by Ian Slater
“Soon as you give me one of your High Tails.” It was the latest class of Honda Executive jet, small, fast, but big enough to carry the team, their combat backpacks, and Prince.
“Do we have any of those?” asked Eleanor. “In the armed services, I mean.”
“Four,” Freeman told her. “Two on the West Coast, two on the East.” It was obvious to Eleanor that he’d already thought it through. “Aussie Lewis, Salvini, and our multilingual expert, Johnny Lee, can get the Honda out of Andrews Air Force Base in D.C. The rest of us, on this side of the country — myself, Choir, Eddie “Shark” Mervyn, Gomez, and our new guy, Tony Ruth — he’s an ex-army Ranger — we can take one of the two Hondas DOD has on the West Coast, the eight of us rendezvousing at Fairchild Air Force Base.”
“The big base in Washington state,” she proffered.
“Affirmative,” answered Freeman. “Forty clicks west southwest of the Ear — I mean Pend Oreille.”
All that Eleanor had been told about the region was that it was beautiful and brutally rough terrain. “Be careful, Douglas. The Man will give you forty-eight hours. By then the guys at the Pentagon’ll be stirring their battalions and wanting to move in.”
“No sweat,” replied Freeman. “That’s all we need. This hunt was made for my team. Forty-eight hours? We’ll corner the bastards in half the time.”
“Good hunting then,” she said. “Remember, forty-eight hours, Douglas. That’s all the lead time we can give you. Any more will be politically as well as militarily untenable once the public starts pressuring whoever the congressperson is for northern Idaho. It could be the election issue of the year.”
“Rita Carlisle,” said Freeman.
“What?”
“The congresswoman for Idaho,” the general told Eleanor, “is Rita Carlisle. Fifty-two and a looker.”
“I’ll take your word for it but listen, we need to know one thing,” Eleanor said. “I’ve been so busy listening to you I almost forgot. We haven’t been briefed as to exactly what has been stolen, I mean what’s on the disk. All the Pentagon can tell us is that it’s Flow-in-Flight data and that the DARPA scientists at the Navy base were operating above Top Secret level, and Eyes Only. So when you get to the lake, you’d better check with the director of the DARPA installation — or what’s left of it. He’s on the daytime staff, and the White House’ll give him authority to discuss it in more detail with you. We can’t figure out what they’re going to do with the information they’ve stolen. After all, the terrorists don’t have a navy.”
Freeman was surprised by her remark. He put it down to fatigue, for wasn’t it obvious what the terrorists were going to do with it? Whatever it was DARPA had been testing at the naval base, the terrorists were sure to use it against the United States. “Damn terrorists didn’t need a navy to attack the USS Cole,” Freeman said. “Used a rigid inflatable packed with C4.”
“And Douglas?”
“Yes?”
“The Pentagon set up DARPA at Pend Oreille, but apparently not even the Joint Chiefs were told exactly what the scientists were working on. Right now, the Pentagon’s highly pissed with the civilian scientists for not requesting full Defcon 1 security for the lake. The Pentagon says that this is what happens when you don’t insist on military oversight of DARPA contracts — that civilians, scientists, know squat about security. In all fairness, though, the base is at the end of a lake that’s used a lot for recreation and so without moving the base, ironclad security would have been impossible anyhow.”
“Don’t worry,” Freeman assured her. “I’ll try not to get in a brawl between anyone, but I’ll find out exactly what was on that disk and why they needed such deep water.”
“Whatever it is,” Eleanor cautioned him, “keep it to yourself. The Man does not want whatever it is going public. It’s bad enough a research installation was broken into.”
“Of course,” Freeman assured her. “I’ll keep it strictly within the team.”
“Godspeed, Douglas.” He could hear the worry in her tone.
When Margaret returned late from the bridal shower for Linda Rushmein’s niece, she could smell fresh coffee, but Douglas wasn’t there. There was a note:
“Margaret: On SpecFor mission. President’s orders. Will contact you ASAP. Be out of touch for a few days. If you need any further explanation, pls ring Eleanor Prenty, national security adviser, at the White House. Her # is in my Rolodex. She’ll fill you in, as far as security allows. All my love, Douglas.”
