Balance of Power: A Novel (44 page)

“No, Mr. Dillon. Despite the tough rhetoric, killing is killing.”

“…and now that I hear an innocent American missionary got killed by this and I
saw
people get killed…” His voice trailed off. “You just wonder if it was all worth it.”

“You should always wonder that, Mr. Dillon. We look at everything we do in that same light.
Everything
. But now that you have, what’s your conclusion?” He studied Dillon’s face and saw the clash of emotions.

“Even knowing what I know now, it was the right thing. I’d do it again.”

Billings nodded. “By the way, Mr. Dillon, I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“What?”

“The COD’s back up. It should be here in a couple of hours; then you can get out of here.”

“That’s not bad news,” Dillon said, flooded with relief.

“Oh, I figured now that you’ve done your John Wayne imitation, you’d want to stay here for the rest of the cruise like us.”

“Well, Admiral, I’m sure if I were in the Navy, that’s exactly what I’d want, but frankly I’d like to get back to Washington. I’m interested to see how all of this plays out.”

“So am I. But first, you’d better get down and have the ship’s surgeon check you out.” Billings glanced around. “Corporal Knight, escort Mr. Dillon to sick bay.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Chief of Staff, have you gotten a message off to the Joint Chiefs telling them about the action?”

“Yes, sir, long gone.”

“Admiral, I think you better look at this!” Beth was looking at the screen with the biggest picture.

“What is it?” the Admiral asked.

“A formation of ships, looks like about eight of them, heading toward us from the northeast.”

“There are dozens of ships out there.”

“Yes, sir, but the radio chatter indicates these are high-speed contacts.”

“What do you mean ‘high-speed’? Are they high-speed patrol boats?”

“The E-2 doesn’t think so, sir. They’re doing over thirty knots.”

“Thirty knots? Formation?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get somebody out there to take a look at them.”

“Yes, sir. They’re on their way right now, but we don’t have any report on who they are yet.”

Billings listened to the E-2. As he looked at the screen, he noticed the numerous airborne contacts near the Navy formation headed their way.

“What the hell are all those airplanes doing?” Billings asked.

“They’re not sure. They’re sending fighters to check it out right now.”

“How fast are they going?” the admiral asked.

“Six hundred knots plus.”

Dillon looked from the admiral to the chief of staff and back to the admiral. They listened as the E-2 directed a section of F-14s toward the oncoming airplanes. There were six of them 150 miles to the northeast.

Billings asked, “Are they squawking mode 4?”

“We can’t tell, Admiral. The mode 4 code changeover message was due yesterday. We’re out of sequence.”

“Great,” the admiral said.

They waited and watched as the targets closed on each other. The closure rates of the targets increased to nine hundred knots, then one thousand.

The admiral spoke confidently, “Only one country would fly fighters this far from land. Those are our friends from the
Truman
. Let’s see what they have up their sleeves.”

On the admiral’s bridge aboard the USS
Harry S Truman
, Admiral Blazer examined the message and queried
his communications officer. “When was this sent?”

“We just intercepted it about two minutes ago.”

He looked at the display in front of him, showing every airplane and ship within three hundred miles. “How close are our fighters to the
Constitution
?”

His operations officer studied the numbers on the screen. “Under two hundred miles.”

“Did you see this?” Blazer asked him, handing him the message.

“Yes, sir, I got a copy.”

“Looks like we’re too late,” Blazer said, vacillating between frustration and relief.

“Yes, sir. Their message says it’s all over. The rest of the report is to follow, but the result is in.”

Blazer stared at the screen. “You think that message was for our benefit?”

His operations officer shrugged and studied the admiral. “I don’t know, sir, could be. Admiral Billings probably knew we were coming.”

“Our F-14s are one hundred fifty miles out from the
Constitution
, sir,” the enlisted intelligence specialist reported as he studied the displays in the dark room identical to the one Billings was sitting in. “The E-2 says the
Constitution
F-14s are outbound and are running intercepts on our fighters.”

