Shadow Command Read online

  “Nope. I think we’re done for the night. Thanks, Walt.” He breezed past the chief of staff and entered the Treaty Room. “Hello, Senator. Thanks for meeting me at this ungodly hour.”

  She was standing beside the immense mahogany U. S. Grant Cabinet table, lovingly running her long fingers across the inlaid cherry features. The steward had placed a tray of tea on the coffee table on the other side of the room. Her eyes widened and that camera-magnetizing smile appeared when she saw Gardner enter the room. “Mr. President, it is certainly my honor and privilege to be with you tonight,” Senator Stacy Anne Barbeau said in her famous silky Louisiana accent. “Thank you so much for the invitation.” She stood, embraced the President, and exchanged polite kisses on the cheek. Barbeau wore a white low-cut business suit which subtly but effectively displayed her breasts and cleavage, accented for the evening by a shimmering platinum necklace and dangling diamond earrings. Her red hair bounced as if motorized in tune with her smile and batting eyelashes, and her green eyes flashed with energy. “You know that you may call upon me at any time, sir.”

  “Thank you, Senator. Please.” He motioned to a Victorian couch and took her hand as he led her to it, then took an ornate chair to her right, facing the fireplace.

  “I hope you give my best to the First Lady,” Barbeau said as she arranged herself just so on the couch. “She’s in Damascus, if I’m not mistaken, attending the international women’s rights conference?”

  “Exactly, Senator,” the President said.

  “I wish my duties in the Senate would have allowed me to attend,” Barbeau said. “I sent my senior staffer Colleen to attend, and she’s bringing a resolution of support from the full Senate for the First Lady to present to the delegates.”

  “Very thoughtful of you, Senator.”

  “Please, sir, will you not call me ‘Stacy,’ here in the privacy of the residence?” Barbeau asked, giving him one of her mind-blowing smiles. “I think we’ve both earned the right to a little downtime and relief from the formalities of our offices.”

  “Of course, Stacy,” Gardner said. He did not offer to let her call him “Joe,” and she knew enough not to ask. “But the pressure is never really off, is it? Not in our lines of work.”

  “I’ve never considered what I do ‘work,’ Mr. President,” Barbeau said. She poured him a cup of tea, then sat back and crossed her legs as she sipped hers. “It’s not always pleasurable, to be sure, but doing the people’s business is never a chore. I suppose the stress is part of what makes one feel alive, don’t you agree?”

  “It always seemed to me you thrive on the pressure, Senator,” Gardner commented. He suppressed a grimace after he sipped the tea. “In fact, if I may say so, it looks to me like you enjoy creating a bit of it.”

  “My responsibilities many times dictate that I do things above and beyond what most folks might call ‘politic,’” Barbeau said. “We do whatever we need to do in the best interest of our constituents and our country, isn’t that right, Mr. President?”

  “Call me Joe. Please.”

  Barbeau’s green eyes flashed, and her head bowed without her eyes leaving his. “Why, thank you for the honor…Joe.”

  “Not at all, Stacy,” Gardner said with a smile. “You’re right, of course. No one likes to admit it, but the end often justifies the means, as long as the end is a safer and more secure nation.” He picked up a telephone sitting on the Monroe desk. “Could you have the libation table brought to the Treaty Room, please?” He hung up the phone. “It’s after nine P.M., Stacy, and I’m not in the mood for tea. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, Joe.” The smile was back, but it was more introspective, more reserved. “I may just join you.”

  “I know what might convince you.” A steward brought a rolling table with several crystal decanters. Gardner poured himself a glass of Bacardi Dark on ice and fixed Barbeau a drink. “I thought I read in People magazine that you preferred a ‘Creole Mama,’ correct? I hope I got it right…bourbon, Madeira, and a splash of grenadine, topped with a cherry, right? Sorry, we only have red cherries, not green.”

  “You are a real surprise sometimes, Joe,” she said. They touched glasses, their eyes locked together. She tasted hers, her eyes glistened again, and she took a deeper sip. “My my, Mr. President, a little intelligence work, even after hours, and a skilled hand at the bar. I’m again impressed.”

