Ian Slater - Asian Front

The minister for defense, Stanley Wright-Attersley, was sitting at the long cabinet room table at 10 Downing Street, a battered-looking red box of ministerial documents in front of him on the green baize-covered table. When the P.M. entered, Wright-Attersley rose. “Prime Minister.”

“Is my information correct, Stanley — the French won’t come on side?”

“Afraid so, sir. Elysée Palace issued a secret memo earlier this morning that the French cabinet deem it ‘an inappropriate response to the misunderstanding along the Black Dragon River.’ “

“Is that what they actually said — a misunderstanding along the Black Dragon, not the Amur?”

“Yes, Prime Minister. They’re afraid that an American bombing mission would, to quote their president, ‘inflame the situation further.’ “

“Misunderstanding?” the prime minister huffed. “My God, the Chinese attacked the U.N. line. Any schoolboy could understand it.”

Wright-Attersley nodded. “Quite so, Prime Minister. But we’re dealing with the French.”

The P.M. grunted, pulled out a chair, and his aide knew it would be a pot-of-tea decision.

“Darjeeling, Prime Minister, or Earl Grey?”

“Darjeeling,” the P.M. said without turning, putting on his pince-nez to read the remainder of the French communiqué. “They’re a fractious lot, the frogs. Sometimes I think it’s against their principle to say yes to anything. They simply cannot tolerate any idea that doesn’t originate with them.”

“They no doubt feel,” Wright-Attersley said, “that French-Chinese trade would be damaged if they allowed bombers to use French airspace.”

“And do they think,” the prime minister asked rhetorically, “that our trade with China would not be affected? And never mind the retaliation that the Communists may very well wreak on British passport holders in Hong Kong now that it’s under the benevolent rule of Beijing — those of Tiananmen Massacre fame.”

The defense minister said nothing. There was nothing more he could say about the French. In the world of self-interest theirs was the most self-interested. The French had always had a love-hate relationship with America — a love of Hollywood and a contempt for everything else.

The P.M.’s private secretary entered as tea was being poured. He had the latest poll results — the government was fifteen points behind Labour. He said nothing but merely laid the message slip alongside the secret French communiqué refusing to assist the Americans.

“Does Labour know?” the P.M. inquired. “I mean, has the U.S. request leaked?”

“No, Prime Minister,” the private secretary answered. “Though I can’t answer for the next twenty-four hours.” Wright-Attersley sipped the Darjeeling and placed the cup down without a sound. “Be that as it may,” he said, looking over at the prime minister, “I feel obliged to tell you that this kind of thing is extremely difficult to keep under wraps. Bound to get out sooner or later, Prime Minister.”

There was a long silence. It was a trying decision for the British P.M. — already down in the polls and shortly to face a general election. A decision to assist the Americans could cost the prime minister not only personal popularity. He could well lose the entire election to Labour — a prospect infinitely more worrying to the government than French displeasure.

The P.M. took tea and thought upon the matter. His mind went back to the time during the Falklands War when he was but a junior in Whitehall. He remembered the clandestine operations made necessary by the Americans Haig, Secretary of Navy Lehmann, and U.N. envoy Jeane Kirkpatrick— especially by Kirkpatrick’s hostility toward Britain and her support, along with that of Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs Thomas Enders, for Argentina against the British. The American who had saved the day was Caspar Weinberger, the U.S. secretary of defense, who arranged, at great personal political danger, secret transfer of U.S. weapons and spy plane intelligence on Argentinian positions to the British.

The air-to-surface Stinger missiles, which the SAS had used to such good effect in the Falklands, were just part of the massive aid supplied by Weinberger, which included everything from air-to-air missiles to KC-135 tanker aircraft used for the midair refueling of the British Vulcan bombers. The prime minister knew that without American help the British, with only one carrier, could not have defeated General Galtieri.

“Of course we’ll help the Americans,” he said, taking up his tea again. “I should never be able to look at myself in the mirror again if we didn’t.” He looked directly at the defense minister. “We’re cousins after all.”

“Quite so,” Wright-Attersley answered.

“The polls, Prime Minister,” the private secretary suggested, one eyebrow arched apprehensively.

“Damn the polls!” He turned to his defense minister. “A friend in need, Stanley. Isn’t that right?”

“Absolutely, sir. Absolutely.”

“Don’t tell me the details, Stanley. Less they’re discussed, the better. And perhaps they won’t have to go after all. Media types get wind of this — slap a ‘D’ notice on ‘em. That’ll shut them up.”

“Very good, Prime Minister.” A Defence Ministry notice would mean anyone who published anything about the planned raid would be immediately prosecuted.

Frank Shirer wasn’t happy about the mission. It wasn’t the danger. It was the insult — like being asked to drive the school bus after a BMW. He was a fighter pilot, born and bred. He liked living on the edge of technology and had done so in the F-14 Tomcats. There was nothing like the thrust of afterburner, the twin turbofans rocketing you to Mach 2.3, slamming you back into the Martin-Baker, and the feathery rush through your genitals. It wasn’t a thing you could explain to anyone who hadn’t done it, including Lana Brentwood, with whom he’d fallen in love while recovering from wounds at Dutch Harbor and whom he wanted to marry as soon as Jay La Roche, her husband, deigned to give her a divorce. Shirer knew more than he wanted to know about La Roche — Mr. Smooth and Successful on the outside — inside, a slimeball who rolled over people as though they were ants.

Lana had left La Roche, tired of his sexual madness, and had begun a new life for herself — gone back to school, finishing her nursing training and joining the Waves, winding up, through La Roche’s malevolent influence in Congress, being posted to the naval hospital in what was called America’s Siberia: Dutch Harbor, Alaska, off Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain, where it could go from sunshine to full blizzard within half an hour. The foul weather was mitigated, however, by her falling in love with Shirer, and then Ratmanov happened.

When the small island, the bigger of the two Diomedes, smack in the middle of the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, had to be taken by Freeman’s paratroopers, Shirer had flown CAS, but close air support had got him downed, his RIO — radar intercept officer — captured by Siberian Spets, one of whose interrogators had stabbed Shirer’s left eye from sheer bloody-mindedness and to make sure Shirer never flew again. But after Ratmanov was taken by Freeman’s SAS/D commandos, Frank was sent to Dutch Harbor, where, with the help of “Mr. Doolittle,” a streetwise Cockney and fellow patient, he’d learned how to do what Doolittle called an “Adolf Galland.” Galland, who was the top Luftwaffe air ace of World War II, had only one eye. He’d cheated the charts, and Shirer likewise passed the eye test. But instead of being reassigned to fighter duty, Shirer now found himself “driving” a Buff — big, ugly, fat fellow — the acronym for the well-worn B-52. Rumor had it that he might get a crack at being posted to a Harrier squadron, but it was only that — a rumor. Besides, he wasn’t that enthused — a Harrier was small stuff next to a Tomcat.