Читать книгу New Earth: The Search for Justice - R.D. Ph.D. Pittman - Страница 6

Jeffers, Liz, Somers, Elena and Andrade joined Alex in the communication room awaiting the call from President Kleskova.

“Hello General Hanken, it is Petrov Ingosich, I have President Kleskova, my superior Konstatin Bocovich, Director of External Security Affairs, and our senior military leaders, Admiral Joseph Krystanilaus, General Dimitri Inken, and General Ivan Tchafsky here in the room for this conference call. The President has asked that he be allowed to speak first.”

“General Hanken, Petrov has briefed me on your earlier call and your request to utilize our agents to uncover the traitors within your government, to which I say you have my permission to do so. But, you must first convince me and my military advisors that our country should have no fear of your military arsenal,” Liz interpreted for Alex.

“President Kleskova, to you and your assembled advisors I say this; it has never been, nor will it ever be, my intention to use my considerable arsenal in an offensive manner against another nation. The nuclear and traditional forces under my control are currently on standby readiness, but it is purely defensive in nature, and is only aimed at internal targets if Admiral Torrance should decide to initiate a hostile act,” Alex said and Liz spoke in Russian to relay his message.

“General, Admiral Krystanilaus, you have most of the land based and some of the air to air nuclear weapons at your disposal is that correct?” Liz spoke to Alex.

“No sir that is not correct, this morning we effectively shut out Admiral Torrance from any land based nuclear weapon systems; I now command NORAD and SAC exclusively. I have all of the land-based weapons and all of the air-to-air nuclear weapons in my arsenal. I have Air Force 2 and three separate control centers spread out across the nation from which to launch if I choose to do so,” Liz translated.

“Then Admiral Torrance has the U.S. Navy and its carrier force along with the submarine fleet?” The Admiral inquired. Liz spoke to Alex.

“No sir, that is not correct either, approximately six hours ago I secured the loyalty of Admiral Hanover and his entire staff. Along with that comes three carrier groups, two in San Diego, and one in Hawaii, twelve attack subs, six missile frigates, and thirty-eight thousand sailors and airmen, which includes, two full Marine divisions,” Alex said and Liz passed it on to the Admiral.

“General, you are now the most powerful military figure to ever walk the earth; I pray that you will be wise and judicious in using your new found power. That is all I had Mr. President.” Liz translated for Alex.

“Gentlemen, it is my most fervent hope that I will never have to fire a shot in anger at anyone. However, do not mistake my defensive posture as one of weakness. I will not hesitate to act against any aggressor to protect this nation, I hope you can relay that to your Chinese friends for me,” Alex finished and Liz spoke in Russian.

“General, this is General Inken, I head up the Air Forces for Russia. You have command of the B-2 bomber squadron and all the air launch nuclear tipped cruise missiles?” he asked. Liz relayed the question to Alex.

“Yes General, they are all under my control,” Alex replied and Liz interpreted.

“Mr. President, as long as General Hanken has that kind of control over so much of the US strategic arsenal we don’t have to worry about Admiral Torrance, that is all I had,” Liz passed it along to Alex.

“One final question General Hanken, what if Admiral Torrance launched an attack against us with no provocation on our part, who would you support?” the President asked.

“Mr. President, I would employ the old military tactic that states, my enemy’s enemy is my ally, I would help to annihilate him, he is a traitor to this country, and I will spend my last drop of blood seeing to it that he hangs,” Alex concluded and Liz interpreted.

“General Hanken, I like what I hear from you, it sounds like you are a reasonable and honorable man. If we can help in any way, call on us, and I look forward to meeting you someday. Elena and Andrade you show the Americans how good we are at counter intelligence make us proud, good day General,” the President said.

“And good day to all of you, and thank you.”

Alex turned and looked at the astonished expression on Ted Jeffers’ face and the blank stare on Somers face.

“Alex do you think the Russians bought that?”

“Of course not, but I wanted to strike the first conciliatory note, it will give us some time before they start dispatching agents over here to stir the kettle.”

“Jesus Hanken, you just did in fifteen minutes what nine previous Presidents have been unable to do for over forty years,” Jeffers commented.

“Don’t you believe it for a minute, the Russians still don’t trust us.”

“He’s right our military leaders especially don’t trust the Americans, but my boss, Petrov Ingosich, I think he can be swayed to your way of thinking General,” Elena offered.

