Chapter One - Part One
Disclosure to Kimber
Captain Benton and I walked towards the center of the courtyard. Once we’d reached an area where we wouldn’t be overheard, I turned to the captain and said, “What I heard from SECNAV is something that I need you to keep a lid on.” Kimber knew that it was crucial that secrecy was kept in this case. This was a matter of the highest classification. No-one outside of my staff was to hear about this. And I was planning on handpicking my staff so that we would have a fighting chance if it came down to it. “We’ve been given TAD.” I said briefly.
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”Sir?” Kimber was curious.
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”Evidently we have been assigned to the land of polar bears and gravy and cheesecurds poured on french-fries.” I replied as casually as I could make it. I looked at her gauging her reaction which was utter surprise. I had a few people I needed to tap to fill out the bunker list. I knew that we needed to draw from the town of Sunset Valley when we got there to round out our forces that we would need to stay safe in case the worst happened.“What I need you to do is get a hold of Captain Rabb and Commander Burrows. And we need a weapons expert. Try to locate Captain Meg Austin.”
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”Aye-aye, sir.”
”Good.” I said briefly. Kimber had been my right-hand man regardless of gender. She had been my wingman in combat operations over Bosnia where the VF-41 Black Aces, which I had commanded had flown strike missions for the very first time. It would prove to be the last time that the VF-41 Black Aces flew the F-14A Tomcat, from there, I’d handed over the reins of VF-41 to Kimber and I had become the CAG of CVW-12. After she’d finished her command tour, she reserved her commission and tried her luck on the outside world. I stayed in and headed up the ranks being promoted to RDML in June of 2004. Then I went on to become RADM and CO BATGRP8 on the USS JFK while my Black Aces deployed under the command of Commander Phil Burrows, designated as VFA-41 flying the F/A-18F Super Hornets; the squadron’s transition from the F-14 to the F/A-18F and first tour being under Commander Kimber Benton’s command. The Rhino was a whole different bird than I was used to. As a two-star though, I kept my ass planted on the flag bridge and tried not to get in the way of the ship’s captain who had deep-draft experience. The guys who got the helm of the carriers usually commanded fleet deep-draft tenders prior to their command stint on the big ones; for the experience. My captaincy was a Carrier Air Wing command where I was in command of the squadrons on board the carrier. The O-5s all reported to me, then I relayed whatever information was needed to the CV Command.
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When I reached Admiral (four-stars); upon my asking her, Kimber went active duty again and became my Chief of Staff. Without question, she was the one that made the office run as smoothly as it did and kept me abreast of the situation, as she had, when she was my wingman during our flying days. My DCNO, Admiral Gerald Waters was also enamored of her efficiency.
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With the preliminary screenings, we were going to have a staff of at least eight to man the bunker. But we needed some civilians to shore up things on the scientific end. If everything came to a head, we’d need people with agricultural knowledge to get things going again provided we hadn’t royally mucked things up. I looked at Kimber and she nodded soberly. We’d gone to work this morning with a world view that everything was OK...situation normal. Now things were about to get completely FUBAR.
“I’ll get right on it, sir.” Kimber said as she snapped to attention and saluted me. I returned her salute and dismissed her as she headed back into the Pentagon to take care of the itemized list that I had verbally given her.
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I stood for a long moment in the courtyard trying to figure out what was going to happen. We were in a veritable shit-storm and it looked as though we were headed in an inexorable slide to the brink. And I was getting a chance to live...by being sent to the bunker at Sunset Valley on the Canadian side of the border.
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I was going to have to get in contact with General Kelly; he and I had worked together in the past during coalition strikes in Operation Enduring Freedom. He was a Lieutenant Colonel then, and I was a RADM. Let’s face it. He was in Kandahar and the USS JFK was in the Persian Gulf supporting the Rhino strikes against the insurgents so we were on the wire every day and his forward observers were the lifeline that we had for our men and women flying the combat missions day in and day out. Evidently, he’d gone on to crossed swords and monkey-fists and became the second in command of the bunker at Cheyenne Mountain. The US and Canada worked hand-in-hand at NORAD HQ. The Commander was always a US 4-star and the second in command was always a Canadian general officer. That way the command structure at the bunker always consisted jointly of both countries involved in Northern Air Defence Command.
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I got a phone call from Norfolk. Evidently the Allegiance had docked at Pier 6 at Norfolk Naval Station and guess who called. “FADM Nakamura!”
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“Sir. Just calling to let you know that we’re back from deployment and scuttlebutt’s afoot that something bad has happened in the Pacific.”
“Yeah...just keep it on the down-low. I’m gonna need you to hop a helo and come up to DC. I’ll be in the office till 2200. It’s going to be a late night.”
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“Any idea about what’s going on, sir?”
“Can’t talk over the phone...better to do it in person. Classification.” Just the one word that I said warned my friend that he hadn’t better say any more about it.
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“Aye, sir.”
“See you up here...” I said.
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This was an order even if it wasn’t worded as such. Especially since he was an O-6 and I was an O-11. When I got off the phone, I took a look at the oak tree in the center yard of the Pentagon. I wondered just how long we had before these majestic oaks ended up ash. There were three Chinese DF-5A strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles targeted on the Pentagon alone. If they launched, there would be nothing but a three mile in circumference hole three hundred feet deep because we knew for a fact that they were set to surface detonation. The Chinese wouldn’t let a target like ours survive a nuclear war. They wanted to cripple us.
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I thought about my old friend Admiral Jim Pointer, the former Chief of Naval Operations; the fact that he’d always been there for us: both Harm and me from the time he was COMBATGRP2 up until he made four-star. But now he was laying in repose in Arlington Cemetery and the bastard who made him eat a bullet was now doing hard time for the rest of his natural existence, in Leavenworth having a wonderfully fulfilling career breaking large rocks into small ones. I wondered how Scud would react to this sort of news. Harm always said that David “Rabbit” Campbell deserved to share a cell with Clark Palmer after what he did to the admiral. I agree with him.
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Scud was my guru as well as Harm's and we both missed him. And that meant that we had absolutely no sympathy for David Campbell. He could rot in prison. If things went like they were projected to, Campbell would get the death penalty by immolation; an upgrade to his original life-sentence.
