Power Curve (29 page)

Turner stood and walked to the fireplace. She touched the bell that had sat on her desk in the California senate. It seemed like an age ago. “It was much easier then,” she murmured to herself. Then, more firmly, “They’re asking me—” She stopped. No one was asking her to do anything. They were only presenting options. “I have to decide if I should evacuate military dependents out of Oki
nawa or leave them there. There is a risk no matter what I do.”

Maura knew her daughter. “And you don’t want to be responsible for the death of innocent people.” Turner nodded. “I’m not an educated woman, Maddy. But I do know the Bible teaches us that some of the flock must suffer for the rest.”

“Unfortunately, the Bible does not tell us how to decide who does the suffering.”

“If it must be done, trust your judgment. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice one or two if you can save many. But fight for every one of them.” She looked at her daughter. “Is there going to be a war?”

“Not if I can help it,” Turner replied. “Go to bed, Mother.” She walked out and headed for the Oval Office. The uniformed Secret Service agent on duty looked up and murmured into his whisper mike.

“Magic is moving.”

The lighted board in the Secret Service command post directly below the Oval Office followed Turner as she left the residence and walked through the colonnade to the West Wing. The light indicating she was in the Oval Office flicked on. A telephone call was made and the cook on duty in the kitchen brewed a fresh pot of coffee—just in case. Turner did not sit at her desk but moved around the office, finally stopping at the Kennedy rocker. She ran her hand over the top, stroking the wood. She sat down and leaned back, slowly rocking, and closed her eyes.
So lonely
, she thought.
So lonely
.

Okinawa, Japan

S
taff Sergeant Lancey Coltrain was the junior command post controller on duty when the emergency action message from headquarters CINC PAC came in. She automatically noted the date and time: It was ten o’clock, Sunday evening, the sixteenth day of the crisis. The alphanumeric code came in a constant stream, but she copied it down in blocks of four, which was, in itself, part of the validation process. She flipped the decode book to the right page and decoded the message. “Thank God,” she told her supervisor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath while he confirmed her decode.

“It’s a valid message,” he said. “I’ll tell the general. We are about to see the dust fly.”

Sergeant Lancey Coltrain exhaled and sank back into her chair, her slender body shaking with relief. “It’s about time.” She was taking her children home.

Martini read the message without comment and turned to his staff. “CINC PAC has implemented NEO. Get Major Ryan in here and start hollering for aircraft.” He huddled with his group commanders and calculated the number of flights it would take to airlift out 26,000 dependents. Their best guess was approximately 100 sorties at a rate of 20 a day. “I want to move them out faster if we can,” he told them.

Eighteen minutes later, Major Robert Ryan skidded
through the door of the Battle Cab. In his haste to dress, he had buttoned his BDU shirt wrong and was trying to get the right button in the matching buttonhole. Martini told him CINC PAC had implemented NEO, and the first transport aircraft was expected to arrive in six hours. “I want at least 250 people on that aircraft and 250 more ready to go every hour after that.”

Ryan gasped. He had set up an intricate timetable to gather dependents at collection points, bus them to one of three processing centers, and then move them to the flight line for loading on an airplane. The acceleration Martini demanded was going to create havoc. “Sir, we simply don’t have the resources to move and process that many people that fast. I don’t think we can do it.”

“For Christ’s sake!” Martini barked. “Quit waffling and try. If you can’t do it, then get back to me and tell me what you need to make it happen. Got it?” Ryan nodded dumbly and beat a quick retreat out of the command post convinced that Martini had suffered a total breakdown in good judgment.
The man’s irrational
, he told himself.

The seething anger Ryan harbored for Martini eased as the system he had created worked well, and when the first five buses departed for the flight line and the waiting C-17 Globemaster III, he felt ecstatic.
Martini be damned
, he thought.
I’m going to make this happen
. The phone call from the command post came six minutes later. It was Martini demanding to know why only 238 passengers were going out on the first aircraft. “Because, sir,” Ryan shot back, “that’s all it’s got seats for.”

“Get ten more on it. I don’t care how you do it. Have them sit on each other’s laps, put ’em on the flight deck.” He broke the connection.

“Damn!” Ryan shouted, his voice cracking. Couldn’t he do anything right? But he made it happen, and the C-17 launched on time with 248 passengers.

Later that day, the family of Master Sergeant Ralph Contreraz, an F-15 maintenance production supervisor, made their way through the processing line set up in the base gym. Ryan watched as Contreraz bulldozed his way through the crowd to say good-bye and hug his children.
“The house had better be clean and the dishes done when I get back,” his wife threatened. She started to cry then drew herself up, stopping the tears. “I’m coming back as soon as I can.”

