Alicia understood it. He didn’t know how, but somehow she understood.
She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “My father hates the president, I must tell you. I mean, he has such a deep-seated, visceral hatred for him, it almost makes him sick. Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s never met the man, so it’s not personal. He’s met the last three presidents, but he has never met this one. He’s from the wrong circles, you understand, the wrong pack and all, but he would pay a million dollars to spend an evening with him. Not just to share a photograph opportunity at a fund-raiser; that’s not how my father operates. He is much more intimate, much more . . . you know . . . friendly than that. But if he were to ever spend an evening with the president, heaven knows what he might say! He thinks
the man is deranged. Thinks he’s damaged the world. He considers him as evil as anything since Hitler, and on a bad day, maybe worse than even him.”
Luke’s defenses shot up. His shoulders squared and his jaw set. Then he looked at her smile, her blue eyes and soft hair. She watched, then leaned toward him. “Don’t worry, Luke Brighton, I’m not like my father,” she whispered.
Luke pulled his head away from the soft breath that had just touched his ear. “Who is your father?” he asked.
She punched him on the shoulder. “Why does he keep coming up?”
“Because you keep bringing him up,” Luke answered with a grin.
“Well, yes, I suppose I did . . . ”
“Debonei . . . Debonei,” Luke thought out loud. “Duh! I know your father. He owns Capital Media Group. How could I be so stupid! It’s only, what, the second largest—no, the largest media empire in the world.”
Alicia nodded weakly, again, all an act.
Luke shook his head. “I’m sorry. I should have recognized you,” he apologized.
“You’re kidding!” she answered. “Like you should apologize for that?”
“Well, you know, I just suppose that you couldn’t go many places in the world and not have people recognize your name.”
She shrugged her shoulders, uninterested. “Enough about me,” she said. “Unless you have a fascination with money, and I’m hoping you don’t, then who my father is isn’t any big deal.”
Luke glanced at his watch. Class in three minutes. “Our econ quiz,” he said.
Alicia didn’t move. “We can make it up tomorrow. I’ve already talked to the professor. He said sure, no big deal.”
Luke nodded happily. He figured Alicia asked a lot of favors and wasn’t disappointed very often. But that was fine by him. He could use another day to study anyway.
“So, are you going to be a hotshot pilot like your father?” Alicia asked. “Isn’t that what he was before he became a hotshot presidential aide?”
“Don’t know. Maybe. I love flying, but I haven’t decided. I’ve got a little time to think about it, I figure.”
“You act like a fighter pilot, did you know that? A little bit arrogant, but in a nice sort of way.”
Luke faked an expression of hurt. She kept on smiling at him.
“So,” she nodded to his textbook, “do you like our econ class?”
“Yeah, I actually like it a lot.”
“I hate it. And I’m not stupid either. I’m not your typical empty-headed blonde, but there’s just something about it that I don’t understand. All the numbers. All the theories. I like things that are more tangible, you know, something I can really think about.”
“Have you declared a major yet?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“Political science.”
“Really!” Luke answered. “Why poly sci?”
“Because I love politics. All kinds of politics. And I’m good at it.”
Luke laughed out loud. With her father’s money and that smile, she could dazzle her way anywhere. “I can see that,” he answered.
“Bet on it, baby, I am.”
This time they both laughed.
The campus was quiet now. Most of the classes had started, so the sidewalks were almost empty; a couple of guys throwing Frisbees to their dogs on the quad were about all that was left. “You taking Econ II next semester?” Alicia asked as they watched the dogs jump in the air.
“I won’t be here next semester.”
“Had enough of school? Going to drop out and join the army? Hike around Europe for a while?”
“Probably not,” Luke answered. This one was kind of tough to explain. “You see, I’m LDS . . . ” She looked confused. “You know, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . ”
“You’re a Mormon!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s cool. I mean, I’m open. I’ve got a couple good friends who are Scientologists. I know a couple Mennonites. Lots of Jews. No Jehovah’s Witnesses, but whatever, it’s cool.”
Luke shook his head at the comparisons. “I’m glad you’re open,” he said.
“I’m a Christian. Methodist. You know, we’re kind of the church-of-everything’s-cool. We go our own way, don’t put a lot of pressure on others. The golden rule is what rules us. That’s the way it should be, don’t you think?”
“I can respect that,” he answered.
“You’re a Mormon . . . ” she repeated, her voice trailing off. “Oh, my father would love that. My mom would freak.” She thought in silence a moment. “But that means you don’t party. No doobies. No smoking. No JD on the rocks.”
Luke nodded. “Kind of grim, huh.”
She looked at him, amazed. “That means you don’t, you know . . . hook up or, you know, or anything, right?”
“No. But sometimes I watch TV on Sunday. And one Friday night, when I was fourteen and my parents weren’t home, I snuck down to the 7—11 and drank a whole Big Gulp of Coke.”
She looked at him, incredulous, until she saw his smile. She punched him again, sensing the sarcasm in his reply.
“So . . . okay, I get it. You’re a—” she lifted her fingers to form quote marks—“‘Mormon,’ but you don’t, you know, really live all that clean.”
