The room went silent. “Do you guys know what it is that really brasses me off about governments?” said Admiral Dickson. “The stuff no one explains to the people.”
No one spoke.
“The fact is that governments don’t have any money of their own,” continued Admiral Dickson. “Only what they take from the American people and from American corporations. So when they tell the people an aircraft carrier is too expensive, they are talking absolute horseshit. They do not spend, in the accepted sense of the word. They only distribute. They take it from whatever source they can get it, without causing outright civil war, and then redistribute it into the economy. They don’t spend. They only push everyone else’s money around.”
The Navy Chief paused. Then said, “Half of the money in labor costs goes to the guys building the ships — paychecks to people who immediately give a third of it back to the government. They don’t tell ’em the rest gets spent in the community, providing other people with jobs, who also hand a third of it back to the government.
“They never mention that a big hunk of the cash goes to U.S. Steel, the electronic companies right here in the U.S.A., the missile systems, shipbuilders in Maine, Connecticut, and Virginia — they’re all paying corporate taxes. Some of the money goes to U.S. Navy personnel, who pay their taxes back to the government, just like the people at U.S. Steel. The whole thing is just a roundabout. The goddamned aircraft carrier is not expensive, it’s free. It’s not the government’s damned money anyway. They are only moving it around.”
“Any clues yet about our cuts?” Rear Admiral Curran asked gravely.
“No one’s been specific. But we’ve been put on a kind of unofficial high alert to start cutting back. I’d say the conversions on those four Ohio Class SSBNs will go on hold.”
Admiral Dickson referred to the program to remove the Trident missiles from the old 16,600-ton strategic missile boats, and turn them into guided missile platforms, each carrying 154 Tomahawks. All four submarines were to be upgraded with Acoustic Rapid COTS insertion sonar.
“I wouldn’t be sure we’ll keep the green light for two more Nimitz Class carriers either. CVN 77 and 78 will probably get canceled.”
“Jesus,” said the Commander of the Atlantic Fleet, Vice Adm. Brian Ingram. “That would be bad. Some of the big guys are just about getting to the end of their tether. We need new, and we need it now — how about the Arleigh Burke destroyer program?”
“Well, as you know, we’re supposed to get thirty-six and we only have twenty-four. I’m just not sure about the final twelve.”
“Jeez. I’d just hate to see us run short of missile ships…And I’d sure feel better about everything if the Big Man was still in the White House.”
By anyone’s standards, this was a very worried group of U.S. Navy Execs and the Pentagon boss. Not worried for themselves, but for the future ability of United States warships to continue safeguarding the world’s oceans. Whenever necessary.
And the Big Man was far away.
Mrs. Arnold Morgan had spent the last hour of her honeymoon on her own. Relaxed on a lounge by the lower pool at the imperious Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque, way down on the southern tip of the island, she was reading quietly.
Behind her, a detail of two security agents was playing cards, and at infrequent intervals a waiter appeared to inquire if she needed more orange juice or coffee. About 100 feet above stood her new husband. Ensconced in an observatory at the top of a tower, he was staring out to sea through a telescope many times more powerful than most people will ever have used.
The Canaries, with their pure Atlantic skies, attracted astronomers from all over the world, and giant telescopes have been built in observatories on every one of the seven islands. The instrument at Gran Hotel Bahia del Duque was constructed mostly with astronomers in mind, and it was generally focused on the heavens. Today, however, it looked out to the surface of the deep blue waters to the south of the Costa Adeje, where the seabed swiftly shelves down to depths of almost a mile.
Kathy wished he’d come make his way back down and talk to her. Isolation did not suit the former goddess of the West Wing. She slipped back into her book, occasionally gazing at the magnificent surroundings of the five-star Gran Hotel, a sprawling waterside complex, half-Venetian, half-Victorian in design, set in a semitropical botanical garden. Her new husband adored such grandeur and he had sweetly instructed her, with his usual old world charm, to locate a place and book them in for two weeks—“Listen, Kathy, just try to stop boring me sideways with goddamned hotel literature, and get us into some goddamned place, Casa Luxurious. And hasta la vista,” he added, handing her a credit card. “That’s Spanish for on the double.”
He was, of course, utterly beyond redemption and Kathy forgave him only because he treated everyone like that. As his secretary for six years in the White House, she had seen diplomats from the world’s most powerful countries quake before his onslaught. ’Specially the Chinese and, almost as often, the Russians.
The whole idea of this tiny cluster of Spanish Islands, set in the sparkling Atlantic off the coast of Africa, had been hers. She had lived in Europe when she was much younger and her sister-in-law, Gayle, who lived in southern Spain, had suggested the Canaries because of the January weather, which was warm, much warmer than mainland Spain, a thousand miles to the northeast. But the most significant reason for Tenerife was that Kathy had wanted to arrange a Catholic Blessing for their marriage, which had thus far been only legally formalized by a U.S. Justice of the Peace in Washington.
Gayle had located the perfect little church on the neighboring island of Gran Canaria, the Iglesia de San Antonio Abad down near the waterfront at Las Palmas, the island’s main city. She had arranged for the English-speaking priest to meet Arnold and Kathy on Friday morning and conduct a short private service.
Only after their arrival did Kathy plan to tell her husband that San Antonio, unprepossessing, painted white, and Romanesque in design, was the very church where Christopher Columbus had prayed for divine help before sailing for the Americas.
The Great Modern American Patriot and the Great European Adventurer. Two Naval Commanding Officers somehow united at the same altar, separated by the centuries, but not in spirit. Yes, Kathy thought, Arnold would like that. He’d like that very much, the secret romantic that he ultimately was.
So it was settled. A honeymoon in the Canaries. And even the globally sophisticated Arnold had been taken aback by the sheer opulence of the place, the terra-cotta exteriors, five swimming pools, the perfect alfresco dining area on the terraces looking down to the soft sandy beaches.
“And here he is, up the stupid tower, for the fourth day in a row,” thought Kathy. “With the telescope, presumably looking for the enemy.”
Just at that moment, the former National Security Adviser to the President of the United States made a timely poolside appearance. “Oh hello, my darling,” said Kathy. “I was just thinking this is like being on a honeymoon with Lord Nelson, you up there with that ridiculous telescope.”