October's Ghost by Ryne Douglas Pearson Page B

left to cannibalize.” The NSA let it sink in, for himself as well as the President. “And the most intelligent aspect of this is the fact that the aircraft will be able to be repaired in the future, when they might want them. It appears the rebels have thought this out. They’re being very, very smart.”
    The President was obviously pleased, very much so. He allowed a slight smile, then looked to the DCI, whom he had had doubts about before being convinced to nominate him to fill the position. The critics, however, were being proved wrong.
    “You saw this in Vietnam, Bud?” the President inquired.
    The NSA nodded. “A very effective technique.”
    “Proven by the winners, you might say,” Merriweather commented.
    It was an effective jab, notching up Bud’s internal “Nam meter” to a place it hadn’t been in years. Veterans of the Indochina experience had dealt with crap of the sort the DCI had just dished out frequently in the years following the fall of the South, but not so much recently. Bud was fully aware that Merriweather, a fervent Yalie who had ironically held the History chair at Harvard in the late sixties, was no fan of the war. It was becoming more apparent now that, despite any effort to counter it, the DCI was never going to be a fan of Bud’s.
    “Well, not everybody who wins deserves to,” the President observed. “Anthony, what about these other aircraft? They look like helicopters.”
    “Mi-24 Hinds. Russian-built gunships. They’re wonderful against insurgents, like they proved in Afghanistan.”
    Jesus Christ! Bud was having trouble believing his ears. Merriweather was using positive examples of the Viet Cong and the Cold War era Russians to flavor his little performance.
    “They lost in Afghanistan, Anthony.” Bud’s retort was sprinkled with the barest amount of sarcasm.
    “And the mujahedeen were left fighting the crony government in Kabul for how long?” The DCI sniffed a quiet chuckle, with no smile attached to it. “Then again, we pulled out of South Vietnam also. But it didn’t take the North Vietnamese Army that long to take what they wanted after that.”
    He couldn’t stand it anymore. “Anthony,” Bud began, his head shaking slowly from side to side as a smile that could only be one of disgust came to his lips, “some of us were there, you know, unlike—”
    “Hold on. Hold on.” The President leaned farther forward, looking alternately at both of his advisers. Drummond had shifted back to an upright position on the couch. “We are here to discuss Cuba. Not Vietnam. Christ, I was barely out of high school when all that came to an end. But I am here now, and we may be able to do something to put one of those checks back in the ‘democracy’ column. All right?”
    To be castigated by the President was not entirely unheard of, but it had not happened to Bud. Worse yet, he deserved it, and he had allowed Merriweather to advance his apparent agenda that much further by behaving as a reactionary. Bud looked to the DDI but did not engage in any eyeplay to test the situation. There was no need to draw Drummond into this if he was able to maintain a working relationship with his boss. God dammit, Bud. Play smarter.
    “Go on, Anthony.”
    “Yes, sir. If you’ll watch the monitor.” The DCI lifted the remote from the coffee table and clicked on the video player, pausing it as soon as a picture appeared. The scene was in black and white, very high contrast, and was filmed from a very high angle. “This is a video record from the KH-12 on a pass over the same airfield as the stills, except this was timed to concur with the beginning of the attack. It was taken using the same type of IR imaging as the stills. Remember, this is in darkness, with low moonlight, so what you will see are the heat signatures of objects.”
    The President nodded while keeping his eyes on the screen.
    “Watch the left top corner of the screen.” The DCI started the video. From where he had