by Chuck Holton
It was rumored that the woman had gotten pregnant out of wedlock, perhaps by one of the U.N. soldiers. Her father had chosen “martyrdom” rather than live with the shame of an illegitimate grandchild fathered by an infidel.
An honor killing of a different sort, John thought sardonically.
He sighed and slowly reeled in his line. His worm was gone, and he hadn’t felt a thing. He put the rod in the bottom of the canoe and picked up a paddle. He stroked back toward the center of the lake so the boat wouldn’t drift into the weeds near the shallow bank, then rebaited his hook.
Valley Pond and over seven hundred acres of land surrounding it belonged to his godfather, Michael LaFontaine, Colonel, U.S. Army, retired. He had been a cadet at West Point with John’s father, William “Buck” Cooper. The LaFontaine family was old Southern money and had owned this farm since it was a plantation in the 1830s. The main house had been used by Confederate forces as a hospital, and General Robert E. Lee himself had visited the place before the Union Army arrived and burned it down.
Today the farm lay just outside the far reaches of Fort Bragg’s northern training areas, close enough that John could hear explosions and gunfire from some of the live fire ranges. No one had lived in the rebuilt main house for at least a decade, but the colonel was happy to let John live in one of the dilapidated servant’s quarters only a stone’s throw from the lake.
In return, John agreed to fix up the cottage as his schedule and pocketbook allowed. It was well worth the thirty-minute drive to work to have some peace and quiet whenever he was given the rare gift of time off.
John threw out his line, and a fish jumped on the side of his boat where the line wasn’t.
That figures.
Scowling, he reeled in the hook and cast it close to where the ripples spread across the glassy surface of the water. That he rarely caught any fish hardly mattered. The occasional tug at his line was, if anything, a minor annoyance. It was the exercise itself he was learning to like.
Age twenty-nine might seem a little late for a Green Beret Master Sergeant to develop this new hobby, especially for someone as outdoorsy as John. However, no one had taken him fishing when he was a kid.
Though Buck Cooper had attempted to show an interest in young John’s life, the Army always took first place in the man’s priorities. John no longer held it against his father as he once did. After his own twelve years of service, he understood the demands that came with a career in the military.
When he joined the Army right out of high school, then Lieutenant Colonel Buck Cooper shook with fury. “Your grandfather, your uncle, and I all went to West Point,” he roared. “How can you forsake that tradition?”
But John wasn’t interested in following someone else’s tradition. If anything, he wanted to make his own. He was young and bullheaded and had no desire to continue his schooling. It was too abstract, too formal for his tastes.
If he wanted to learn something, he did it again and again until he mastered it. Now he was doing it with his fishing, a skill he wanted to pass on to his own sons someday. He could learn more in one day of actually doing something than he could in a month of reading about it or being lectured on it.
Besides, having something to occupy his hands made it easier for him to think. Or not to think.
John closed his eyes to let the midafternoon sun warm his face, then opened them again immediately. The images around him were much more peaceful than those inside his head. He was enough of a professional to know that he shouldn’t blame himself for Doc’s death, but he couldn’t shake the thought that he should have put the pieces together faster.
That failure would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Vernon’s memorial service had been held at the JFK Memorial Chapel on Fort Bragg, a closed-casket ceremony that was one of the most painful things John had ever experienced. Doc’s entire extended family had come up from Mississippi. Twenty-one of them in all: parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles. His five siblings sang a slow gospel song in honor of their brother.
Thank you for the Lamb,
The precious Lamb of God.
Because of your grace I will soon see His face,
The precious Lamb of God.
John was sure he’d never seen anything as sad as those five brothers and sisters, arms entwined, swaying, singing, and crying. He had to look away, or he’d have cried, too.
He glanced instead across the chapel at Doc’s parents. His mother, who was blind, swayed slightly with the music, a look on her face that was both sad and serene as she listened to her remaining children sing. Her hands were raised as if she was soaking up the memory of her son by way of the tearful tribute.
After the ceremony, he tentatively approached Mrs. James, not really sure what to say but knowing he couldn’t leave without expressing his condolences.
He squatted painfully in front of the portly black woman and cleared his throat. “Mrs. James, I’m Master Sergeant John Cooper. I was Doc’s, I mean, Vernon’s team sergeant. I just wanted to tell you how truly sorry I am for what happened. Your son was…” The words caught in his throat. “He was a good man and very good at what he did. Everyone liked and respected him.”
Mrs. James seemed to sense how hard it was for John to talk about Doc. She reached out and touched his face, smiling. “I know, honey. Our Vernon died doing what he was called to do. I truly believe that. And none of us can hope for any better.”
She picked up a handkerchief from her lap and dabbed at her eyes. “That boy belonged to Jesus before he belonged to me. And it won’t be long before I’ll be seein’ my son again.” She took a deep breath. “God knows best.”
Then she looked right at John as if she could see him, or see through him. “God may not give us what we want, Master Sergeant Cooper, but He’s always on time with what we need.”