Bewildered, she dropped onto the sofa. Unlike her dearly departed sister Catherine, she was not used to coming home to find her husband having left home so abruptly. Where was he? What was he doing? How would she know when he’d call? Questions, she knew, that were being asked daily by the loved ones of thousands of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen. But for Margaret, it was far from the norm. Too far, in fact. Was this what her life was going to be like living with “retired” General Douglas Freeman? Glory be, she had thought they would sail congenially together into the golden twilight of retirement. Instead, he was gone. She knew she shouldn’t be resentful, but she was.
What could she do? She switched on the TV. If it was this DARPA thing he’d mentioned, whatever it was precisely, if it were that important, surely there’d be something on the news by now?
There wasn’t. The lead story was about a jailed Enron executive who had presumably been attacked by a fellow inmate, but all he would say was that he’d accidentally tripped, from the second floor, out a window. CNN reported the phone lines were jammed following the story by calls from people who’d been forced out of retirement by Enron’s collapse back in 2003–2004, suggesting that he should have “tripped” from the Enron tower instead. The remainder of the news consisted of the day’s wrap-ups of the opening barrages in the presidential primaries. A candidate in New Hampshire was running on a platform of getting to the root of the problem of the war on terror by “making friends with the Muslim fundamentalists.” Well, at least, Margaret thought, Douglas wasn’t home to hear that. His blood pressure was okay but it wasn’t that good.
CHAPTER THREE
En route to Idaho on one of the East Coast’s Hondas, Aussie Lewis’s recurring dream about a Special Forces op he’d taken part in in Iraq in 2003, near Karbala, made his sleep restless. More than once, years after the op, his wife Alexsandra had to shake him out of a troubled sleep that had been sabotaged by the same dream. Aussie, generally known for his laid-back attitude, was puzzled, both by the persistence and clarity of the dream. He’d been with a recon group assigned to help a marine corps convoy negotiate the Fedayeen minefields. During a stop to regroup the Hummers after they’d passed through a blinding sandstorm, one of the young marines, a twenty-year-old, the name on the headband of his Kevlar helmet “Wain,” had been sent out about twenty yards with his buddy to secure the convoy’s right flank. Wain saw a woman in black chador and veil running away from the remains of an artillery-gutted clay-brick house on the city’s outskirts and toward the convoy. “Qiff!” he shouted. It was the Arabic word for “Halt!” The woman kept coming, one hand frantically waving a dirty white rag, her other hand cradling a baby who could now be heard screaming as the woman, tripping and almost falling in the loose, sandy loam, continued her approach.
“Qiff!” yelled Wain again, his M-16 now shoulder high.
“Give ’er a warning burst,” shouted Wain’s buddy as the marine commander walked just ahead of the convoy for a situation report from Aussie and two other scruffy Special Forces types who were pooling their minefield intel. Aussie was now walking out from the convoy, coming up behind Wain and his marine buddy.
“Qiff, dammit!” yelled Wain, firing a warning burst, the three rounds kicking up little puffs of dust. The woman stopped, as if only then realizing the American’s order.
The whiplike crack from behind startled Wain, who, spinning around, saw that Aussie had fired. The woman stumbled, then fell backwards, her baby spilling onto the sand.
“Jesus, man!” Wain shouted at Aussie.
“Come with me,” the dirty-faced Lewis had commanded without breaking stride. “C’mon.”
Wain had walked with him toward the body.
“You think that that’s a real baby, mate?” asked Lewis.
Wain, though marine hardened, was still in shock. He couldn’t think straight; the baby was still crying.
“Don’t worry,” Aussie had told him. “It is a real baby. But look at Mommy here. Ever see an Iraqi woman with such big feet?”
“I–I never noticed,” Wain had answered. The baby’s screaming was unnerving.
“No,” said Lewis, kicking the corpse’s shoes. “You weren’t meant to. You were supposed to be looking at the baby — and maybe at Mommy’s eyes but not her feet.” Aussie had bent down and gently pulled the veil aside. “Oh, look, Mommy’s got a beard.” He stood up. “Friggin’ Fedayeen Ba’ath Party thugs.”
