by James Phelan
“As you just heard, Top and I will be leading first platoon onboard four V-22s into Nigeria,” Captain Nix said. As he spoke of locations he stood true to his usual teaching method of wall-map studies 101 Nix-style by using the laser light on his M9 Beretta to point out locations. “The rest of the troop will be flying the route to Al Fashir, Darfur, as planned, with the squadron CO and his HHT.” The squadron’s CO, a pencil-thin, bookish major, nodded to his men. “Spec Troop’s Colonel Schuster is on the ground, he will assign tasks to establish the mission to prep for the rest of 1st BCT’s arrival. Hooah?”
The assembled men replied as one: “Hooah!”
“Sir, why the four aircraft for a platoon?” the lieutenant of second platoon asked.
“We’ll be taking two Humvees as cargo,” Nix said. “So the troops of your platoon that miss out on riding in those Ospreys get to have a comfy ride with the rest of the squadron’s equipment in the C-17s. Means you have another five hours on the ground awaiting aircraft arrival, hooah?”
“Hooah.”
“All right,” Nix said. “First Platoon, have your squads ready for a thirty-minute takeoff. I want two fire teams to accompany the Humvees, designated chalks one and two. Rest of the men with me on chalk three and Top on chalk four. Remainder of you will be bugging outta here as soon as the C-17s and V-22s are cleared by aircrew, under direction from the major’s chalk five.”
Nix paused to take in the looks of the young battle-hardened faces before him. There was excitement mixed with the anxiety of the unknown. They’d all fought together, all served in Iraq at least once, all relished being in a conflict zone again. They trained for it, they lived for it. Some of their number had died doing it. He could tell this last-minute change to their planned deployment seemed like a bad omen for all concerned.
“I don’t like splitting our team up any more than you. But we gotta make this detour to make sure another African country don’t start fallin’ apart like Som, or Chad, or Sudan.” Nix pointed with the laser to the countries of which he spoke. “AFRICOM got enough shit to shovel on this continent already, hooah?”
“Hooah!”
“When Top and I finish in Nigeria and get to your location in Darfur, which should be in, oh, six months’ time by the time we stop to refuel…”
The men in the tent laughed, and the mood lifted at the expense of the V-22’s operational range when carrying cargo.
“Seriously, though, us and first platoon shouldn’t be any longer than four to five days separate to you, until an MEU aboard the Wasp arrives off the Nigerian coast to relieve our post,” Nix said. He noticed some of his men making sideways comments about the Marines, laughs and smiles barely suppressed. Good to see ’em lightening the fuck up. “Until then, I hear any of you boys been playing up, anyone gets hurt, anyone does stupid, my size thirteens are just a couple o’ countries away.”
More laughter.
“Okay, go and get your squads sorted,” Nix said to his senior NCOs, a group of first and second lieutenants, E5 and E6 sergeants. he’d seen most of them come up through the ranks from private over the past six years. Knew they had his back. They knew that he had their trust and dedication under any circumstance. They were a young bunch, each of the sergeants in charge of his own squad, while his senior squadron NCO was a First Class rather than a Master Sergeant. That guy had just been promoted and rotated back to training at home in Fort Drum.
“Safe travels, hooah?”
“Hooah!”
The men left the op tent with a spring in their step. Beyond the next short refuel and piss stop, they were headed into action before the parent combat brigade rained in with their heavy gear aboard more C-17s. The 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion had forward deployed two days ago, to set up the HQ element. A Ranger rifle company had been in the country two weeks previous to that, securing the airport and making sure it was clear for the arrival of the C-17s—the largest aircraft that the runway could accommodate. It would be the role of Nix’s RSTA squadron to venture outside the airport, making contacts with local warlords and tribal chiefs, to forge a network of fighters to combat the militias that were terrorising the city and surrounds. The Ranger element were already due to rotate out and head back into ’Stan.
His E7 hung around: Sergeant First Class, nicknamed ‘Top,’ the squadron’s senior NCO and his most valued advisor. A big, hulking Arkansan to Nix’s lanky Tennessee frame.
“Going into a country with unknown hostiles…” Top drawled, “population about one-fifty mill…”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, Top.” Captain Nix collected his gear from the table. “But we gotta safeguard our nationals as they depart.”
“You know what we went into Iraq with? A country with twenty-five-mill population? Three hundred thousand. Backed with enough armour and ordnance to roll through to Russia. About a thousand aircraft, half our friggin’ Navy…”
“Friggin’? What, you got yourself a new PG-13 rating on that potty mouth of yours, Top?” Nix patted his senior noncom on the shoulder. “Relax. Command know what they’re doin’. We get into Nigeria, and make sure the US Mission is secure until the Marines arrive to do the grunt work. Hooah?”
