Dale Brown - Executive Intent

“Sir, all of the nations in the region are manipulating the events in this incident to suit their own political agenda,” Banderas said.

“ China has a space tracking facility in Karachi, and Pakistan has dozens of long-range radars; India and Russia have them, too, in India. They all know Pakistan launched a ballistic missile at India and that we intercepted it, but that hasn’t hit the news yet.”

“What’s your point, Mr. Secretary?”

“My point is, sir, that we can’t respond to international criticism and fear because people aren’t being told the whole truth,” Banderas went on. “The only thing we can do is make the system completely operational and respond to the next emergency as appropriate.”

“And you don’t feel this will cause a new arms race?”

“Sir, the race is already on,” Banderas said. He motioned to Kai Raydon, who opened a folder and dropped a photograph on the conference table before the president. “Does that look familiar, sir?”

President Gardner glanced at it, then nodded and slid the photo to his national security adviser. “They look like the missile shelters on Hainan Island in China,” he said.

“They are missile shelters for DF-21 missiles, sir-but they’re located in Karachi, Pakistan, not China,” Kai said. “We photographed them just a few hours ago. It looks like China is deploying DF-21s and probably KT-3 antisatellite missiles in Pakistan.”

“That’s ridiculous,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. “ China deploying missiles designed to attack American warships-in Pakistan, an American ally?”

“ China is a Pakistani ally, too, Mr. Director, as you know,” Banderas said. “We’ve been drifting apart from Pakistan for quite some time, since Predator drone sorties were stepped up in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, and at the same time China has been increasing economic and military aid to Pakistan.”

“We’re scanning other Chinese-allied nations looking for more of these DF-21 launch sites,” Kai said. “I’ll bet we’ll soon find them in Africa, the Pacific, South America, and Southeast Asia -everywhere they have military cooperation agreements or have bought basing rights.”

“Again, they can build all the launchpads they want-we’ll have to keep track of them and make a plan to take them out if necessary,” the president said. Kai noticed the uncomfortable set of the vice president’s jaw-obviously he didn’t agree with that tactic. “Making this situation even more complicated was the attack from space. Why should the Chinese give up their missiles while we have orbiting killer meteoroids?”

“Sir, it’s obvious China has been working on deploying these DF-21s and KT-3s around the world for quite some time-probably since we first started inserting the interceptor garages into orbit,” Banderas said. “Now those things are out in the open, possibly with nuclear warheads. And remember, sir, that the DF-21 is at first a surface-to-surface missile as well as an antiship and antisatellite one-from Hainan Island they can reach as far as Guam and Okinawa and hit all of the transit routes between the Pacific and Indian oceans. The only weapon system we have right now to hit those launchers in a timely manner is Mjollnir.”

“I think a sea-launched cruise missile could do the job adequately as well, Sal-let’s not lose perspective here, okay?” the president said. “I know you’re an air-and space-power advocate, but let’s not forget the big picture.” He turned to Secretary of State Barbeau. “Stacy…”

She smiled and held up a hand. “I know, sir, I know…back to Beijing.”

“I need to learn more about what the Chinese intend to do with these DF-21s,” the president said. “I’m not going to force the issue or demand removal-yet-but I want to get a statement from them.”

“I think I know what they’ll say: It’s to protect vital Chinese shipping lanes and the free flow of commerce around the world,” Barbeau said. “They’ll openly cite Somali and Philippine pirates; less overtly, they’ll say that American domination of the world’s oceans is a threat.”

“Get it firsthand, and then we’ll hold their feet to the fire,” Gardner said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” she said, taking that opportunity to look Raydon up and down again. He did the same to her, but more discreetly.

The president turned to Ann Page. “Dr. Page, you have a long and distinguished career, but to me you seem to take great delight in shaking up the system. As an engineer and former member of Congress, that’s probably a good thing-but as a member of my administration, it most definitely is not.”

“Mr. President, it’s not my intention to shake anything up,” Ann said. “We had the technology to build an entirely new defensive and offensive weapon system and take the U.S. military to the next level. The technology may be immature and imperfect, but as we saw, it’s viable.”

“Viable? You missed the target and killed a lot of civilians, Dr. Page.”

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. President,” Ann said sincerely. “While I don’t believe that the ends justifies the means, we did stop the Pakistanis from launching any more rockets.”

The president closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll tell that to the United Nations: We put out a house fire by blowing up the dam and flooding the town,” he said. “So we have an immature and unreliable weapon system that is controversial to say the least, incomplete, and bound to cause a major outcry if not an outright global arms race. What do you propose I do about this?”

“Resolve to win the race, sir,” Ann said immediately. “With current funding, it will take another fifteen to twenty-four months to complete the Kingfisher constellation. We have a plan to draw on Air Force and Navy budget resources and complete the constellation in ten months or less, along with making improvements in detection capabilities, self-defense to counter the growing Russian and Chinese antisatellite threat, and weapon accuracy.”

“Navy budget resources, eh?” Secretary of Defense Turner asked. “Such as?”

Ann looked at Secretary Banderas. When he hesitated, she replied: “BAMS and ForceNet, Mr. Secretary, among others.”

“What?” Turner exclaimed. His astonished expression slowly turned into one of amusement. “You want to downsize two of the biggest and most cutting-edge naval surveillance and information networking systems?”

“We don’t want to downsize them, Mr. Secretary-we want to cancel them,” Banderas said.

“Cancel them?” Turner asked incredulously. “They’re not even fully implemented yet!”

“Exactly why they should be canceled, sir,” Banderas went on.

“The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance program is based around old technology-”

“Global Hawk may be old, but it’s proven technology.”

“Global Hawk is proven, but compared to emerging space technology, it’s slow, vulnerable, costly and difficult to sustain and support, limited by availability of shore facilities, and in its current configuration has no strike capability, sir,” Banderas went on.

“ForceNet is seven years in the making but is far over budget, is still not fully operational, and isn’t fully integrated into other services’ computer network systems. For network systems managed by major non-Navy commands such as U.S. Strategic Command, ForceNet will demand an upgrade of their network infrastructures to mesh, with the costs estimated in the tens of billions of dollars and another ten years. That means that ForceNet would probably never be tied into other networks as it was designed to be.”

“Once completed, Kingfisher can act as a global fleet communications-and-reconnaissance system,” Ann jumped in. “Our systems are already tied into several services’ reconnaissance and surveillance networks, including the Navy’s, along with Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and even the CIA. Everyone in Washington has accessed our imagery, used our communications relays, and taken advantage of our global Internet access and secure data network-and the system is only half finished.”