Presidents McCain and Bush Vice-President Condoleezza Rice
23 :36 (Seattle Time)
Tuesday, November 04, 2008 ‘C’
Ingrid’s home, 1402 South McDonald Street
Port Angeles, State of Washington, U.S.A.
While her son Michael had wanted to watch the presidential election results with her, the fact that the West Coast was a full three hours before the East Coast time meant that the national level results would be available only around midnight in Port Angeles, so a disappointed Michael had to go to bed well before a winner could be unofficially declared by the medias. Now alone in her living lounge, Ingrid watched on as the reported results started to turn in the favor of the Republican Party ticket of John McCain and Condoleezza Rice. With George W. Bush having completed two terms as President and thus being ineligible for a third term, the Republican Party had chosen a ticket formed of the popular John McCain and of Condoleezza Rice, whose solid performance as the Secretary of State for President Bush had won her widespread praise. On the Democratic Party side, Barak Obama had become the first African-American to become a nominated candidate for the presidency. However, the continuing troubles around the Middle East and the public unmasking of Saudi Arabia’s duplicity had created a lot of suspicions in the minds of the American voters about Barak
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Obama and his Muslim-sounding name, something that had severely undermined the chances of someone Ingrid considered an honest and caring man. Something else that had hurt the chances of the Democrats was the past protests by the more progressive left wing of the Democratic Party about the way Mexico had been treated during the war against the drug cartels. Those protests, both on the streets and inside the Congress, had irked many voters who would have otherwise voted for the Democrats. Now, it seemed that the Republicans were well on the way to win control of both chambers of the Congress, on top of winning the presidency. Normally, that would have disturbed Ingrid, who had a liberal, open-minded view of national politics, but John McCain was a man whom she highly respected for his honesty, decency and fairness towards all. That respect for McCain had actually pushed Ingrid in secretly giving him some advice about his candidate partner for the post of vice-president. With the nomination of Condoleezza Rice, McCain had won over many voters for having chosen an African-American woman, a first in American politics, thus seriously cutting into two categories of voters who had initially favored voting for Barak Obama. Despite him being a conservative Republican, Ingrid was confident that, as President, McCain would be able to moderate the views and actions of the more far-right members of the Republican members of the Congress.
John McCain had further helped his cause by choosing as members of his proposed cabinet a few independent politicians, playing the card of bipartisanship in order to assuage independent and undecided voters.
Ingrid stayed up until John McCain was unofficially proclaimed as the winner of the presidential elections by the main media channels, then went to bed at around one in the morning. Presidential elections or not, she had plenty of work awaiting her at the local Hiller plant, where the prototype of her Hiller STORK was now nearly completed.
When they had learned that she and Hiller had already been working for over two years on a prototype able to fulfill the requirements of the T.S.T.A.T. project, Hiller’s competitors, including giants like Boeing and Lockheed, had given up at once, unwilling to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop prototypes which would most likely lose the competition to Hiller. Instead, three of those competitors, Grumman, Bell-Textron and Sikorsky, had decided to enter into a partnership with Hiller to eventually help it produce its future STORK and its variants. While Hiller would concentrate on the civilian cargo variant of the STORK, Grumman would produce its armed shipborne variants, to be named respectively the STORMER and the SEAGULL, while Bell-Textron
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and Sikorsky would produce the variants destined respectively for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army. Two other partners in this deal, and most happy ones at that, were General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, who were going to provide thousands of jet engines for the project. With this split contract, everybody was going to be able to keep their production lines open and make at least a fair profit, even after paying a license production fee to Hiller. As for Hiller, that contract would bring to it some very significant revenues, while avoiding overstressing its already quite busy production lines. In all, the Hiller STORK was already on its way to become the most significant American aircraft program of the decade, with thousands of them to be eventually produced. However, Ingrid still had to complete her prototype and then prove to all that it was up to the high level of performance expected from it, so now was no time for her to slouch on the job or to cut corners in her design.
09:14 (Washington Time)
Monday, November 17, 2008 ‘C’
The Situation Room, basement of the White House Washington, D.C.
With President George Bush taking the chair at the head of the long conference table of the Situation Room, John McCain sat to his right as the incoming President.
