Executive Intent

“This is just freakin’ unbelievable,” President Joseph Gardner said. He had just received the initial report on the engagement in the Gulf of Aden. Now he was watching a computerized three-dimensional holographic replay of the incident as reported by the aircrew and verified by Armstrong Space Station. “We told them we were coming, and they said as long as we followed international law, they were fine with it.”

“That’s the part we can’t figure out, sir,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. “There should have been no surprises. The aircrew did as the Russians told them: They changed to their radio frequency and put in a transponder code that made it easier for the Russian radar controllers to track them. The Russians engaged anyway.”

“Our guys did it by the book, Mr. President,” Secretary of Defense Miller Turner said.

“Oh, no, not quite, Miller, not by a long shot,” Gardner said, shaking a finger at him. He entered commands into a keyboard to speed up the holographic animation floating above the conference table. “The Russians repeatedly warned the crew away; they kept on coming, which in my view wasn’t a smart move.”

“Legal, perhaps,” Secretary of State Barbeau said from a secure videoconference link from Beijing, China, “but we don’t know what was going on with the Russian fleet. They could have had some other sort of emergency, or were under some other kind of attack, and they warned our plane away thinking it was part of the other emergency.”

“That’s speculation, Stacy,” Turner said. “We don’t know that.”

“In any case, Miller, the smart thing would have been to reverse course and get out of there,” Barbeau said. “Why risk your life unnecessarily? It was a stupid move on that pilot’s part.”

“Exactly right,” the president said, pointing at the hologram. “And then look at what she does-”

“‘She’?” Barbeau exclaimed. “A woman bomber pilot?”

“Colonel Gia Cazzotta, the squadron commander,” Carlyle said, glancing at his notes. “Veteran bomber pilot, engineer, unit commander, lots of flying hours, experience in Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan.”

“Sounds like a cocky type A jet jockey,” Barbeau commented. She thought about her last encounter with a type A but laid-back jet jockey, Hunter Noble-he was actually a spaceplane jockey-but then remembered how that encounter ended, and quickly dismissed the memory.

“Friend of Patrick McLanahan’s, too, I heard,” White House Chief of Staff Walter Kordus said.

“What?” Barbeau asked, her eyes flashing in complete surprise. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Here’s where the fighter attacks, sir,” Secretary of Defense Turner said, pointing at the hologram. “Our guys didn’t do a thing wrong, but they were shot at!”

“She should’ve bugged out and gotten out of there,” the president said. “Instead…” He stared at the holographic replay in amazement. “Look at this-she’s diving out of the sky, fighters on her tail! Now she’s skimming over the water…now she’s supersonic, for God’s sake, heading right for this destroyer. More warnings on the radio. The ships are trying to lock her up, but she’s too low and fast and jamming them…Jesus, no wonder they thought they were under attack! Somebody tell me what in hell she had in mind here, please!”

“Sir, without having interviewed her myself yet, I believe Colonel Cazzotta was conveying to the Russians that she and all American forces weren’t going to be intimidated by hostile actions in open and free airspace,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor Bain said. “There’s no reason for the Russian fighters and then their ships to engage the bomber-it was on a routine and legal patrol, one sanctioned by the Kremlin. There may or may not have been some other sort of emergency that the Russians were dealing with, but it doesn’t matter-Colonel Cazzotta had every right to fly there-”

“But what gives her the right to buzz those ships like that, General?” the president asked incredulously. “She is going supersonic and heading right for those ships! If it was me, I’d definitely think I was under attack!”

“Sir, international law prohibits overflying any vessel below one thousand feet altitude,” Bain said. “The bomber didn’t overfly any of those ships.”

“Don’t give me that crap, General-she may not have overflown them, but crossing in front of them at supersonic speed close enough to spray them with water kicked up by her shock wave? I’ll bet the law says something about flying close to a ship in a careless, reckless, or dangerous manner. The Russians were obviously spooked and opened fire.” He pointed again. “The Russian cruiser fires missiles but are either jammed or…what? What happens to the Russian missiles here? They just stop flying. Why?”

“The bomber has an advanced self-protection system that fires lasers at incoming missiles,” National Security Adviser Carlyle explained, “that are hot enough to destroy the missile’s guidance system.”

“But one gets through?”