Chapter LIX: Empty Quiver, Part II
1030hrs, 21 December 2013, Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States
"The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one." Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice.
"Bob, take a look at this."
Robert Griffins was a civil employee working for NORAD, keeping tally of all the nuclear weapons. This, of course, was an extremely important job, doubly so since two nuclear weapons had been stolen right out from underneath them. Granted, the Nakanishi Group had a lot to do with that, but for crying out loud, they should have found something that would have given them some heads up. It was a Saturday, of course, but everyone was putting in overtime on this one.
Robert and his co-worker, Commander David Engel of the US Navy, had been pouring over the data, checking, double checking, triple checking every single iota of information that pertained to the movement of nuclear weapons in the United States over the last five years to ten years.
At least he was glad that he wasn't a contractor; they had all been put on standby pending the recent situation with the Nakanishi Group, and their security clearances revoked.
"What's up Dave?"
"Something not right here," Cmdr. Engel said. He pointed to his computer, which had a spreadsheet of all the nuclear weapons in the United States; displayed were all the warheads for the Minuteman III missile. In total, there were about 550 warheads, and in the entire nuclear arsenal, there were 2,200 warheads in sum.
"I thought that there were only two missing."
"That's what I thought as well, but take a look at this." Dave brought up a spreadsheet of the data.
"Okay, a group of W80 warheads were scheduled to be decommissioned after New START. Of that, several of them…looks like about seven of them were going to be decommissioned by this one company in Texas." He showed the company's webpage.
"Yeah? What about it?"
"Nakanishi bought that company out." He pointed to the bottom of the web page, with the disclaimer, "A Subsidiary of the Nakanishi Group, America."
Bob could see where this was going.
"So, what happened to the other five?" Bob asked him.
"Well, we know what happened to the first two. But the others…"
He brought up some shipping invoices.
"This is how they moved them."
Bob put on some spectacles and took a closer look. "Beef shipments?"
"They used their own in house shipping company and beef processing plants to disguise the transportation of the weapons. They forged the invoices and the entire decommissioning process to make it seem that they were actually destroyed, when they were in transit to other countries."
"So, they didn't steal from our active arsenal…"
"…but from our decommissioned one. That's why it didn't show up when they did a headcount of the active nuclear weapons."
This was not good at all, Bob thought to himself. "And where did it go?"
Again, the Commander brought up a bunch of shipping invoices. This time, he mapped out the locations they travelled to.
"Looks like by plane…from Texas, to Dulles, a transatlantic flight to Spain…from Spain to Saudi…from Saudi to Yemen…from Yemen…it drops off."
"Here's another one," Engels pointed out.
"This one looks like it goes from Japan, via frighter on their in-house shipping company, from Japan to Hong Kong, then Mumbai, then to Yemen…" Bob didn't want to think about the implications of this, but it was staring them in face, in all of its spreadsheet-y glory.
"Where do think they went?" the Commander asked, rhetorically.
"Didn't the Nakanishi Group have some sort of deal with Yemen…you know, to help them with their petroleum industry?"
"Go on."
"And that in exchange, they would give them that island…"
The realization of that statement hit him, like…well, a nuclear explosion.
"Oh shit."
"Oh shit is right."
"What should we do?"
"I'll tell the president," Engel replied. "Well, after I tell my CO, who'll pass it on to the President."
"Convenient that she's down the hall."
"Yeah. Very Convenient."
Commander Engel got up from seat, walked a couple of meters to his boss's office, a rear admiral with mostly technocratic background. From there, it was another four hundred meters to the President's office, then another ten to the president herself. The Chief of Staff announced the bad news.
"What?!" The President almost had a heart attack from the news. The amount of coffee she had been drinking didn't help either.
"Yes ma'am," COS Ramirez said.
"I thought you said that they all had been accumulated for!" she sputtered in confusion.
"Yes, but that was right after the terrorist attacks, and we didn't have much time to do a check, so all the active warheads were accounted for, but the ones that had been supposedly destroyed…"
"…are now sitting somewhere in Socotra, probably on some sort of launch vehicle," President Hamilton finished. "Jesus Christ, they don't need an ICBM for that, all they need is a cruise missile and they can take out the entire fleet parked right outside."
She put her hands on her face, and leaned toward her desk.
"And we just had a huge battle there yesterday. Three ships lost, five more damaged…a thousand killed, wounded or missing."
"Ma'am!" An aide came running in through the door. "It's Beryl! She's wants to talk directly to you."
