Chapter 21

Roger Lindahl settled into his role with remarkable ease. Once he realized that I intended to keep him, he settled down, put his nose to the proverbial grindstone and became quite a bulldog. His day to day responsibilities fused into his own commitment to protect me from the scallywags working at Defense. His instincts helped me avoid several problems echelons below my office that could have blown up into internecine warfare.

Once I got comfortable with the context of my responsibilities I began to make clear my desire to have a loyal, competent, focused and strong department. Defense saw a slow but continual draining of the career do-nothings who wasted my time and the people’s money. When replacements appeared, they tended to be driven, clear minded and determined to work with me, not on behalf of a dozen different special interests. We published a memo ordering EVERY Defense employee to avoid all contact with lobbyists and ordering that every contact with lobbyists result in a detailed report to Landahl’s office for review.

We fired quite a few civilian employees for violating that order.

My first two years were busy but rewarding. We trimmed fat and built up our branches, specifically spending large sums adjusting to the new kind of warfare brought on by Islamic radicals. The Chiefs requested significant funding increases that we balanced against cuts in bureaucracy, primarily possible due to intelligence improvements and technical advancements. Whenever possible we spent reductions on real improvement to our weapons program and human intelligence forces.

It was in April of my third year at Defense when the first serious test of my leadership occurred. Angela and I had barely finished our lunch when an aide brought me a phone. “Mr. Secretary the White House is on the line,” was all he said before departing.

“This is Secretary Morrison,” I said firmly.

“Mr. Secretary, I will patch you through to the President.”

“Hello, Morrison?” He sounded stressed.

“Yes, Sir Mr. President. How may I help you?”

“You can start by finding better help. You have a couple of idiots that work for your Under Secretary. He’s good, but some of those career employees are as dumb as a stump.” There was no way he called to tell me that, so I waited for the real reason.

“Morrison, we have a problem in Guam ... What I should say is we have a developing situation that could negatively affect our territory. It seems that holdovers from the Iranian government have joined up with another, more radical faction from the former North Korea, and are threatening to fire a missile that could hit the island of Guam.

“I need you take personal responsibility for the military side of this crisis, while assigning your intelligence agencies to do all that is necessary to neutralize this threat. You are free to operate without restraint where the safety of America and our possessions is concerned, but do not start a nuclear war. Those are my orders. Do you understand Mr. Secretary?”

“Mr. President, I will head downstairs and be on this right now. To whom should I report when I’ve got something concrete to share, Sir?”

Hawk cleared his throat and thought about my request for a second. “Call the Vice President. I am going to hand oversight to him as soon as we hang up.

“Thank you Mr. Secretary,” he said and he was gone before I could respond.

Angela knew what the new job was going to be like, because she knew how demanding my old one was. She kissed me like the lover she was and swept out with her protective detail in hot pursuit. Before I could call her, Naomi was back with a phone, so I could speak with Lindahl, who was holding for me. “Roger, meet me in the Crisis Center.” I hung up and directed my detail to take me there.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff consist of the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau. They were all present when I arrived. “Good afternoon, Chiefs, who has something on the situation affecting Guam?”

The seven Chiefs spoke as one, while Roger finished assembling briefing material, such as it was, on the live screens. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine General Joseph Francis Dunford Jr. took over the meeting. “Mr. Secretary. We received intel from one of our stations that several surviving members of the Iranian regime have joined up with surviving radicals from North Korea and claim to have a miniaturized nuke and the ability to launch it. We are assuming that the target will be Guam, because that has always been the Norks target. There is some human intel backing this up, but we need to avoid focusing on one target, because the radicals might decide to feint that way and strike Japan, or Hawaii.

“As this developed, we received certain bits of information about financiers who wish to bring about nuclear terror. They have been making contact with these radicals and allegedly offering support and safe haven. Because of the difficulty in narrowing down exactly where the nuke is located and who has it, we have been reluctant to commit forces to stopping those involved and taking the nuke by force.”

He would have gone on but I had a question. “General Dunford, do you have intel indicating where the bomb may be but no clean way to get to it, or are you speculating as to where it may be?”

“Mr. Secretary, we are aware of where the weapon might be due to our intelligence agents, but if it is where we think it should be, then it is located in a very densely populated area, and if it were to detonate prior to removal and dismantling it would do a lot of damage.”

Various Generals gave reports that reflected their areas of responsibility. I took it all in and asked several hard questions, leading me to believe that their biggest concern wasn’t finding the bomb, but the risk of the terrorists setting it off when the military force attacked.

When it was appropriate I asked an entirely unexpected question. “Generals, why not target those financiers you talked about earlier. Take them out of the game and break enough of their toys to make our point and watch to see what happens next?”

Looking around the room anyone could see that the Generals liked the idea, and since it came from me, they wouldn’t have the rest of their careers riding on how it worked out. After kicking around for a few minutes, one of the Brigadiers put up a satellite shot of a compound where one of the leading characters in the radical financial world holed up. Looking it over, I spoke first. “Generals, if this compound is typical of the dwellings of those who fund our enemies, let’s make sure they are home, their homes are in a place where hitting them won’t touch off a nuclear exchange, and then take out those complexes, including below ground. Leave nothing standing.” The discussion that followed was spirited but rather unanimous. I assured the Joint Chiefs I would brief the Vice President immediately and left to do so.