“I hear you,” the crusty old sergeant muttered. He kissed his wife and helped her and his three kids board the bus waiting to take them to the aircraft.
That’s the same Contreraz who Laurie liked so much
, Ryan thought. Laurie had claimed he was the best NCO in Maintenance and, arguably, on the base.

Behind him, Ryan heard angry voices in the processing line. He sighed. Why wouldn’t people cooperate? “No one is taking my kids away from me!” a woman’s voice shouted. Ryan hurried over to the table to see if he could help. A staff sergeant who looked vaguely familiar was blocking the line. A three-year-old boy was clinging to her leg, and she held a fourteen-month-old toddler in her arms. Ryan tried to read her name tag, but the little girl was in the way. “You are?” he asked.

“Staff Sergeant Lancey Coltrain,” the woman answered.

“You work in the command post?”

“That’s right. This here shit-for-brains says I can’t take my kids out of here.”

“NEO is only for nonessential personnel and dependents,” Ryan explained. “Command post personnel are considered essential. We’ll assign a sponsor to escort your children.”

“CINC PAC says I can take my kids out of here!” Lancey screamed. “I saw the fucking message, and nobody is going to stop me.” She was on the edge of hysteria.

“Please calm down,” Ryan soothed. He pointed to a nearby office. “Let’s go over there where we can talk.”

“I’m not getting out of line,” Lancey cried. “And we’re leaving. My husband works on F-15s. Only one of us has to stay.”

Master Sergeant Contreraz was standing behind Ryan and shook his head in disgust. The major was blowing it. He knew Lancey’s husband and had seen it all too often when a husband and wife were in the Air Force. They
expected the service to give them special treatment because they were a family. Normally, the Air Force tried to be accommodating, but when push came to shove, the needs of the Air Force had to come first. This was one of those times. “Major, can I help?” he asked. “Sergeant Coltrain’s husband works for me.”

Lancey gave Contreraz a thankful look. He would explain it to the major. Instead, Contreraz asked, “Who’s detailed to take care of her children?”

A junior high school P.E. teacher stepped forward and volunteered. She was a big woman with short hair and a pleasant face. She had spent twenty-six years in the Department of Defense Dependent Schools and loved her career, children, and the military. “I’m not going to let some old dike get her hands on my kids!” Lancey shouted.

Countless parent-teacher conferences had taught the teacher when to ignore an upset parent and held out her arms. The toddler came to her, finding a warm refuge. “You’ll be fine with me,” the teacher cooed. She easily balanced the child with one arm while she gave Lancey her card. “My stateside address and phone number is on the back. Give me your number, and I’ll eall you when I get your children with their grandparents. By the way, I’ve got two grown kids of my own and I’m a grandmother.”

Lancey grabbed her child and walked quickly to the bus, dragging her son. “You’re not authorized to go,” Ryan blurted at her back. “We’ll make sure your children are OK.”

“She’s lost it,” Contreraz said. “You want her off the bus?” Ryan nodded an answer, and Contreraz followed Lancey onto the bus. Ryan could see them standing in the aisle as they talked. She shook her head, her hair flying back and forth, and kicked Contreraz in the leg. His bellowed shout of “You are not listening!” echoed out the door as he poked a finger at her forehead. “Get your goddamn ass off this bus! NOW!”

Lancey clambered off the bus, a red spot in the middle of her forehead. “He hit me!” she cried.

“That was a poke to get your attention,” Contreraz said as he climbed down. “When I say move, you move.”

Contreraz had a formidable reputation and the jagged,
raw emotion that had been driving Lancey was rapidly fading to worry. She managed a very weak, “Wait until my congressman hears about this.”

“Major,” Contreraz said, “tell the bus driver to move out and call the cops. This lady needs to go to jail.” Coltrain’s mouth fell open, and she started to cry.

Ryan was desperate. At least 300 people were watching, hearing every word, and murmuring among themselves. He had to regain control before they keyed off Coltrain and turned into an unruly mob. The decision was easy. “Get on the bus,” he told Lancey. “You’re going home.” The crowd was eerily silent.

Contreraz stepped back and watched Lancey board. He stood in silence until the bus pulled away. “It doesn’t make sense to keep her here,” Ryan said, justifying his decision.

“She took the same oath you and I did,” Contreraz shot back. “Who in the hell is gonna do her job? I can’t. How about you?” The sergeant spun around and walked away, not waiting for an answer.

Been here, done this
, Ryan decided as the group commanders filed out of the Battle Cab. Martini was going to have another piece of his anatomy for lunch. He checked his watch and changed the “lunch” to “dinner.”
This is turning into a very long day
, he told himself.

“Letting Sergeant Coltrain fly out was the wrong decision,” the general said. Nothing in his voice betrayed the anger boiling beneath the surface.

