Below, the highway was jammed with Red Cross transports and Russian military supply vehicles heading out of the airport. Robinson thought it odd to view this much Red Cross activity in a country that needed no humanitarian aid. “Why so many Russian vehicles?”
“We are good friends with Venezuela,” explained Vissarionovich. “Santiago envisioned your country would invade his and has armed Venezuela to the teeth with our military hardware. It is no secret. With Rio now in charge, I expect that will change soon.”
He summed it up. “We made a lot of money, but now sadly it will come to an end. There are always others out there who will buy our goods.”
The pair boarded the Citation CJ3 and was greeted by the pilot who assured them that the airport had been uneventful in Robinson’s absence.
“They did close down the runway for about an hour or so.” As he taxied to the runway a line of tanks blocked the runway. “What in the world? Take a look at this!”
Vissarionovich glanced out the window. “That is our BMP-3 model with a Namut thermal sight, a very good seller — top of the line.”
“Let’s hope we are not blown away with your top of the line tank.”
The pilot asked, “What do you make of this, Mr. Robinson?”
“They are probably holdouts from Santiago’s regime and are making a futile effort to take back the country. They probably don’t believe he is dead. For now, turn it around and we will wait until this is cleared up.”
“Yes sir.”
Later Robinson found himself out on the runway waving a white flag as he approached the tanks. I cannot believe I am doing this! One day I am at the UN with the political bric-a-brac that determines the fate of our planet and the next I am in some third world country waving a flag at Russian tanks.
The turrets turned and the Namut thermals prepared to fire. When he got within earshot someone peeked out of the turret.
“What do you want?” he inquired in Spanish.
Robinson explained, “Yo soy un americano.” He told them to give it up. “La guerra es largo El Presidente Santiago está muerta,” and that Santiago was dead. Five minutes later it was all over. Robinson told the authorities they had done no harm and only wanted to defend their country — they were more heroes than not. Other than the coup at the palace, the airport was the only sign of a revolution that had involved little more than two hundred troops and a half-dozen battle tanks. In all, a dozen people had died.
When Robinson and Vissarionovich arrived in D.C. that night they were on the best of terms.
Chapter Five
Robinson settled into one of the conference rooms along with Melissa Farnsworth, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and Kenneth Fegan, a Junior Assistant that he had taken in under his wing. Ahmed bin Al-Awzai, an assistant to the Prime Minister in Somalia, sat at the head of the conference table. Coffee and tea were served, introductions were made and Al-Wazai led the discussion. “I must apologize that the Prime Minister Sharmarke is not present today, however urgent matters in our home country require that he remain there. I know your time is precious and thank you for agreeing to meet with me today. As you know the situation in my home country is precarious at best. If the United States could offer some troops, we would give them locations of suspected terrorist camps and rebel militias and we would give them freedom to carry out missions at their own discretion.”
He brought out a map. “Here, for example, in the south is an Al-Nakbah stronghold. The Al-Shabaab has taken over most of our country and has overrun Mogadishu. Our own militias are unable to take back control and over a million of our citizens now line the outskirts of the city, living in tents. We estimate that the Al-Shabaab commit hundreds of atrocities each day upon the refugees. The Marka terrorists operate north of Mogadishu along with another organization called the Puntland Group. A ruthless killer Mustafa Mahdi has taken over the Somalia Marines and is responsible for the recent wave of tanker pirating. They are heavily armed and we have little means to deal with them. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.”
Discussion ran on for a half-hour and Ms. Farnsworth summed it up. “We will recommend this to the president and any final decision is up to him. It is good that you would give our troops freedom to conduct missions as they see fit and that may help. Oftentimes multinational forces are at odds with one another and that is not the instance here. We could protect the refugee camps as an alternative. You have our sympathy of course and can only hope that the president will respond to your plea.”
Five minutes was set aside to discuss the proposal that afternoon with Landenberger. Robinson and Ms. Farnsworth sat in the Oval Office and briefly ran it by him. “It’s not likely I can do anything,” said the president. “This is a low priority and getting tied up with this becomes one more problem on the plate. It is unfortunate the country is poverty stricken and overrun like this. All I need is a body count and everyone would question why we were there in the first place. Let’s hope they can find someone who can take an interest in their plight.”
“A thousand troops are all he asks. Certainly—”
“It would take a larger commitment than that — a hundred thousand would not be enough to get it started on the smallest scale. There are eighty five hundred multinationals there tripping over one another for lack of clear direction. We would be sitting ducks. The Red Cross is in there offering humanitarian aid and if they were being attacked, the rep would have mentioned it. The UN multinationals probably have their hands full protecting them. Let’s let this die on the vine, however I thank everyone for meeting with him. Goodwill is needed wherever we can find it.”
The Prime Minister Paul Baudelaire of France summed it up briefly as he discussed a hodge-podge of concerns that afternoon. “… Although we recognize the problems of Somalia, we feel that France alone cannot be of much assistance. In view of the crisis in the world economy we can understand not launching into this right now. Perhaps in the near future resources will be available to address this growing problem. A large multinational force must be considered….”
At two in the morning, Robinson lay awake staring at a spider that was busy crawling up the wall.
Sleep was not in the cards. In a few hours he would sit with the Cabinet and discuss the Iran test. His stomach was tied in knots at the thought. How could the CIA director, Larry Deshano have dropped the ball? Sometimes he felt that Larry was not quite up to the job. He should have seen this coming. It made one wonder what the man did with his time all day. He had thousands of agents gathering information, monitoring conversations, watching the internet terrorist sights and then a WMD is blatantly waved in front of the world by our fiercest enemy. Perhaps I am too harsh. He may very well have had no opportunity to see it coming. The 9/11 catastrophe must have been much the same. Sometimes you are blindsided — Pearl Harbor was the same thing. Pointing blame was too easy.
He found the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee and sat down with his laptop and checked his e-mail on the secure White House internet server. There was a memo from Shaughnessy who needed some specifics on Rio. Apparently he wanted more than the information that could be gathered from the CIA data base. At eleven that morning he would be peppered with questions at the White House Press conference and a few little tidbits that he could share with the press would make him look good.
Deshano wanted his take on the Venezuelan coup and wanted to meet sometime before the Cabinet meeting. Being in Venezuela was a lucky — or unlucky break — depending upon how you looked at it, and he expected Michael Costanzo, Adelberg, and probably Melissa Farnsworth would all catch him the hallway before the meeting. Dad came wandering into the kitchen looking nearly half asleep, checked the fridge, and sat at the table. “You could not sleep, son?”