Luke shook his head. “No. Actually, Alicia, I really do. At least I try.”
She stared at him, astonished. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I just think that’s so cool.”
“Thanks.” He was glad.
One of the students with the dogs threw an errant Frisbee that landed at his feet. He stood and threw it back, tossing a perfect spiral that hit the other guy in the chest.
He returned to the bench and sat down.
“So, I still don’t understand what your religion has to do with you not going to school next semester,” Alicia asked.
Luke paused. How to explain it? “You’ve heard of missionaries, I suppose.”
“Used to see them all the time in Europe. Young guys. Short hair. All dress the same: white shirts, black pants, with red ties.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t have to wear black pants and red ties, but that’s not really the point. The point is, I’m going to go on a mission.”
“You’re going to be a preacher?”
“Kind of. Not exactly. But for two years, I will.”
“Do you have to do this?” she asked him. “I mean, does your religion require it? If you don’t go on a mission, will you go to hell?”
“I don’t have to. I want to. We all have our agency; this is something I want to do.”
“But you don’t have to, right? You could stay here at George Washington if you wanted?”
“Yeah, sure I could.”
Alicia smiled as if something were clicking inside her pretty head. She thought a moment, then seemed to make some kind of decision. Glancing at her watch, she said, “It’s almost lunch. You want to go get something to eat?”
* * *
Luke and Alicia started seeing a lot of each other after that. Luke didn’t know why he liked her so much, but he really did. He liked her friends. He liked
her roommates. He certainly liked the Porsche she drove. They had a great time when they were together; they seemed to laugh all the time. But it was much more than that. She was interesting and sincere, and she listened to him. It seemed they could talk for hours. She would tease him. She would challenge him. Everything about them just clicked.
And there was that smile. And that hair. And everything else.
Both of them had been dating lots of different people when they first met, but that changed before too long. Being together every night, there was no time for anyone else.
Chapter Eight
Camp Freedom
North of Baghdad, Iraq
The HH-60s landed as a formation, four choppers in an echelon position, each maintaining a position five feet above and to the right to their leader as they descended through the semidarkness. The sand blew out before them as their enormous blades stirred the air, sending the dirt—fine as talcum powder—up and over the choppers in a vertical whirlpool of sand. The pilots landed quickly through the blowing dust, barely able to see. Because they had been flying through the night, when the choppers put weight on their wheels, the landing pistons hardly compressed, for the choppers had expended all of their fuel and most of their ammunition as well. Upon touching down, the pilots nosed their choppers over and taxied across the corrugated steel that had been placed over the uneven terrain, moving toward the load-up area.
Dawn was ready to break, and the sky was in the transition from deep black to dark gray. Pulling onto the loading tarmac, the choppers came to a stop. As they did, the soldiers opened the cargo doors and began to spill out, thankful as always to be on the ground. The men wore full battle gear: desert camouflage battle-dress uniforms (BDUs), flak jackets, Kevlar helmets, and brown leather boots. Each soldier also wore multiple web belts and a small pack containing ammunition, rations, water, smoke grenades, radios, miniature GPS receivers, grenades, smokes, lip balm, night vision goggles—all the essential elements of modern war.
A hot breeze blew up from the west desert, the air uncomfortable, brittle and dry. It had been a cold night but it would be a hot day.
As the soldiers, all Delta Special Forces with subdued unit patches on their shoulders, piled out of the choppers, it was clear from the way they walked that they were exhausted. Sweaty and covered with grime, most had spent the night on their bellies, crawling through the dirt, spiders’ nests, and rat droppings that covered the cement floors of an old weapons storage complex that had recently been taken over by insurgents again. When the battle was over and the bodies identified, the Deltas hadn’t been surprised to find Iranians, Syrians, Kuwaitis, and Chechens but not a single Iraqi among the dead.
Homegrown Iraqi insurgents were getting hard to find now, the glory of dying for their cause having lost some of its luster for those faced with the continual prospect of death and defeat. But there always seemed to be others who were willing to fight, imports from other nations who were determined that the Iraqi people would never have any more freedom than their own.
It was an irony, of course, and a bitter one too, that the Iraqis had to fight their own cousins as they faced the most important question in the last thousand years: Did they want their liberty as much as those who hated freedom wanted to keep it from them?
From the beginning of time the same question had been demanded again and again. Did a nation truly value its freedom enough to fight for the cause?
* * *
The horizon turned quickly to a silvery hue from the dust and smoke that hung in the air. Sam Brighton, sitting on the right-hand door of the first chopper, dropped to the tarmac the moment his pilot brought the helicopter to a stop. He was dirty and tired, maybe more than any of his men, for he had spent almost six hours in a crouching position, hidden in a dark ditch, covering their movements as they crawled and shot their way through the old storage compound. The black camouflage on his face was smeared with perspiration. Combat was work, the hardest work in the world, and the cool night temperatures in Iraq weren’t enough to have kept him from sweating like a pig.