“I thought it best to diffuse the issue, sir.” Martini was not impressed with his defense, and Ryan trotted out his main argument. “You can imagine what the press would do to us if they learned we had broken up a family.”

Martini’s fingers drummed the console. NEO was going well, and Ryan deserved full credit. Martini weighed that against the incident with Sergeant Coltrain. How much damage did he do to good order and discipline by letting her go? Why did this have to occur now when discipline meant survival. He considered replacing Ryan but discarded the idea. He couldn’t spare anyone to take over Ryan’s job, and for the most part, the doctor had done an
outstanding job. He made his decision: Ryan was going to get another chance. “What the press thinks or does is not your concern.” Martini fell into his teaching mode, and he wanted to explain the modern Air Force with all its strengths and weaknesses.

But he didn’t have the time. Instead, he settled for some practical advice. “Your job is to make the system work within the existing rules. When Coltrain called the teacher a dike, you should have pulled her aside for immediate counseling on sexual harassment. That gives you time to call her immediate superior and get him involved. By then, you’ve got her isolated. Then call in the legal beagles. They’ll put everything on hold, which is exactly what you want. Then you make an offer she can’t refuse: Her children can fly out on the next plane while the mess that she started in the first place is straightened out. As a mother, what’s she going to do? Keep her kids in jeopardy? She lets them fly out, gets put on report, and is ordered back to duty. Problem solved.”

Ryan was shocked at Martini’s cold-blooded manipulation of the rules and people. “What happens now?” he asked.

“She’ll be met at Yokota when the plane lands and brought back under armed guard. I’ll offer her the choice of confinement to barracks or return to duty while we start court-martial proceedings—absent without leave or failure to repair come to mind. If she gets the message, cooperates, and does her job, I’ll drop the court-martial and offer her nonjudicial punishment instead—nothing more than fining her a couple of hundred bucks and reduction in grade. If she’s got her attitude screwed on straight, I might even suspend the bust. Next time something like this happens, use your head.”

Ryan saw a chance to shift the general’s attention away from his blunder and told Martini about Contreraz poking Coltrain in the forehead. He conveniently omitted mentioning that Coltrain had kicked Contreraz first. “What do we do about that?” he asked.

“Contreraz knows better than that. How hard did he strike her?”

“I only saw a little redness,” Ryan answered, “It went
away very quickly.” He almost added that Coltrain was more rational after getting off the bus. But that would be admitting physical intimidation modified behavior and that, from his viewpoint as a physician and a psychiatrist, was a barbaric practice on a par with voodoo.

“You’re the doctor,” Martini said. “At least he got her off the bus quickly without anyone getting hurt. Who knows how she would’ve reacted if the cops had to drag her off.” He allowed a tight smile. “I’ll bet she was off that bus in a heartbeat.”

“Yes, sir. She was.”

Again, Martini’s fingers drummed the console. “You should have followed Contreraz’s advice, rolled the bus, and called the cops.” More drumming on the table. “Still, he shouldn’t have touched her. I’ll talk to him.”

Ryan suffered a total breakdown in judgment and refused to drop the subject. “Sir, that doesn’t seem fair. You’re going to court-martial Coltrain and only ‘talk’ to Contreraz.”

Martini drilled Ryan with a cold look. Did the major have a clue? A good sergeant knew how and when to bully an airman when there was no time for the legal and civilized niceties of modern society. Martini tried one last time to reach Ryan. “Contreraz didn’t cause the problem, and he got things moving in a very direct manner. Next time, listen to your NCOs. You’d be surprised how fast they can solve problems.” He studied Ryan for a moment. “I hope you learned something from all this. Always remember that when the shooting starts, the rules change. Get back to work.”

Ryan scurried out of the command post convinced that Martini was losing his grip on reality.
Who’s been doing the shooting around here?
he asked himself.

Washington, D.C.

“Ben,” Liz Gordon said to her cameraman, “can you tune out that damn drum?” They were in Lafayette Park shooting a package on the growing number of demonstrators flocking to join the lone drummer still beating his
drum by Lafayette’s statute. Ben fiddled with the sound controls and had her turn away from the drummer, her back a shield to the echoing beat. It helped, and the mob cooperated by waving their signs back and forth.

“Fireplug’s in the crowd,” Ben said.

“Are you surprised?” Liz replied. She searched the crowd until she found Quella O’Malley, the guru of demonstrators. O’Malley was a short, stocky woman with an outrageous sense of style and a talent for stirring up trouble. O’Malley always made good news, and the media loved her for her gushy flamboyance and bright clothes. In the newsrooms but never in public, they called her Fireplug. But not one reporter or editor suspected she was one of the highest-paid and most cynical troublemakers on the American scene. “Get a shot of her sign,” Liz said. Ben stood on a bench and zoomed in on O’Malley. True to form, she was carrying a huge new sign declaring.