The mixed present and future members of the presidential cabinet selected to attend this special intelligence briefing then sat around the table. Most of the present cabinet members were in fact going to continue on as members of McCain’s cabinet, the newly-elected president having favored experience in their respective positions in order to start administering in January with a solid team at his back. The two notable exceptions to this as brand-new member of the cabinet were the Secretary of State Designate and the Secretary of Defense Designate, both of whom were due to start officially filling their duties after the official assermentation of John McCain as President in January.
With Condoleezza Rice becoming the Vice-President Designate, she had then recommended to McCain who to name in her place as Secretary of State, with McCain agreeing with Rice.
Thus, 61-year-old Hien Jordan-Dows, a veteran career
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diplomat, was now sitting at the conference table of the Situation Room. For Hien, this truly constituted the crowning of four decades of service with the U.S. State Department after serving in multiple embassies, either as a junior attaché, then as ambassador.
Apart from Hien’s exemplary service file and obvious competence, what had decided Condoleezza Rice to name Hien as her replacement was the fact that Hien remembered her 21 prior incarnations, which made her able to speak fluently over a dozen current languages and also gave her an astounding amount of life experiences, ranging from having been a simple nomadic hunter-gatherer to that of ruling as a powerful king in Antiquity. As for the Secretary of Defense Designate, who was present with the current Secretary of Defense, McCain had created quite a media sensation by choosing the famous actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had served one term as governor of California. That move by McCain had in fact convinced many voters who were fans of Schwarzenegger to switch their votes for him. Many Democrats had decried that as a cheap political stunt, to which McCain had pointed out the successful term as governor of the actor, who had however lost the elections for a second term due to a scandal which had been caused by his lieutenant-governor, a scandal Schwarzenegger had nothing to do with but which still had negatively tainted his administration.
Also present in the Situation Room and ready to brief the politicians present were the service chiefs of the six military services, plus General of the Army Joseph Shuman, the commander of all the American combat forces, who would direct the briefing, and the heads of the CIA and NSA, two of the most important national intelligence agencies of the country. Once everybody was present and sitting, George Bush nodded once to General Shuman.
‘’You may begin, General Shuman.’
‘’Thank you, Mister President. Misters President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen of the cabinet, the briefing you will assist to today is classified ‘Top Secret Codeword’, so I will invite you to avoid taking notes. At the end of this briefing, we will distribute to you printed documents on the information we are about to give you, documents also classified ‘Top Secret’ but without the sensitive ‘Codeword’ content of this briefing, which will cover the present military and security situation around the
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Middle East. First to brief you will be the Director of National Intelligence, Mister Mike McConnell. Mister McConnell...’
‘’Thank you, General.’ said the career CIA man before making a detailed map of the Middle East and of the Eastern Mediterranean appear on a large plasma display screen.
‘’Mister Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, as you well know by now, a unit of marines based on the nuclear cruiser MONTANA flew out to Beirut on September eight, to rescue the personnel of our embassy and our citizens caught in the middle of an insurrection led by Islamist extremists. Those extremists attacked our embassy and also conducted a coup against the Lebanese government of President Aoun. While the Lebanese government fell, with most of the Lebanese Armed Forces either collapsing, deserting or changing sides, our embassy was saved by the intervention of our marines, who flew in aboard four PELICAN VTOL assault transport aircraft based on the USS
MONTANA. Our marines also successfully evacuated the American staff and patients of the American University of Beirut Hospital, flying them first to our embassy, then to our base of Incirlik, in Turkey. Our marines also protected the access routes to our embassy, permitting over 500 American citizens and dual American-Lebanese citizens to reach our embassy, to then be safely evacuated by air to Turkey. Later that same day, we got some very sensitive intelligence about a nuclear warhead which had belonged to Pakistan and which was one of two such warheads to have disappeared from Pakistan five years ago. According to our intelligence, which came from cell phone intercepts, that nuclear warhead was on a ship in the port of Beirut and was under the control of a team of Al Qaeda terrorists bent on launching a suicide attack on an Israeli port. With no other American unit close enough to react quickly, our marine company holding our embassy in Beirut was alerted about that threat and tasked to stop that terrorist team and, hopefully, gain control of that device. The commander of that marine company then flew out with one of her rifle platoons in a PELICAN, found the ship in question as it was about to enter Israeli waters and took control of it in a textbook air assault operation. Unfortunately, a Pakistani nuclear scientist travelling with the Al Qaeda team had time to arm the device and start a thirty-minute countdown before being killed by our marine officer. Unable to stop that countdown, that marine officer, Captain Greta Visby, ordered her marines to leave, then stayed at the helm of the cargo ship, in order to ensure that the ship would sail as far away from Israel as possible before it would explode. Just minutes before the explosion, her marines came back to
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extract her from the ship, just in time to save her from a thermonuclear explosion which was later estimated by our experts to have a yield of about 200 kilotons. Detonating as far from Israel as it was at that time, it caused no real damage, apart from causing radioactive contamination of the air and water of that area. Our marines, with Captain Visby safely aboard, then flew back to Beirut, where they continued to hold our embassy despite sporadic shelling and small arms fire from Islamic militants. Our marines held our embassy for another two weeks before they were relieved and withdrew by air.’
