Major Ralph Cooper felt the connection separate a few yards behind his head. The KC-10’s refueling boom rose above the F-106, the light on its nozzle end shining through the cockpit’s angular canopy onto Snoopy’s white helmet.
Several individual vapor streams, the remnants of the tricky nighttime refueling maneuver, trailed off of the rubbery connector fitting which was retracting farther into the flying boom of the dark green Air Force tanker. Her refueling and anti-collision lights both dazzled Cooper’s vision and lit up the underside of the flying behemoth against the star-flecked blackness.
“Romeo, you took about seven-zero-zero gallons,” the boom operator reported. That brought the Delta Dart up to her max internal load of 1,514 gallons, or 9,841 pounds in more correct aerial terms.
“Roger, Tiger Flight. Thanks for the drink.” Cooper watched the military version of the venerable DC-10 gain altitude and bank left, heading north to the States.
His heading was 120. In ten minutes he’d be in Cuban airspace. The controllers aboard the AWACS informed him that his escorts would pick him up two minutes out. From there they all would circle and wait almost directly north of Havana, just five miles off and fifteen thousand feet above the Cuban coast
It didn’t seem too strange, other than the geography of the matter, until one thought about the nuclear-tipped missile in the Delta Dart’s belly. Cooper tried not to think about it but the fact that he was sitting atop a thirty-year-old nuclear weapon had frequently slipped past his mental defenses since takeoff.
Twenty
CLOSER TO PARADISE
Meyerson was there, as were Bud, Landau, and the president. The secretary of defense sat away from the others, talking via phone to General Granger in the NMCC. He hung up a moment later.
“Granger says the B-52 flights are meeting up with their tankers west of Gibraltar right now.”
“And the rest of the forces?” the president-asked.
“All in position. From your word, they can execute the first strikes in just twenty minutes.”
Bud listened, passively on the exterior, but…
“What about the bombers? How long can they hold before we have to send them in or recall?” The president was a detail man on the military specifics. After hearing his NSA’s recommendations, he had read the entire brief from the CJCOS himself.
“The F-111’s are orbiting as we speak. They can tank once, but after that we’ll have to do something.” Meyerson saw the need for a more definitive answer on the president’s face. “About three hours, sir. The stateside bombers are a bit more tricky. It’s such a large flight that we just can’t manage another tanking of the whole force and still have enough to get them back across the Atlantic.” The European allies didn’t mind a few F-111’s staging from NATO bases — unlike the eighty-six raid — but a hundred and fifty big U.S. bombers would be political dynamite in most of the nations. Everyone, it seemed, was full speed ahead on the demilitarization policies, an economic necessity for them, and most of the world as well. “It’s a little over three hours for them, also. The 52s will have to head for home first.
“It’s all timing, sir. We have to match our resources — especially the in-flight-refueling ones — to our needs really carefully here. To pull something off this soon after the initial go is a tremendous undertaking.”
“I know, Drew. The military deserves a major attaboy on this one. Bud, how long until Delta will need the final word?” He already knew what it would be. What other choice was there? It was the hostages’ only chance.
“Within thirty minutes,” the NSA replied after checking the clock. The time was approaching fast for action, and the time was already here for a very different kind of the same. Bud knew it was time.
“Mr. President, I’d like to toss something out here.”
Landau smiled with one comer of his crotchety mouth. He could tell what was coming. The man’s got balls.
“Go ahead.” The president lowered himself into the single seat at the coffee table’s end.
“There’s no doubt that this is the time for decisions. I think we already know what the one concerning Delta and the hostages will be, barring any unforeseen happenings. What I’m talking about is an entirely different decision. A big one.”
The secretary of defense joined the three others, taking a seat on the couch and filling his empty mug from the tureen of coffee.
“Remember how General Granger described that missile the aircraft is carrying down in the Gulf right now? He said shooting that at a plane was like killing a flea with a sledgehammer. Well, I think we might be doing something very similar in Libya, except that we might be missing the flea — so to speak — all together.”
“You think?”
Shit or get off the pot, Bud thought. He remembered. The president wanted commitment, not conjecture. “I believe this, sir. We should not go ahead with the full-scale strike.’
“For Christ’s sake, why not?” Meyerson challenged.
Bud leaned in. “Look. Think back to the eighty-six raid. Did it work? Obviously not. It’s a damn cycle of act and react. Someone blows up a plane, or hijacks a ship, and what do we do — react to their action. Our policy has been no negotiation with terrorists, and swift retribution when someone is killed. Unfortunately, neither has been practiced faithfully or regularly by past administrations. And the latter, not at all.”
“Explain.” The president was interested.
“Take the Achille Lauro. We were able to apprehend all of the terrorists who carried it out, and the man who planned it — Abu Abbas. Then what happened? Because we vacillated, the Italians let Abbas off scot-free. And the Germans are so damn afraid of retaliation that we can’t get the trigger man they hold, Hamadi, out of their hands for trial. We’re castrated in our effort to deal with these barbarians.”
“So what do you suggest, Bud? That we bomb Rome and Berlin to punish our allies for impeding the judicial process? C’mon. Your logic is going nowhere.” Meyerson exhaled an exasperated breath and finally undid his tie. “We’ve got the force off Qaddafi’s coast to shut down his military and his economy. Two very viable, and very reachable, targets.”
“Sure. And they’re easy. Don’t you see? That’s what I’m getting at. We had this Abbas guy nailed for what he was a hell of a long time before he pulled the Achille Lauro thing, but we just waited. It was easier to react, and to take swipes at a pushover of a country.”
“A major supporter of international terrorism!” Meyerson bellowed.
Bud paused before continuing. “And, nonetheless, a pushover, as I said.”
“What he’s saying, Mr. President, is that we should save the bombs and use just a few bullets.” Landau’s analysis, in its cryptic simplicity, was sufficient to drive the point home.
Bud looked to each of his counterparts, but they were looking at the chief executive.
“Might I remind you, Bud, that what you’re proposing is similar, if not identical, to the events that started this whole mess.” The president’s analysis was not completely right.
“Not correct, sir.” Contradicting any president, even one as young as this, was risky. Bud realized this entirely, and also that he was in the right. “The events that precipitated this situation were planned and executed by men in high places operating outside the bounds of our own law. We can’t say that they abrogated any international agreements since there never has been a comprehensive treaty or convention that dealt with real, hard issues on terrorism. Not one. Only half measures and resolutions of so-called solidarity have been enacted — no, correction: adopted. Enacted implies at least some sort of action, of which there’s been none.