“How so?” I ventured.
“People are motivated by a myriad of things. Religion, tradition, a sense of service, loyalty, curiosity, challenge, accomplishment, praise, patriotism, sometimes a kick in the ass, a sense of rightness… and greed, the most basic of human emotions. Greed has built civilization; greed is the reason entrepreneurs start businesses, inventors invent, businessmen try to earn profits. Greed is the reason we aren’t still living in caves. Most people want to earn more money so they can have a better life. Yet we could make a long list of human motivations and still not get every one on it.
“The people at the White House, including Barry Soetoro, don’t understand America. None of them has ever been in the military, so they don’t understand the men and women in uniform. They aren’t religious, so they don’t understand the deep antipathy so many feel toward abortion or gay marriage. They never worked manual labor jobs, so they don’t understand those who do. They think marriage and traditional morality are old fashioned, so yesterday, so they don’t understand those who believe in them. Most of them have never worked in private industry, so they think business is crooked and contemptible. Their political base is in the inner cities, yet they advocate policies that will keep people poor and fight policies that would give the poor a leg up. They are perfect hypocrites, con artists, traitors to the people who believe in them. They willingly tell lies to advance their political agenda, and are amazed when that outrages people.
“They think they can ram things down people’s throats, and maybe they can, to some extent. Remember Willie Varner’s comment the other night: ‘Tastes like shit, but good’? No matter why you put up with something that tastes like shit, you can’t get the taste out of your mouth. Shit is shit.”
He paused, so I said, “Soetoro picked staffers who thought like he did.”
“Indeed. Yes-men. And of course women. That may be good for one’s ego, but it’s a lousy way to ensure you get good advice. Only a man who never ran anything would surround himself with staff that has only one point of view. Barry Soetoro is a lousy manager and a lousy politician; we’re all paying for that. And he has another fatal flaw: he doesn’t want to hear anything that conflicts with his opinions, or prejudices. He refuses to listen to intelligence that might make him revise an opinion or consider other options.”
“There’s a lot of that going around these days, especially in the universities.”
Jake Grafton nodded. “People with closed minds are always the ones who get the worst surprises,” he said.
“One thing is for sure,” I said. “Soetoro’s managed to change the political landscape in the United States, and I doubt if he likes the changes.”
I wanted to ask the admiral what he had learned from eavesdropping on the White House for the last six months, but decided not to. Sarah shouldn’t have told me about it, and if I mentioned it to Grafton he would know I got it from Sarah. So I kept my mouth shut. The thought occurred to me that he had just told me his conclusions.
But I wondered. If I had listened to the conniving and plotting at the White House for six whole months, what would I have done? Whom would I have told? Who would believe me when I accused the president of the United States of plotting to subvert the Constitution, the Constitution that he was sworn to uphold, and declare himself a dictator? Who would have believed me if I accused him of waiting for a terrorist incident so he could declare martial law?
The answer of course was no one. Not a solitary soul on planet Earth. That was undoubtedly the conclusion that Jake Grafton reached.
I finished my doctoring and told the admiral he was good to go.
The attack submarine Texas, now the flagship of the Republic of Texas’ Navy, ran just below periscope depth in the Gulf of Mexico. Loren Snyder called an all-hands conference in the control room. He would rather have convened his little congregation of seven in the wardroom, but he wanted to keep a person on the helm at all times. The water was only three hundred feet deep here, so if the sub rammed into the bottom, she might never come up again. Fortunately the floor of the gulf fell away as one proceeded away from the coast, becoming well over a mile deep in places.
Snyder checked the depth, 240 feet; the heading, 130 degrees; the boat’s speed on the inertial readout, eight knots.
He surveyed the faces of his crew. Submarine duty attracted smart, technically savvy people who were interesting to be around, which was why smart, technically savvy people enjoyed it. The challenge was constant and boredom rare.
Ada Fuentes was on the helm, Jugs Aranado was sipping coffee, George Ranta, Speedy Gonzales, Mouse Moore, and Junior Smith were drinking water or eating toast from a loaf Mouse made in the galley last night.
“Okay, folks,” Loren said. “We made it to sea. That was the first hurdle, and we got over it, and I thank you. I thought our chances of getting out of Galveston about fifty-fifty. In any event, we are out.
“A few words on how this Texas Navy sub is going to be run. I am the captain, and I will make all decisions and expect my orders to be obeyed. That said, I want and need advice from each and every one of you on how to run the boat and use it as a military weapon. I hope you will give me honest opinions, and I will use them to make the best decision I can. But once I have decided, that is the way it is going to be. No more debate.”
He got nods from everyone standing around the plotting table in the center of the room.
“Our first problem for discussion is this: What are we going to do with this boat? Are we going to find someplace to hide and wait out the war, making the U.S. Navy worry about where we are and what we might be doing every minute of every day? Or are we going to use her as an attack boat? If we are, what are our targets? Where and how can we do the new Republic of Texas the most good? Your thoughts, please.”
“If we don’t do anything, the navy will stop worrying before long,” Speedy Gonzales said. “They’ll assume we managed to submerge forever.”
“Someone put two or three Tomahawks into power plants around Houston the other night,” Jugs said. “I assume they were launched from a surface ship. At least, I hope they were. If there is another attack boat out here we have major problems. They are fully manned and we aren’t.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I suggest we put a fish into that surface combatant, then get out of this pond and into the Atlantic, preferably the Gulf Stream, where we can go deep.”
“Ranta, you’ve been on the sonar. Any idea where that destroyer or frigate might be?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ve been looking at the chart,” Jugs said. “If I were the skipper of that ship, I’d be in the middle of the deep water rigs off Louisiana and Texas. If I were him or her, I’d be worrying about this submarine.”
“Tough operating around those rigs,” Ranta said. “Sonar will be crap.”
“Our main problem is another attack boat out here. It’ll be just as tough for them as it will be for us.” Snyder’s audience liked the idea that someone might be worried about what they would do.
Snyder studied the chart. Deep down, he thought the best and safest course of action was to get out of the Gulf of Mexico and look for a warship in the Atlantic. The drawback was that choice would cede the gulf to the United States Navy.
“Can we operate among those platforms without ramming a platform leg?” he mused aloud.
Junior Smith said, “We have to threaten Soetoro’s navy some way, and keeping them away from the shipping channels to Houston seems worthwhile to me. Let’s make ’em sweat.”
“What about torpedoing a Louisiana production platform?” Mouse Moore asked. “Or a tanker loaded with Arabian oil? Soetoro’s navy has to protect those tankers and platforms or the people of Louisiana are going to get huffy. Not to mention what will happen to insurance rates if one of those crude haulers gets torpedoed.”