‘’Wow!’ said Arnold Schwarzenegger, visibly impressed, ‘’that story would make a great scenario for an action movie.’
‘’Yes, and you would probably be interested to know that Captain Greta Visby is an avowed culturist with an impressive set of muscles for a woman, Mister Secretary.’
replied a smiling Shuman.
‘’Really? Then I must meet her one fine day.’
‘’Really! But I diverge. What followed in Lebanon and around the Middle East was pure chaos, as we found out via our marines who assaulted the ship carrying the nuclear device that a senior Saudi intelligence operative was aboard and was probably leading the Al Qaeda terrorist team. That operative was killed by our marines but his diplomatic passport was found on him and taken back to Beirut, to then be sent to us via Turkey. That exposed Saudi Arabia’s role in all this and prompted us to immediately stop any military and economic aid sent by us to the Saudis. In retaliation, the Saudis slapped an oil embargo on us, joined in this by a couple of other Arab Gulf states. We however were able to counter that embargo by getting extra oil supplies from Canada and from Iran. Seeing that, the Saudis tried to cut the traffic of Iranian oil tankers carrying oil for us but our navy responded by closely escorting those tanker ships. That led to a number of tense naval encounters in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, with our ships having to fire warning shots to keep Saudi warships and aircraft at bay. In one incident that was kept secret from the public, our fighters had to shoot down four Saudi fighter-bombers who had launched anti-ship missiles against an Iranian tanker and the two American destroyers escorting it. Thankfully, the air defenses of our destroyers were able to shoot down those missiles. I then ordered, with President Bush’
approval, a retaliatory strike by long-range bombardment missiles fired from the USS
MONTANA against the airbase from where those four fighter-bombers had taken off.
Right now, we are still in a standoff against the Saudis in that region, while Lebanon is in a state of civil war, with no effective government in place. We have cut all diplomatic,
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economic and financial ties with Saudi Arabia, with no indications of when the Saudis will become reasonable again. This is the gist of my briefing to you, ladies and gentlemen.
Do you have any questions to date before the next briefer takes over from me?’
‘’I do have one question, General.’ said Hien Jordan-Dows. ‘’How did the Israelis react to that nuclear explosion off their coast?’
‘’With dismay and alarm, Madam Secretary. They immediately put their force of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles on top alert but, not knowing who was responsible for that explosion, didn’t know who to target. Our embassy in Tel Aviv then passed to them an urgent message from us, basically explaining to them what had happened and asking them to hold off on any offensive action on their part. Thankfully they listened to us and refrained from launching any missile or air strike. However, they did put their forces along the border with Lebanon and Syria on full alert, with those forces still at top readiness. Right now, it would take only a small match to light up the whole Middle East.’
‘’What a shit pit!’ exclaimed Schwarzenegger. ‘’Are our forces capable of containing this situation, General? Do you feel that you have everything needed to control this, or at the least contain the worst of the damage? Would you need more resources to do this? If yes, I promise you that I will fight tooth and nail to get you those extra resources.’
‘’That is most appreciated, Mister Secretary. However, unless the Saudis try to use the one nuclear bomb we suspect them of still having, we should be able to manage with what we have, although more resources are always welcome.’
That was when President Bush spoke up to cut into that conversation.
‘’For your information, Secretary Schwarzenegger, I decided to take the funds and military equipment originally meant to go to the Saudis and to instead inject them into our own forces, in order to speed up a number of our priority military programs.
