“You’re telling me this is real? Ask him to repeat it.” Bush directed, leaning over the desk and staring at the young private.
“No sir — I mean — sir, I know Slick. He wouldn’t bullshit about something like that.” Looking at the captain, he said, “We need to find Colonel Buck and let him know.”
The two soldiers ran quickly to the commander’s office and knocked, then entered. The colonel was working on some last-minute plans before traveling to the airfield. Dressed in his Army combat uniform, he looked worried, almost overwhelmed by the recent developments.
“Sir, Pitts has something he wants to tell you,” Bush said, playing adjutant and not stealing the young soldier’s thunder. Pitts looked at the captain as if to thank him. He was proud of his discovery. It was like being handed a rock and washing the dirt away to find gold. No one at division had treated the information with any concern.
“Sir, I just set up our SCAMP — uh — it’s a new tactical satellite—”
“Get on with it, Pitts, we’re leaving soon,” Buck said.
“I talked to Bravo Company.” The colonel looked surprised. “That spot report about the Japanese weapons I brought into you earlier was bogus.”
“I sort of figured that,” Buck said.
“It’s worse.”
Pitts went on to explain the report, and Buck, like Bush, questioned its validity. Pitts’s insistence convinced the battalion commander to radio the brigade commander with the information, who promptly located the division chief of staff. The division chief of staff informed the division commander, who asked that the spot report be verified. The division operations center confirmed the spot report with Captain Garrett’s company in Luzon. When asked why they had not picked up on the report earlier, the division staff officer blamed the reporting unit for faulty reporting procedures.
The division commander then informed the U.S. Army Forces, Pacific, Commander, who called the Commander Pacific Command, a Navy admiral. The commander then promptly called over a secure red-switch telephone to the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The CJCS received the message with alarm and skepticism, but nonetheless reported it to the secretary of defense. Stone immediately asked Vice President Hellerman for an audience.
“There has been a new development,” he told the seasoned politician. What Stone was really wondering was: Four plants? There was only supposed to be one. There’s just one glider, right?
As the information ascended from the muddy operating levels into the upper reaches of national strategy, it remained relatively unchanged in content. In fact, the number of plants grew from four up to six, but the message did not change in meaning.
As Matt Garrett wondered if Zachary was alive; as Chuck Ramsey’s men clawed their way to safety up the jagged edges of the rain forest; as Zachary Garrett and his men huddled in the highlands above Subic Bay; as Karen Garrett knelt and prayed for her brothers; as Meredith Morris fondled the thumb drive and wondered about the Rolling Stones; and as “Mick Jagger,” Robert Stone, played out the possibilities in his mind, the simple endeavors of two privates brought unmistakable clarity to the situation.
Chapter 63
Stone placed the secure phone in the cradle and leaned back in his leather chair. This is good, he thought. We’re definitely going to have to commit some resources to the Philippines. But what do the Japanese have up their sleeves? Ten ships that young lady mentioned. Four, not one, weapons-manufacturing plants on Mindanao. Keith Richards is possibly dead. Hmm. What kinds of chess moves were being made?
Fox and Diamond entered the room via the side door. Each man had removed his suit coat and had the sleeves on their respective Egyptian cotton shirts rolled up just below the forearm. We are working hard, their appearances screamed.
“This is out of control,” Fox said.
“Out of control,” Diamond reiterated.
“I’m busy, guys. You just may be right,” Stone agreed.
“We are getting off track here,” Fox said.
“We have some ideas to get back on course,” Diamond said.
“I’m thinking we’ll have to wait until next year to do Iraq,” Stone said.
“That’s unacceptable. The window of opportunity is now. The American people want to kick some ass,” Fox said.
“And now,” Diamond seconded.
Stone, tiring of the tag-team duo, said, “Well, how about we kick some Filipino ass?”
“Not enough targets. We need more targets,” Fox said.
“More ass,” Diamond added. “The more targets, the more ass we can kick. Who wants to kill a bunch of zipperheads?”
Stone looked at Diamond and gave him a disapproving look for using a derogatory term to describe the Filipino people.
“We don’t go to war with the theories we wish we had; we go to war with the theories we’ve got,” Stone said. That ought to clear it up for these twits.
Fox and Diamond stopped, looked at one another, and seemed to ponder this pearl of wisdom.
“Yes, but what the hell is in the Philippines?” Fox continued. “I’ve got CENTCOM’s troop list right here. If we keep pouring troops into the Philippines, this plan becomes no good.” Fox shook a thick stack of papers at Stone.”
“World peace will suffer,” Diamond added.
“We need to destroy Iraq so that we can rebuild it as a shining beacon of democracy on a hill in the heart of the Middle East,” Fox said.
The two men were machine-gunning Stone. They sensed that they needed to close him the way a real-estate agent gets a skittish buyer to sign the contract.
“Baghdad’s in a valley; the Euphrates River Valley. You guys aren’t even making any sense. Do you have any idea of what is happening in the world? Democracy in the Middle East is important, but can’t we wait a year? Develop a plan, maybe?”
“CIA says it’s a slam dunk. We need to go,” Fox said.
“What is a slam dunk is that Al Qaeda is still on the loose. We’ve captured or killed a few midlevel functionaries, but the big fish have just changed streams,” Stone said.
“Al Qaeda is incapacitated,” Fox said.
“Out of commission,” Diamond reiterated.
“Is this how you really feel?” Fox asked Stone. “Are you jumping ship?”
Stone sighed. Where were the Rolling Stones when he needed them? One might be dead; another was half a world away. Maybe Ronnie Wood would come to his rescue. He was really the most powerful of them all, but had asked for the Wood pseudonym to further disguise his participation. If Wood was ever found out, well, the whole thing might come tumbling down. That left Stone to carry the weight of the counterplan on his own shoulders.
“You guys are killing me,” Stone said, ignoring the question. “I’ve just ordered a Navy SEAL team to check out the ships the Japanese have supposedly loaded with tanks and helicopters.”
“All conventional weapons. Iraq’s got nukes,” Diamond said. “And, we’ll need the SEALS to get into Basra and other port areas immediately.”
“Yellow cake, aluminum tubes and rockets,” Fox sang.
Stone thought he might hear Fox mutter an “Oh my” à la The Wizard of Oz. He turned away and looked out of his window. He could see the Washington Monument standing erect in the middle of the Mall.
Yes, as soon as he could shake his leg loose from these two terriers, he would call Ronnie Wood and talk things through.
Indeed, it was rock and roll, but he sure didn’t like it just then.