Dropping from the open door of the army HH-60, Sam led his team away from the choppers, then circled his fingers, telling them to gather on him. The eleven-man squad assembled as he took off his helmet and pulled out the foam earplugs he had stuffed in his ears. A few of the other soldiers, the more experienced ones, took off their helmets to pull out their earplugs as well. The inside of the Blackhawks averaged 120 decibels, and Sam didn’t intend to lose his hearing—not from flying, anyway. Maybe from shooting his weapon, the butt of his M-60 stuffed up near his ear; maybe from firing off rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) rounds; or maybe from being too close to incoming artillery shells; but not from sitting like a sardine in the back of a noisy flying machine.
As the men circled around him, the choppers lifted and turned toward the refueling area, flying away from the well-organized tents and portable buildings of Camp Freedom.
Sam waited until the sound of the chopper rotors and turbine engines had faded away, then turned to his men. “It was a good night,” he said, congratulating his team. “We killed a bunch of bad guys and didn’t lose anyone. Thirteen to zero. Not a bad soccer score. More, though, it was important for us to take the safety of the compound away from them. But listen now, we’ve got another mission tonight. Brief at 2200. Get some sleep and be ready. We’ll rally for team dinner at 2100. The cook promised steak and potatoes. That will give you something to dream about. Now go get some rest.”
He paused, his men standing with stooped shoulders around him. “Any questions?” he concluded. The group was silent, tired but happy, and very ready for sleep. “All right. Thank you, gentlemen. I’ll see you tonight.”
Sam stuck out his hand, and his team gathered in a tight circle, placing their dirty hands upon his. “Wolfman!” they cried together, yelling their unit’s call sign, then turned and split up, heading for the enlisted hooches and tents. Showers and chow could wait; they were too exhausted now. In five minutes, most of them would be asleep on their cots, their weapons carefully secured but their faces still dirty, some gloves still on their hands, their flak vests on the floor. Two hours from now, a few would wake and head for the showers (a base-camp luxury that had to be taken advantage of), get something to eat, then hit the sack again. But most would sleep straight until late afternoon, when the sun started dipping and the temperature started to fall.
Sam watched his men separate, wiping a stream of black sweat from his eyes, then turned to follow, head low, helmet under his arm, weapon slung across his shoulder, his flak vest open at the chest. The sun was just half an orb above the horizon, but it seemed he could already feel its heat. Amazing how quickly the desert transformed from cold night to hot day.
Sam had walked only ten steps when he saw his commander moving toward him with a deliberate stride. The captain looked determined and stared directly at him. For a moment Sam pretended not to see him; he was tired and irritated and he didn’t want to talk. He didn’t like the captain. The two rarely saw eye to eye.
Then the image of the murdered children in the Iranian village flashed again through his mind. How many reports and affidavits had he been required to fill out, detailing the gruesome attack at Agha Jari Deh? He suspected his captain had another report or statement for him to sign. He turned away and kept walking.
The thought of the massacre churned the juices in his gut. He thought of it too often. He wanted to leave it behind. He wanted to never think of it again. But everything around him seemed to remind him somehow: a small hand, a buddy’s letter from his son, a local girl in her white dress standing on a street corner and staring at him—too many things brought back the dark memory. And the continual rehashing of the mission, what went right, what went wrong, who were the killers, why had they done what they did, it all amounted to nothing but dark memories. He was growing more bitter at having to rehash it again and again.
He thought of the girl, her dark eyes and long hair, exqu
isitely beautiful, even in her grief. He thought of her reaching out to her father, a charred corpse. He wanted to forget her, wipe the memory away. But he knew that he wouldn’t. It was the price he would pay. All soldiers paid a price for their service by the thoughts that remained in their heads. A few of the memories were good. Some were evil and dark and painful. They had to live with them all. That was just the way it was.
But this one . . . this one was different from anything before. Harder. More fierce. Why couldn’t he keep her out of his mind?
Sam glanced at his commander, then lowered his eyes.
“Brighton,” the captain called out, and Sam reluctantly turned to face him. The captain, long and lanky, a West Point graduate, walked quickly toward him, an uncomfortable look on his face.
“What’s up, boss?” Sam asked after saluting wearily.
“You got a telephone call,” the captain answered.
Sam looked surprised. “I hope it’s not your little sister again,” he said dryly. “I’ve told her a thousand times not to call me at work.”
The captain didn’t smile. His little sister, the new Miss Virginia, had become a hot topic among the men in his squad, and he was growing a little weary of their constant jokes. “In your dreams, Sammy boy.” He slapped Sam on the back. “And over my dead body. Now come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“You have a phone call. Quick. He’s been holding.”
The two men started to walk. “Who is it?” Sam asked, though he suspected that he already knew.
“The White House,” the captain answered.
Sam shook his head. His dad on the phone.
His father, an Air Force two-star general, was on special assignment from the Pentagon to the National Security Staff. He worked at the White House, directly for the president, acting as special counsel on National Security affairs. It was one of the most coveted jobs in the military, but Sam also knew that the weight of the assignment was crushing him down. His father had aged fifteen years in the past twenty-four months, the pressure squeezing the life out of him like the juice from an orange.
The Great and Terrible Page 58
