“Get it firsthand, and then we’ll hold their feet to the fire,” Gardner said.
“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, taking that opportunity to look Raydon up and down again. He did the same to her, but more discreetly.
The president turned to Ann Page. “Dr. Page, you have a long and distinguished career, but to me you seem to take great delight in shaking up the system. As an engineer and former member of Congress, that’s probably a good thing-but as a member of my administration, it most definitely is not.”
“Mr. President, it’s not my intention to shake anything up,” Ann said. “We had the technology to build an entirely new defensive and offensive weapon system and take the U.S. military to the next level. The technology may be immature and imperfect, but as we saw, it’s viable.”
“Viable? You missed the target and killed a lot of civilians, Dr. Page.”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. President,” Ann said sincerely. “While I don’t believe that the ends justifies the means, we did stop the Pakistanis from launching any more rockets.”
The president closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll tell that to the United Nations: We put out a house fire by blowing up the dam and flooding the town,” he said. “So we have an immature and unreliable weapon system that is controversial to say the least, incomplete, and bound to cause a major outcry if not an outright global arms race. What do you propose I do about this?”
“Resolve to win the race, sir,” Ann said immediately. “With current funding, it will take another fifteen to twenty-four months to complete the Kingfisher constellation. We have a plan to draw on Air Force and Navy budget resources and complete the constellation in ten months or less, along with making improvements in detection capabilities, self-defense to counter the growing Russian and Chinese antisatellite threat, and weapon accuracy.”
“Navy budget resources, eh?” Secretary of Defense Turner asked. “Such as?”
Ann looked at Secretary Banderas. When he hesitated, she replied: “BAMS and ForceNet, Mr. Secretary, among others.”
“What?” Turner exclaimed. His astonished expression slowly turned into one of amusement. “You want to downsize two of the biggest and most cutting-edge naval surveillance and information networking systems?”
“We don’t want to downsize them, Mr. Secretary-we want to cancel them,” Banderas said.
“Cancel them?” Turner asked incredulously. “They’re not even fully implemented yet!”
“Exactly why they should be canceled, sir,” Banderas went on.
“The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program is based around old technology-”
“Global Hawk may be old, but it’s proven technology.”
“Global Hawk is proven, but compared to emerging space technology, it’s slow, vulnerable, costly and difficult to sustain and support, limited by availability of shore facilities, and in its current configuration has no strike capability, sir,” Banderas went on.
“ForceNet is seven years in the making but is far over budget, is still not fully operational, and isn’t fully integrated into other services’ computer network systems. For network systems managed by major non-Navy commands such as U.S. Strategic Command, ForceNet will demand an upgrade of their network infrastructures to mesh, with the costs estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and another ten years. That means that ForceNet would probably never be tied into other networks as it was designed to be.”
“Once completed, Kingfisher can act as a global fleet communications-and-reconnaissance system,” Ann jumped in. “Our systems are already tied into several services’ reconnaissance and surveillance networks, including the Navy’s, along with Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and even the CIA. Everyone in Washington has accessed our imagery, used our communications relays, and taken advantage of our global Internet access and secure data network-and the system is only half finished.”
“The Navy is never going to cancel two vital programs to invest in these orbital weapon garages,” Turner said.
“Nor should they,” the president said. “It’s not going to happen. I supported maritime Global Hawk and ForceNet from day one-I’m not about to kill them, especially for an unproven system.”
“It’s not unproven anymore, sir,” Kai said. Barbeau’s eyes fairly twinkled when he spoke.
“I’m not convinced the land-attack missile portion is ready, General,” the president said. “The missile defense part is impressive, but I’m not ready to cancel important programs for other services for a global missile defense shield. We spend a lot of money on missile defense for the United States already-defending India is not in our budget.”
He got to his feet, and everyone else followed suit. “Good to see you, Sal,” he said, shaking hands with the Air Force secretary. “We’ll discuss this and let you know how it’ll be.”
“I’ve got the entire proposal ready for your review, Mr. President,” Banderas said. “I know you’ll be surprised and pleased with the program.”
The president ignored the last-second sales pitch. “Dr. Page, good to see you again,” he said, shaking her hand next. “Deploying a new weapon system is a process, as I’m sure you are very aware. If you spring it on the world all at once like this, folks put up an immediate negative reaction to it-and that goes double for something this different.”
“I know very well, Mr. President, after all my work on Skybolt and in the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Ann said. “But Kingfisher is what’s needed now for global reconnaissance and a truly rapid-reaction ballistic-missile defense and global strike.”
The White House chief of staff, Walter Kordus, could see the president’s exasperation at the chatter and began herding the visitors out the door. Kai Raydon stuck out a hand before Kordus could reach him, and the president shook it. “Nice to meet you, Mr. President,” he said.
“Same, General,” Gardner responded curtly before Kordus finally corralled the visitors and led them outside, trailing them with a chorus of thank-yous.
“I’d be happy to talk to those people for you next time, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Turner said after all but he, Conrad Carlyle, and Stacy Anne Barbeau stayed behind. “They’re starting to sound like used-car salesmen. And I had no inkling they were going to propose killing BAMS and ForceNet for their space stuff. They must be breathing too much rare gas or something.”
“I’m not about to kill any Navy programs for this Thor’s Hammer thing,” the president said. “It is indeed impressive-just impressive enough to offer it up to the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans, or anyone else we need to make a deal with. Otherwise we threaten to start launching more weapon garages into space, and they’ll have to spend trillions to counter it.”
A phone rang, and Kordus answered it immediately-calls that came in to the Situation Room during meetings were always emergencies. He handed it over to Barbeau. “Barbeau…what’s up, Ben?…What?…Great Lord, what in God’s name?…Okay, Ben, call the senior staff together right away. I’ll be there shortly.” She hung up the phone. “ Islamabad has recalled its ambassador to Washington,” she said to the president, “and the ISI has arrested twenty-seven Pakistanis who work at our embassy, accusing them of spying for the United States. Further, the warship visiting Karachi is being barred from leaving port until the ISI inspects it.”
“Here it starts,” the president said wearily. “Walter, get Mazar on the phone for me. Stacy Anne, you talk to the Pakistani foreign minister. Ask them to reconsider those orders, or at least change the order to ‘return for consultations’ or something less flammable than ‘recall,’ and ask them to release the embassy staff. They don’t want to start a diplomatic squabble over an incident that everyone wants to keep hidden in the basement. We have pictures of those missiles and a full transcript of the launch and engagement-they wouldn’t want us to release those videos.” Barbeau hurried away to her office at the State Department. “Conrad…”