Eagle Sauce: The 055 destroyer was launched into the sea just after the founding of the country?

Chapter 917

Outside the small meeting room on the third floor of the West Wing of the Pentagon, the hum of the automatic coffee machine sounded even more jarring than usual.

The ground staff hadn't had time to empty the overflowing trash cans, which were crammed with crumpled photocopies from red-covered folders labeled "Top Secret," along with countless crushed cigarette packs. The carpet in the hallway, though still that oppressive deep blue, was now covered in fine cigarette ash—something that would normally have made the cleaning supervisor scream. But today, even the cleaning lady felt the oppressive atmosphere, more chilling than a December cold snap, and hurriedly pushed her cart away with her head down.

The door to the room wasn't closed properly, and the air, a mixture of cologne, tar, and the smell of angry body odor, drifted into the hallway through the crack in the door like a toxic fumes.

The twenty-odd people sitting in the room represented the three most powerful groups on the planet: the military, the intelligence community, and the most troublesome—Capitol Hill.

"That's not a reef at all!"

The speaker was Admiral Frank Hughes. He slammed a heavy crystal ashtray down on the table with such force that the secretary taking notes next to him flinched. This naval commander, who had recently sent his old friend, who had lost half his fleet, to a court-martial, now had bags under his eyes that looked like two walnuts.

"How many times has this happened? Huh?"

He didn't look at the document distributed to everyone, titled "Draft Assessment Report on Military Setbacks in the Caribbean," but stared intently at the bald old man opposite him who was still slowly stuffing tobacco into his pipe.

"First, three hundred special forces soldiers, more valuable than gold, vanished into thin air in the woods. Our satellites couldn't even capture a single hair on them! Now, my USS Freedom destroyer has been snapped in half in my own bathtub! And you're telling me the CIA still insists it was a 'simple accident'?"

General Hughes stood up from his seat, walked around the expensive mahogany table, and hurried to the window, where he pulled back the curtains.

Outside the window, the Potomac River flows quietly, looking much the same as it did a hundred years ago.

“Listen, David. I know what you’re trying to say. You’re trying to say it might be an old pot, or it might be poorly maintained. But my men, the surviving sailors, they came back terrified. They were yelling things like ‘deep-sea ghosts’ and ‘the unseen Grim Reaper.’”

He turned around abruptly and pointed to the gloomy sky over Washington, D.C.

“I don’t want to hear the technical jargon. All I know is that when we were about to kick those Cuban monkeys in the ass, not only did they kick us, but they also ripped off our expensive custom-made suits and left us naked in the street. It was humiliating!”

"This is also an act of war."

The bald old man known as David—who was also the chairman of the Senate Military Intelligence Committee, David Patterson—finally filled his pipe. He didn't rush to light it, but instead began the conversation in a slow, almost indifferent tone.

"General Hughes, please sit down. For the sake of the Navy's heart health, your blood pressure might not be suitable for roaring around here right now."

Patterson didn't even glance at him, but simply raised his hand and turned the page of the report that was still discussing the cause of death of the destroyer.

"Everyone knows who did it. On this earth, apart from that great Eastern power that is currently busy rubbing bears and us into the ground on the Eurasian continent, no one can build something that can run faster than a torpedo underwater. Not even that polar bear in Moscow can."

His voice was soft and flat, not like he was discussing a crushing defeat, but rather like he was discussing the neighbor's newly bought sports car, which was somewhat enviable.

"But that's not the point."

Patterson struck a long safety match, the orange flame reflecting in his cloudy but still shrewd blue eyes.

"The key question is, what should we do now?"

"What do we do?" General Hughes was enraged by this calm attitude. He slammed his fist on the damned folder. "Is there even a question? Expand the military! Mobilize! Damn it! We must re-establish absolute control in the Caribbean! If two carrier battle groups aren't enough, send three! Five! I don't believe they have that many of those diving toys! Even if we have to fill the sea with ships, we have to cut that damned piece of rotten flesh from Cuba!"

"and then?"

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, who had been sitting silently in the corner, suddenly interjected. He was a representative of the Congressional Budget Committee, and he was holding a gold pen that he kept twirling in his hand.

"Spending all the money on land reclamation?" The middle-aged man scoffed, pushing an even more bleak chart to the center of the table. "General Hughes, you probably haven't had tea with the Treasury in a long time. Take a look at this red curve."

"Ever since that bastard joke in Pennsylvania... no, I mean the 'Pennsylvania Freedom' happened, plus the mess we made with that awful 'Red Light Plan' in Europe, there are even discussions on Wall Street about moving our headquarters to Toronto or even Singapore."

There was no sarcasm in his tone, only a despairing sense of reality, like someone counting money until their hands trembled.

"The dollars in our treasury are barely worth any more than worthless paper. If we want to maintain this massive blockade and 'land reclamation' tactic in the Caribbean, we'll have to print at least another $300 billion in war bonds. Tell me, who will buy them? Our Pennsylvania 'brothers' who just declared secession? Or those European opportunists who only want to do business with the East?"

"Furthermore," the middle-aged man finally stopped spinning his golden pen, pointing the tip to a patch of red on the map, "if we exhaust our already limited blood transfusion kits because of this mosquito in our backyard, have you ever considered what that Eastern giant standing at the door, wielding a hammer capable of smashing the earth, might do?"

General Hughes's lips twitched, as if he wanted to retort, but in the end he just let out a long sigh of resentment and plopped back down in his chair.

"Then let's forget it?"

He muttered to himself, his voice filled with an undeniable sense of despondency.

"Watching those Cubans partying on the beach across from Florida with their red flags? Watching our ships afraid to leave port? It would make the whole world think we're already a corpse."

At this moment, another man, dressed in a dark gray suit with his hair neatly combed, who had remained silent until now, stood up. He was one of the few figures in the meeting who represented the will of the whip: Senator Thomas Redfield.

Instead of answering directly, he walked to the table filled with ashtrays and loosened his tie a little.

"Your logic is too... how should I put it, too narrow."