Dale Brown - Executive Intent

“Raydon, Air Force Space Defense Force, secure,” Kai Raydon responded. “How are you, Sergeant Major?”

“Who is this, sir?”

“Brigadier General Raydon, aboard Armstrong Space Station. I have a couple questions for your traffic management officer if he has a moment.”

“Absolutely, sir,” Nauert said. “We haven’t stood up this headquarters quite yet, so I’m the TMO today and for the foreseeable future.” Even though Nauert was a dedicated veteran infantry soldier, he had always been fascinated by space technology, especially these days when it seemed to be advancing in vast leaps and bounds-he definitely saw himself as one of those Robert Heinlein “Starship Troopers,” dropping from orbit in delivery capsules to fight on planet Earth. He saw Greene’s quizzical expression and nodded assuredly. “What can I do for you?”

“We have been tracking a large convoy of Chinese cargo vessels heading your way,” Kai said. “I assume you’re familiar with the convoy?”

“Yes, sir, the Chinese Ministry of Trade gave the Combined Task Force their manifest and transit plan as requested. Destination Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; part of a twice-annual aid shipment to its friends and allies in Africa. Pretty standard convoy.”

“But the port call in Karachi was delayed a week?”

“Yes, sir, I believe that’s correct.”

“Any reason given?”

“Not that I’m aware, sir,” Nauert said. “Could be any number of reasons. We usually don’t get concerned about delays unless it affects the flow of traffic going through the Suez Canal or ports in East Africa-we don’t want too many ships anchoring wait for passage or berths because that complicates our patrol activities-or if traffic transiting our ops area increases to the point where we can’t provide enough security. In wintertime, traffic is usually less, so delays usually don’t create bottlenecks.”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask, sir?”

“No particular reason, Sergeant Major,” Kai said. “We collect a lot of data up here, mountains of it every hour, so in order to help sift through it, we look for trends and anomalies. If we see a broken sailing plan, we look for obvious reasons like weather, accidents, or civil disturbances, and if we don’t see any obvious reasons, we start asking around.”

“Sorry we don’t have that info for you, sir,” Nauert said. “I’ll pass your concerns to Stuttgart and they’ll take a look and report back. You may have to contact them directly for the latest info until we’re fully set up here.”

“Thanks, Sergeant Major, I will. If we see anything else from up here, we’ll pass it along. How do you like Ethiopia so far?”

“Nice place, good facilities, decent weather, friendly locals-a lot different than Afghanistan or Camp Lemonier. And how are things in space, sir?”

“Pretty routine, like being in a submarine, I guess, looking for trouble and hoping like hell you don’t find any,” Kai said. “Anytime you’d like to take a trip up here to look around, we’d love to have you stop by for a visit.”

“That’s definitely on my ‘bucket list,’ sir,” Nauert said. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”

“Not right now. Nice to talk to you, Sergeant Major.”

“Same here, sir. AFRICOM clear.”

“That was the space-station guy?” Greene asked after Nauert terminated the call.

“Yes, sir. BG Raydon himself, asking about that convoy of Chinese ships headed our way.”

“What about it?”

“They were delayed for about a week in Pakistan. Raydon wanted to know why.”

“Shit, he’s the reason why the Pakistanis don’t tell us stuff anymore,” Greene complained. “If he hadn’t blasted that Pak village all to hell with his space weapon, we’d still be on speaking terms. The Paks aren’t going to tell us nothin’ about anyone’s ship movements until we get back on friendlier terms.”

“I’ll drop an e-mail to TMO at Stuttgart and ask the question.”

“Do that, but I’ll guarantee we won’t get an answer back from the Paks,” Greene said. “If the powers that be really want to know, they’ll probably have to send in the CIA to find out.” He sniffed derisively and shook his head. “Raydon and the Air Force think their space station and fancy space radars are so cool, but we’ll still use plain old-fashioned grunt work-some local in sandals and a turban, getting paid a couple bucks for info and maybe a photo or two-to get the real dope.”

ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

THAT SAME TIME

“I would sure love to have a look inside those ships,” Kai Raydon said as he closed the secure telephone connection. “I have a bad feeling about those things.”

“Can’t the Coast Guard just pull them over and inspect them?” Boomer Noble asked. “I know the Coast Guard does that all the time, everywhere in the world.”

“Pretty low odds of a Chinese ship in international waters voluntarily agreeing to an inspection, Boomer,” Senior Master Sergeant Valerie “Seeker” Lukas said. “Unless there’s a Memorandum of Understanding between a nation and the Coast Guard, it’s up to the ship’s owner or captain to allow an inspection, and the Chinese aren’t likely to allow it.”

Kai checked the chronometers at his computer console to get the local time in Washington -it was early, but he knew that most career bureaucrats liked to get to work early. “It’d be worth a phone call to the State Department,” he said. Seeker nodded and got to work on her communications console.

“What do you think is in those ships, General?” Boomer asked.

“Another DF-21 emplacement, bound for Tanzania or Zaire -anywhere that has strong mutual defense and cooperation treaties with China,” Kai replied.

“With nukes?”

“Nuclear warheads can be detected without boarding a vessel,” Kai said, “but medium-range missiles like the DF-21 are allowed. If they wanted to put nuclear warheads on the DF-21s, they’d probably fly them in separately.”

“State Department is on the line, sir: Assistant Secretary of State Carlson, China desk, not secure,” Seeker said.

Kai hit a button on his console and readjusted his microphone. “Secretary Carlson? This is General Raydon from Armstrong Space Station, unsecure.”

“You’re on the space station right now, General?” Carlson asked, her voice quickly changing from young but very official to almost childlike. “Are you kidding?”

“Not kidding, Miss Carlson.”

“Call me Debbie, General, please.” Kai thought she was on the verge of a giggle. “Sorry we couldn’t do a secure videoconference, but I don’t know how to work the phone and my assistant’s not in yet. How can I help you today? The senior master sergeant said something about inspecting Chinese ships for medium-range missiles?”

“That’s right, Debbie. And please call me Kai.”

“Okay, Kai.” Her voice quickly switched back to official but friendly. “Here’s the deal: China routinely allows us to inspect vessels bound for U.S. ports, and that’s pretty much it without authority from Beijing, which takes about as long as it takes to sail a ship around the world. China doesn’t even allow inspections of its ships in times of distress, which means the Coast Guard won’t board a Chinese ship in distress unless the captain authorizes it, which in most cases he won’t. And just for clarification? That’s true for U.S.-flagged ships on government business, too.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“No one wants to have foreign inspectors poking around on ships carrying sensitive or classified materials-that’s pretty standard,” Carlson said. “Most nations would rather have such a ship go down rather than have foreigners, even rescuers, board it and discover their secrets.