POTUS and the COS looked at each other. "This is not going to end well. Put it up in here."
President Hamilton turned and faced the video screen.
"Madame President," Beryl appeared on the screen, smiling.
"Beryl," POTUS replied stoically. She had never met Beryl; after all, she was supposedly just the assistant to the CEO. But somehow, she found her way up to the top, and here they were. "What do you want?"
"I'm sure that you've secured the nuclear weapons that were supposed to blow you up, and to install the VP in your stead."
"Right…" the President was skeptical of her claims.
"It's okay. Never liked the man anyway, and you can have him for all I care. Drunk off his ass most of the time."
"But you wanted to talk about the nuclear weapons…"
"Oh yes, about that." Beryl tapped on her tablet computer. "We have five more of those nuclear warheads. We also have five Tomahawk cruise missiles. Hmm…I wonder what would happen to that nice fleet out there if we launched a couple of those." She smiled casually, as if they were talking about a missing makeup bag rather than nuclear weapons.
"You won't do much damage with those," the President shot back.
"Oh, I don't care about Yemen, but reaching Saudi Arabia, well, that's another option I could have when dealing with nuclear weapons. And that nice fleet, with those shiny, shiny nuclear carriers…all that work, down the drain. The US ability to project power, diminished, and you look like a complete ass in front of the world."
"Beryl, what do you want?!" POTUS snarled, half questioning, half accusing. "What did the world do you?!"
"Do to me? Do to me…?" Beryl sat back in her chair, pondering that statement. "President Hamilton, it's not that the world did anything…but that the world didn't do anything."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh come now, Ms. President. India. China. South Korea. Taiwan. You trade with them. You coddle up with them, and pretend that sorry little Japan doesn't even exist. We've bent backwards to align ourselves with your foreign policy, to appease you…hell, we made your favorite cars, your favorite computers, your favorite appliances. We made up for WWII thousands of times over. Hell, we gave you these nice nuclear weapons, after testing them out on our cities. But that wasn't good enough for you, wasn't it?"
It seemed that Beryl had forgotten all about Operation Tomodachi. Hamilton couldn't believe the shortsightedness of people these days.
"If you're talking about the recession, that was your doing. The 1991 one, that is."
"Oh yes, that was. Two decades of hope, of dreams, of gains and profit, gone. Gone forever. The youth condemned to be NEETs, living off of their parents. Their parents grow older, and soon the streets will be filled with the grayed and frail bodies of our aging workforce."
"Again, this not my problem…"
"Will you just be quiet for a second, Elizabeth!" Beryl's voice pierced the air. Hamilton looked at her COS, and shut up.
"Thank you. As I was saying, Japan is dying. Metaphorically, and hell, physically. You saw the earthquake. The tsunami. Set whatever growth we had, back for years. We…we, the Nakanishi Group, are Japan's last hope."
Were, Japan's last hope, the President noted bitterly to herself. Thanks for screwing them over.
"So, what do I want, Madame President? What do I want? That question you keep asking."
"Yes," POTUS said, exasperated.
"I want you to back off your fleet. I want you to leave us alone. I want you to ensure that Japan has favorable trading agreements. I want Japan to be great again. That's what I want."
"Beryl, it doesn't work that way," POTUS argued. "China can produce what you produce, cheaper and in better quantities."
"Does it look like I care about China!" Beryl screamed, banging her fist on her desk. "This why I was doing all these things!"
She glared at the President for a second, the silence as loud as any shouting match.
"So, is that why you created the SAILOR team?" POTUS finally said, breaking the silence.
"Especially the SAILOR team! They were successful beyond all measurable calculations!" Beryl regained her aggressive veneer.
"Except when they turned on you."
"Yes, that part was very frustrating. But no matter. Things happen like that, I guess I no longer need those girls. They seem to be doing well in your hands anyway." That caused POTUS to raise an eyebrow.
"Listen, Madame President," Beryl said, spitting out the words. "The SAILOR team can do whatever they want. They can even come after me. Yes, they're my mistake, and perhaps your gain! But they're more of a liability than a benefit it seems, perhaps to all parties involved, hmm?"
Beryl paused, regaining her breath from the one-sided shouting match.
"Oh, and did you get the message from Jadeite?"
"I got 'A' message from Jadeite. I don't particularly care for personal messages from terrorists." She hadn't even looked at it, but she made a mental note to go look at it later.
"Maybe you should take a look at it. It might, how should I say it, shed some light on the SAILOR team."