Secretary Gates will be able to brief you in detail about those programs later on.’
‘’Thank you, Mister President.’
Another briefer from the State Department then took over from General Shuman and spent some twenty minutes to review the stance and reactions of the individual countries in the region to the crisis in Lebanon and to the detonation of a nuclear device near Israel. Overall, the picture painted by that briefer made Hien grimace, being less than encouraging and announcing more instability and hostilities to come: she definitely
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had her job cut out for her around the Middle East. When the meeting came to an end, Condoleezza Rice came to Hien and gently patted her shoulder.
‘’Don’t worry about your first days in the job, Hien: I will help and support you through this crisis.’
‘’Thanks, Madam Vice-President. I am starting to wonder if anyone could ever be able to bring true peace to the Middle East.’
‘’Some would say that only God could do that.’
Hien shook her head on hearing that.
‘’Madam Vice-President, the various beliefs about God held around the Middle East are actually a big part of the region’s problem.’
10:02 (Seattle Time)
Thursday, November 20, 2008 ‘C’
Ingrid Dows’ executive office, Hiller Aircraft plant William R. Fairchild International Airport, Port Angeles Washington State
When Jenny Nakamura entered Ingrid’s office to bring her a document she had requested, she found her boss in the process of putting down her telephone receiver, while a nearly stunned look was on her face.
‘’Uh, something is wrong, Ingrid?’
‘’On the contrary, Jenny: the Pentagon just called me to tell me to speed ahead with the completion of our STORK: they now want it for yesterday.’
‘’Wow! It must be this Middle East business that is pushing Washington in this.’
‘’Most probably. That is not all, however: the Pentagon acquisition office also wants me to start a new, high priority project to design and build a supersonic VTOL
fighter-bomber which would reequip the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ carrier-borne attack squadrons. And they are not even bothering to put that project up for competition: they say that I am the only one who could possibly deliver on that new requirement quickly.
On that I must agree with them, pardon my lack of modesty about this.’
‘’But this could make big waves in the Congress, Ingrid. Such a no-competition major military contract is unheard of. Congress lobbyists will shriek like skinned cats.’
‘’True! However, we are facing the real possibility of entering into a major war in the Middle East, one that could involve nuclear weapons. Besides, even if I design by
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myself that new aircraft, Hiller doesn’t have right now the industrial capacity to build it in quantity, what with all the other aircraft orders already jamming our customers’ orders lists, so the Pentagon is already planning for us to have it licensed-built by other aircraft manufacturers, the way we already plan to do with the production of the STORK and of its variants. That should assuage most of the protests from other manufacturers. The ones who will still scream murder will be their respective aircraft design teams, who will again have to play second fiddle to me. Presently, I must be the most hated person around in the aircraft design business in the United States.’
Jenny Nakamura chuckled at that.
‘’Tough! If they want to compete with you in aircraft design, then they will have to learn to be as efficient and imaginative as you. However, with their ingrained habit to do
‘design by committee’-style work, they will never be able to beat you at this game, Ingrid.
So, do you think that you could really design quickly such a new aircraft?’
‘’Yes! I will now make it my primary goal, on top of completing, testing and certifying my STORK.’
‘’And what will you call that new fighter-bomber design, Ingrid?’
Ingrid thought for a moment before a smile came to her lips.
‘’How about the Hiller COBRA? It will jump up at its opponents and will bite them hard, like a cobra.’
‘’Nice! I like it. By the way, here is the file you requested.’
‘’Thanks, Jenny.’
With her secretary then walking out of her office, Ingrid sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to picture what her future COBRA could look like. It took her only a couple of minutes before a new smile appeared on her face. Punching a few commands on her work computer, a very powerful model programmed to handle aircraft conceptual designs, she called up a number of digital blueprints, many of them linked to her successful A-24 fighter-bomber design. She slowly nodded her head after a few minutes of work and spoke to herself.
‘’Yup! This could work.’
