“Statues, perhaps?”
“Perhaps. We will walk down the streets of Baghdad with rose petals thrown at our feet like ice skaters finishing an Olympic performance.”
“Rose petals,” Diamond affirmed.
“This will be the time of awakening. Stay the course, and we’ll be famous.”
“Famous,” Diamond repeated, and checked his pad with the scratch of his pencil.
Chapter 20
Secretary of Defense Robert Stone stood at the podium in the Pentagon press room. The round Department of Defense symbol hung on the laminated wood of the lectern and another one hung behind Stone on the wall. In case the camera was going in for a close-up, there would be no confusion.
“I’ve received many questions from the media in the last day or so about some things occurring in the Philippines as well as from Operation Anaconda and other action in Afghanistan. So I’ll offer a few observations about the war in Afghanistan, which is going extremely well, by the way, then outline our global effort, which is also taking shape particularly well in the Philippines, our next front.”
He had wisely started by asserting that the only reason he was giving a press conference that day was because the media had asked for it. He was there by their choice, not his. Stone spoke without notes or a written script. In that fashion he drove his public-affairs officers crazy. But there was no way that they could know what he was talking about because they weren’t privy to the information. Sure, he let them build some talking points, and sometimes he read the work that his staff prepared for him, but usually what he said was what the Rolling Stones had agreed upon.
Takishi, Rathburn, and “Ronnie Wood” had elected him as the leader of their group. He was the one with the vision, and it had been his desire to use more force in Afghanistan, yet Fox had presented him with some documents that were more powerful to him than kryptonite was to Superman. Essentially, he was a bought man. His options were to either lose his job, career, and reputation in one fell swoop, or to be Fox’s pawn.
He’d accepted duties as the pawn in late 2001 but quickly tired of Fox’s manipulations. He pulled together Rathburn and Takishi, two Harvard Business School classmates, explained the situation to them, and they agreed he was screwed.
But they proposed an option. Actually, it was Takishi’s idea. Japan had a few mineral and manufacturing plants on Mindanao and in a few months, if not weeks, they could retool those structures to produce some small arms. Takishi had the contacts that could feed the weapons to the insurgents, who would overthrow the government of the Philippines and voilà, America would have to manage an insurgency in the South Pacific as opposed to a full-scale, bloody, intractable situation in the Middle East. Further, the enemy in the Philippines would be the Abu Sayyaf, an Al Qaeda chain, of sorts. It would fit nicely with the overall theme of their plan, their musical score.
“We have good intelligence that Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines is a major threat not only to our close ally, the Philippine government, but also the shipping lanes, and by extension, the Pacific Rim region. While Iraq is still in the picture, we are becoming increasingly concerned with the information we are getting from our JUSMAG, the Joint United States Military Advisory Group, in the Philippines. And I regret to inform the American people that a Special Forces soldier was killed in combat in the Philippines recently. We will release his name pending notification of the next of kin.”
Reporters’ hands shot into the air followed by their incessant howls of wanting to know a name or why they weren’t informed of the military operation. Chaos reigned briefly until Stone called on a reporter with whom he had a brief conversation prior to the press conference. The question was a plant.
“Mr. Secretary, so to make sure I understand what you are saying, can you tell me what the U.S. defense priority is right now? Is it Afghanistan? Iraq? Philippines? Where are our vital interests?”
“That’s a great question, Mark,” Stone said, grimacing, but not too much. His public- affairs officer had told him to be pleasantly present. Not sad, but a tad mournful. Just there. Friendly, but concerned. “Our priority is to crush Islamic extremism wherever we find it and to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. That remains our priority, and what I’m telling you is that’s exactly what we’re doing. Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines is our Pacific front in this war.”
Stone saw his public-affairs officer cringe when he used the term “front,” but it was deliberate on Stone’s part. He wanted to alert the world that he had started another front.
A shapely blonde from the back of the room raised her hand and shouted, “Do we have enough force to do all of this?”
Stone lifted his hand to his face as if in a salute, peering over the throng of reporters, trying to see who had just spoken.
“Oh … hi, Betsy. Of course that is a primary concern of ours. We, in fact, are trying to determine right now how best to apply the force we have and where.”
How’s that for saying nothing? Stone smiled.
On cue, a staffer handed him a note and his public-affairs officer, Johnny Smithwick, replaced him at the podium to handle any further questions. Of course, the note merely said, “Time to go.”
And it was time to go. He walked into the National Military Command Center and called the Pacific Command Admiral in charge.
“Have you deployed that rifle company to Subic Bay to guard the ammunition stockpile yet, and are they prepared for further combat operations?”
Phase II: Brothers in Arms
Chapter 21
“Blow me, McAllister,” Captain Zachary Garrett said to his close friend, Captain Bob McAllister.
“I don’t have time to form a search party,” McAllister shot back in his Boston accent.
The two company commanders sat in squeaky gray chairs in Zachary’s office on Schofield Barracks, an Army base in the middle of the island of Oahu.
“I’ll give you a lead — start searching near my ankle.”
“Listen, Zach, all I’m asking for is an introduction,” McAllister said.
“Yeah, right. You’ll follow that up with a dinner at a cheesy restaurant, or worse, the O-Club, some drinks to loosen her up, then a quick slam at your place.”
McAllister looked confused, waiting for Zachary to continue. “So what’s your point?”
“That’s exactly my point. I’ve only been close with Riley a short while, she’s an admiral’s daughter, and you want me to introduce you to her sister just so you can pounce on her — forget it.”
“Look, I saw this girl — she’s gorgeous. She is the future Mrs. Robert M. McAllister—”
“Please — a fate worse than death. I’ll buy her a one-way plane ticket to the mainland.”
“I can’t quit thinking about her. She’s in my every thought,” McAllister said with mock theatrics, his Boston accent sounding almost like a Cagney impression. “This morning at PT doing push-ups—”
“Forget it.”
“Come on. What do I have to do?” McAllister asked. Zachary noticed that perhaps he was serious, despite the joking. The two men were dressed in Army combat uniforms and had their feet up on Zach’s desk. They could see the Waianae Mountain Range through Zach’s window.
“Promise me you will not touch her on the first date,” Zachary said.
“Promise,” McAllister agreed, “But what if she goes for the big guy herself?”