Counter Poised Page 4

  George shook his head again. “You’re right. We lived as a free and open society for so long…there were probably hundreds of holes al-Qaeda could have taken advantage of.”

  “A few more years, and we would have plugged those holes, sir.”

  “Yeah, maybe so. But at the same time, we tend to do a lot of stupid things that make it easier for terrorists to kill us.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, for instance, we allow people to post information on Web sites showing how to construct a nuke. And then we allow them to post information showing the effects of a nuclear blast in any city you want to pick. A terrorist could pick a location in any major city, pick a warhead size, and see what the effect would be if that warhead detonated in that location.”

  “I’ve seen one of those sites.”

  “Well, no doubt, they were very useful to al-Qaeda in planning the size of their weapon and its placement. You think they found such a perfect location by accident?”

  “No, sir.”

  George struck the top of the console with his fist. “We are so stupid! We know they’re out to kill us, and we give them every tool they need to maximize the body count! When will we ever learn?”

  George got up from the console and made his way through the crowded control van to the door. “I’m stepping outside for a minute,” he called to the lieutenant.

  George found himself alone outside, where the air was warmer but fresher than the conditioned air inside the stuffy, crowded van. George took a deep, long breath, exhaling slowly to calm himself. The control van was positioned next to the base operations building at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. It was a beautiful area, with lots of tall trees and lush green vegetation. Birds sang nearby, and cars quietly made their way past the base operations building on their way to and from hangars and various administration buildings.

  It all seems so peaceful. But in the back of George’s mind, he knew why Langley had been chosen as their operations site. Its proximity to Washington meant the Predator drones could quickly reach the target area surrounding ground zero. On the other hand, it was far enough away to have escaped any damage and was out of the fallout area, which tended to extend east and west from the most radioactive area.

  Thoughts of the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured and the loss of the nation’s beautiful capital flooded through George’s mind. Leaning against a tree for support, overcome with grief and sorrow, he cried uncontrollably. He knelt to the ground to pray, but knew it was also to keep himself from falling over as he suddenly lost all his strength.

  “Lord, give me strength. Give us all strength. And give us wisdom…wisdom to react to this crisis responsibly…wisdom to prevent more killing.”

  As he prayed, an inkling of a thought began to form in the deep recesses of his mind. It seeped in from somewhere—from God—from his soul—or from his subconscious mind. George couldn’t tell where it came from; it was just there. It was an answer to his prayer. He rose to his feet with renewed energy and looked up through the tree branches to the clear blue sky. He raised a clenched fist and made a vow: “As long as I have a breath of life in me, this will never happen again.”

  The ranking surviving member of Congress, Senator Jonathon Thornton of Vermont, took charge as acting president in the days following the attack under the Emergency Powers Act, appointing a new cabinet and setting up temporary government offices in Philadelphia. Senator Thornton, a Democrat, had been home in Burlington recovering from a prostate operation when the attack on Washington took place. Acting President Thornton called upon all the states to hold elections for new senators and representatives as quickly as possible and to send them to a newly formed Congress in Philadelphia, convening in one month.

  The newly elected senators and congressmen demanded to know how our government had let this happen. In typical Washington fashion, people pointed fingers—someone had to be blamed. The only difference now was that the blame game was being played in Philadelphia.

  The investigation showed the attack had been completely unexpected. Prior to the blast, the Homeland Security Department had not declared any heightened state of alertness for more than six months. Intelligence agencies, hampered by recent laws passed by Congress to limit the president’s power to authorize wiretaps, had not picked up any unusual telephone communications indicating a terrorist operation was imminent.

  There was, of course, much talk of retaliation and bringing the terrorists responsible for this horrible act to justice. But everyone knew there could be no justice for this act. No counter-targets could be identified for our nuclear forces to strike. There was no country responsible for this attack. Al-Qaeda was still the shadowy, secret organization it had always been. Sure, a few individuals at various levels of the terrorist organization would be caught and tried for the crime, but there would be no justice for the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured. Al-Qaeda operated as usual, proclaiming the bombing as a great victory for Islam and stating this was not the end.

  Chapter 4

  It was deathly quiet. Nothing could be heard except the soft whirring of a myriad of small electric cooling fans in the banks of electronic equipment surrounding the small, cramped room. Commander George Adams looked around, his eyes adjusting to the dim red lights. He had ordered the white lights in the submarine’s control room turned off, indicating to the crew it was nighttime on the surface above. Suddenly, the piercing wail of the flooding alarm broke the silence. George called out, “Officer of the deck, report!”

  Lieutenant Commander William “Pappy” Boyington casually turned to George and whispered, “The sensors are down.”

  George was taken aback and momentarily confused. He wondered: What sensors? Why is Pappy being so casual, and why is he whispering?

  The wail of the alarm accelerated—but the crew just continued about their normal duties.

  They’re not responding! Taking charge of the situation, George grabbed the arm of an officer whose back was turned to him and spun him around. “Where’s the rupture?” he demanded.