  “Thank you.” Gardner took a deep sip of his drink as well. “Not as sophisticated as a Creole Mama, I’m sure, but when you’re a politician from Florida, you’d better know your rum. Cheers.” They touched glasses and sipped their drinks once more. “Do you know the origin of touching glasses, Stacy?”

  “I’m sure I don’t,” Barbeau replied. “I didn’t even realize there was an origin to it. It’s not just a cute little noisemaker then?”

  “In medieval times, when adversaries met to discuss terms of treaties or alliances, when they drank after negotiations were concluded they tipped a bit of the contents of their cups into the other’s to show neither was poisoned. The custom evolved into a sign of friendship and camaraderie.”

  “Why, how fascinating,” Barbeau said, taking another sip, then letting her tongue run across her full lips. “But I certainly hope you don’t see me as an adversary, Joe. I’m anything but. I have been an admirer of yours for years, as was my father. Your political skills are exceeded only by your intelligence, charm, and true dedication to the service of the nation.”

  “Thank you, Stacy.” He let his eyes drift across Barbeau’s body as she took another sip. Even as it appeared that she was concentrating on enjoying her drink, she noticed he was looking her over…again. “I knew your father when we were in the Senate together. He was one powerful man, very strong-willed and passionate in his pursuits.”

  “He counted you among his most trusted friends, even though you and he were on opposite sides of the political and ideological aisle then,” Barbeau said. “After I was elected to the Senate, he often reminded me that if I wanted some straight talk from the other side, I shouldn’t hesitate to come to you.” She paused, adopting a rather wistful expression. “I wish he was still here now. I could use his strength and wisdom. I love him so much.”

  “He was a fighter. A tough opponent. You knew where he stood and he wasn’t afraid to tell you. He was one hell of a man.”

  Barbeau put her hand on Gardner’s and pressed it. “Thank you, Joe. You’re a sweet man.” She took an instant to look at him deeply, then let her lips part slightly. “You…look very much like I remember him in his younger, more fiery years, Joe. We had a dining room very much like this in Shreveport, and we used to spend endless hours together, just like this. I wanted to talk politics and he wanted to find out about who I was dating.”

  “Daddies and daughters always stay close, eh?”

  “He made me tell him my most intimate secrets,” she said, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. “I couldn’t deny him anything. He made me tell him everything—and I was a very naughty girl growing up. I dated all the politicians’ boys. I wanted to learn everything about politics: strategies, planning, fund-raising, candidates, issues, alliances. They wanted…” She paused, giving him another sly smile and a bat of her eyes. “…well, you know what they wanted.” Gardner swallowed hard as he imagined what they got from her. “It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Sometimes I think my daddy set me up on some of those dates just so I could be his spy—the Cajun political version of turning your daughter out, I suppose.”

  Gardner chuckled, and unconsciously let his eyes roam her body again, and this time Barbeau allowed herself to show that she noticed, smiled, and blushed—she was one of those women who could blush anytime, anywhere, in any situation, at will. He sat back in his chair, wanting to get this meeting under way so they could concentrate on other things, if the opportunity presented itself. “So, Stacy, we both know the issue before us. Where does the White House stand with the Armed Services Commi
ttee? Are we going to have a fight over the military budget, or can we come to an agreement and form a united front?”

  “Unfortunately we’re more confused than ever, I’m afraid, Joe,” Barbeau replied. She took her hand away, watching a sudden pang of loss cloud his face. “This is all confidential, Mr. President?”

  “Of course.” He touched her hand, and her eyes fluttered. “On both sides. Strictly confidential.”

  “My lips are sealed.” Barbeau smiled, then put her red lips together, made a locking motion with her long fingers, and tucked the invisible key in the ample cleavage between her breasts. Gardner took that as open permission to look at her chest this time, and he did so liberally. “The committee is in an uproar, Joe. They’re concerned about General McLanahan’s health and well-being, of course. Have you heard anything more about him?”

