The young Ukrainian officer decided he was too disgusted by this guy to hang around for another second. “I will go and inspect my crews now, sir,” Tychina said to Sivarek, snapping to attention and saluting. Sivarek returned the salute. “Again, sir, I thank you for helping my country. My countrymen will never forget it. And I apologize for the conduct of my officers; they meant no disrespect to you or your country.” Tychina turned and rendered a salute to Eyers, who simply nodded in return, then departed.
“He is a very brave and determined young man, no?” Sivarek asked Eyers after the Ukrainian had left.
“I think he’s a peasant in a flight suit,” Eyers concluded. He opened the door, then chuckled to himself. “Russia invading the United States — that’s a laugh,” he said. “I don’t know what you see in that kid, General.” Sivarek joined in Eyers’ laughter as he saw the American to the door and closed it behind him — then ceased his laughing and gave Eyers an obscene “fig” finger — clenching his fist, then poking his thumb out between the index and middle fingers — behind his back.
“I see a fighting spirit that you lost long ago, you pompous American ass,” Sivarek said half-aloud. When Sivarek’s clerk returned after seeing the American off, the General told him in Turkish, “I want a meeting of the wing staff at oh-six-hundred hours, and I want Captain Yilmez to give me a complete report of the status of those Ukrainian weapons. Do it immediately.”
TWENTY-NINE
“This is a rather serious turn of events, Mr. President,” Vitaly Velichko, President of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, said. His English was very good — he was educated both in England and the United States — and it felt a bit strange for the American president to hear a British-sounding accent on the other end of the line and then remind himself that he was talking to a Russian.
“Now, you’re not getting upset about a few F-111 reconnaissance planes goin’ to Turkey, are you, Mr. President?” the Chief Executive drawled, his feet propped up on the desk John F. Kennedy had once used and that he’d brought out of storage after his inauguration. He popped some M&Ms into his mouth from a big crystal jar on his desk. He glanced around the Oval Office, listening to the Russian president, but visually taking in his surroundings, ignoring those advisers present for this phone call. Even now, in the midst of an international crisis, he never ceased to be amazed that he’d made it here in the first place. A governor from what so many laughingly called a hillbilly, inbred state, with more than a few skeletons in his personal closet, the pundits had called him a dark horse from the start. Laughed off. Well, they sure as hell weren’t laughing anymore. His eyes focused on a sculpture on a Federal table by the polycarbonate, bullet-resistant-windowed French doors leading to the Rose Garden. The sculpture was a replica of Rodin’s “The Thinker.”
Just what the President reminded himself he needed to be doing now. “We deploy these planes all the time to Turkey and you never seem to mind — heck, we landed them in Riga that one time last year, and a hundred thousand people came out to see them. And after all, Vitaly, they’re just Reservists.” He crunched a bit more on the M&Ms.
“We have great respect for both your Reserve forces and for your weapon systems, Mr. President,” Velichko said firmly. “Our general staff has modeled our new air force after your excellent Enhanced Reserve Program, and, as everyone knows, the F-111 is one of the world’s premier medium bombers.”
“They’re not bombers, Mr. President, they’re reconnaissance planes.”
“Ah. Forgive me, sir. Perhaps my information is faulty. I assumed there was only one model of the RF-111G Vampire bomber based at Plattsburgh, New York, and that the six planes you have on nuclear alert there are the same as the twelve planes that you call reconnaissance planes that are being deployed to Turkey. I must instruct my staff at once to double-check their information for accuracy.”
“They’re not the same plane, Mr. President. We’re sending reconnaissance planes only to Turkey, that’s all,” he said, sinking back in his seat in frustration. He released the “dead man” button on his telephone and said to the others in the Oval Office, “Christ, I didn’t even know how many damned F-111s we had at Plattsburgh — how in hell does he know all this stuff?”
“We released all that information to the press, as part of your openness policy and as a provision of the new START treaty, sir,” Secretary of Defense Donald Scheer said. “I think it’s smart for the American people and the Russians to know exactly how many weapons we have on alert.”
“Yeah, but someone forgot to tell me,” the President snapped, all but spitting out the remains of an M&M.
“Mr. President, be that as it may, the Congress of the People here still have very grave reservations about this deployment,” Velichko continued. “I’m sure you understand our concerns. I have tried to express my total assurance to you that the bombing raids on the military installations in the Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania were an unfortunate and deeply regrettable incident, purely isolated attacks, and will not be repeated. All of our nuclear forces were at full peacetime readiness, which is to say that no strategic forces were operational except for the six hundred launchers and three thousand warheads authorized under the START treaty, and that neither the United States nor NATO was ever in danger.
“That of course has changed since your country and those nuclear powers in NATO have mobilized additional strategic weapons. We fully understand this reaction, we accept it, we have notified you and NATO of our response, and we will not respond in kind but at a greatly lower level than NATO. However, we are very disturbed by this latest move. The deployment of strategic nuclear forces to Turkey is a clear violation of the START treaty and a serious escalation of tensions.”
“Mr. President, let me assure you, we are not trying to threaten or intimidate anyone,” the American president said. “The F-111s are conducting a routine deployment in support of NATO operations. We—”
“Excuse me, Mr. President, but you said they were F-111 aircraft?”
“Yes, that’s what I said, they’re F-111s.” But he paused when he saw one of Scheer’s aides shaking his head. The President released the cutoff button. “What? They’re not F-111s …?”
“Sir, they’re RF-111G aircraft,” the aide said. “There is a distinction. The RF-111G is a reconnaissance and defense-suppression aircraft with a strike capability—the F-111 is a strike aircraft.”
“Well, hell, that’s just a difference in wording.”
“Sir, it’s as different as the Tupolev-22M maritime-interdiction aircraft the Russians sent to Cuba, and the Tupolev-26 supersonic bomber,” Army general Philip Freeman said. “Technically they’re the same plane, but the Tu-22M is considered a maritime reconnaissance and interdiction aircraft only, not a land bomber. Both sides are allowed to send reconnaissance aircraft to forward operating locations, but not strategic offensive aircraft. Calling the RF-111G Vampire aircraft an F-111 bomber is technically an admission that we’re violating the treaty.”
The President rolled his eyes again in irritation, dipping his hand back into the crystal jar. “What bullshit.” He keyed the button on the phone and said, “Excuse me, Mr. President, I meant they’re RF-111G aircraft. They’re reconnaissance planes only.”