Sandi stuck her head in and mentioned to Alex that the base housing officer was here to take Elena and Andrade to the civilian office for their housing and id’s. Alex told them both to return to the residence for dinner at six sharp, they agreed and excused themselves.

“Mom, he had the entire Russian elite eating right out of his hands, it was a truly historic moment.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you Liz, you were outstanding, there was no hesitation during your interpretation, excellent job, and you might be exaggerating a little on the level of acceptance by the Russians,” Alex stated.

Alex asked Sandi to have a nice dinner prepared. He wanted to get things started on the right foot. Sandi mentioned he needed call to Torrance at eight. Also, did he remember Professor Kumar from Cal Tech, who gave the presentation in Washington DC? He had called and wanted to speak to him as soon as possible. She told the professor that Alex would call him back the next morning. Alex put his arm around Sandi’s shoulder and told her how important she was to him and what a great job she was doing; she was the tie that kept him strong. He asked if the staff had gotten Ted settled into his room there at the residence and she said it was taken care of.

“Alex, I think we have some of our little family here starting to show signs of affection for one another,” Sandi said.

“Oh really, I hadn’t noticed.”

“Of course not, men never do,” Sandi looked at Alex and he had the deer in the headlights look on his face. Or was it that he was so preoccupied with the struggles before them that he seemed detached from the moment?

Sandi decided these weren’t issues Alex should be concerned with and would let those issues reside with her to deal with them as they arose. Liz and Bill were definitely moving closer together and she suspected Tina and Lt. Commander Morris might be having their moments together as well. Since Alex was relying more and more on Mike Morris she arranged to have Morris assigned to a spare bedroom in the residence…maybe that would help.

Major Kemp, the base housing officer drove Elena and Andrade to the civilian processing office to get their id’s and the cash advance. When they entered the office and the Major explained what he wanted, the Air Force clerk said they would have to fill out six different forms and have their backgrounds checked by the FBI before he could do anything. Elena and Andrade looked at each other and sighed heavily.

“Uh, young man come here, you see these two people standing here; they are the personal guests of General Hanken. They are going to be here for quite some time, as opposed to you, who, when I tell General Hanken how you treated them, will undoubtedly end up counting penguin droppings on the North Slope of Alaska.”

“Uh, yes sir, I didn’t realize they were General Hanken’s guests, I’ll get this processed right away, just a couple of minutes, and how much cash advance did they want?”

“Two thousand.”

Once they had the id’s and the cash, the Major drove them over to the motor pool to pick out a vehicle. The motor pool sergeant was about to offer resistance in the form of paperwork, when Kemp informed him of the guest’s status with General Hanken. He gave them a staff officer car, with a prepaid unlimited gas credit card. The Major told them to follow him to their house, which they did. It was a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage, fully furnished, and stocked with groceries and household goods. Once in the house Elena and Andrade looked at each other.

“Andrade can you believe this?”

“Elena, we have aligned ourselves with an amazing individual, let’s not forget we are to attend dinner tonight at the residence.”

“Yes and I want to shower and clean myself up and you need to do the same.”

Sandi met Elena and Andrade as the Navy Seals escorted them in. Elena mentioned to Sandi she was embarrassed that she didn’t have any nicer clothes to wear to the dinner. Sandi told Andrade to go in and get a cocktail; she and Elena had something they needed to do. Sandi took Elena into her master suite and opened the door to a huge walk in closet.

“Elena you are almost the same size as me, maybe not as busty as I am, but let’s see, how about this nice dress, try it on,” Sandi instructed Elena.

“Dr. Chenowith I couldn’t impose like this,” Elena protested.

“First, drop the Dr. Chenowith, please call me Sandi. Second, you’re not imposing, now go, go on.” Sandi pointed her to the dressing room.

When dinner concluded, Alex announced that he wanted Ted and his two FBI agents, Commander Morris, Elena and Andrade to join him in the communication room shortly before eight. Everyone else could enjoy the rest of the evening.

All the people he had asked to gather in the communications room were present. He told them he was placing a call to Admiral Torrance in a few minutes. After learning that Alex had liberated all the facilities, Torrance had called back in a panic, pleading with Sandi to have Alex return his call. It was something he wanted all of them to witness, and afterwards to give their impression of Torrance’s demeanor. Alex dialed the Admiral’s number.

