Such public outings had ensured that such units were harder and harder to organize, often branded as being government ‘kill squads’. The disgraced ex-Director of National Intelligence, Charles Hansard, had therefore come up with a new system — take men and women who were ‘off the books’ ex-military personnel and use them as so-called ‘contract laborers’ with no connection back to the US government. Cole himself had been such an operative, until Hansard had turned rogue and tried to have him killed.
Cole recognized the two problems — an official group was too open to be truly effective, while a more independent operation was wide open for abuse. And this was where Force One came in, what Cole hoped would be a happy compromise between the two — an official group, but sanctioned only by a select few government insiders. The only people outside of Force One who knew of its existence were President Abrams, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Olsen, and the Director of National Intelligence, Catalina dos Santos. Olsen was able to mobilize military assets on Force One’s behalf, while dos Santos could provide intelligence from every US agency for the unit’s use. And although the president ultimately decided on how the unit was going to be used, all three had to approve its missions, in order to avoid the scandals that had followed Hansard’s use of his own private army.
Lieutenant General Miley Cooper, Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, also had a pretty good idea of what was going on due to the nature of his involvement as head of the special operations community, but he was not part of the ‘official’ group. He knew to authorize whatever Olsen requested, and was happy not knowing anything else; it was safer that way.
Briefings were given by the three people together, to make sure that one of them wasn’t going off solo, and the existence of the unit was enshrined in a secret presidential directive — the successors of Abrams, Olsen and dos Santos wouldn’t be able to disband it unless there was another presidential directive made to do so. They wouldn’t have to use the unit, but at least its existence was secure. In any case, it would be nearly four years until another election, and Cole was sure he’d be able to do some useful work in that time, no matter what happened next.
Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, Cole reflected as the polished mahogany door to the Oval Office was opened by a uniformed Marine, but it was definitely the best solution anyone had come up with so far.
Cole had handpicked a team that would stack up against anyone else in the world, he had full presidential approval, he had the backing of the military and the intelligence underworld, and to top it all off he had the combined benefits of government back-up with full anonymity.
Yes, Cole thought to himself as he entered the Oval Office, it just didn’t get any better than that.
‘So what’s the situation?’ Cole asked, accepting the coffee cup from the Navy steward with a nod of thanks.
They were in the president’s private study, the four of them occupying the easy chairs which had been crammed into the small space, a room off the short corridor that led to Abrams’ private dining room.
President Ellen Abrams waited until they were alone before she answered. ‘It’s not good, Mark. It’s not good at all.’
Cole wasn’t surprised; he wasn’t called in unless something was very badly wrong.
‘Thank you for your work with Haynes and the AU, by the way,’ Abrams said. ‘Noah tells me that the bureau will be able to wrap up the entire organization before Christmas.’ Noah Graham was the Director of the FBI, and the man directly responsible for countering homegrown terrorist groups such as the AU.
Cole nodded. ‘A nice present for someone.’
Abrams smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A very nice present indeed.’ She tapped a manila folder on the large desk between them. ‘But we now have something far more serious to deal with, I’m afraid.’
Cole knew the basic outline of the situation after reading the papers and magazines on the flight from Tucson, and in his experience such media outlets could often be more reliable than professional intelligence reports.
There had been some sort of coup in the People’s Republic of China, a general named Wu De was now proclaiming himself Paramount Leader, both Tsang Feng and Fang Zemin were presumed dead — probably by Wu’s own hand — and the entire Tsang government was now imprisoned in an unknown location while Wu’s own men took control of the country.
Cole had been horrified to find out what had been going on over the past couple of days; it was truly a nightmare scenario, made all the worse by what had happened in the East China Sea.
The Gerald R. Ford had been incapacitated by a missile strike from China, and was now listing, helpless, off her coastline. The papers had been unclear about rescue attempts.
‘What’s going on with the Ford?’ Cole asked.
Olsen shook his head sadly. He was a big man, cramped by the small room, and Cole felt sorry for him — as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he was directly responsible for the US military, which included the Ford. He knew the man would be dying to lash out and strike at something, but couldn’t; not yet anyway. The waiting must be killing him, Cole guessed, and the lines etched over Olsen’s craggy face just confirmed it.
‘Damage report isn’t promising,’ he said. ‘The missile did major damage to the rear portion of the ship, completely taking out the propellers. She can’t move, and she can’t fly her aircraft. Watertight compartments were sealed off immediately, but we’ve lost two hundred and fifty-six men and women — so far. Medical personnel are struggling to cope with the nearly six hundred other casualties that have resulted from the impact. Wu and the new Chinese government have refused to allow us to unload the casualties, so onboard medical personnel have to deal with the problem alone for now. And then there’s the desalination plant.’
Cole raised an eyebrow — as an ex-Navy SEAL, he knew about ships, and how important the desalination plant was, especially to one the size of the Ford. Without it, there would be no useable drinking water, a threat almost as serious as another hit by the Dong Feng.
‘The plant should be producing four hundred thousand gallons a day,’ Olsen said. ‘That’s what’s needed for a crew the size of the Ford’s. But it appears to have been damaged by the blast, and even with repairs is now incapable of treating more than fifty thousand gallons, eight times less than she needs. Captain Meadows has everyone rationed, showers are banned, they’re doing everything they can to conserve water, but — well, the bottom line is that things aren’t good.’
‘The members of the crew are hostages, in effect,’ Abrams said. ‘Wu denies that the missile was fired on purpose, claiming that it was a training error, and at the moment we can’t prove otherwise. But at the same time, Wu has issued notice that we are invading his territorial waters, and has told the rest of the Ford carrier group to back off, or else.’
Abrams sighed. ‘What can we do? The threat is clear — back off, or he kills the Ford for real, and we lose more than four thousand of our people; there’s no way we could get to it in time, repair it, offload the personnel, before he could blow it clean out of the water.’
‘Added to which,’ Olsen said, ‘he seems to have gained effective control over the entire military — China has naval and air superiority in the area, and we daren’t make a move just yet. The risks are too great, and we’d stand to lose a great deal more besides.’