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CHAPTER 25 – THE MIRACLE WORKER
15:22 (Seattle Time)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 ‘C’
Tarmac of the Hiller Aircraft Plant, William R. Fairchild International Airport Port Angeles, Washington State
The outside air was close to the freezing point but at least the day was sunny, with only weak winds, so Ingrid and her visitors from Washington didn’t need to be heavily bundled up in winter clothes when they walked out of the Hiller aircraft
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production plant. They then approached the prototype of the Hiller STORK, which sat on the tarmac in front of the prototype construction hall, ready for a new test flight. The eleven Washington officials, which included both the current and incoming secretaries of defense, their service secretaries and the military service chiefs, eyed with avid interest the big aircraft, which had been designed according to the lifting body/flying wing formula used by many previous Hiller aircraft designs. Before going inside the big VTOL
transport aircraft via its lowered aft cargo ramp, Ingrid presented to her guests the four-woman crew of the STORK, who were standing at the foot of the cargo ramp.
‘’Gentlemen, may I present to you the test crew of my Hiller STORK: pilot Shirley Slade, copilot Elizabeth Gardner, flight engineer Carmen Morena and loadmaster Janet Morton. Girls, may I present to you Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, his incoming successor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Secretary of the Army Nelson McCain Ford, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter, General of the Army Joseph Shuman, Generals Thomas Steeler, Thomas Fletcher, William Rumley and Admirals Mack Benson and Roger Purnell.’
There was an exchange of handshakes before the commander of the U.S. Air Force, General Thomas Fletcher, made a remark while pointing at a patch sewn on the leather flight vests of the four women and at the multiple rows of medal ribbons pinned on their chests.
‘’Miss Dows, all four of your crewmembers wear the unit patch of the Fifinellas, the old 99th Composite Air Wing that was disbanded over twenty years ago. They also wear medal ribbons from wars which happened decades ago. Yet, except for Miss Morena, they all look way too young to have been members of that unit.’
Ingrid rolled her eyes briefly before answering Fletcher, a bit of resentment in her voice.
‘’All of them, like myself, were effectively members of the Fifinellas and fought with me in a number of past wars, General. Both a grave injustice and a stupid mistake was done when the 99th Composite Air Wing was disbanded on the excuse that it was
‘not needed anymore’ by the then commander of the Air Force, General Fullbright. The reason for their apparent youth is that I used my supernatural powers to rejuvenate them a few years ago. Miss Slade is actually 87-year-old and fought at my side, first as my wingman, then as a squadron commander, in World War 2, the First Korean War, the Indochina War, the Palestine Crisis of 1954 and the East Europe War of 1955. She retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1983, with the rank of colonel. Miss Gardner is also 87-year-old and fought with me in the same wars as Miss Slade, to finally retire from the
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Air Force in 1983 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Miss Morena is 69-year-old and joined the Fifinellas in 1963, retiring from the Air Force after the disbandment of the Fifinellas in 1986. As for Miss Morton, she is 86-year-old, joined the Fifinellas as an ordnance technician at its creation in 1942, fought in seven wars and eventually became a qualified loadmaster with the Fifinellas, serving in it until its disbandment and retiring with the rank of master sergeant. She served as a loadmaster in about every type of cargo aircraft the Air Force ever used. All four of my crewmembers are decorated combat veterans, General.’
Despite the fact that she was widely known to hold a number of fantastic powers, the group of officials still stared with awe at her for long seconds. Arnold Schwarzenegger then stared admiringly at the four women, all of whom looked no older than 35.
‘’Wow! So much valor on display here. And what was the reason given by this General Fullbright to disband the Fifinellas, Miss Dows?’
‘’That an all-female Air Force unit was no longer needed, due to the full integration of women in our military, Mister Secretary, an argument I consider to be complete crap. While we officially integrated women in all military trades in the 1960s, with supposed complete equality with servicemen, the sad truth is that crass sexism and even sexual harassment continued on for decades and still can be encountered in some of our military units, with male unit commanders too often sweeping any accusations of sexual improprieties under the rug or being themselves the problem. I did my best to eradicate this curse while I was in command of the American forces but misogyny and sexual abuse are still a scourge in our armed forces.’
Arnold Schwarzenegger then looked at Robert Gates, whom he was due to officially replace after the inauguration of John McCain as President in next January.
‘’Maybe we should reactivate the Fifinellas and possibly make it an all-female unit again. What do you think, Bob?’
‘’I would personally be ready anytime to reactivate the 99th Air Wing, but making it again as an exclusively female unit would attract cries of sexist reverse discrimination and the Congress would probably nix it. However, feel free to act on this once you are officially the Secretary of Defense, Arnold.’