"Is that all?"
"Yeah. That's all. Oh, since I'm feeling extra generous today, I'll give you a whole week! That's right, a week to pull everyone back and to give in to my demands. And as a bonus, you get to break the news to the rest of the world. If you want. I don't feel like telephoning every single leader and telling them the same sob story again and again. Or appearing on a big, ominous screen and telling the entire world my plans. That's just so trite and overused."
"You're so kind," POTUS replied. "Go to hell." She terminated the conversation.
"Do you think she'll accede to your demands?" Kunzite said to Beryl, looking at the now blank screen in her office.
"Not a chance in hell. They didn't make much sense anyway; I'm not a fool, Kunzite. I'm just buying time until we can get a plan figured out." She took a sip of whisky, savoring the oaky taste in her mouth. "We're going to be here for a while, and I think that it's going to take another big battle in order to show these bastards who's in charge here."
"Why did you say that you had nuclear weapons? Why not the rest of the world?" Kunzite, for his status, was not exactly privy to all of Beryl's plans. She did get that privilege.
"I don't want to use them, since we only have five of them. I wanted the President to tell the rest of the world because…well, she's the President of the good old U.S of A. She carries much more weight than you or I at this point. The world might think I'm just bluffing, for all they care." She took another sip of whisky. "But she's not going to tell the rest of the world; they'll only flip out and do something stupid, like decide to actually comply with our demands, complicating the situation even further. The President of the most powerful nation in the world doesn't want to make things more complicated, that's for sure. And backing down and losing face? No way. So, she's going to keep it quiet. She won't move the fleet. She won't pull back. I think the President will probably attack, of all things, trying to finish us off. She'll call our bluff, we'll present the cards, and she loses."
"That's really risky," Kunzite said. "Our last risky operation cost us everything."
"Operation TAKE HOLD was an unfortunate loss simply because of that SAILOR team ruining everything for us. I highly doubt that they're in here right now to mess our plans up, but we need to act before they decide to come after us." Beryl toyed with the idea of leaking the existence of a secret special operations unit that the Japanese government ran to the press, but had since reconsidered on the idea. It was probably for the best that the fewer the people knew of that stupid program, the better. And if they went to the media…well, good luck in backing their claims up.
She looked at Kunzite; he was still hurting after the death of Zoicite.
"So, despite all of our setbacks, we can still gain something out of this."
"And what will that be?" Kunzite asked, skeptically. All their carefully laid plans for their future had gone up in smoke, along with their money, resources and prestige.
"We're still working on that," Beryl sighed, putting her glass of whisky down on the table next to her. "The world will just have to get used to us running things, that's all."
"Who else knows about this conversation?" POTUS quickly asked her COS.
"You, me, that aide over there."
"And the nuclear weapons?"
"You, me, those two analysts, and Admiral Stewart. I'm glad he's just right down the hall from us, because this information is really important."
POTUS took stock of the situation. After a second, she took a breath in and made her decision.
"Do not, I repeat, do not tell the JCS about this. Get the analysts to change the data to reflect that."
"But why not?!" COS said, shocked.
"If the JCS and NSC get word that we're missing five more nuclear weapons, they are going to go insane and withdraw everyone from Socotra. We need to keep the pressure up, and attack them before the deadline next…what day is it?"
"The 21st. So that gives us until the 28th."
"Will we be ready by then? Those carrier groups are moving quite slow, and we haven't been able to remove all the Nakanishi software from their systems, or hell, any of our systems in the United States. We were just too dependent on them."
The COS scratched his head at the reasoning of POTUS. "Madame President, why did she want you to announce that they had more nukes?"
POTUS shook her head at that. "Because she knew I wouldn't. Whatever she has planned, we have to beat her to it before she has a chance to make us look like fools. When's the next meeting with the JCS and the NSC?"
"In twenty four hours." He checked his tablet computer.
"I need them in four to move up the attack schedule. Get me in touch with the SAILOR team. They just got a new job."
"Bob, Dave, in my office," Admiral Stuart said to the two of them. After giving the bad news to their boss, Bob and Dave had been nervously sipping coffee for the last hour or so, unable to get any work done.
"This is going to be really bad," Bob muttered to Dave, putting down his cup.
"These are non-disclosure agreements." The Admiral already had a stackload of paperwork that would ensure that the three of them would never talk about this little incident.