  Commander Robert “Buffalo” Sewell glared at him. “We don’t know, George, but we’re severely listing to port. There’s nothing we can do. We’re going down!”

  Now George was totally confused. What is this? I’ve never served on the same boat with Pappy and Buffalo! If we’re in serious trouble, why aren’t people doing anything? And why is that alarm so persistent? Why can’t anyone turn it off? And why does it sound like that? That’s not the way the flooding alarm sounds!

  An acrid smell filled his nostrils. What is that? Smoke? An electrical fire? No, the smell isn’t quite right.

  Slowly, as his confusion continued, his vision grew dim. George panicked. I’m losing consciousness! I can’t—I’m the only one who can save us now! Everyone else seems to be drugged or helpless!

  The control room was pitch-black now, but George could still hear the flooding alarm and smell the smoke. Sweat was running down the sides of his face and dripping off his nose and chin.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw the curtains next to his bed, dimly lit by the light from his alarm clock. Dazed and confused, he raised his head from his soaking wet pillow. The smell of aromatic chicory coffee emanated from his automatic coffee maker in the kitchen. Groggily he reached over and slapped off the wailing alarm. Mixed feelings of relief and frustration flooded over him.

  0430 hours.

  Thus begins another useless day. A nightmare. What an appropriate start.

  It had been five years since the terrorist attack on Washington DC. Although George had not been in Washington during the attack, many of his friends at the Pentagon and in nearby suburbs died from either the blast or radiation poisoning. He had wanted to do something, anything, to retaliate, but was in no position to do so. These hopeless disaster dreams had become a recurring theme. George attempted to make light of them, calling them his “daily double.”

  “I live a life of frustration and disaster w
hile I’m awake, and then I do it again in my sleep!”

  George was divorced and lived alone outside Norfolk in suburban Hampton, Virginia. Years before, fresh out of submarine school and fresh into a new marriage, he had bought a house in Hampton and started planning a family. Navy life is tough on marriages, though, and his young wife had decided rather quickly that this life of separation and stress was not the life for her. They mutually agreed on a divorce, and she subsequently moved back to her family in Connecticut. All she wanted was out—and most of George’s life savings. Fortunately, that wasn’t much at the time. George kept the house, though, and during the time periods he was stationed outside the Tidewater Area, he rented it out to other naval officers. This arrangement had worked well over the years, and the house had appreciated considerably in value.

  George turned on the shower. As he waited for the water to get hot, he studied the bleary-eyed face in the mirror, which, much to his chagrin, was rapidly becoming middle aged. His Scottish-Irish ancestry had given him reddish blond hair and skin with a susceptibility to sun damage. He had always been freckled, and with his short-cropped military haircut, the freckles were even more pronounced.

  He thought back to the day on the GenCon oil rig when they tested the SQID drive and then heard about the attack on Washington DC.

  I was practically a kid then. Look at me now. I have lots of things I can blame on that day: a couple hundred freckles thanks to the sun; and thanks to DC, a dozen or so wrinkles and a neverending supply of nightmares!

  The last five years had not been kind.

  George currently served as the operations (ops) officer on the staff of the Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet, commonly referred to as COMSUBLANT. Headquartered at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, the admiral and his SUBLANT staff were continually monitoring world events and the locations of all U.S. boomers and attack submarines in the Atlantic Operating Region (AOR). George played a key role in preparing and presenting morning and afternoon briefings to the admiral, the first of which was scheduled for 0800 hours each day.

  George turned on a small TV next to the bathroom sink while he showered and dressed. His usual news station was broadcasting events for the commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the Washington attack. He changed the channel to find something else, but every station was carrying the same stories. Arrgh! There was no escaping it—today, even more than usual, he would have to relive the horror.

  Following the DC attack, the news media never relented. They seemed to feel it was their sworn duty to report every gruesome detail. People whose loved ones were missing in DC were keenly interested in the discovery of each additional body; but for the vast majority of citizens, the rising body count was just a constant reminder of the horrors of the attack. As the death toll passed 150,000 then 175,000 and then 200,000, most people stopped listening to the morbid news reports because they were too much to bear. A growing number of citizens groups and political leaders criticized the media for playing into the hands of the terrorists. By constantly reminding the world that the United States had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of al-Qaeda, they argued, the media was emboldening more radicals to join the fight.

  Still, the media did not relent. After the initial deluge of news reports detailing the death and destruction, the networks gave birth to what they called the We Will Remember campaign. For years, newspapers, radio stations, local television stations, and national broadcast and cable networks ran personal stories chronicling the lives and deaths of those who died. There were interviews with anguished family members. Details of the lives of thousands of the nation’s most promising young people. Handsome young men. Beautiful young women. The best, brightest, and most compassionate. Brilliant young minds selected for White House fellowships. The brightest young law school graduates clerking for Supreme Court justices. Young people who became doctors, nurses, police officers, and firefighters because they wanted to help their fellow man. The stories went on and on. Most viewers became emotionally numbed to the news after just a few weeks, but the networks were unrelenting in their campaign.

  Stepping out of the shower, George heard the familiar melody the media had selected for the campaign, meaning another story was about to be told.

