The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

new Army unit, the 10th United States Cavalry Regiment. It's being formed at
Fort Stewart, Georgia, and at my direction ships of the National Defense Reserve
Fleet are being mobilized right now to get them over to Israel just as quickly
as we can. The 10th Cavalry is a famous unit with a distinguished history. It
was one of the black units that the westerns have almost totally ignored. As
luck would have it – ' luck had nothing to do with it ' – the first commander
will be an African American, Colonel Marion Diggs, a distinguished soldier, West
Point grad and all that. That's the land force. The air component will be a
complete wing of F-16 fighter-bombers, plus a detachment of AWACS aircraft, and
the usual support personnel. Finally, the Israelis are giving us home-porting at
Haifa, and we'll almost always have a carrier battle-group and a Marine
Expeditionary unit in the Eastern Med to back up everything else.'
'But with the draw-down – '
'Dennis Bunker came up with the idea on the 10th Cavalry, and frankly I wish I
could say that it's one of mine. As for the rest, well, we'll try to fit it in
somehow or other with the rest of the defense budget.'
'Is it really necessary, Mr President? I mean, with all the budget battles,
particularly on the matter of defense, do we really have to – '
'Of course we do.' The National Security Advisor cut the reporter off at his
ugly knees. You asshole, Elliot's expression said. 'Israel has serious and very
real security considerations, and our commitment to preserving Israeli security
is the sine qua non of this agreement.'
'Christ, Marty,' another reporter muttered.
'We'll compensate for the additional expense in other areas,' the President
said. 'I know I'm returning to one more round of ideologically-based wrangling
over how we pay for the cost of government, but I think we have demonstrated
here that government's costs do pay off. If we have to nudge taxes up a little
to preserve world peace, then the American people will understand and support
it,' Fowler concluded matter-of-factly.
Every reporter took note of that. The President was going to propose yet another
tax increase. There had already been Peace Dividend I and II. This would be the
first Peace Tax, one of them thought with a wry smile. That would sail through
Congress, along with everything else. The smile had another cause as well. She
noted the look in the President's eyes when he gazed over at his National
Security Advisor. She'd wondered about that. She'd tried to get Liz Elliot at
home twice, right before the trip to Rome, and both times all she'd gotten on
her private line was the answering machine. She could have followed up on that.
She could have staked out Elliot's townhouse off Kalorama Road and made a record
of how often Elliot was sleeping at home, and how often she was not. But. But
that was none of her business, was it? No, it wasn't. The President was a single
man, a widower, and his personal life had no public import so long as he was
discreet about it, and so long as it didn't interfere with his conduct of
official business. The reporter figured she was the only one who'd noticed. What
the hell, she thought, if the President and his National Security Advisor were
that close, maybe it was a good thing. Look how well the Vatican Treaty had gone
. . .
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