"Jesus, who else knows about it?" Commander Engel asked his CO, picking up his pen and signing the first piece of paper laid out in front of him. He had signed so many of them before that he didn't even need to read the fine print. Basically, what it all came down to was, "Don't ever talk about this (whatever event) ever again, or else you'll end up in jail. Capisce? Good. Now sign here."
"Not a lot," was the reply. "POTUS wants this under wraps. Otherwise, it might cause a panic, and we certainly do not need that right now. Everyone is on edge after all of these terrorist attacks, and more nuclear weapons in the mix won't do anyone any good."
"Shouldn't the JCS and the NSC know about this as well?"
"Just sign the damn forms," Stuart said to Bob. "The Commander in Chief has her reasons."
"Fine, fine." The two of them spent the next couple of minutes filling out all the paperwork.
"Well, it looks all good," the Admiral said, looking at the papers. "Take the rest of the day off. You've earned it."
"Sir, with respect…" Commander Engel started to say, but Stuart put up his hand.
"Take the rest of the day off," he repeated. "In fact, I don't want to see both of you around here for the next couple of days. Understood?"
Bob and Dave could only nod their heads in reply. It was obvious; they weren't needed around here anymore, at least not until this entire mess had blown over. They got up from their chairs, with Commander Engel saluting, before leaving.
Both of them hoped that the President knew what the hell she was doing.
"Ma'am, why do you want to move the attack schedule up?"
The JCS was still stuck in their secure facility, hammering out the details for the attack on Socotra. Gallons of coffee had been consumed, and despite their diet of doughnuts, pastries and sandwiches, most of them were bound to lose at least five pounds in weight just due to the stress of the mission.
"There have been some developments that I do not wish to discuss at the moment, but we must have the attack begin on the Socotra fortress if we want to have any chance of getting whatever is in that island." Cryptic orders from the President were never a good sign.
"Ms. President," Admiral Thompson was looking at her laptop computer at recent fleet data. "We've run into more problems getting all of those carrier groups into the Indian Ocean, with the Suez Canal out of commission. They're moving as fast as they can, but it might take some more time than I had proposed earlier."
"Admiral, I need those aircraft carriers on station by the 25th, and be ready to launch an attack on the base, with Special Operations units and the Marines to go on the island by the 26th."
"Madame President," Landis protested. "We have no idea what's down there. They took out two naval task forces, for crying out loud, and now you want to move three carrier groups within striking range of the island? God knows what might happen then."
"We are just going to have to take that risk," POTUS snapped back. "I'm sorry, but I need those groups within striking distance in a week, or else we're going to lose…"
"To lose what?" To General Pearson, the President was sure acting strange today, and it wasn't because of the normal load of stress.
"I just want to get this thing over with," POTUS dodged. "Too many people have died lately. Good people. The sooner we can get that facility under our control, the sooner we can put an end to this awful chapter in our history."
That sounded something like out a stump speech, General Pearson noted sarcastically.
"Ma'am, why don't we put some Special Operations units down there?" Landis asked POTUS. For all her bluster on trying to take the Nakanishi Group down, she had been somewhat reluctant to order SOCOM to put down their units there.
"Our operational capacity has been severely hampered," General Sampson of the US Army said back to him, before POTUS could reply. "The time it would take to get Special Operations units to deploy on Socotra would coincide with the invasion timetable that the President has offered."
Things were bad if Special Operations units were not able to deploy rapidly. Air crews had been working feverously in the last couple of days to strip every minute piece of Nakanishi hardware and software from military aircraft, air traffic control towers, personal computers…it was a complete and utter mess of things. The military especially was extremely wary of the software being able to track the movements of their planes and troops, and even if a program seemed innocuous, they weren't going to take any sort of risks on that one. So the Special Operations guys sat around, bored shitless and wondered if they were going to kick some ass, and the Nakanishi Group prepared for the inevitable assault on their island fortress.
"Yes, that was the explanation I was going to offer," POTUS said.
"Madame President, we'll do our best." Admiral Thompson was not happy about the President's orders, but she was the commander-in-chief.
"That's all I expect you to do. Keep me posted." She terminated the transmission.
"Goddammit, what's gotten into her?!" the Marine exclaimed.
"Landis, keep your cool," Army reminded him.
"Geez. I do NOT want to lose any more Marines, like that one incident with Al-Asad. Now that could have been very bad."
"At least we got the nuclear weapon in that case," Pearson said. "I'll start doing recon flights and draw up potential targets for airstrikes, although I don't know what good that will do."
The JCS got back to work, chugging more and more coffee and wondering what the President was up to.