  “Not again!” he said out loud. George angrily slapped the on/off button on the TV. He briefly thought about taking the set and throwing it in the trash.

  Who needed the darn We Will Remember campaign?

  Who could possibly forget?

  Chapter 5

  Once out of the shower, George was eager to get his morning coffee. The distinctive peppery aroma of the chicory gave him encouragement to get dressed. He quickly returned to the bedside clothes butler where he had hung his khaki uniform the night before. He pulled on the trousers and then buttoned them with what seemed to be a little more effort than normal this morning. He stared down at his belt buckle. He jogged or worked out every day. What was happening to him?

  George headed for the kitchen, got his favorite mug out of the dishwasher, and then filled it with steaming hot chicory coffee. Just the aroma was enough to remind you life was worth living! The empty coffee can on the counter reminded him to call Dwight. He was down to his last beloved can. George had become addicted to the chicory and coffee combination when he was working on the sub-fighter project with Dwight in southern Louisiana. Now, a morning without chicory coffee was like a day without sunshine…a dog without a bone…a body without a soul! Stepping into his cluttered living room, George looked around at the shelves lining the room from floor to ceiling. The shelves were filled with hundreds of scale-models: The lower shelves displayed submarines; the middle held warships; and the upper displayed fighter aircraft from around the world. The living room ceiling was painted with clouds, and the carpet was a disgusting shade of gray mixed with brown that could only be described as seafloor muck. The lack of a woman’s decorating touch was keenly evident. It was obvious the décor was Traditional Navy Bachelor—TradNavBach or TNB.

  One wall, noticeably empty of shelves and positioned so that it was the first thing anyone saw when entering the house, was completely covered with military plaques and certificates commemorating George’s career. Navy personnel jokingly referred to this type of self-aggrandizement as an “I Love Me” wall. Nearly everyone in the navy had one, but married personnel were usually forced by their spouses to put theirs in a back bedroom or out-of-the-way home office.

  George’s TNB décor extended into the dining room as well. What was supposed to be a dining room table was, instead, George’s model-building factory. The table had been covered with spread-out newspapers and pieces of models for so many years, George couldn’t even remember what the table looked like.

  Sitting down to inspect his latest work-in-progress, a MiG-29 fighter plane which he had carefully glued before going to bed, George noted its perfect lines. Building a model with precision was George’s passion. He had mastered a technique for minimizing the amount of glue used to hold the pieces together. As a result, it was practically impossible to detect any glue lines on his models. With some tender loving sanding and painting, he built models as close to the real thing as humanly possible. The only problem with his technique was that after a number of years, the models tended to fall apart! Now, instead of building new models, George’s spare time was taken up rebuilding his old ones. This was probably the third time he had perfectly built the MiG-29.

  George sat back, sipping his hot coffee. He set the mug down on the table and studied the military emblem emblazoned on its side—the coat-of-arms of the USS Annapolis SSN 760—with its red, black, and gold shield and crown overlaying crossed tridents, the symbol of sea power since the days the ancient Greeks worshipped Poseidon, the god of the sea. The submarine’s motto floated on a banner below: Born Free, Hope to Die Free.

  George’s tour as the executive officer (XO) of the Annapolis had been both extremely rewarding and extremely difficult—constant patrols interrupted
, of course, by the attack on Washington DC and George’s temporary reassignment to the joint-service operations unit surveying the damage after the attack. But then there had been the implications, even accusations, the Annapolis had been at fault—that they had failed to detect and stop the enemy submarine that delivered the nuclear warhead during one of their East Coast deployments. Anger swelled within him as he thought of the hard work and sacrifice of his crew and their families. Their professionalism and the pride they took in their work. All of that destroyed by conjecture and accusations from politicians who had no idea what they were talking about. The patriotic crew of the Annapolis was forever branded as failures, ashamed to mention they had served on her.

  George angrily grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door.

  Chapter 6

  George left the house at 0530 hours, walked down the driveway in the pre-dawn darkness to the 290-horsepower, Nighthawk Black, Acura RL, opened the driver’s door, and settled into the fine leather seats. Each time he sat down in his one major extravagance, he became a little more encouraged about life. He drove just a few blocks to the home of Commander Robert Sewell, better known as “Buffalo Bob” or simply “Buffalo.” Several other members of the staff lived in George’s neighborhood, and it was his week to drive the carpool to the naval base. The carpool was their little way of helping to reduce congestion and pollution in the Tidewater Area. It also gave them a chance to talk outside the office or to just read the paper and relax a little. Buffalo served as the administrative officer on the SUBLANT staff, in charge of all the “bull” as he liked to say. George and Buffalo had a lot in common, and George always stopped at Buffalo’s house first so they could share the front seat.

  As he entered the driveway of the house Buffalo rented with two other naval officers, George reflected on the sacrifices they had all made to prevent a nuclear attack on America. Because of the long patrols and periods away from home, his own marriage and dreams of a family had gone down the tubes, as had Buffalo’s and the guys’ who shared the house with him.