Wain, his weapon’s stock in the sand, bent down to pick up the baby.
“No!” Lewis said, hauling him back by the collar.
“Shit,” Wain had objected. “They wouldn’t booby-trap a baby.” But the moment he said it he realized he was asking a question.
“How long you been in this hellhole, mate?” Aussie asked him.
“A week,” Wain had answered.
“They’ll use anything and anyone to get at us,” Aussie told him, the baby’s screaming rattling Wain further as Aussie, seemingly oblivious to the noise, felt carefully about the baby’s clothes, sniffing as he did so like a dog investigating carrion. “Some guys can smell Semtex,” he’d told Wain. “I’m one of ’em.”
“Semtex?” inquired Wain, trying to maintain his equanimity in front of this SpecFor type who was obviously an experienced warrior. The dead Iraqi was staring at the washed-out blue sky, flies already moving across his bearded chin and mouth. “Semtex. You mean C4 plastique?”
“I do,” Aussie had replied, without taking his eyes off the baby whose face by now was crimson, its arms stiff in distress. Gingerly, Aussie ran his fingers down the sides of the infant’s covered legs. “Seems okay. Ten to one Mommy’s dirty, though. That’s why he kept walking.” At this point in the dream, “Wain” could always be seen paying particular attention to Aussie’s hands which, once removed from his SpecFor combat gloves, moved with the steady, confident deftness of a pickpocket as he frisked the dead Iraqi. “A bomber,” Aussie concluded quietly, Wain noting worriedly that the baby’s face was turning purple.
“Sticks are around his back,” Aussie explained, indicating the dead Iraqi. “From one side to the other, like a corset. I’d say seven of ’em.” He looked up at Wain. “Lucky number for the Fedayeen. Seven pillars of wisdom.” Aussie grinned with obvious satisfaction at having found the explosive. “You can pick the little guy up now if you like,” he told Wain.
Wain was trying to lift the infant carefully but he’d been spooked by the whole thing and fumbled.
“Give him to me,” Aussie had said, and, cradling the infant in one arm, unscrewed his belt canteen with his free hand, tilted it slightly, washing his finger, tipped the canteen again and placed his wet fingertip on the baby’s parched lips, smiling as the infant sucked off the moisture. Still holding the baby, he walked back with Wain toward a Hummer, Wain’s buddy following, maintaining the regulation three-meter gap between himself and Wain.
“What outfit you with?” Wain asked Aussie.
“Get a surgical glove from a corpsman,” Aussie had told him. “Fill it with water and prick one of the fingers for a teat. I have to be going — guide you guys through the minefield up yonder, then get back to work.”
“What outfit you with?” Wain repeated.
“Head Hunters.”
“Where you based?”
“Here and there.”
Aussie had been rocking the infant to stop its crying, smiling down at him. “What do do you say we name the little bugger Blue Eyes?” he asked.
Wain and several other marines who had gathered around were grateful for something else to look at other than the heat waves of the desert in which mirages of beige, sun-baked buildings from nearby Karbala shimmered, suspended in the brutal heat.
“Blue Eyes?” said a machine gunner from his port atop a Hummer, the desert goggles on his “Fritz” encrusted with sand. “Since when does an A-rab have blue eyes?”
“Jesus,” said Wain, shading his eyes from the sun. “Think the kid’s old man coulda been one of our guys?”
“Or a Brit papa,” said the machine gunner. “Or an Aussie?”
“Or a Polack,” said another.
“Hey, watch it, Ryan,” interjected a Polish-American driver in the convoy.
Wain frowned. “Yeah, but I mean, having it off with the enemy?”
“With a woman,” said Aussie Lewis, winking at Wain. “It’s been known to happen.”
“Shit,” said Wain. “Would you screw a—?”
“If she said please,” joked Aussie.
There was a burst of laughter from the assembled marines — except for Wain. In the dream his face always clouded over with a brow-creasing frown of disapproval.