Admiral Blazer smiled slightly, understanding the irony and difficulty of the situation. “Tell them to let the
Constitution
Tomcats rendezvous on ’em. Tell them to smile and wave. The fight’s over down here. The way I see it, our mission is over.” He looked around. “Anyone disagree?”

No one said a word.

“Set a course to rendezvous with the
Constitution
Battle Group. Send a message to Washington informing them of our intentions and requesting further instructions.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

D
ILLON STOOD ON THE STACK OF
W
ASHINGTON
Post
s in the hallway, fished in his pocket for his key, and unlocked his apartment door. He stumbled into the apartment, dropped his bag on the floor, and kicked the door closed behind him. His answering machine blinked frantically. He bent down and unplugged it. He took off his trench coat, flung it onto a chair in the kitchen, and lay down on the couch in his living room, wincing as he jarred the bump on the back of his head. He turned reluctantly onto his side. He lay there for five minutes without moving, trying to think about the last few days, but his brain refused to replay the tape. It was a blur, like an auto accident in which he had been a passenger.

He swung his legs over the edge of the couch and sat up, rubbing his face. He knew he should try to sleep, but while his body was exhausted, his mind wasn’t. He grabbed his portable phone and dialed the Speaker’s private residential number. The Speaker’s wife answered the phone.

“Mrs. Stanbridge, Jim Dillon.”

“Jim, how are you? Where are you?” Her voice was perpetually pleasant even when announcing natural disaster or political reversal.

“I’m back. I’m in my apartment. I feel like I fell out of an airplane, but I’m here.”

“Hold on. I’m sure that John wants to talk to you.”

I’m sure he’d like nothing better, Dillon thought, especially now that he knows how many Americans died….

“Jim, you’re back!”

“Yes, Mr. Speaker. Sorry it took me longer than I expected, but the airplane…”

“It doesn’t matter at all. You didn’t miss a thing.”

Very funny.
“I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, from over there, it looked like…well, like a zoo.”

Stanbridge laughed gruffly, “It looked like a zoo because it
was
a zoo.”

“Yes, sir. It sure was. Things weren’t exactly routine on the Java Sea either.”

“Yes, I know. Somebody at the Pentagon leaked the gist of the report to the press, basically saying we killed an American missionary, killed a bunch of terrorists, and killed a bunch of Americans. Not presented very flatteringly.”

“What do you think the spin on this whole thing is going to be?” Dillon asked.

“Hard to say. Unless we get your story out ASAP, telling exactly what happened and how our men saved the captain of the
Flyer
, took care of those terrorists, and rescued a missionary, the President is going to have the high ground.” The Speaker hesitated, not sure when to say it, but knowing it had to be said. “I want you to have a press conference tomorrow afternoon to tell our side.”

Dillon felt a chill. “What do you mean,
our
side?”

“The side that proves it was the correct decision. You know how this works, Jim. Everything can be presented to look good or bad.
Everything
. They’ve got their side out—making the Navy look stupid—and me, by the way—and now you’ve got to put out what really happened.”

“I don’t know. It may have been classified,” he said, not knowing whether to tell the Speaker he had actually gone ashore.

“Oh, nonsense,” the Speaker replied. “As soon as I
heard you were inbound, I set a press conference for tomorrow afternoon at four
P.M.
Do you think you can make it?”

Dillon grimaced. Hard to avoid something the Speaker had set up already, just for you. “Yes, sir, but tomorrow is Tuesday. I wanted to go to that Supreme Court hearing.”

“You’d
better
be there. Grazio said he’s going to camp out all night or do whatever it takes to get a seat and he is going to save you one. The hearing is at seven o’clock
A.M.
I want you to be there. It should be fun.”