“Admiral Torrance, General Hanken.”

“Alex, what have you done?”

“Admiral Torrance, how dare you ask me such a question,” the room was silent, the tension spiked as Alex responded instantaneously. “When it is you who have dared to desecrate all of our fallen heroes from past wars by this cowardly act, from the Revolutionary War up to the Iraq War, all who gave the ultimate sacrifice to our country for what it stood for have been grievously betrayed by your actions. Your actions led to the deaths of Marine and joint force soldiers who bravely carried out their orders, and what did they die for? No, Admiral it’s not what I have done, it’s what you have done and there can never be an excuse for a military leader such as yourself to act in such a despicable manner.” Alex sat silent, he waited, there was a long silence, it could almost be heard that Torrance was trying to recover from Alex’s rebuke.

“I see you have been busy, that’s no surprise to me, but I’m devastated that you have turned against me, after I placed such a premium on your loyalty and told you so just a few short weeks ago.”

“Admiral, you have a choice, forego this dangerous adventure, and I will see to it you are treated with dignity, or continue on this path and I will fight you to the end. My prayer is you don’t act in some provocative manner that causes one more drop of American blood to be shed. I know for a fact this is not your doing; that very powerful people have propped you up as their surrogate. Admiral, these people don’t care about America, they don’t care about you or me, and all they care about is their power and their money. It is beyond me you couldn’t see through this.”

“Alex, I love you like a son, and I know in my heart you will win this battle, but know this, we are committed to changing this country. I strongly believed you and I could have remade this country into the greatest nation on this planet. Tomorrow night I will be giving a speech nationwide to outline how I plan to transform this country, I hope you will listen in and reconsider,” the Admiral finished.

“Admiral, my one word to you is——never,” Alex hung up.

“Holy shit Alex, he sounded like he was resigned to losing,” Ted observed.

“I agree with Ted, he underestimated you, and you stunned him with your complete rejection,” Commander Morris stated.

“I think he knows that he is up against the wrong person, and the people behind him may very well replace him as soon as they sense that,” Elena joined in.

“Yeah, and it could lead to some very ugly situations,” Somers said.

“General, who do you think is behind him?” Evans asked.

“Well Bill, I think it has to be some very high up corporate people, possibly an opposition party person or persons, it’s got to be seven or eight people at least,” Alex guessed. More importantly he really didn’t care who or how many they numbered…they would all hang.

“I want all of you to commit this conversation to memory, it may have to be recounted at a future trial, now let’s all go get a good night’s rest, tomorrow comes early for us.” Alex knew the hard part was about to start, uncovering all of the traitors would be no easy task. Alex walked out of the room to greet Sandi and kissed her, and put his arms around her and said to her.

“Never let go of me, you and our future are all I live for now.”

Sandi was on an emotional pendulum that was swinging wildly back and forth, all she could do was take each minute as it came and now realized she may never have to carry out what Carney asked her to do. Tonight’s performance by Alex provided further proof to Sandi that Alex was going to prevail, and Carney’s influence over her was waning.

Torrance sat there with his hands almost in a prayer like clench before his face. Alex had trumped his every move…the key military installations were in Alex’s camp. He had superior ground, air, and satellite capabilities. And with Admiral Hanover aligned with Hanken, he now owned the Pacific. Howard Carney stepped into his office.

“Admiral please tell me that your call with Alex went well.”

“Howard, he is vehemently opposed to our action, he called me a traitor and a disgrace to my uniform——

“Admiral the Circle will want him dead, you realize that don’t you?”

“I’ll have nothing to do with that Howard.”

“I understand.”

“Carter, Hanken out maneuvered Torrance; he had a perfect contingency plan in place. I just got off the phone with Howard. He said Hanken has already pulled the Pacific Fleet under Hanover and with that Halsey’s air wings and carrier groups as well. We are overmatched and out gunned. And I just got this from the AP, the Russians have stated they will absolutely stay neutral in this matter and the British Prime Minister has called for Torrance to step aside and let the UN arbitrate a settlement,” Craig Schesslof said.

“Craig, my boy, we’ve got to kill Hanken, he is the key to this whole thing, we’ve got an insider close to Hanken right?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get this over with, so we can move on.”

“I’ll call Howard and I’ll also talk to Cray, between the two of them they should come up with something concrete.”

“Craig, it’s early, but this is critical, do whatever is necessary.”