Aussie, shading Blue Eyes’ sleeping face from the sun, looked over at Wain, opining, “Not all Iraqis are the enemy, mate, though you’d never know that if you watch TV. Uh-oh, little guy’s wet himself,” he added. “We’d better—”
The crackle of a radio interrupted him and he heard the marines’ CO calling out. At this point, Aussie always realized he was in a dream, but was unable to extricate himself.
“Okay, guys,” the marines’ CO ordered, his voice crackling in the fierce, dry heat, “back in the vehicles. We’ve got an M1 tank column cutting across from Karbala. They’re gonna go ahead of us. Our sappers have confirmed these SpecFor guys’ suspicions. We definitely have a minefield two clicks ahead. I say again, minefield two clicks ahead.”
Aussie handed Blue Eyes back to Wain. “You know how to change a baby?”
“Into what?” joshed a marine. Aussie had grinned, and there’d been laughter as they climbed into their Hummers.
Wain stood, momentarily abandoned, holding the baby gingerly out in front of him as if it were a time bomb. “No. Hey, wait!”
“Gotta go, marine,” said a driver.
“Shit!” said Wain, rocking Blue Eyes with such intensity that the infant was screaming again.
“Easy,” Wain’s buddy had said sharply. “You’ll rock his brains out. Here, give ’im to me. My sister’s got a coupla kids. I’ll change ’im in the Humvee. Let’s go.”
“Well, why the fuck didn’t you tell me before?” Wain had reflected with a mixture of relief and irritation.
“I was havin’ too much fun watchin’ you. Should’ve seen your face when the SpecFor dropped that Iraqi dead in his tracks.”
“So,” said Wain, “you tellin’ me you weren’t surprised it wasn’t a woman?”
“Nah—”
“You lying fuck,” charged Wain.
As the convoy started off, Wain’s buddy told the driver to keep it steady, “No jerking side to side,” as he used a khaki T-shirt as a diaper for the little boy.
After the road had been cleared of anti-personnel mines by the seventy-ton M1 behemoths rolling unharmed and contemptuously over them, Aussie had taken Blue Eyes to the Arab Red Cross, the Red Crescent, in Baghdad. As he handed the child to one of the Crescent’s nurses, after the boy had been printed and a blood sample taken for the records, the dream, which always presented itself in vivid color, would suddenly and inexplicably change to a stark black and white of the kind Aussie remembered seeing in the film Sin City. Aussie enjoined the nurse to take care of him. “He’s an orphan.”
Aussie had known then that if no one claimed the little boy quickly, rejecting him because he might well be a half-caste Arab, the odds were that he would forever be an outcast as he grew older, and the danger then would be that the only refuge he would find would be in tight-kni
t terrorist families such as Hamas. There he would learn that as surely as all Christians and Jews were taught that they were descended from Abraham’s son Isaac, and that all Muslims were taught that they were descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael, he would be taught that his salvation lay in total obedience to Allah’s will — as defined by Hamas…
Over southern Idaho, a gut-wrenching wind shear slammed into the Honda jet, jerking Aussie violently against his safety H harness. Sitting back hard in his seat, his neck perspiring despite the cool interior of the Honda, Aussie Lewis once again tried to figure out why his particular encounter in the sun-baked Iraqi desert continued to haunt him, and in such tendentious detail. Then again, he reminded himself, he knew that many other vets had recurring dreams from their time in combat too. He shouldn’t be surprised.
What would have surprised him, however, was the speed with which the Red Crescent nurse in Baghdad had given the half-caste Blue Eyes to Wadi El-Hage, commander of Hamas’s anti-American operations. The corpulent and gimlet-eyed El-Hage saw Blue Eyes’ deliverance to Hamas as indeed a gift from Allah, blessed be His name, for the infant’s fair skin, if it did not change by the time he was in puberty, would be an invaluable asset to any Hamas agent selected to work against the Americans. Still, El-Hage had no illusions. It was no easy thing training a Hamas agent, for while it was essential in El-Hage’s view that the boy receive a good multilingual education in order that he might blend as easily with, say, the Americans as with the Russians, it must be a very carefully managed education so that the student would not become seduced by either Slavic or Western decadence.
CHAPTER FOUR
