Rogue Forces

It was all about image, and Joe Gardner was a master at presenting a certain, specific, carefully crafted image. He always wore a collared shirt and tie except right before bed, and if he wasn’t wearing a jacket, his sleeves were rolled up and his tie was slightly loosened to make it look like he was hard at work. He used speakerphones often, but when others could see him he always used a telephone handset so everyone could see him busily talking. He never used the delicate china cups either, preferring heavy, thick Navy coffee mugs for all his beverages, because he thought they made him look manlier.

Besides, like Jackie Gleason on TV with his teacup filled with booze, everyone would assume he was drinking coffee.

The White House chief of staff, Walter Kordus, knocked on the Oval Office door, waited the requisite few seconds in case there was any sign of protest, then let himself in. “I got the call from Conrad, Joe,” Kordus said. He was dressed in jeans, sweatshirt, and Topsiders. Another longtime Gardner friend and ally, he was always available in a heartbeat and was probably lurking around the West Wing somewhere instead of being home with his wife and sizable stable of children. He looked at the flat-screen TV hidden in a cabinet. “Anything yet?”

“No.” Gardner raised his mug. “Have a drink. I’m almost one ahead of you.” The chief of staff dutifully fixed himself a mug of rum, but as usual he did not drink any of it.

It wasn’t until Carlyle blew through the Oval Office doors with a briefing folder in his hands that there was something on CNN, and it was only a mention on the scroll at the bottom of the screen of a “shooting incident” in northern Iraq. “It’s looking like a friendly-fire incident, sir,” Carlyle said. “An Army platoon was backing up an Iraqi infantry company on a sweep of a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq tunnel entrance when the area was hit by Turkish medium-range unguided rockets.”

“Crap,” the president muttered. “Get Stacy Anne out here.”

“She’s on her way, and so is Miller,” Carlyle said. Stacy Anne Barbeau, a former U.S. senator from Louisiana who was as ambitious as she was flamboyant, had recently been confirmed as the new secretary of state; Miller Turner, yet another longtime Gardner friend and confidant, was the secretary of defense.

“Casualties?”

“Eleven dead, sixteen wounded, ten critically.”

“Je-sus.”

Over the next ten minutes, the president’s advisers or deputies filtered in to the Oval Office one by one. The last to arrive was Barbeau, looking as if she was ready for a night on the town. “My staff is in contact with the Turkish embassy and with the Turkish foreign ministry,” she said, heading right over to the coffee tray. “I’m expecting a call from each of them shortly.”

“Casualty count is up to thirteen and is expected to go higher, sir,” Turner said as he listened to a call from the Army corps commander. “They can’t say that the platoon itself was targeted, but it appears that the Iraqis and Turks were going after the same target.”

“Then if our guys were backing up the Iraqis, how did they get hit?”

“The contractors making the initial assessment say that the second round of rockets was meant to catch any survivors escaping from the target area.”

“Contractors?”

“As you know, sir,” National Security Adviser Carlyle said, “we’ve been able to greatly draw down our uniformed military forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other forward areas around the world by replacing them with civilian contractors. Almost all military functions not involving direct action—security, reconnaissance, maintenance, communications, the list goes on—are done by contractors these days.”

The president nodded, already moving on to other details. “I need the names of the casualties so I can call the families.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any of these contractors get hurt?”

“No, sir.”

“Figures,” the president said idly.

The phone on the president’s desk rang, and chief of staff Walter Kordus picked it up, listened, then held the receiver out to Barbeau. “Turkish prime minister Akas herself, Stacy, patched in from State.”

“That’s a good sign,” Barbeau said. She activated the translator on the president’s computer. “Good morning, Madam Prime Minister,” she said. “This is Secretary of State Barbeau.”

At the same moment another phone rang. “Turkish president Hirsiz on the line for you, sir.”

“He better have some explanations,” Gardner said, taking the receiver. “Mr. President, this is Joseph Gardner.”

“President Gardner, good evening,” Kurzat Hirsiz said in very good English, his voice fairly quivering with anxiety, “I am sorry to disturb you, but I just heard about the terrible tragedy that occurred on the Iraq border, and on behalf of all the people of Turkey, I wanted to immediately call and express my sadness, regret, and sorrow to the families of the men that died as a result of this horrible accident.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Gardner said. “Now what the hell happened?”