“Don’t bother!” Cranston ordered Sparks. He strutted to the box pile, reached for one and flung it to the floor in front of Antonio’s desk.
“I have never seen such disregard for authority in all my life! And to think you were chosen for your leadership abilities!” Although amused, Stevenson didn’t much like the disrespectful scene that was developing. The more Cranston talked the more his blood boiled. “What kind of admiral do you call yourself!?”
“Why don’t you shut your mouth, Harold?” Stevenson interdicted forcefully. “How dare you talk to him that way? He has served this country for 36 years. You have no right to attack his decisions nor his judgment. He’s an honorable man and the Navy stands behind him.” Cranston snarled at Stevenson, not noticing that another figure was in the doorway.
“His leadership has been substandard at best!”
“What do you know about leadership, you son of a bitch!?” Suddenly their heads turned in the voice’s direction. Antonio simply smiled as he continued to pack. He didn’t have to raise his head; he knew the voice well.
Ramon Torres stood at the door like a rigid sentry, glaring at Cranston.
“What did you say?” Cranston asked with disbelief.
“Mr. Secretary, I said, what do you know about leadership, you son of a bitch?”
“How dare you--”
“Hold your pompous mouth for the cameras! None of us in this room has the time to laugh at your humorous theories on leadership. You’d be better just to keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it where you stand.” Cranston’s rage welled up as Ramon moved past him to shake the hands of the other men. After he placed his hat on Antonio’s desk, and placed a hand on Antonio’s shoulder, he turned around. Cranston spoke first.
“Who do you think you are, Admiral? You’re just--” But Ramon’s sharp, unwavering voice trumped his.
“You have the audacity to come in here and chastise a man who has served his country for more than three decades?” Ramon stepped forward. “You don’t have even one day serving in our armed forces. Am I right? You got this job by helping a man get re-elected. The job was his payback because he couldn’t trust you with anything else. What a fucking crock! You needed the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon to teach you things and watch your back when you fucked things up.” Ramon moved to the office bar and calmly pulled out four shot glasses and poured brandy from a crystal flask. The room remained silent as he offered the shots to each man except Cranston, who was visibly stunned by such a fierce verbal barrage.
“Howard, do you actually think any one of us takes you seriously? Do you think we ever took you seriously? Did you ever believe for a moment that we gave your orders, your statements, your visions any measure of credence?” Cranston took a step back with his jaw agape from this onslaught. Ramon stalked him like a wolf, putting his glass down and raising his voice to the roof.
“We have given our entire lives to the security of this country, and we will not let an impotent, incompetent, bureaucratic idiot tell us how to do our jobs!” He pointed to Antonio. “If you had followed this man’s guidance from the beginning, our Navy would not be the laughing stock of the armed forces today! But you severed every line we had to our people, trying to make a name for yourself. Well, I have news for you, Mr. Secretary--it’s everywhere, it’s in today’s paper, and soon your children will be saying it like a nursery rhyme: YOUR NAME ISN’T WORTH SHIT, HOWARD CRANSTON! YOU’RE A FUCKING JOKE! HOW DARE YOU HOLD A POSITION THAT WAS BUILT BY REAL MEN!? FIGHTING MEN! MEN LIKE ANTONIO ESPINOZA! HOW DARE YOU!?”
Cranston nervously looked to Stevenson and Sparks for support. But both men glared at him with disdain. His face turned ashen grey. His eyes, wide with disbelief, darted from face to face. Ramon stepped away from the shaken man and gulped his drink. Cold silence prevailed in the room.
“I need another drink!” Ramon exclaimed jovially, and walked over to the wet bar and poured a double Scotch in his glass. He was about to down the shot, but thought twice, then turned around. He took it to Cranston, who swallowed hard as Ramon approached.
“Here, Howard. Drink this.” He offered the glass.
Cranston stood trembling under the weighty glare of the men. Just a month shy of his 60th birthday, he had never taken such a verbal, yet mordacious beating at the hands of a subordinate. He stood there mortally wounded, his pride and arrogance utterly crushed. He fidgeted for his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead, chin and temples. The Scotch spilled over in his trembling hand. He brought the glass to his lips and downed it in one swig then made his way slowly for the door, like a prisoner walking to his execution. When he reached the door he turned one last time to face them.
“I trust that you gentlemen will find it in your good conscience to keep me informed.” All knew that his question was a plea. He was broken down and helpless; there was no need to punish him anymore.
“I’ll brief you, Mr. Secretary, when we are ready.” Stevenson replied dutifully. Cranston nodded.
“Very well. Carry on.” He closed the door behind him and with listless resignation on his face, walked lifelessly to his own office.
Chapter 10
Admiral Tarkin
Kuril Islands Chain, Russia
Barracks of the Regional Commander
Admiral First-Rank Nikolai Tarkin took a long drag from his cigarette as he examined the manifest document. As he read, his thick lips twisted into a lustful grin. It was a grin of opportunity and anticipation.
Admiral Park sat across the table from him, thinking how satisfying it would be to slit the despicable Russian’s throat and watch him bleed to death. Commander Kim sat next to Park, harboring the same contempt.
“I see everything is in order, Admiral. Except for the forty missing barrels, everything else is fine. Very good,” Tarkin said, reclining back in his chair.
“The missing barrels could not be helped,” Park replied in perfect Russian. “It was a great risk for me to get these barrels out without being noticed."
“Please don’t apologize!” Tarkin bellowed. His massive chest and belly heaved laboriously as he chuckled loudly. “You’ve done well! Very well.” Park and Kim glanced at each other in mutual malevolence towards the tank-like man.
The bribe was humiliating, but unquestionably essential. In planning his voyage months before, Park had three important issues he had to solve with great precision. One, he had to deal with the weather. Storm fronts would be rolling in and out of the Pacific throughout the season, and he needed to use this to his advantage. Two, the new American spy reconnaissance satellite OPTICA routinely swept over the Kuril Islands and up through the Kamchatka Peninsula during its scanning arc. Within each scan, OPTICA fired infrared thermo-photos of Russian ships and submarines then down-linked the images to NSA. So precise was the system’s new WEPS hyper-scan lenses, that it was scheduled to replace all military intelligence satellites within two years. But the satellite did have a very significant Achilles’ Heel: it was virtually blind during periods of heavy cloud cover.
There was only one OPTICA in orbit, and it was just a prototype; one of the many high-priority projects that Kristina Torres and her WEPS engineers were redesigning on the fly. Because there was only one, North Korean intelligence had already mapped out its scanning tracks, which was heavily focused on the northern Pacific zones. Park had to hide from OPTICA, otherwise, his huge vessel would be identified, tracked, and subsequently trailed by an American submarine. To do this he had to steam under the thick cloud cover, which was now hugging the Kuril Island chain. Park’s last