, unaware.

“This executive, it appears, had been in Mindanao for six months”—Stone paused, looking at the rest of the group—“operating a massive assembly line making tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, small arms, and ammunition. The whole operation’s been going on nearly two years.” Stone stopped, then added the stipulation: “According to the report.”

“What!” McNulty, the Air Force chief of staff responded. “That’s bullshit!” He had served as the commander of the Thirty-fifth Fighter Wing at Misawa Air Base in Japan.

“All we know is that we got the spot report through about ten different parties,” Stone said, “but I brought Meredith here to discuss some of the background and even some of the implications.”

“Really, Bob, a secretary? I’ve heard of sleeping your way to the top, but this is ridiculous,” McNulty retorted.

“I resent that,” Meredith said, angrily. She stood amidst the all-male gathering, tucked her hair behind her ears, and glared at the general, who turned red. She did not need his harassment, and she was certainly not there for the prestige or to get a job. She wanted to help. She had the answer and she knew it. President Davis was about to speak, but Meredith began by slapping her notes onto the table.

“Pardon me, Mr. President,” she said, the president motioning for her to continue, smiling at her brashness. “But that little spot report confirms what our intelligence has been missing for the past two years.” Lantini glared at her as she picked up a stack of papers stapled together and passed them around. “I mean, it’s bad enough we get our jockstraps handed to us on Nine-eleven, but it’s about to happen again.

“In these packets, you’ll see copies of newspaper articles that discuss Japanese mining activities in Mindanao. The next page shows Japanese mining imports remaining the same over the period of alleged activity. The next page shows Japanese oil-tanker activity in the Davao City port. And the last page is a newspaper article concerning an oil find on Palawan Island, Republic of the Philippines.”

She tossed another stack at McNulty. “These papers show Japanese economic statistics. Declining population plus declining trade plus declining resources equals declining economy.”

With dramatic effect, she said, “When your entire security environment revolves around your economy and your ability simply to buy protection from others, our shift toward the Middle East and a reduction in economic growth combine to form a severe threat to Japan’s national security.” She paused for a breath and let the men thumb through the packets. When the president finished reading, she continued.

“So what the Japanese have done is to exploit the Abu Sayyaf revolution. They produced weapons for them, giving them more of a chance to overthrow the government—”

“Missy, why didn’t they just attack the Philippines if that’s what they want?” McNulty whined.

“General, if you’d ever read Sun Tzu, you would know that the ultimate form of strategy is to win without fighting,” she said. Meredith had taken a military theory course as part of her political science curriculum at Virginia Tech and had read Sun Tzu along with Clausewitz’s
On War
, which now made a superb doorstop in her closet. “So why not arm the rebels, stage a show of force in the East China Sea, ask the U.S. to watch the pending conflict between China and Taiwan, let the coup happen, then step in with tanks and helicopters to subdue the country?”

Stone thought to himself,
Holy shit. Has she been talking to the Rolling Stones? How much else does she know?

“Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,” Lantini said, looking at Stone. Meredith knew that as CIA director, Lantini, who during his heyday was an impressive college linebacker at Boston College, would feel upstaged by her conclusions based upon simple open source research.

“I don’t know,” Rolfing, the Marine comman-dant, replied, “let’s hear her out.”

“Well, everything I said is true up to the point of what happens after the coup.”

“Why would they let Americans be killed. Wouldn’t that jeopardize this plan of yours?” McNulty commented dismissively.

“It’s not my plan, sir. The Abu Sayyaf, like Al Qaeda, are very decentralized. They probably didn’t get the word or just didn’t care about hurting Americans. I mean, how many of you knew we had an infantry company in Subic guarding ammo, or a Special Forces team in Mindanao?” Meredith asked.

Stone wanted to scream:
Know! Hell I sent them there. You’re carrying my water and doing great. Keep going!
He glanced at Ronnie Wood, who had a pensive look on his face, and winked.

“You’ve got a lot to learn about talking to superiors, young lady,” the Air Force general said.

“And you’ve got a lot to learn about listening when you’re wrong, sir,” Meredith responded, fully expecting to be asked to leave the room. Davis saved her.

“She might be right, you know,” the president said, taking control. “We need a way to verify this.”

Stone picked up on the cue quickly. “Sir, we’ve located the ships that Meredith identified as going into the Davao City port and supposedly leaving with oil or minerals. They all are suspiciously anchored just off the Luzon Strait. Talking with Bill here, I thought we’d send some SEALs in to board one of the ships and see what’s on them.”

“Good idea,” Davis responded. “What if Japan really is trying to pull a fast one on us? What do we do? What’s our new strategy? How does this compare to the threat of Islamic terrorism and its potential nexus with weapons of mass destruction?”