Executive Intent (36 page)

“Mr. President, it underscores the absolute necessity of instituting a ban on offensive space-based weapons,” Gardner said. “The space-station crew felt it was necessary to help defend the bomber and tanker, and so they acted. If such weapons are banned, such actions will not occur.”

“So you ordered this attack from space to induce Russia to agree to a ban on the very weapons you used to kill our airman?” Truznyev asked. “How dare you, sir! It is bad enough holding a gun to our heads by placing those monstrosities in orbit and then asking for a ban on such weapons, but then you dare try to increase the pressure by killing a Russian with one!”

“That was not my intention, sir,” Gardner said. “I did not sanction either action—the bomber crew and the space-station crews acted without my prior permission. They thought that their actions were part of their standing orders. They should have asked…”

The Russian president's incredulous voice in the background completely drowned out the translator's:
“Vy ne odobrjaet ikh dejjstvija?”
Truznyev shouted. The translator quickly cut in: “You did not approve their actions, sir?”

“Of course not!” Gardner said. “Things happened too fast.” He realized he had just about lost control of this entire conversation, so he quickly added, “We told you we were going to patrol your task force, sir, and you engaged us anyway. Why was—”

“No, sir, do not attempt to place the blame on Russia,” Truznyev said. “Your airmen and Space Defense Force troops' provocative and warlike actions resulted in the deaths of perhaps four Russian airmen and a dozen injuries.”

“And I deeply regret the loss of Russian life, Mr. President,” Gardner said. “But we are still confused as to why you would grant permission for a simple patrol overflight of your fleet, and then attack it. Were you trying to instigate a response, or—”

“Do not change the subject, Mr. Gardner,” Truznyev said. “You promised the world you would not employ those space-attack weapons and you called for a ban of such weapons, then you proceed right along and use another to shoot down a Russian aircraft. You simply cannot be trusted any longer, sir. You are a liar. And if you seek to pretend that you did not give the order to employ those weapons, you are not only a liar but a coward.”

“There is no need for such language, sir,” Gardner said.

“This is Russia's demand to you, Mr. Gardner,” Truznyev said. “All patrols by aircraft within strike range of our task forces will cease immediately. We will consider any such aircraft hostile and engage it immediately and without warning. Do you agree, sir, yes or no?”

“We are allowed freedom to navigate the sky as well as the sea, sir. We will not—”

“I said, Mr. Gardner, do you agree?”

Gardner hesitated, but only for a few moments: “Agreed, Mr.
President,” he said. “In the interest of mutual peace and trust, the United States will fly no patrol aircraft within one hundred miles of any Russian warship.” His national security advisers looked aghast as they listened in on the conversation; Phoenix still wore the same stony expression.

“And you must deactivate all of the Kingfisher interceptor satellites immediately,” Truznyev went on, “and they must be allowed to burn up in the atmosphere.”

“
Excuse me,
Mr. President?”

“Russia has the capability to monitor signals between those weapon satellites, Earth satellite control centers, and your military space station,” Truznyev said. “Those signals must cease. With prior permission, you will be allowed to maneuver the weapon satellites to deconflict with other satellite traffic or pick a safe reentry crash area, and you will be allowed to approach the satellites to recover sensors or other valuable equipment, but otherwise you may not alter their orbital path or activate any systems on board. They will be allowed to crash in the atmosphere.”

“Mr. President, those satellites perform a function over and above attack,” Gardner said. He glanced at his advisers around him and their shocked expressions—all but Phoenix's. The president didn't know enough about the Kingfisher satellites to defend them; no one at the table really did, except perhaps for Phoenix, and the president wasn't about to ask him. “They are used for…for reconnaissance, uh, and communications…”

“Mr. Gardner, we both know that their primary function is to destroy satellites and attack targets on Earth, apparently now including aircraft,” Truznyev said. “You can prattle about this and that as you please, but we all know that they were designed to kill, and have now done so many times. They must be deactivated, immediately, or Russia has no choice but to respond in kind.”

“What do you mean, Mr. President?”