  “Not much. The doctors originally told me not to expect him back to duty for several months. Some kind of heart thing.”

  That jibed with what her sources at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center told her, she thought—so far, Gardner wasn’t lying to her. That was a good sign. “For such a strong young man to be suddenly rendered unconscious like that, the stresses of living on that space station and making repeated trips back and forth in the Black Stallion spaceplane must be enormous, far more than anyone could have possibly anticipated.”

  “McLanahan’s a tough guy, but you’re right—although he is over fifty and has a family history of heart disease, he was incredibly fit. Shuttle astronauts usually get several days between liftoff and re-entry—McLanahan has taken five round-trips to the space station in the past four weeks. That’s unprecedented, but for the past few months it’s been the norm. We’re restricting travel to the space station and are in the process of doing extensive physicals on everyone involved. We need answers as to what’s happened.”

  “But that’s exactly my point, Joe. McLanahan is tough and strong, especially for a middle-aged man, and he’s a combat veteran and national military figure—my God, he’s a hero!—who I’m sure gets regular fitness checkups. Yet he was still incapacitated and God knows what sort of injury he has sustained. It calls into question the safety and utility of the proposed military space plan. For heaven’s sake, Joe, why are we risking good men on such a project? I grant you it’s modern and exotic and exciting, but it’s technology that just hasn’t been perfected and probably won’t be for another ten years—not to mention the fact that it’s four-fifths fewer aircraft and one-tenth the payload for the same money. If a strong guy like General McLanahan is knocked senseless by flying the thing, is it safe for other crewmembers?”

  “What does the committee think, Stacy?”

  “It’s simple and logical, Joe,” Barbeau said. “It’s not about impressing the folks with global Internet access or half-meter resolution photographs of everyone’s backyards—it’s about creating value and benefit for our country’s defense. As far as I can see, the spaceplanes benefit only the handful of contractors assigned to the project, namely Sky Masters and their subcompanies. We have a dozen different space booster systems with proven track records that can do a better job than the Black Stallion.” She rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake, Joe, who else is McLanahan in bed with?”

  “Certainly not Maureen Hershel anymore,” Gardner chuckled.

  Barbeau rolled her eyes in dramatized disbelief. “Oh, that dreadful woman—I’ll never understand why President Martindale chose her of all people to be his Vice President,” Barbeau retorted. She looked inquisitively, then playfully at Gardner over the rim of her glass, then asked, “Or was the cold-fish routine just for public consumption, Joe?”

  “We became close friends because of the demands of the job, Stacy, just business. All the rumors floating around about us are completely bogus.”

  Now he was lying, Barbeau thought, but she expected nothing less than a complete and outright denial. “I completely understand how the working conditions in Washington thrust two people together, especially ones who seem complete opposites,” Barbeau said. “Combine power politics with a brewing war in the Middle East and long nights attending briefings and planning sessions, and sparks can fly.”

  “Not to mention McLanahan was obviously not getting business done back at home,” Gardner added. They both laughed, and Gardner used that opportunity to clasp Barbeau’s hand again. “He was too busy playing space cadet to pay any attention to her.” He affixed Barbeau with a deep, serious stare. “Look, Stacy, let’s get right down to it, okay? I know what you want—you’ve been lobbying for it since you set foot inside the Beltway. With most of the rest of the Air Force bomber bases destroyed by the Russians in the ’04 Holocaust nuclear attacks, Barksdale Air Force Base is the natural home for a new long-range bomber fleet—”

  “If the Pentagon doesn’t keep on dumping money into that dust-bowl desert base in Battle Mountain, black programs in Dreamland—another Nevada base that mostly falls outside congressional oversight, I might point out—or the space station.”

  “It’s no secret McLanahan’s stock rose to all-time highs after his actions in the counterattacks against Russia,” Gardner said, “and his pet projects were the unmanned bombers at Battle Mountain, his high-tech laser gizmos at Dreamland, and now the space station. It gave Martindale something to point at and brag to the American people that he devised and supported—”

  “Even though President Thomas Thorn was the one who authorized their construction, not Martindale,” Barbeau pointed out.