“Yes, sir, I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

Dillon’s body was out of sync with day and night, and his hygiene was out of sync with clean and dirty. He had lost weight on his quick trip to the Southern Pacific but still wasn’t hungry. He dressed in his best suit and put on a crisply starched white shirt and a navy blue tie with small gold diamonds. This would be practically the first day he walked out the door without a briefcase full of papers since he moved to Georgetown.

As he was leaving he again noticed the stack of
Post
s. He hauled them inside and took off the top one. Bold black letters in an unusually large headline read:
ROGUE CONGRESS? SUPREME COURT TO HEAR THIS MORNING.
Dillon scanned the other front page stories. Below the fold were various stories on the Letter of Reprisal, the actions of the battle group, Admiral Billings, and the Indonesian terrorists. He put down that day’s paper and quickly scanned the front pages for each of the days he had been gone:
“ROGUE CARRIER F-14S SHOOT DOWN TWO INDONESIAN F-16S, INDONESIA SAYS.” “MARINES STORM ASHORE ON INDONESIAN LAND WITHOUT PERMISSION.” “19 MARINES DEAD IN ATTACK ON ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISTS PRIVATE ISLAND.”
The word of the week seemed to be
rogue
. A
rogue
battle group, a
rogue
admiral, a
rogue
Congress—
rogue
, occasionally interspersed with
renegade
.
The
Post
must not approve. Otherwise it would use words like
bold,
or
courageous.
He folded the papers and threw them back on the floor.

He walked out the door, locking it behind him. He rode the Metro to Union Station, the station nearest the Supreme Court, and walked the rest of the distance. It was just becoming light. Six o’clock in the morning, but he still hadn’t beaten a large crowd to the steps. The camera crews were already set up; the journalists were poised, looking for someone they recognized.

He pulled up the collar of his blue wool overcoat to partially conceal his face without looking as if he were hiding. He made it into the courtroom with very little opposition. He was surprised, though, that virtually all the seats in the gallery were already taken. The clerk had opened the doors at 5:30 and journalists and other interested people had poured in. He saw Grazio sitting midway down the left side. Grazio saw Dillon at the same time and his face lit up. He waved at Dillon, who quickly made his way to the chair Grazio had saved for him.

“Hey!” Grazio said, lifting his hand to receive a high five. Dillon slapped his hand. “You made it!”

“Of course I made it. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

“No, I mean you made it back from the big war.”

“Yeah, a big war. Fifteen hundred Marines against two hundred terrorists.”

“Yeah, but they were
bad
terrorists. And most important, we kicked some ass.”

Dillon was not particularly big on bragging about the operation right now. He could tell that a few journalists had recognized him, but he quickly glanced away so they wouldn’t be encouraged.

Grazio was bouncing his legs up and down. He prodded Dillon. “So what was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“The carrier, the war, the whole thing?”

“It was pretty amazing.” Dillon shrugged, trying to
downplay the strike. “I saw a lot I never thought I’d see.”

“That must have been really cool,” Grazio said enviously.

“It was pretty cool, but then you realize that real people were getting killed and suddenly it brings it…”

“Yeah, but they
deserved
it,” Grazio said.

“Yeah, well, nineteen Marines got killed too.”

“Yeah. I heard. What happened? They got a helicopter shot down?”

“Yeah, shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.”

“Where did those guys get all those weapons? South African surface-to-air missiles? Silkworm anti-ship missiles? Shoulder-fired missiles? What is
that?”

“It’s unbelievable. One of the dead guys was Chinese,” Dillon said. “He was their expert arms acquisitions guy. He knew every arms merchant in the world apparently.”

“I guess he did,” Grazio said. “What exactly did they have in mind?”

Dillon thought about it. “I think this is the new terrorist,” he said. “Terrorists for money and power, not political gain. The scary part is, they fake the political agenda so they can use other people.”

“So why go after an American ship? That’s kind of stupid, isn’t it?”