Ingrid and her four female crewmembers held their breaths as Schwarzenegger mentally pondered that question. The big actor turned politician then nodded his head and smiled to Ingrid.
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‘’Come and see me at the Pentagon in February, Miss Dows. We will then discuss this subject together.’
‘’I will be there, Mister Secretary.’ replied Ingrid, her heart beating furiously. She then concentrated back on the business at hand. ‘’Well, time to show you my STORK, gentlemen. Please follow me inside.’
Climbing the aft cargo ramp of the big VTOL transport aircraft, the group of politicians and flag officers hesitated when they saw that the cargo bay already contained a big truck which had a trailer attached to it. The Navy secretary, Donald Winter, then pointed at the vehicle and asked a question to Ingrid.
‘’Uh, what’s that, Miss Dows, and why is it in your prototype?’
‘’That, Mister Secretary Winter, is a fully loaded five-ton truck towing a water bowser, the lot representing a payload of 23 tons. My STORK will take off and effect a demonstration flight with it inside.’
‘’And you are sure that this will be safe, Miss Dows?’’ asked a bit naively Winter, bringing a pinched smile on Ingrid’s face.
‘’Secretary Winter, I am not the kind of aircraft designer who will put at risk my test pilots just to brag about my designs. My STORK has already been tested in flight with loads even heavier than this one. Now, for the performances my STORK
demonstrated in actual flight, it can carry payloads of up to thirty tons while taking off and landing at the vertical, can do short takeoffs of less than 300 meters with a combined 75 tons of payload and fuel, has attained a recorded top speed of 1,000
kilometers per hour, just below the speed of sound, and has a range of 8,000 kilometers while carrying a twenty-ton payload. It can also use air refueling to extend its autonomy to trans-Pacific range. Parts of it also fold to allow it to fit in aircraft carrier and cruiser aircraft hangars. There are a total of 55 passenger seats along the sides of the cabin and in the cockpit section, with those seats being of commercial business class standards in terms of width and pitch. Too many aircraft manufacturers tend to forget that our soldiers are on average bigger than the common American citizen and also often wear pistol or equipment belts which make them even larger. You may try those seats to see how comfortable they are, gentlemen.’
The officials didn’t have to be told twice before sitting down in the rows of well-cushioned chairs. The big and muscular Arnold Schwarzenegger even made his seat recline to the rear to judge its comfort for a sleeping passenger and was thoroughly impressed.
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‘’Hell, I could think that I am travelling business-class on Pan Am! You are positively going to spoil our soldiers, Miss Dows.’
‘’Our soldiers are ready to risk their health and lives for us, Mister Secretary: they deserve to be ‘spoiled’ a bit instead of being treated like heads of cattle.’
‘’You are absolutely right about that, miss.’
‘’Well, to continue describing my STORK, I have to say that this prototype represents the unarmed, civilian cargo variant of my basic design. The VTOL assault variant, to be named the STORMER, will have a bit smaller payload capacity but will be armed with two semi-fixed 30 mm automatic cannons, two machine gun turrets, two side door machine guns on swivel mounts, two rocket launcher pods, each for eleven five-inch tubes, and five belly weapons pylons. As for my SEAGULL maritime patrol and anti-submarine variant, it will carry the same armament, plus will have eight extra external missile launch rails, but will not have a cargo cabin. Instead, it will contain a number of radar and sonal systems, plus a retractable magnetic anomaly detector boom and an ejection system for sonobuoys. All my variants will be equipped with a rescue winch and basket operated through a floor trap, plus will be able to float safely on the surface of the ocean, where a pair of hydro jets will allow it to sail around in near silent mode.’
Both Secretary Winter and Admirals Benson and Purnell opened their eyes wide on hearing that.
‘’Gee! We really couldn’t ask for more than all this, miss.’
‘’I hope so, Mister Secretary. We will now visit the cockpit area, where I will explain to you the way my STORK can be flown. Please follow me, gentlemen.’
Some nine minutes later, Ingrid walked out of the aircraft with the dignitaries and went to a safe spot in front of the prototype workshop’s hangar doors. Using a pocket radio, she gave a short order to the crew of the STORK, which was now inside. The two big turbofan engines mounted on both sides of the aircraft then started up and gradually increase their thrust in an increasingly loud and ear-splitting whine. Then, to the astonishment of the Washington officials, the STORK nearly jumped up into the air before quickly pivoting around and starting to accelerate forward at an impressive pace that made even the seasoned Admiral Benson open his mouth with awe.