  “Unfortunately, President Thorn will always and forever be known as the president who allowed the Russians to pull off a sneak attack against the United States that killed thirty thousand men, women, and children and injured another quarter million,” Gardner said. “It won’t matter that he was just as interested in high-tech toys as Martindale: Thorn will always be thought of as the weaker president.

  “But the question is, what do we think is in the best interest of the American people and national defense, Stacy—these fancy spaceplanes that can’t carry as much as the Secret Service’s Suburbans, or proven technology like stealth bombers, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and aircraft carriers? McLanahan has convinced Martindale that spaceplanes are better, even though he used unmanned bombers almost exclusively in his attacks on Russia—”

  “And as you’ve pointed out many times, Joe,” Barbeau added, “we can’t afford to put all our eggs in one basket again. The Russian attack was so successful because all the bombers were located at a small handful of undefended bases, and unless they’re all in the air, they’re vulnerable to attack. But aircraft carrier battle groups deployed to bases all around the world, or far out at sea, are heavily equipped for self-protection and are far less vulnerable to sneak attack.”

  “Exactly,” Gardner said, nodding with pleasure that Barbeau had brought up the aircraft carriers. “That’s the point I’ve been trying to make for all these years. We need a mix of forces—we can’t dump all the money for new weapon systems on one unproven technology. An aircraft carrier battle group is no more expensive that what McLanahan is proposing we spend on these spaceplanes, but they are far more versatile and battle-proven.”

  “The Senate Armed Services Committee needs to hear that argument from you and your administration, Joe,” Barbeau said, giving his hand another caress and leaning forward toward him sympathetically, exposing more of her ample cleavage. “McLanahan was the hero of the war to avenge the American Holocaust, but that was in the past. A lot of senators may be afraid to cross McLanahan for fear there will be a backlash against them if the American people wonder why they’re not supporting America’s most famous general. But with McLanahan silenced, if they get the direct support of the President, they’ll be more inclined to break ranks. Now is the time to act. We must do something, and it has to be now, while McLanahan is…well, with all due respect, while the general is out of the picture. Undoubtedly the committee’s confidence in the spaceplane program is rattled. They ar
e much more amenable to a compromise.”

  “I think we need to get together on this, Stacy,” Gardner said. “Let’s hammer out a plan that both the committee and the Pentagon will support. We should present a united front.”

  “That sounds marvelous, Mr. President, really marvelous.”

  “Then I have the full support of the Senate Armed Services Committee?” Gardner asked. “I have allies in the House I can call on too, but the backing of the Senate is crucial. Together, united, we can go before the American people and Congress and make a convincing argument.”

  “What if McLanahan pulls out of this? He and that ex-senator astronaut science geek Ann Page are a formidable team.”

  “McLanahan is out—he’ll surely retire, or be forced to retire.”

  “That man is a bulldog. If he recovers, he won’t retire.”

  “If he won’t do it for his own good, he’ll do it because I’ll order him to do it,” Gardner said. “And if he still fights it, I’ll make sure the world understands how dangerous the man has been over the years. He is a loose cannon—the world just doesn’t know about it. The man killed dozens of innocent civilians in Tehran, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He did?” She hated to let it slip that the majority leader of the U.S. Senate didn’t know something, but she couldn’t help it. It was a surprise, and she didn’t like surprises. Would Gardner fill her in? “When?”

  “On the very mission we were discussing when he had his episode, the operational test mission he was running from the Armstrong Space Station,” Gardner replied. “He set off a missile that released chemical weapons outside an apartment building in Tehran, killing dozens including women and children, and then he attacked a Russian reconnaissance plane with some kind of death ray—probably to cover up the attack on Tehran.”

  Thank God Gardner was a blabbermouth. “I had no idea…!”

  “That’s not the half of what this joker does, Stacy. I know a dozen different criminal infractions and outright acts of war he’s responsible for over the years—including an attack that probably made Russian president Gryzlov plan the atomic attacks against the United States.”