“Maybe, maybe not. If they’d pulled off the bit about the Islamic terrorists, maybe they really could have gotten an Islamic movement going in Indonesia and forced the U.S. out of there. We’re the only ones who might actually go down there and try to clean out the terrorists—actually do something about it. So they insult us and try to get us to go home.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think they thought that one out very well.”

“They would have pulled it off, except for the—”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Grazio interrupted. “When we leave, check out the Capitol building.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just do it. Think high,” he said cryptically. Grazio continued to scan the audience for anyone he knew. “Hey, check it out. Here comes the big man.”

Dillon turned around to see the Speaker and his wife enter the room. One of the Court officials escorted them to the front row immediately behind the bar and indicated two seats by the aisle. Dillon looked at Grazio. “What’s he doing here?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

Dillon shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I talked to him last night and told him I was coming; he didn’t mention he was.”

“Guess who else is…”

President Manchester strode purposefully from the back of the courtroom escorted by Secret Service agents and his wife. Another Court official indicated the front row on the right as his group walked and took their seats.

“Manchester,”
Dillon breathed.

“Holy shit. This is going to be good,” Grazio said excitedly. “I’ll bet it’s never happened before. I’ll bet the Speaker of the House and President have
never
attended an argument before the Supreme Court.”

“This is incredible.”

“Notice how the Speaker is sitting on one side and Manchester is sitting on the other,” Grazio said with a smirk. “It’s kinda like friends of the groom, or friends of the bride. I could sure tell you which one of those guys is wearing the dress…. Hey, don’t look now…Molly’s here, looking for a seat.”

“So let her look; she can sit wherever she wants.”

Grazio disagreed. “Nope, the seats are all gone. Tell you what, she can sit on my lap.” He looked sideways at Dillon.

Dillon stared straight ahead without saying anything.

Grazio stood up. “Molly! Over here.”

Molly walked toward him until she saw Dillon. She stopped.

Grazio motioned for her to come over.

“We don’t have any room,” Dillon said softly.

“She can sit on half of each of our chairs, right between us.”

Dillon looked straight ahead again, trying to decide what to do and what to say.

Molly said, “Excuse me,” and stepped across his right leg, then his left leg. The back of her thighs rubbed against his knees and he looked up at her. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he did it. He saw her hair bouncing against her shoulders and he could smell her perfume. Grazio moved over, giving Molly about six inches between them. Dillon slid over to his right. The person next to him gave him a dirty look.

Molly squeezed uncomfortably between the two of them. “How have you been, Frank?” Molly asked, shaking his hand.

“Primo,” Grazio said in reply.

“Hi, Molly,” Dillon said.

“Hello, Jim.”

The three sat there in silence and stared at the Supreme Court justices’ leather chairs. But the chairs could stand only so much examination. After a while, Dillon and Molly had to look at something else. She turned and looked Jim in the eye. He tried not to look at her, but was unable to stop himself. He tried to read her gaze. There was no anger, no hostility.

The back doors to the courtroom opened and David Pendleton and Jackson Gray walked in together. Each indicated for the other to go through the bar first. David held the railing open for Gray and followed him through. Pendleton looked ice-cold. Gray looked angry and frustrated, but hopeful.

Dillon looked for Pendleton’s associate, but no one was with him. He had nothing with him: no briefcase, no papers, no notes, nothing. That’s probably a first, Dillon said to himself.

Gray pulled out two large black three-ring binders and set them on the counsel table. He then pulled out a smaller
black notebook which probably had his notes for his argument and opened it in front of him. I’ll bet he’s been reviewing it all night, thought Dillon.

Pendleton sat on the edge of his chair with his back straight and his hands folded on the table in front of him. He didn’t look to the left or the right, nor did he review anything.

Dillon let his leg rest against Molly’s as he watched Pendleton.

The conversation in the gallery died down as the minute hand rose. Finally, at exactly 7:00
A.M.
, the nine Supreme Court justices walked through the large curtains in the middle of the room behind the Chief Justice’s chair. The clerk of the Court preceded them. “All rise,” he said.