"I do," a helpful voice said.
"And who is this?"
"Chattaway. NRO."
"Go ahead, Mr. Chattaway."
"Our latest satellite imaging shows the Mexicans have not moved in the last twenty-four hours."
"Thank you," the general said in a frosty voice. "I already have that intelligence on my desk."
"Never hurts to reconfirm, as they say over at State."
"That will be all," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before he hung up. A fresh cup of coffee was suddenly at his elbow. He sniffed it before tasting. It smelled like boysenberry fudge swirl, but when he tasted it he decided it was probably cranberry mocha.
Whatever it was, it was going to have to pass for breakfast. There was a lot to do.
Chapter Twenty-nine
If the president of Macedonia—a country referred to insistently as FYR Macedonia by the hostile world and the spineless United Nations—understood one thing, it was the value of a trademark.
Men had gotten wealthy all over the world prior to the emergence of multinational corporations by having the foresight to trademark the name of a famous foreign—usually American—product in the days when American products were confined to America. As the great corporations expanded, they found no serious competition for their colas or their breakfast cereals, just grubby little men who came crawling out of the woodwork bearing legal papers and claiming to have registered the trademark of Pepsi Cola or some such in their native land.
The mighty American companies, having a product and no right to their own name in an alien land, did what their lawyers told them they must do. Buy their own trademark at a dear price or cede rich new market territories to these competitors.
This was the problem the president of Macedonia faced in the wake of the breakup of embattled, fractured Yugoslavia. Suddenly there was no Yugoslavia. Just Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, all of whom quickly and with great relish began tearing chunks off one another's territories until there was no hope of putting the pieces back together again. Ever.
To survive in this vacuum, the president of what was then the Yugoslavian province of Macedonia understood that he would need a name. One to conjure with. For his patch of the former Yugoslavia lay at the crossroads of the Balkans and was subject to being gobbled up by Greece, Turkey, Albania or Bulgaria, all of whom historically had designs on the area or on their nationals living within it.
And so naturally he chose the name Macedonia, taking the ancient Macedonian symbol of a sixteen-pointed sunburst star—the Sun of Vergina—as its flag.
There seemed no reason not to. No one else was using it. No one had before expressed a problem with a province called Macedonia—even though the historical Macedon of Alexander sprawled over what were today four separate modern nations.
So with the stroke of a pen Macedonia reemerged as a nation once again.
And suddenly a country with untrained conscripts, no tanks or warplanes and no war chest was perceived as a dire threat to mighty Greece and a natural ally of Greece's Balkan rivals, Bulgaria and Albania and Turkey, who themselves didn't get along.
Greece closed it borders. Bulgaria courted Macedonia. Everyone coveted it. To keep order, five hundred U.S. soldiers had to be imported as a protective buffer—which everyone knew might become the tripwire to a new Balkan conflict that could lead to a third great European war.
Applying for admittance to the United Nations, Macedonia was forced to accept the official designation Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, whose disputed flag was the only member state flag in history ever to be barred from flying before the UN Buildings.
It was a slap in the face. The prince among ancient nations was reduced to being the geographical equivalent of the singer formerly known as Prince.
And with the world nervously eyeing this toothless upstart nation, the President of Macedonia had begun to conclude he might better have taken the name Lower Slobovia. That trademark was no longer in force, he understood.
Until his ambassador called from New York City.
"I am flying home at once. You must recall me."
"Why must I recall you?" the president asked.
"Because the Master of Sinanju has returned to the world stage."
"A Master lives?"
"He lives, breathes, speaks and has offered his services to the highest bidder."
"Which cannot be us, I must remind you."
"Sinanju worked for Philip of Macedon. Possibly Alexander, too. Perhaps a yearning for the old days will entice him to Skopje."
In Skopje the president looked out of his office windows at the running River Vardar and his heart swelled. The nostalgia all Macedonians felt for the old days of glory was more potent than ever.
Surely, he thought, agreeing to recall his ambassador to discuss the matter further, the Master of Sinanju would feel the tug and pull of such days in his noble heart.
Chapter Thirty
When the next NOIWON came, the JCS chair was asleep in his chair, his head thrown back, his mouth open and snoring like a water buffalo.
"General, another NOIWON."
Snorting, the general pulled himself together, fumbled his wire-frame glasses onto his nose and asked the aide, "Does this concern the Mexico crisis?"
"I don't know."
"Ask."
"Yes, sir."
The aide came back saying, "It's not about Mexico, General."
"In that case, you take it."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. And I want a complete summary within the hour."
"Yes, General."
"And don't disturb me again if it isn't Mexico or the President. In that order."
And the JCS chair leaned back, folded his hands over his olive green gut and resumed snorting at the ceiling.
When he awoke two hours later, he was completely refreshed and summoned his chief aide by intercom.
"Coffee and that NOIWON summary. In that order."
"Mocha almond fudge or banana hazelnut?"
"Java. Black."
Sipping the steaming beverage, the JCS chair leaned back in his seat as the aide summarized the most recent NOIWON.
"CIA says the North Koreans have announced development of a new defensive weapon, Sinanju Chongal. 'Chongal' means 'scorpion.'"
"What's our source?"
"Rodong Shinmum."
"There's that word again." The general's face gathered. "Isn't Rodong their top-of-the-line ballistic missile?"
"I believe that's Nodong, sir."
"I seem to recall it's spelled 'Rodong,' but it's pronounced 'Nodong.' I wonder if there's a connection."
"Shall I look into it?"
The general frowned. "Skip it," he grunted, gesturing for the aide to continue his report.
"The Russians have claimed a weapon of their own. Zholti Zarnitsa. It means 'Yellow Lightning.'"
The general frowned more deeply. "Sounds to me like the Russian equivalent of White Lightning."
And the aide allowed himself a faint military smile.
"Goon."
"The British also claim to have developed what they call 'a frightful new weapon that will revolutionize modern warfare.' Their name for this device is the Wissex Vole."
"Wissex Vole?"
"Wissex is a town or county. Vole is some sort of burrowing animal, like a mole."
"The British possess a secret weapon that burrows! Could that be a ground missile? Something with a drill for a warhead."
"Seems unlikely. It might be just a name," the aide replied.
"What else?"
"The Turks call theirs the Whirling Dervish. The Germans, Donar. The Danes, Votan. Macedonia has Sveti Perun. These appellations all seem to be mythology-based code names."
"Is that all?" the general prompted.
"No. There are 121 others, much like the previous NOIWON."
"Do we have anything concrete, anything we've heard about before?" asked the JCS chair.