Curtis waved Elliott back to his seat and dismissed the one command-center staff officer assigned to escort Elliott. “How you doing, Brad?” he asked.
“I’ve done better,” Elliott admitted tightly.
“You didn’t check in for the last few situation updates. I guess I know why now. You should tell me when you’re on your way to Washington.”
“We need to cut the small talk here, sir.”
“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ Brad,” Curtis said, still trying to inject a little humor into the situation. “You know better.” Elliott only scowled at his superior officer. This was the showdown that he had been dreading, Curtis thought. Might as well get it over with … “What do you do, Brad, when a man you thought you knew for years isn’t the same guy anymore? I’ve seen men change — war, promotion, demotion, disillusionment, anger, joy — but some guys you think are old enough or experienced enough to never change.
“I’m not sure if I know you at all, sir,” Elliott said bitterly. “Suddenly it seems as if the whole military establishment is just shuffling its feet.”
“Not really, Brad …” offered Curtis.
“What is it, General Curtis? Is it the end of the Cold War? The peace dividend? Has the military’s will been cut along with its budget? No one seems to have any sense of what’s right or what’s wrong. I get the feeling you’re just letting my people hang in the wind out there in Lithuania. No support. No backup. No options. I trusted Lockhart and Kundert — I trusted you—to protect them.”
“They’re being protected, Brad,” Curtis said patiently. “The Twenty-sixth MEU is the best special-operations-capable unit in the Marine Corps. Your officers will be just fine.”
“While Lithuania burns down around them,” Elliott said. “I get MILSTAR data just like the other units in the field do, Wilbur. The team’s in trouble. They lost one SEA HAMMER and the other one’s damaged. I saw something else about President Svetlov on the board, so I assume he knows about the operation and very well might be responding.”
“Good observations,” Curtis said, “and all true.”
“Then what in hell are you doing about it?” Elliott exploded. “I haven’t seen any other mobilizations since this operation began. Have you sent in the rest of the Twenty-sixth MEU? I’ve heard nothing from the First Marine Expeditionary Force, nothing from Third Army, nothing from the Air Battle Force. What will the President do if something blows up in Lithuania, Wilbur? If something happens, it’ll take hours until a sizable force can react. You guys are just sitting on your hands.”
“In fact, something has happened,” Curtis said. “We’ve detected the Byelorussians moving on Vilnius. At least a brigade from the east and perhaps two or three battalions from the south.”
“Shit. I knew it,” Elliott cursed. He waved at the National Command Center down below — except for a few staffers and some maintenance personnel, the place was empty. “You haven’t called in the battle staff? Who’s running this show — announcers in the booth at RFK Stadium?” He paused, then narrowed his eyes at Curtis. “From the east? Smorgon? The Byelorussian Home Brigade has activated?”
“You know about the Home Brigade?”
“Dammit, Wilbur, of course I know!” Elliott said angrily. “It was one of our major targets. MADCAP MAGICIAN was going to send two platoons to take out the headquarters building and the command-and-control facility. My Megafortresses were going to make the building secondary targets. They have to be taken out if there’s any threat of the Byelorussians getting involved, Wilbur — the rumor is that they’ve got nuclear-tipped Scarab missiles at Smorgon. I didn’t want to go over the border, but if there’s any possibility that they’d use those missiles, they have to be neutralized. Two SLAM cruise missiles against the power facility near the town, two more against the buildings themselves-”
“Christ, Brad.” Curtis shook his head at Elliott’s words. “You were going to have yourself a big day, weren’t you? Billions of dollars’ worth of destruction, all on your say-so.”
“The employment of air power is an essential part of our national security,” Elliott argued, “and it’s part of my job as director of HAWC to plan, organize, and execute highly dangerous missions in order to safeguard—”
“Get off it, Brad. You’ve never used jingoistic prattle to justify yourself before, so don’t start now,” Curtis said. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs shook his head and said, “Jesus, Brad, I never thought even you would have the audacity to invade another country without even notifying or clearing your operation with me or the White House.”
“Hey, I briefed you on my plan, and I canceled it when you said no-go,” Elliott said. “My hesitation will probably get Luger killed. You’ve left it wide open for the Byelorussians to attack Lithuania, but I’m doing as you ordered.”
“In case you forgot, Brad, that’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Curtis said. “We’re supposed to give you orders, and you carry them out. Having military officers plan and execute military missions without government approval is what they do in military dictatorships and coups d’état, not in constitutional democracies.
“And our military leaders in Washington are not supposed to abandon American servicemen being tortured and imprisoned in foreign countries while in the service of their country,” Elliott retorted, “unless the military leaders in charge have turned into political ass-kissers!”
“You can call me names all you want, you old fart,” Curtis said. “You know I won’t fire you — I’ll leave that to the President, who’s ready to do it at any moment now. But you can’t just go off and build a brand-new Old Dog mission whenever you feel like it.”
“Don’t bring up that mission, Wilbur,” Elliott said angrily. “You know the reason I did the Old Dog mission, along with the fact that I had the greatest crew a pilot could want, is that I thought we had seen the beginning of a new era. The new military. We were finally going to shoulder the responsibility that God gave us — protectors of freedom and democracy in the world. Libya, Grenada, the Middle East, the Philippines — things were changing. We were finally snapping out of our Vietnam funk. But then you abandon Dave Luger. You send a handful of troops into hostile territory to rescue him. Now you’re abandoning Lithuania, and possibly the rest of the Baltic states.”
“Everyone wishes they could simply launch a bunch of high-tech B-52s and bomb the bad guys,” Curtis said. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. The civilian leadership in this country has more to account for than one man’s guilt and ego.”
“Guilt? Ego? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you, Brad,” Curtis said. “You wear the Old Dog mission on your chest like a medal. It’s a chip on your shoulder that you dare everyone to knock off. Your artificial leg is some kind of monument to a mission that you screwed up.”
“I didn’t screw up a thing, Curtis! We accomplished the mission! We got Kavaznya!”
“You bombed the target because you had professionals like McLanahan and Luger and Tork and Pereira and Ormack on board,” Curtis said. “You were out of it: in pain and shock for most of the mission, half-unconscious during the bomb run, and completely unconscious after you left Anadyr. You weren’t even at the controls after the refueling at Anadyr — McLanahan, an untrained radar navigator, brought that bomber home! You didn’t contribute to the mission — in fact you nearly killed everyone on that mission and started World War Three yourself”