John suddenly had to get out of that chapel. “I hope so,” he answered weakly. Then he rose and hobbled out of the building as quickly as he could. He didn’t voice what he was actually thinking, what he’d been thinking since he learned of Doc’s death.
God doesn’t care.
The thought didn’t come easily to him, even now. He’d believed in God for nearly his entire life, and even attended youth group pretty regularly in high school. But what kind of God would refuse to protect someone like Vernon, someone who believed more fervently than he himself ever had? How could God abandon such a good person?
John leaned back in the canoe and inhaled deeply, pressing his fists into his eyes. He didn’t want to consider these questions.
He picked up the paddle again and headed back to the cottage on the west side of the pond. Maybe something on television could help him forget for a while. He stepped stiffly out of the canoe onto the bank, then stashed the boat beneath the deck that formed the cottage’s front porch. He’d have to get that fish later.
As he mounted the front steps, John saw a box sitting on his doorstep. He eyed it suspiciously until he noticed the FedEx truck disappearing down the road. He looked again at the white cardboard box. It had originated in Omaha, Nebraska.
Before he could open it, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “John Cooper.”
“John Cooper himself, in person?”
“Hello, Mr. LaFontaine.”
“Oh, John. Must I tell you again? Mr. LaFontaine is my father.”
“Sorry, Michael. Old habits die hard.”
“As do old soldiers. Speaking of which, I’m terribly sorry to hear about your fallen comrade.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And how are you recovering?”
John grimaced and shrugged his sore shoulder. “I’m doing well, under the circumstances. How are things inside the Beltway?”
When Michael left the service, he took over his family’s business holdings, increasing their worth significantly. His biggest job, however, was courting prominent politicians to his point of view, and he was extremely good at it. Having a f
ortune to pump into the reelection campaigns of the favored didn’t hurt either.
“Scandalous and two-faced, as usual. These liberal hand-wringers in Congress will be the death of me. My beagle, Freddy, would be better suited to fighting a war on terror than most of these pacifistic whiners. I spend hours on the phone every day trying to convince these jokers to get their act together, and I always feel the need to shower afterward.”
“Wow, sir. Tell me how you really feel.”
The older man laughed. “Sorry. You got me on my soapbox. Anyway, I’d much rather have been with you boys in Africa.”
John shifted uncomfortably. “You’re not supposed to know where we were, Colonel.”
“Yes, well, twelve years in Army intelligence does have certain perks.”
John grunted. “I suppose so.” Still, the leaking of classified information, even to a man as fine as Michael, rubbed against the grain.
“Did you get the package I sent?”
He looked at the box, still sitting on the step. He didn’t need to open the package to know that it contained Omaha Steaks. “Yes, I did. You really shouldn’t have.”
The colonel had sent the gourmet meats to John when he was deployed to Iraq, making Task Force Valor the envy of every soldier on the Forward Operating Base where they were stationed.
“Nonsense. I just wanted to show my appreciation to you and your men. Have a party on me. Feel free to use the pavilion at the main house if you like.”
“Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate it, and I know the guys will too.”
“So how are you enjoying the cottage?”
“It’s fantastic, sir. And I’m earning my keep. I replaced some of that old copper piping under the sink with PVC yesterday.”
“Listen, John, you’re supposed to be recuperating, not plumbing. I know we agreed you’d fix the place up, but I really only said that to placate my accountant. I don’t expect you to be crawling under sinks when you should be resting.”
John smiled, appreciating his godfather’s concern. “It’s okay, really. Makes me feel useful.” If only his father had been so attentive…
“Well,” the colonel said, “don’t feel like you have to do it, okay?”
“Roger that.”
“So how’s your father?”
John grimaced. “He called the day after I got back to Bragg, but I haven’t talked to him since. I think he’s still in Colorado involved in some high-level something-or-other.” It seemed his dad was always involved in important things. John just wished he had been one of them.
“When you hear from Buck, give him my best. And listen, if you ever need anything, anything at all, you let me know.”
“Thanks again, sir. I will.” John knew he probably wouldn’t. “In the meantime, you keep those politicians in line.”
John laughed as the colonel muttered, “Easier said than done.”
Beirut
DAYS LIMPED BY and still no word from or about Julie. Liz clung to the hope the necklace gave her, mainly because she could think of no way it could have gotten caught in that wire mesh unless Julie had somehow been there. But still that told her nothing about what had happened to her sister. If she was alive, why hadn’t they heard from her?
Amnesia? But amnesia was for novels and soap operas. Liz knew people rarely got full amnesia. A trauma might be blocked, an accident lost from conscious memory, but total loss of recall was extremely rare.
As the days passed, Annabelle couldn’t stop crying, and Charles couldn’t stop yelling, his way of dealing with the chaotic emotions of a father who couldn’t do anything to help his daughter. He spoke to Timon Habib at least once a day, but the news was always the same.
“We know nothing new.”
Liz was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep. She felt disconnected, emotionally vague, and very alone in spite of being with her parents. Her mind went into patches of time best described as absence of thought, not the mental clean slate they told you about in Eastern meditation but a protective blanking from emotions too difficult to deal with.
