The electric sign MEETING IN PROGRESS over the door to the Situation Room had been illuminated for hours. Inside, Hansen sat in a tall swivel chair at one end of a long table staring at a detailed map of the eastern Mediterranean now being projected on the giant screen at the end of the room. In the subdued, recessed lighting, half-drunk cups of cold coffee stood around the central teakwood table. A fourth pot was already brewing in the kitchenette, while the rotund Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Edward Briggs, had resorted to doing knee bends to stay alert.
"All right," Hansen was saying, "we've got the Special Forces in the game. That gives us a military option. But I'm wondering… maybe we should just go ahead and evacuate Souda. At the minimum get the Sixth Fleet out of there. As a safety precaution. We could manufacture some exercise that would at least get most of our assets clear."
If the bastards had a nuke, he was thinking, a well-placed hit could make Pearl Harbor look like a minor skirmish. Right now the entire complement of carriers in the Mediterranean was there, not to mention destroyers, frigates, and a classified number of aircraft. The destruction would run in the untold billions; the loss of life would be incalculable.
"Where would we deploy them?" Briggs rose, bent over one last time to stretch his muscles, then straightened. "Assuming we could get them clear within twenty-four hours, which would be pushing our luck, we'd have to figure out what to do next."
"Well, assuming there's available draft, we could deploy some of them around the island. We'd give those bastards who hijacked the place a little something to occupy their minds. Might make them think long and hard about getting back to Beirut or wherever the hell they came from."
"You're talking about a tall order. I don't think we could really mobilize and evacuate the base in that kind of time frame. And even if we could, our operations in the Med would be disrupted to the point it would take us months to recover."
"Well, Ed," the President snapped, "those are the kinds of problems you're supposedly being paid to solve. If we're not mobile, then what the hell are we doing in the Med in the first place?" The question was rhetorical, but it stung-as intended.
"I'll see if I can get a scenario ready for you by 0800 hours tomorrow." He tried not to squirm. They both knew he had already cut the orders deploying Fort Bragg's Special Forces to Souda, to be ready in case an assault was needed. The last resort. "In the meantime, I certainly could arrange for the base to go on a practice alert-cancel all leave and get everybody on a ship-out basis."
"I think you should do that, at the very least." Should I inform the Greek government? Hansen wondered again. No, let's see if this can be handled without opening a can of worms about whose sovereign rights are uppermost here. The relationship with Greece had, for all its ups and downs, been generally cordial. With any luck they would never have to be involved or, with supreme good fortune, even know…
"Then have Alicia get Johnson over at the Pentagon on the line," Briggs said, "and he can cut the orders. We've never moved this fast before, so we're about to find out where our glitches are. Don't be surprised if there aren't plenty."
"Just be happy if the American taxpayer never finds out what he's getting for his money," the President responded. "And speaking of money, we've been faxed a string of account numbers for a bank in Geneva. This is going to have to come out of a budget somewhere, so who do I stiff to pay off these bastards? Or make them temporarily think I'm paying them off. It's got to be some discretionary fund that has minimal accountability. And I don't want the CIA within a mile of this: that place is like a sieve."
Briggs pondered. "I can probably come up with the money by juggling some of the active accounts in Procurement. Cash flow is a marvelous thing if it's handled right. You can rob Peter to pay Paul, and then make Peter whole by robbing somebody else. Then the end of the fiscal year comes around and you withhold payment from some contractor while you hold an 'investigation.'" He smiled. "Believe me, there are ways."
The President wasn't smiling. "Don't tell me. I don't think I want to hear this. But if you're going to play bingo with the books, then you'd damned well better do it quick, and on the QT."
"That'll be the easiest part. I've already got some ideas."
"Just make sure I don't end up with another Iran-Contra brouhaha on my neck. I won't be able to plead senility and let a few fall guys take the rap."
Briggs had foreseen as well the glare of television lights in the Senate hearing room. Worse still, it did not take too challenging a flight of imagination to figure out who would end up being the patsy. He would have to fall on his sword to protect the Presidency. Washington had a grand tradition of that. He could kiss good-bye to a comfortable retirement in Arizona next to a golf link.
"You can be sure I will take the utmost care, Mr. President." And he was smiling even though Hansen was not.
"All right, now about the Special Forces. Once we get them to Souda Bay, I want a quick rehearsal and then I want them deployed just offshore, on the Kennedy, ready to move. Which means that whatever support they'll need has to be ready by the time they arrive. What have you got on that?"
"A task force shipped out for Souda tonight, Mr. President. Their C-130 is already in the air. The problems are at the other end. Once they're in-theater, we're still looking at a prep time of twelve hours, minimum. There's just no way they can mount an assault any sooner than that."
The President winced, already thinking about his other problem. If they did have a nuclear device, or devices, whose was it? The signs all pointed in one direction. The Israelis claimed the stolen Iranian Hind had stopped over in Pakistan. There probably was no need to look any further. But now he needed somehow to get a confirmation. Or was the threat of a bomb just a hoax?
He had a meeting at ten o'clock in the morning with the Pakistani ambassador. It would have to be handled delicately, with a lot of circumlocutions and diplomatic niceties, but he damn well intended to get some plain answers.