“The United States and China are deploying antisatellite
weapons—Russia shall start deploying them as well, in great numbers,” Truznyev said. “China is placing long-range hypersonic antiship missiles all over the world in strategic locations—Russia will do so, too. America depends on Russian cargo spacecraft to supply the International Space Station and to boost it in its proper orbit—perhaps Russia's resources can best be used to help another nation's space program.”

“So you're threatening to start a new arms race?”

“The race began when you began deploying these armed satellites in orbit two years ago,” the Russian president said, “as well as engaging in this rapid buildup of aircraft carriers. You seek to dominate space like you dominate the world's oceans. This will not stand. You will agree to stand down your space weapons and leave our fleet in peace, or you will begin encountering more and more antiship and antisatellite weapons arrayed against you all across the planet.”

“America is not Russia's enemy,” Gardner said, his undertone almost pleading. “What happened over the Gulf of Aden will not be repeated. We have no designs on your task force, and we agreed to let Russia secure Yemen against further terrorist acts.”

“Mr. Gardner, words mean very little right now as we pull bodies and wreckage out of the Gulf of Aden,” Truznyev said. “Actions show your true intent, not words. Prove to Russia that you want peace and freedom of the seas and skies: Remove your armed patrols so our ships can move without fear, and remove the satellites of war so we can look up into the night sky again without fear of an artificial meteor streaking down on our heads. Then we shall see who is the enemy and who is a friend. Until then, you will find no cooperation from Russia.” And the line went dead.

The president hung up the phone, as did the rest of his national security team, then sat back in his seat, staring at nothing on the conference-room table. He looked utterly deflated, like the home football team's coach suffering a bad defeat in the Homecoming Day game.

“I wouldn't agree to anything that bastard says, Mr. President,” Ken Phoenix said after a few strained moments of silence. “He attacked without warning. We should demand—”

The president held up a hand to silence the vice president. “I'm not demanding anything, Ken,” he said. “Right now, I'm ordering:
All
patrol planes stay at least a hundred miles away from the Russian and Chinese fleets. Our radar planes can still keep an eye on them from a hundred miles.” He took another deep breath, then went on: “I'll have to have a talk with the congressional leadership, explain what happened.” He paused for a moment, then looked directly at Vice President Phoenix and said, “And I'm ordering the Kingfisher satellites deactivated.”

“What?”
Phoenix exclaimed. “Sir, you can't do that!”

“They're not worth the aggravation, Ken,” the president said wearily. “Truznyev is right: They are fearful weapons. An aircraft-carrier battle group is intimidating when it's parked off your shore, but when it sails away and disappears over the horizon, it's not anymore. The satellites are overhead each and every day. If we completed the constellations, there'd be
six
overhead every
minute
of every day. How can we expect any sort of friendship or cooperation from any country who's facing something like that?”

“Sir, Truznyev created this incident, provoking us to react, just so he could accuse you of belligerence and make unreasonable demands of you,” Phoenix said. “He's hoping to get you to accept full responsibility for this to force you to pull our forces back from engaging or even monitoring them. Then they'll be free to sail anywhere they please, conduct any operations they care to, completely without supervision.”

“There won't be any more provocations, Ken,” the president said, “because we
will
pull back. We kept an eye on the Russians just fine without flying supersonic bombers around their carriers, and we sure as hell won't shoot down any more Russian fighters with a space weapon. We've protected the nation and the world
just fine before Kingfishers and hothead bomber pilots arrived on the scene. No more. I want them shut down immediately.” He turned to Secretary of Defense Turner and added, “I want all other military and intelligence operations in the area to stand down for a couple days. The tension level is getting ratcheted up too high. Keep our carrier away from the Chinese and Russians and let's everybody just cool down.”

“The intel mission on Socotra Island…?” Director of National Security Vista asked.

“I said
all
missions,” the president snapped.

“Mr. President, that mission to Socotra Island is meant to provide positive proof that Russia is actively attacking our satellites with damaging streams of data,” Phoenix said. “If we call off the mission, we won't have proof. I recommend we—”

“We don't need any proof if the Kingfishers are all shut down.”