Julie, where are you? Are you safe? Are you being treated kindly? Are they getting you your medicine?
Liz tried to pray, tried to call on the Lord. He had always been so good to her. Since she had trusted Christ, life had been rich. She had felt blessed, the recipient of God’s love.
Now life was hard and full of pain, and it felt like He had withdrawn from her. She e-mailed a prayer request about Julie to all of her friends back in the States, and she received several responses reminding her that God never left His people alone. He was with Julie, wherever she was, whether with Him in glory or somewhere here on earth. And He was with Liz.
But it sure didn’t feel like it.
Liz went back to the hotel several times, looking at the space where all those world economists and their guests had been happily eating and talking. Had the monetary centers of the world shuddered with the explosion? Reading the list of the dead or missing and their positions and credentials was like reading a Who’s Who of financial geniuses. And each of them had a family who grieved.
Already the rubble was being carted off. Liz understood this clearing had to happen for safety’s sake, but it made the deaths of Khalil and all the others seem like something that could be corrected by tidying up the area. The truth was far different.
Soon the site would be ready for rebuilding. Tourism, still recovering from the devastating effects of the civil war, was one of the major sources of economic stability for this nation, and evidence of suicide bombers tended to dampen people’s enthusiasm for a destination. Downplay the crime, remove the evidence of danger, and woo the tourists with a new luxury hotel with all the latest everything.
While the front portion of the hotel would play the phoenix, rising reborn from the fire, the tower of rooms had been found stable, and workmen swarmed its walls, removing scorch marks, repairing the cosmetic damage, replacing the broken and blown-out windows. As she stared up at the tower, she wondered which rooms had held the belongings of the many killed.
Then she turned away from the destruction and began her daily regimen.
She held out Julie’s picture to anyone who passed by.
“Have you seen this young woman?”
Near Fort Bragg
It was all up to him.
John was sweating buckets under his EOD 9 suit—sixty-five pounds of body armor that would supposedly protect him in case the improvised explosive in front of him happened to go “boom.” He would have just as soon taken his chances without the suit. Aside from being unbearably hot even in mild conditions, much less in Iraq, the suit necessarily left his hands unprotected. You couldn’t work if you couldn’t feel what you were working on.
If there was an explosion, odds were that he’d live the rest of his life without hands, not something he was prepared to contemplate. If it ever happened to him, John hoped the blast would be sufficient to just end it.
They would have sent the robot to disarm the bomb, but so much debris was around the package that the Andros couldn’t get to it. So John suited up and waddled over for a look, his teammates watching from a distance.
Rubble littered the street, left after U.S. Marines had called indirect fire in on an insurgent position two days earlier. This unexploded device was reported by a child who saw it while playing in front of his home nearby.
John shook his head at the thought that the kids here could spot IEDs faster than kids in the U.S. could say, “Xbox.”
He was still twenty meters from the device, stepping over a large cinderblock, when his heart stopped.
Directly beneath him, taped to the back side of the block, was a cellular phone.
A secondary device! Always check for a secondary!
The phone began to ring.
John turned to run as the cell phone chirped. But the suit was too heavy. He couldn’t get away, couldn’t run. Couldn’t breathe.
He jerked upright, sweating profusely, h
is heart hammering against his ribs.
His cell phone was ringing on the bedside stand.
He pressed the pads of his palms into his eyes, taking a moment to figure out who he was, much less where. Fear still gripped him, the dream far too real.
John flicked on the light on the bedside table and stared at the ringing phone. He finally picked it up just before voice mail kicked in, managing to croak, “Cooper.”
Rip Rubio’s Latin accent sounded through the phone. “Coop! I hate to tell you this, bato, but the weekend is cancelled. We just got alerted.”
John groaned.
“Tell me about it. My girlfriend is doing her impression of a Polaris missile right now. See you at the compound.”
The call waiting beeped while Rubio was speaking. John hit the button to switch to the other line. “Yeah?”
A gruff voice asked, “How soon can you get back to the company area?”
Major Williams. John probably admired him more than any other man in the world, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to throw his phone at the wall. Instead, he sighed heavily. “This isn’t a training exercise, is it?”
“Would I do that to you guys?” Major Williams seemed genuinely hurt. “More to the point, would I do that to myself? Get your butt in here, Cooper.”
“Roger that.” John flipped the phone shut and looked with longing at his pillow. The clock beside his bed read 2:30 A.M.
Welcome back, John.
Fort Bragg
John drove from home to the EOD compound in under twenty minutes, which had to be a new record. As he pulled through the security checkpoint at the Butner Road gate, John flashed his military ID. Had all the money spent on extra security actually made anyone safer, or did it just make people feel safer?
Prior to September 11, Fort Bragg had been an open post. Since the attacks on America, miles of chain-link and barbed wire had sprung up around the installation, many of the roads into the post had been closed, and millions of dollars were spent each year on gate security. All of this mostly added up to a colossal pain in the neck for the forty-two thousand soldiers stationed there.
