“Stephan,” Turner said, now smiling at her two most trusted advisers, “would you please be more direct and less diplomatic?”
Mazie decided to do just that. “Madam President, we want to open a second front in the Gulf.”
“I’m quite sure General Wilding can give me a dozen reasons why that’s impossible,” Turner said. “And they all start with the word ‘logistics.’ With the Suez Canal closed, our supply lines are simply too long.”
“But the Mediterranean is still open to us,” Mazie said.
Turner saw it immediately. “Are you suggesting perhaps Israel?”
“Not Israel,” Serick replied. “Turkey.” The president sat upright.
“All our intelligence,” Mazie said, “indicates that the UIF is strained to the limit as it regroups in Saudi Arabia — in the south. If we were to open a second front through Turkey, in the north, we could catch Iraq in a giant pincer. Baghdad is approximately three hundred miles south of the Turkish border, and we could split Iraq right down the middle.”
“It has the added advantage,” Serick said, “of driving a wedge between Syria and Iran, placing each in a much more isolated position.”
“I need to see a map,” Turner said. Serick opened his briefcase and unfolded one. He spread it across her desk, and the three gathered around it. Turner’s eyes narrowed as Mazie measured the distances.
“The Iraqis,” Mazie explained, “believe that the mountains are a natural barrier between them and Turkey. But the mountains didn’t stop Alexander in 331 B.C. when he came down the eastern bank of the Tigris. He fought and defeated the Persians here, near Mosul.” Mazie tapped the city in the northwest corner of Iraq. “After that it was open country to Babylon.”
“Which was not far from modern Baghdad,” Serick added. “Approximately two hundred miles of wide-open country. Good terrain for armor.”
Turner considered it. She shook her head. “The Iraqis would see our buildup in Turkey and be ready. They’d stop us in the mountain passes, before we broke out into open country.”
“So what if it wasn’t us?” Mazie said. “But one of our allies who trains in Turkey.”
“And that ally is?” Turner asked.
“Germany,” Mazie replied. “They do extensive tank training near Urfa in southern Turkey. They have a training program modeled after our National Training Center in the Mojave Desert.”
“The Turks would never allow it,” Turner said.
“Unless they thought they were next,” Mazie replied.
“But they’re not,” Turner objected. “We know that.”
“But do the Turks?” Mazie asked. “What if they were convinced otherwise?”
Turner thought for a moment. She reached for the phone and hit a button. “Patrick, would you step in here for a moment?” She didn’t wait for an answer and buzzed her chief of staff’s office. “Richard, please clear my schedule for the next hour.” Again she didn’t wait for an answer. “Convince Patrick,” she told them.
Patrick Shaw’s sarcasm was in full flow as he poked at the map on Turner’s desk. “What do you people use for brains around here? Alexander the Great, my ass. The next person who wants to play strategy around here is gonna get a lobotomy. Sans anesthetic.” He shambled to the door, a shaggy bear at bay. “Totally unthinkable. If you wanna split the UIF, make Syria or Iran an offer they can’t refuse.” He paused. “Anything else, Mizz President?” She told him no and he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Turner carefully folded the map and handed it to Serick. “Thank you for listening, Madam President,” Serick said. Mazie stood to leave.
The president turned sideways in her chair as her fingers beat a little tattoo on her desk. They both recognized the signs. “He may be right, Stephan. Approach Syria and Iran with a deal. Make it a good one.”
“We can use Jordan as an intermediary,” Serick told her.
A long pause. Then, “Can you bring Germany and Turkey in?”
Mazie stared at her, and Serick sucked in his breath, both totally surprised. The president had never disregarded Shaw’s advice before. “Patrick,” Turner said, “has a crude saying: ‘Learn from the past or get bit in the ass.’ I don’t think the Iraqis have learned a damn thing.” She stood. “And we’re going to teach them.”
“I have a contact in Bonn,” Mazie said. “Herbert von Lubeck.”
Serick was impressed. “You’ll have to go to him.”
“I can go today,” Mazie told them. “That leaves the Turks.” She thought for a moment. “I believe Bernie can help. At one time, the Boys were very active in Turkey.”
“Get him moving,” Turner ordered. “We need to make something happen. The sooner the better.”
Shaw stood at the window in his corner office, looking at the bright day outside. But he didn’t see a thing. His fingers played with the laboratory report he was holding. “Do it, Maddy,” he said under his breath. “You know how.” He paced the floor, talking to himself. “Leland, you miserable bastard.” More mumbling. “Fuckin’ investigation…makin’ common cause with the Frogs…I’m gonna shred your ass.” He wadded the report he was holding, and threw it into the wastebasket to be shredded.
Eighteen
This isn’t as easy as it used to be, Pontowski thought as he crawled into the seat next to the boomer in the refueling capsule of the KC-10. Jet lag was taking a fearsome toll, and he wasn’t sleeping well. He slipped on the headset and settled into the comfortable seat next to the boom operator. The three seats were a far cry from the narrow pit where the boom operator lay in the older KC-135 for refueling. The protective shield over the view port was open, and he could see eight Warthogs, four on each side, flying in a loose formation. Far below him puffy clouds dotted the blue Pacific. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Not bad,” the boomer replied. “The KC-135 from Okinawa was on station as planned. Mindanao coming under the nose in a few minutes.” Pontowski felt the tension ease a bit. The one KC-10 and three KC-135s escorting his twenty A-10s did not carry quite enough fuel to refuel the Hogs for the entire leg, and they had to make a midocean rendezvous with an additional tanker. While it sounded simple, it was anything but. Pontowski dozed.
On the face of it the deployment from Kelly Field in Texas had gone smoothly enough. Pontowski and eighty others had boarded the KC-10 the Air Force had laid on to serve as a mother ship for the deployment and launched with the Hogs on Sunday morning. They rendezvoused with four more tankers and flew to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, a flight of eight and a half hours.
On Monday morning the twenty Hogs and the KC-10 had taken off from Hickam, again rendezvoused with four KC-135s, and flown nine and a half hours to Guam. But thanks to crossing the International Dateline, they had landed on Tuesday. Now they were on the last leg, an eight-hour hop to Malaysia. On its own, the KC-10 could have made it in much less time, but the Warthogs did nothing fast.
The boomer’s voice brought him back to life. “Steamer One, you’re cleared to precontact.” Steamer One was the call sign for Bag, the flight lead for Steamer flight, the formation on the right. Bag slid into close trail. The boomer cleared Bag into position, and he moved smoothly under the KC-10’s tail. The boomer guided the flying boom and hooked up on the first try. Bag’s Hog never moved as he took on five thousand pounds of fuel. “Very nice,” the boomer said over the intercom.
Indeed it is, Pontowski thought. How old is Bag now? Forty? He couldn’t remember. He’s changed since Africa. The pilot had been a captain on the peacekeeping mission to Africa, full of life and dedicated to the pursuit of women and the search for the perfect beer. During a stopover on that deployment, he and six other Hog pilots had set a new record on the island of Saint Helena for beer consumption and had been arrested by the local constabulary. The governor of the island had ordered the police to make sure they departed the next day, never to return. But four lovely young ladies had come to see them off with flowers and tears.