‘’Christ! You would never know that it is presently carrying a 23-ton payload, Miss Dows.’
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‘’Hopefully, that kind of performance will shock our enemies as much or more than it does shock you, Admiral.’ replied Ingrid, smiling and enjoying that moment. I am still conducting testing and certification flights of my STORK while one prototype each of its STORMER and SEAGULL variants are being built. So, what do you say about my proposed Tri Service Tactical Assault Transport aircraft candidate?’
‘’I have only one word to answer you, Miss Dows: Sold!’
Twelve minutes later, with the STORK having landed at the vertical back in front of the prototype workshop, Ingrid led her duly impressed guests up to her executive office, intent to discuss with them production details, like the number of aircraft per variant to be produced for the American armed forces and their individual and total acquisition prices. That discussion went on for a good hour and went quite well in Ingrid’s opinion, with the price requested by Hiller accepted easily enough by Secretary of Defense Gates. However, as she thought that their discussion was now closed, Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at her in a most sober way, while the other politicians and flag officers stayed in their seats, apparently having expected the ex-actor to raise a new point with her.
‘’Miss Dows, you have again proved today to be a precious asset for the United States as an aircraft designer. You have also proved countless times during the past decades to be an even more precious asset to our country as a presidential advisor and as a top military leader and strategist. What I am going to say comes from President John McCain, who is backed up in this by President Bush. Our nation is now entering a most dangerous and unstable period of time, with what we believed before to be a reliable ally and one of our main providers of crude oil, Saudi Arabia, to prove instead to be in reality a supporter of some of the most dangerous terrorists we are now facing.
This is now forcing us to do a nearly complete turnaround in our World strategic views and plans. While we certainly have plenty of competent people in Washington who are available to counsel our President and to devise new strategic plans and initiatives, there are simply no one equal to you in that respect. President McCain thus has tasked me to formally ask you if you would accept to become again a presidential advisor, even if it is only in a partial or temporary capacity. The President would like to use your services at least for the time needed to pass through this period of danger and instability. We would of course be ready to compensate financially the Hiller Corporation for losing your services for that said period of time. Apart from advising the President, you would also
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be able to again put on your military uniform and rank of General of the Army, as General Shuman’s strategic planning assistant. So, what do you say to that, Miss Dows?’
Completely taken by surprise by this, Ingrid stayed quiet for long seconds as her visitors stared with anticipation at her. She finally spoke up in a soft voice.
‘’Mister Secretary, you may tell the President that I am ready to advise and counsel him on a part-time basis, as needed. However, I will not put back on my military uniform. I still have so much to do here, designing and testing new aircraft for our forces, something at least as important as acting as a presidential advisor. I also want to stay here in order to care for my young son and his education in a place he feels comfortable and familiar with. I won’t even ask for a salary as a presidential advisor and will be more than happy to provide advice in times of need to the President as a friend and American patriot. I have been serving this nation for 66 years and fought for the United States in over a dozen wars and conflicts. I also won’t live eternally, and the U.S.A. will have to learn to one day go on without me. For all those reasons, I wish to stay here, in Port Angeles, and continue to work as an aircraft designer and test pilot.’
If Arnold Schwarzenegger felt disappointment at her decision then, he didn’t show it and simply nodded once his head while looking straight into Ingrid’s eyes.
‘’Ingrid, I fully understand and accept your decision about this and I am sure that President McCain will also feel the same as me. Keep up your good work here and take good care of your son.’
‘’Thank you for your comprehension, Mister Secretary.’ said softly Ingrid, relieved to see that Schwarzenegger was not insisting further. ‘’You can tell President McCain that he can call me at any time in the future, for whatever reasons. I will always be available to him if he needs advice.’
‘’I am sure that he will greatly appreciate that, Ingrid. Enjoy your life in Port Angeles with your son.’
‘’Thank you again, Mister Secretary.’ replied Ingrid. ‘’In turn, I wish you a successful term as Secretary of Defense and a successful term in office for President McCain. With him at the helm of our country, I am sure that the United States will stay a great nation and a leader of democracy around the World.’
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