“If you please, Admiral Shranski and Captain Hammond, could you remain behind for a moment,” the President said calmly.
Granger looked as if he was about to blow a gasket. He snatched up his notebook and stormed out of the room slamming the door in his wake. After a moment the President asked, “Is he gone?”
“Yes, sir, he is gone,” Reardon said letting out a slow breath. All of the people in the room started breathing again.
“Again, I thank you for letting me listen in. My chief of staff had a feeling this meeting might go this way. I felt like I needed to hear it first hand,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I need help to build up all my armed forces to face what I have just been informed is the country that caused this. Do I have the assurance of everyone there not to divulge what I tell you?”
Reardon and everyone present sat up in their seats. “Hold on a sec,” he said as he got up and locked the doors. “I will vouch for everyone in this room including Admiral Shranski, Mister President. It the word gets out, it won’t be from here,” he said.
“Thank you, my friends. I am counting on you to help me find a way to get this job done. It all boils down to two words — North Korea.” The gasp was almost audible in the room.
“I didn’t think they had the capability,” one of the men said.
“Actually we didn’t either,” said the President’s National Security advisor, Carrie Strong, also on the telephone. “It appears they disguised some container ships and carried intermediate range rockets aboard. They parked off our shores and cut them loose. Then they figured the ships would be sunk with all hands hiding the evidence. We just found out about it.”
“Not like they haven’t done strange things before,” said another man.
“True enough,” said the President. “Now what can we do?”
Hammond spoke up. “Actually Mister Reardon made an excellent suggestion.” He looked at Reardon who had a puzzled look on his face. “Did you really mean what you said about recommissioning the battleships?” he asked Reardon.
Reardon scratched his chin. “Well, I was using that as an example. I hadn’t really counted on actually doing it,” he said. “But I wasn’t kidding when I said it would be cheaper.” He pointed out the window. “That’s the North Carolina out there now. She came in to clean her bottom and check her hull. That one would take a lot more work, but the four Iowas were last used in the 1990s. They wouldn’t be any problem at all,” then he paused a second. “What are you thinking about?”
Hammond walked over to the speakerphone. “How many older ships are still in mothballs?”
“I’m not sure. I know a few are sitting around,” said Strong.
“Think about it. Remember the older cruisers? Most of that equipment was vacuum tubes as well. I remember several amphibs over in Pearl. There might be enough to get something going and still be effective,” Hammond said. “Just before we went to the Barry I mentioned to Jim Butler about looking back and using the older stuff. We just need to expand that a little.”
“Reactivating the older ships might just work,” said one of the older men at the table. “We did it in WWII and in the Korean Conflict. Nowadays we usually just let them sit around and either sell ‘em or scrap ‘em. Unless I am mistaken, the North Koreans aren’t really up to par on technology anyway. These old ships might still do the trick, at least for the time being. They would be relatively impervious to EMP. The trouble will be getting those old systems put back together. I know a bunch of retirees who could probably do it, but it’s not in our training pipeline anymore,” the man said. “There aren’t that many of them anyway, so it shouldn’t really tax the different shipyards that much. Even smaller yards could do it.”
“This can work well for us in the short term, Mister President,” Hammond said. “But now I’m thinking about the Marines. If we can activate the battleships or some other gun ships, we can use those to soften up beaches before the Marines go in and provide support as they move inland. As I recall, Korea is only about 120 miles across in some places. With battleships on either side we can effectively deny the North about one third of the landmass. This is looking better and better.”
“Okay, but how do we make this happen?” the President asked. “Mister Reardon, do you have any ideas?”
Reardon sat back in his seat. It was a rare day indeed when a President asked for advice, much less help. It was time to earn the big bucks. “Okay, Mister President. You want ships, I will give you ships. Get those battlewagons to my yards and I will make them whole again. The North Carolina is here now and the Wisconsin is in Norfolk. I can pull her in tomorrow morning. As I recall, the Iowa is in California, the New Jersey in Philadelphia and the Missouri in Pearl Harbor. I will get in touch with the shipyards in those cities and we’ll get them refit in those yards. I’ll coordinate it for you. Now as I recall, there are at least two others in museum status — one in Massachusetts and one in Alabama. I’ll get Ingalls to do the Alabama and maybe New York to do the Massachusetts. If you guys come up with other ships, I will try and coordinate their activation too. At the same time, let’s try and find out where all the mothball ships are and make our plans accordingly,” Reardon said. There was no denying he was a man of action.
“Now that I have said all this, what’s in it for us?” Reardon asked. “I will gladly donate my time and efforts, but shipyards have to pay staff and workers. I need to be able to cover my expenses. If there is anyway to make a little profit, I am one happy man, but we need to work this out,” he said.
Shranski stood up. “Mister President, I need your permission to do something. It is out of the ordinary, but in this case it might work well,” he said.
“What do you propose?”
Shranski straightened up. Now he was in his element. “Mister President, I think Mister Reardon will agree that the biggest headaches in military contracts are all the minutia we have put into them. If we can make it plain and simple, we can save money and get a product much faster.”
Reardon nodded. “That’s entirely true, but what are you getting at?”
Shranski grinned. “Sir, I propose a cost-plus contract for the refurbishment and recommissioning of the seven battleships mentioned. The costs will be the actual expenses of the organization with a ten percent administrative charge to cover any additional overheads. All charges will be accompanied by receipts and invoices. Any ship delivered within 100 days of it entering the shipyard will get an additional bonus of ten million dollars per ship for expediting the order. All materials used will meet the requirements set down in the original shipyard plans or as prudent for its operation. There will be no further stipulations.” He turned to Reardon, “Would this meet your requirements?”
Reardon was astonished. He had never seen a contract that lenient. But Shranski was right, with this, he could make a small profit and get the work done in practically no time if he had a free hand. He even had an idea of how to speed up the process. “Will all the work be MilSpec?” he asked; referring to stringent military specifications.
Shranski thought a moment. “With your approval, Mister President, we will suspend the MilSpec provisions until this conflict is over. Just make sure the materials are top quality and the systems work well before turning them over. As long as the systems work, we will consider the contracts fulfilled.”
“I see Strong nodding her head, so I agree,” said the President.
“This will work, Mister President,” Reardon said. “I pledge that no one at this shipyard will use shoddy materials or cut any unnecessary costs. Hell, there’s no reason to since you are paying all the costs anyway. By requiring copies of invoices and our bills, I can cut out half the paperwork at this end. You guys would be doing a lot of the accounting as it is. I can make this fly with the other shipyards. If I can’t, then Mister President, we may have to double team them.” Reardon was beaming by this time.