“So what will prevent Russia from doing the same attacks to other satellites?” Phoenix asked. “Will we shut down our intelligence satellites next because the Russians don't like them, or just wait for the Russians to attack them, too?”

“Ken, I said I want to ratchet down the tension level, and any ops against a Russian base will just create more headaches and force everyone's finger closer to the red button,” the president said.

“Everyone just back off, and let's hope things quiet down.” He lowered his head for a moment, then said, “Keep me up-to-date on the search for the bomber crewmembers, Mil. Thank God we didn't lose the tanker, too.”

D
IEGO
G
ARCIA
, I
NDIAN
O
CEAN

A
SHORT TIME LATER
,
EARLY EVENING

“Mission's been scrubbed, guys,” U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Jason Richter said. “No plans to go in the foreseeable future.” Richter was young, tall, and dark, but the stress of this hastily prepared mission had spread concern across his handsome features. He was sitting in the air-conditioned briefing room of the expeditionary bomb wing stationed at the military airfield on Diego Garcia, a former British navy base located 450 miles south of the southernmost tip of India.

Jason Richter was the commander of the Army Infantry Transformational Battlelab at Fort Polk, Louisiana, designing, building, and testing new devices for future Army infantry forces. He was in charge of developing and fielding a specialized weapon system he had designed years earlier called the Cybernetic Infantry Device, a creation that would eventually change the entire face of land warfare—if anyone could ever find money to fund it.

“I had a feeling it would be,” former U.S. Army Reserve captain Charlie Turlock said. Charlie—her real name, not a call sign or nickname—was slim and athletic, but the heat and humidity of the central Indian Ocean had drained a lot of her natural energy, as well as taken a lot of the bounce out of her short strawberry-blond hair.

“I hate getting dressed up for a party and having it canceled,” former U.S. Air Force major Wayne Macomber said. The former Air Force Academy football star and special operations commando always looked angry and on edge, as if he was expecting trouble to start any second. Patrick McLanahan's private military contracting company, Scion Aviation International, had hired Macomber and Turlock to manage some very special assets for the company—
several Cybernetic Infantry Devices and Tin Man commando units Patrick had absconded with from his former command, the Air Battle Force. Most of the CID units had been destroyed in the brief skirmish between Turkey, Iraq, and the United States two years earlier, and the rest had been returned to the U.S. Army and Jason Richter.

“Let's get our stuff out of the Condor,” Charlie said.

“I'm not going out there until I get this poopie-suit off,” Whack said. He was referring to the full-body gray suit he wore. Nicknamed “Tin Man,” the suit was composed of a material called Ballistic Electro Reactive Process that kept it flexible until it was struck by any projectile or object, when it would instantly harden into composite armor that was impervious to even medium-caliber cannon fire. The Tin Man commando system also used an exoskeleton of microhydraulic actuators and limb braces that gave its wearer almost superhuman strength and abilities, and a helmet with several advanced sensors and communications equipment that made him a one-man infantry squad.

It took Whack several minutes to wriggle out of the Tin Man armor and put on athletic shorts, shirt, and shoes, and loop his ID card on a chain around his neck, and then he, Charlie, and Jason walked out to a nearby aircraft hangar. He was bathed in sweat during the short walk across the tarmac, even though it was almost dark, and then instantly chilled again in the air-conditioned and humidity-controlled hangar. “She's a beauty,” Whack said after their IDs were checked by an Air Force Security Forces officer.

“Are you canceled, sir?” the officer asked.

“Yeah, Casone—my first flight on a B-2, and it's nixed,” Whack said. “We'll get to fly in it someday.” He was referring to the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber inside. The bat-winged composite long-range strategic bomber and its five sisters composed virtually all of America's long-range air-breathing strike forces after the B-2's lone base, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, had been destroyed in a
Russian nuclear sneak attack eight years earlier—four of the six survivors had been forward-deployed to Diego Garcia as part of an Asian bomber task force, and two had been airborne.