“I don’t understand,” Hamilton Asher said. Baker felt his blood pressure rise at the interruption by the FBI director. “If it’s just a matter of massing our fire, why didn’t we do it with land-based missiles? We could’ve prevented the Chinese from landing!”
Secretary of Defense Moore replied, “General Cotler made a proposal for a system of mobile, land-based launchers like the Brits have deployed. But given the sheer numbers of missiles we would’ve had to build for the land-based or the sea-based systems, it was an ‘either-or’ choice: either arsenal ships or mobile ground launchers, but not both.”
“So why not build the land-based launchers?” Asher asked. “We could’ve stopped the invasion!”
Moore looked at the president, then at Asher, before replying. “The launchers don’t have any offensive capabilities.”
“Of-fensive?” Asher asked, incredulous.
Bill said, “The arsenal ships can wipe the Chinese fleet from the sea. The land-based launchers can do nothing more than stand them back from our coastline.”
“I think that a large majority of the American people,” Asher said, grandstanding before the NSC, “would consider that outcome preferable to where we are today!”
“I ordered it,” Baker said firmly and conclusively. He and Asher stared at each other until Baker turned to air force General Latham. “What about our antiaircraft defenses?”
Latham seemed reluctant to get the briefing back on track. He had been an ardent supporter of the joint Army-Air Force mobile launcher system that Bill had rejected. Baker had heard that, in private, Latham had second-guessed the commander in chief’s decision. “Well, sir,” Latham finally began, “when the first navy sonar reports came in, we went to Air Defense Warning ‘Red’ nationwide—‘attack by hostile aircraft imminent.’ We grounded civilian traffic east of the Mississippi and south of Atlanta. Our air defense assets were dispersed to civilian airports that are defended by at least four air superiority fighters ready to scramble. And the NORAD antimissile grid is at a 98 percent generation level. If the Chinese try to go deep, we’ll attrit them to hell.”
Baker nodded. Half the heads turned to the army chief of staff before the president did. “Tell me where they’re coming ashore,” Baker asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
General Cotler hesitated momentarily. It could have been nothing… or something. Cotler opened his briefing book as if the task were loathsome. “From Cuba, southern Florida is the closest…,” he began confidently — then faltered.
Cotler was from Chicago, Baker remembered, not the South. But even so, the army general could hardly bring himself to discuss the invasion of his country.
“Excuse me, sir,” Cotler apologized. He squared his shoulders and spoke in a loud voice. “The army, Mr. President, is prepared to stop any advance—any advance — coming up the Florida peninsula.” He ended his sentence with a period, not a qualification, caveat or qualifier. The army colonels behind him stood erect: all committing to do what no army on earth had done before — stop the Chinese anywhere. “We’ll run a line from Tampa/St. Pete to Melbourne. The 3rd Infantry Division (Mech.) and 40th Infantry Division — also mechanized, but Army National Guard — together with the 53rd Infantry Brigade (Separate) are bunkered south of Orlando. That’ll put the Everglades on the Chinese side — splitting their center. Their east and west flanks will be mutually nonsupporting. If they come ashore at Miami, sir, we’ll stop them there.”
“What if they try an amphibious leapfrog?” asked Elizabeth Sobo. “An ‘Inchon-type’ landing up the coast behind you?”
“The 278th ACR in Ocala will throw them back into the sea,” Cotler replied.
“You mean try to throw them back?” Vice President Sobo challenged. She flipped pages in her briefing book. “That armored cavalry regiment has only… 3700 men, and they’re all reservists. If they fail to smash the landing, the Chinese could cut off the entire Fourth Corps — one of only twelve corps that we’ve got—while defending the most exposed southern tip of one state?”
It was a fair question. Baker waited for Cotler’s reply.
“We’ll try to throw them back, ma’am,” he clarified slowly. Honestly.
Sobo looked at Baker. She had done her job. Baker now knew of yet another scenario for total disaster. He took a deep breath and rubbed his face again. Through his hands he said, “If we know we can stop them in Florida, then they know it too. So where will they come ashore?”
Cotler had an answer. “Theoretically, sir, anywhere between Key West, Florida, and Brownsville, Texas. If they don’t land in southern Florida, which would be their safest and quickest option to get men off those exposed transports and onto U.S. soil, they’ll try to take one of the Gulf ports: Mobile, Biloxi, maybe New Orleans, possibly Galveston. The shorter transit times from Cuba make the ports east of the Mississippi, however, far more likely.” An unseen technician changed the maps on the flat screens covering all four walls. An overlay depicting probabilities — like that for a hurricane’s landfall — coated the Gulf Coast in bands of color. Low-risk yellow marked the beaches of Texas and Louisiana far to the west of Havana. Bloodred storm warnings bathed the Gulf sands of Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Nowhere was the red deeper in color — the invasion higher in probability — than in and around Mobile Bay. “Over a beach,” Cotler explained, “they could put about fifty thousand men ashore every twenty-four hours. But a single functioning port could triple that. If they stay east of the Mississippi and grab a port, they could disembark five million troops in a month.”
Secretary of Defense Robert Moore said, “Mobile is the most likely landing site. It’s centrally located, has good anchorage, and lies at the southern tip of an extensive road/rail/canal net inland. Regardless of where they land, however, Mr. President, wargaming indicates that they should head toward the higher value objectives up the Eastern Seaboard. If they do that, we’ll man a line along Interstate 16 from the Atlantic at Savannah inland to Atlanta, and along I-20 west from Atlanta through Birmingham and Jackson and on to the Mississippi River at Vicksburg. Actually, the line will follow the best defensive terrain a few miles south of the highways, which we can then use for quick lateral reactions and for supply. Anyway, when we drop the bridges across the Mississippi to the south of that line, the Chinese will be pocketed. The 218th Mechanized Infantry Brigade (Separate) will hold I-95 open up to Savannah from Florida to IV Corps’s rear to prevent the Fourth from being cut off.”
“We could still mine Mobile Bay,” air force General Latham suggested. “I could do an airdrop with five or six hours’ lead time.”
Baker was shaking his head even before the general had finished. “Admiral Thornton said the Chinese could sweep the port and have it operational in days.”
“We could destroy the docks,” Latham persisted.
“Then they won’t be able to land their army!” Baker snapped. He leaned back in his chair, cupped his hands over his head, and tried surreptitiously — as everyone watched — to massage the tension from the bundle of nerves under his scalp. His spine felt as tight as piano wire. His hands were freezing.
They had war gamed Baker’s plan for six months, and the good guys had won more often than they had lost. Those war games had given everyone a feel for the theater: the limitations and broad contours of the battle to come as dictated by immutable factors such as distance, terrain and road network. But no one ever looked back at wargames after the battle had begun… except boards of inquiry, like after the debacle in the Straits of Havana. That operation had been wargamed too. Fight your way in with three carrier battle groups. Punch the 2nd Marines into the Chinese flank. Load up everybody at Guantanamo Bay under heavy air and naval artillery support, and sail home to bands and flag-waving crowds. Baker had met with the haunted former CNO after the board of inquiry had finished with him. The admiral had handed Baker his resignation, gone home, and shot himself in the head with his family in the next room. Baker wondered if he would ever see that look on a man’s face again? A powerful, confident man hollowed out by self-blame.