"Congresswoman Kingston, is it your contention that all covert operations should be under direct Congressional control? That sort of thing has always been the prerogative of the President."
"Yes, it has, and look what trouble it's got us into. President Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. President Carter and the hostage rescue in Iran. And they were both Democrats." There was a ripple of polite laughter in the crowd, and she waited for it to die down. "Seriously, it's high time the people, and by that I mean Congress, be given total and complete oversight of the use of all of our military forces, and a say in how they're used. It's not as though we have a world-class enemy like the Soviet Union to worry about anymore, is it? We spend billions on the Army Special Forces, the Army Rangers, and Navy SEALS, and God knows how many other special warfare units, and what does it get us? Not one thing! That's taxpayer money being shoveled into a bottomless hole, and I intend to put a stop to it!"
"Madam Kingston!"
"Congresswoman Kingston!"
"That's all. I'm getting cold and I have a plane to catch!" Deliberately avoiding the questions and demands shouted after her, still smiling and waving, Kingston turned and walked on, her following straggling along after. The waiting airplane was an Olympic Airlines NAMC YS-11, one of the old-fashioned two-engine turboprops used on Greek domestic flights. Her schedule called for her to fly back to Athens that morning for a meeting with Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime Minister, that afternoon. After that, there would be a special chartered flight back to Dulles International and a meeting with the Select Committee on Monday.
Climbing the boarding ladder to the rear passenger door, Kingston entered the plane, where she was greeted by Colonel Ted Winters, her U.S. Army watchdog, and by Lochagos Dyonisios Mantzaros, her principal shadow from the DEA.
Not the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, of course. She smiled at the thought. The Dimona Eidikon Apostolon, or Special Mission Platoon, was a fifty-man unit established in the mid-1970s as a Greek SWAT and hostage-rescue unit within the Athens City Police. Its responsibilities had been extended recently to include airport security and protection for visiting dignitaries. Mantzaros and five of his agents had been dogging her every step since she'd arrived in Greece last week, all of them dressed in identical dark business suits, dark, narrow ties, and dark glasses, costumes that virtually screamed security force. The two men contrasted sharply with one another, Mantzaros being short, pudgy, and olive-skinned, while Winters was tall, bone-skinny, and so pale that Kingston had kidded him once about all the time he must spend in the White House basement.
"Well, well," she said, grinning at them. "If it isn't Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Been waiting for me long, fellas?"
"Congresswoman," Winters said, his mouth set hard and expressionless. Winters, she knew, didn't approve of her… or at least he didn't approve of her politics, which were liberal Democrat and anti-military. That was okay by her. She disliked Winters. She disliked all military personnel… or, to be completely fair, she disliked the military mind-set, the testosterone-drugged fascination for expensive toys and loud noises and macho confrontations with unpleasant strangers.
"The pilot said to tell you, Congresswoman," Mantzaros said, and he nearly bowed as he spoke, "that we will be able to take off as soon as you are ready."
"Thank you, Captain," she told Mantzaros. "I'll ride up there in the lounge."
"Of course, Congresswoman." And this time he did bow, ushering her forward up the aisle.
Normally seating sixty passengers, this particular aircraft had been modified for VIP use, with half of the five-abreast seats removed to make room for a comfortable lounge area forward. She allowed Mantzaros to escort her to one of the comfortable lounge seats behind a polished, wood-surfaced table. Barbara Jean Allison, her chief aide, handed Kingston her briefcase, then slid in next to her.
"Thanks, Bunny. What we got… about a half-hour flight?"
"Thirty-five to forty minutes, Ms. Kingston."
Winters slid into a seat across the table from them. "You never let up, do you, Madam Congresswoman?"
"What do you mean?"
"I was listening to your little off-the-cuff speech to those reporters. I wonder if it was wise blasting the U.S. military for what happened in Bosnia the other day when you don't even know if we were responsible."
"Oh, we're responsible, Colonel. You can take it from me."
His eyebrows crept up on his forehead. "You're sure of your information, ma'am?"
"Always," she said. "I heard some things before we left Washington. Ever hear of something called Operation Blue Arrow?"
"No. And I don't think you should be discussing code names with someone who hasn't been cleared to hear them."
"Colonel, do you think I give two pins for that macho-military bullshit?"
"No, ma'am, but you should. There're reasons for it. Damned good ones."
"God. Sometimes I just don't believe you people." She turned away, staring out the window. The plane's turboprops were firing up. There was a cough, then a roar as the right engine revved up to speed. "Anyway, Colonel, I didn't tell them we did it. When someone asked me if we did, I said, 'No comment.'"
"Uh-huh. And let them read between the lines. I thought you wanted to stop a war out here, not start one."
"You're out of line, Colonel."
"I'm out of line?" He laughed, but his eyes struck angry sparks.
"Yes, you are." She sighed and leaned back in her seat. "You know, Colonel, for way too long the American military has had its own way. It's about time the Pentagon realized that the Cold War is over, that the old way of doing things is gone for good, and a good thing too!"
Mantzaros and one of the American Secret Service men walked up to her seat. "Everything okay, ma'am?" the Secret Service man asked. The American agent was almost indistinguishable from the Greek DEA people, right down to the conservative suit and the dark glasses.
"Just fine, Franklin. Thanks."
"Pilot says to tell you we'll be taking off in about five minutes."
"Very well."
"Tell me, Colonel," she asked a moment later. "What's your opinion of the Special Forces?"
Winters almost smiled… almost. "To be honest, I'd have to say they're more trouble than they're worth."
"Expensive."
"That… and it's hard to maintain discipline in an organization that must have discipline to operate effectively, when there are units within that organization that claim to be better than everybody else."
"If I remember from your record, Colonel, you were in the Army Special Forces."
"That was quite a while ago. Yes, ma'am. I was."
"A green beanie. And you don't believe in special-warfare units?"
"Oh, there are places where special warfare is important, sure. Especially in counterinsurgency operations, training local forces, stuff like that. But I never have liked the elitist attitude behind some of the special-ops people. Like I say, it interferes with discipline."
"It is also an intolerable drain on our tax dollars," Kingston said, warming to the subject. "And a drain of our best men. I've heard even men volunteering for Delta Force."