A sharp pain shot through the southerner’s stomach — his newfound ulcer was acting up — and continued straight up to his temples. The entire evening was grinding him down, something that usually happened only when his wife was being difficult. His entire adult life was in politics. Southern politics — down-and-dirty, rough-and-tumble, the worst kind. Southern politicians in an election were about as nice as starving junkyard pit bulls. It was constant work, constant attention to every detail, constant pressure, just to stay in office. He had never been in the military, but twenty years in public service was, he had always thought, like being in the military. It was a way of life, not just a job.
But being the President of the United States was like politics and military service combined, only amplified a thousand times.
All day long there had been a constant procession of people telling him he was wrong, and that exacerbated the ulcer even more. First he heard it from the Joint Chiefs of Staff — all of them. They all had plans on what to do, but one thing was for certain: they wanted more. No more bit-by-bit military expeditions — the Joint Chiefs wanted a Desert Storm-type mobilization and deployment. Nothing else would be acceptable. Orchestrated by President George Bush, the 1991 war with Iraq was fought with massive overwhelming strength, and it was over in one hundred days — never mind that they had unlimited fuel, six months to prepare, a third-rate opponent, and it had cost U.S. taxpayers sixty billion dollars. Led by the President, the Islamic Wars of 1993 were fought with units and weapons brought into the theater over a period of several months, and it lasted almost a year — same result, same casualty rate, but it cost only twenty billion. The Yugoslavian question had been stalemated for years until Germany led large numbers of NATO forces into that country, and the peace had lasted for almost a year now. That one cost the U.S. virtually nothing — except its leadership role in Europe, ceded over to a strong, reunified Germany.
Next came the senior senators and representatives, the Congressional “leadership.” Most advocated caution. But they also liked it when the President and General Freeman from the Pentagon briefed them on the multinational skirmish in the Black Sea that had just taken place, which netted two Russian destroyers, a frigate, a guided-missile cruiser, an aircraft cruiser, and a Russian AWACS radar plane. Although they had lost two American planes — and the Ukrainians and Turks had lost none — the payback for the attack on the Turkish ships and the gratitude of the Turkish government for the RF-111Gs’ action was a tremendous boost to everyone’s spirits, and they were asking the President for more. Perhaps another aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps two more. Two hundred thousand troops to be sent to Europe — but not any closer than Belgium or Norway. F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16C Falcon bombers deployed to England, but none to Germany, and perhaps more F-111s deployed to Turkey. They loved the F-111, the Turks said. America was retiring and boneyarding all the F-111 Aardvarks anyway — why not sell them to Turkey?
Now he was just finishing up with the third group: the political advisers and media consultants from the President’s party. “Economic sanctions of course,” the party chairman was saying. “Sends a strong message, lots of feedback in the news, fairly safe, lots of play.”
“But if the leadership is so rabid over the apparent success of the air attacks against those Russian ships, why not go for it?” a media type said, tipping his mug of coffee to the First Lady, who gave him a disdainful glare in return. “You hit the media with strong leadership, bold decisions, decisive actions, all designed to look good to the voters during the upcoming election year. This proves what you’ve been saying all along, Mr. President — limited-action military responses can be successful.”
“We lost two RF-111G aircraft in that attack,” General Freeman interjected. “That probably sounds like a trivial number to you—”
“Hey, General, don’t go putting words in my mouth,” the media hack said. “I’m sorry for what happened. But to me, the loss was pretty small and the results were pretty dramatic.”
“The unit we sent over lost two of its twenty-four crewmembers and one-sixth of their aircraft in one night, dammit!” Freeman thundered. “The Russians figured out what was going on almost immediately and shut down their radars, which makes antiradar weapons completely ineffective.”
“We can replace the aircraft and crewmembers, General,” the party chairman said. “Those men knew—”
“And women,” Freeman interjected.
Freeman’s comment froze the party chairman in midsentence — he had completely forgotten women were involved in the conflict. “One of the crewmembers lost was a woman …?”
“I briefed you ten minutes ago, sir, that the pilot on one of the planes shot down was First Lieutenant Paula Norton.” He watched the chairman’s eyes grow wide — everyone had heard of Paula Norton. “She was practically a one-person recruiting operation for the Air Force Reserves. Your son probably has a poster of her in his room.”
“Let’s stick with the subject, which is what to do about any further Russian aggression.” The President sighed, dipping into a bag of Fritos sitting next to a glass of Coke.
“Excuse me, sir, but the question is not what to do about further Russian aggression,” Freeman said. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was going to be burning a very big bridge. “We need to discuss, uh, leadership of this crisis. Mr. President, what do you want to do about this?”
“I think the President’s views are clear on this subject, General,” the First Lady interjected, glaring at Freeman. “The President wants the Russians to stop making war on former Soviet republics and stop threatening our allies.”
“I know that, ma’am. My thought is, we need to formulate a plan. We need to establish thresholds of action. We need to build consensus and a sense of purpose. What we’ve done so far is symbolic and reactive — we’re responding after something happens instead of anticipating and planning what may happen, and what we’ll do about it if it happens.”
“Well, how in the hell are we supposed to do that, General?” the President mumbled, the frustration obvious in his voice. “Who would’ve expected the Russians to invade a fellow CIS member — that’s like America invading Canada or England, for God’s sake! And who would’ve known they’d use nuclear weapons?” Little bits of Fritos were flying out of his mouth onto the desk.
“We have some of the best minds in the world working for you in the Pentagon, in the State Department, and right here in the White House,” Freeman responded. “We can give you our estimate of what we think the Russians will do next. But it’s a very broad list, so our planned response will be sweeping.”
“Including mobilizing and deploying hundreds of thousands of troops, I suppose,” the First Lady interjected, picking lint off her pants suit.
“I submit, ma’am, that the Russians’ course of action, especially their use of low-yield nuclear weapons, means we need to prepare for an equal or greater military response and hope that we can solve this with a peaceful response,” Freeman answered. “The Russians set the precedent here, and I haven’t seen any sign of letting up. We have little choice but to prepare for an escalation of hostilities — and work like hell to avoid them.”
The phone on the President’s desk rang. “Yes …? Okay, just for a minute.” The President’s physician entered the Oval Office, shook his head in obvious disapproval, and had the President use a hand-held finger-cuff device to measure his blood pressure and pulse.