“Fuckin’ hooah.”
“Now that’s more like it,” Nix said, all grins. “Now let’s get the fuck outta this shit-hole airfield.”
22
JFK AIRPORT, NEW YORK CITY
Outside a private hangar at JFK International Airport, Fox and Gammaldi carried their backpacks up the stairs of a GSR Gulfstream. Next to them was GSR’s latest acquisition, an Airbus A318 Elite.
“That sure is big,” Fox said, looking at the Airbus as he had to duck to enter the cabin door of the Gulfstream.
“That’s what they tell me,” Gammaldi replied.
“Ah, you’re hilarious,” Fox said. “Glad you packed your sense of humour this time.”
They settled into the plush leather seats of the executive jet, and buckled up as the door was shut by the co-pilot and the engines began higher revolutions.
“You really need that?” Gammaldi said, on seeing Fox make sure that the Five-seveN pistol was not loaded with a round. He put it in his backpack, next to some plastic cable ties and a canister of pepper spray.
“I hope not,” Fox said. He zipped up his bag and put it on the seat that faced him. Opened his camera case and made doubly sure his Nikon was loaded with the ten-gig memory card. Then he held the camera up to show his friend across the aisle. “This is all I plan to shoot with.”
“Just make sure you get my good side,” Gammaldi replied.
“You have a good side?” Fox asked, snapping off a shot of Gammaldi pulling a face. The jet moved down the runway, the landscape of the airport moving outside in the afternoon light.
“Ah, my sides,” Gammaldi said, mimicking clinging to his sides from non-laughter. “You obviously unloaded your sense of humour before boarding.”
Fox smiled, put the camera away and clipped his belt on.
“Heads up,” Fox said, and took a bottle of water from the stowage area to his right, tossing it over to Gammaldi. He popped one for himself too.
Fox noticed Gammaldi was looking at him as he drank.
“What’s up?” Fox looked at his water bottle, then noticed his hand was shaking a bit. He was immediately frustrated, angry at himself.
“Nothin’,” Gammaldi said, and looked out his window as the aircraft taxied along.
Fox tightened his belt, while Gammaldi put his chair back a little and closed his eyes to settle into sleep.
“Al?” Fox said.
Gammaldi opened just one eye, looked over at him. “Wha—?”
“It’s cool, okay?” Fox said. He held his hand flat and steady. It was still shaking a little.
“Okay,” Gammaldi said. “I know you’ve given up booze, but am I meant to be confident that you’ve got my back over there?”
“The dri
nk isn’t the real problem. I’ve been the problem, up here.” Fox pointed to his head. “Problem is I haven’t done enough about it. I can see that now.”
Fox thought Al understood. They’d known each other since high school and had entered their military careers together. Gammaldi had followed Fox into hell and back on more than one occasion and never questioned his friend’s judgement or doubted his ability. Almost never, Fox conceded.
23
THE WHITE HOUSE
McCorkell only had a ten-minute window for lunch, and he was downstairs in the mess. He reached into the cooler for the last Waldorf salad and another hand touched the plastic tub at the same time as his. He looked over, and the young guy went red in the face with embarrassment.
“Sorry, you take it, sir,” he said.
“No, that’s fine,” McCorkell replied. He picked up a Greek salad instead. “This is healthier for me anyway. You’re in the physician’s office, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir, Jack McFarland, sir. Been a nurse here six months now.”
They shook hands. McCorkell paid the cashier for both meals.
“You take good care of our boss now,” McCorkell said. “If you can figure out a way to put a supercharger in him while he’s under, that’d be just great.”
The nurse laughed. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went on his way.
“Hey, Bill?”
McCorkell turned around. Secret Service SAC O’Keeffe was there.
“Wanna pull up a pew?”
“Yeah, I got five, let’s sit and eat,” McCorkell said.
They pulled out chairs and sat at a small round table.
“How you getting on with the Saudis?” O’Keeffe asked.
“All right, the press is working in our favour,” McCorkell said. “Still haven’t gone so far as to call their attack an act of terrorism, but the Feds have got a team heading over there now.”
“About time they let them in,” O’Keeffe replied. “Give those sons of bitches a schooling in how to investigate.”
“Speaking of Feds,” McCorkell said through a mouthful of lettuce, “I just heard about a close call with a parcel bomb?”
“Yeah, Bureau’s Field Office in Burlington, Vermont, had a parcel bomb go off in their remote opening unit.”
“Casualties?”
“Just the million-dollar piece of equipment.”
“That just paid for itself.”
“Amen to that.”
“Anything on the sender?”
“We think it could have been sent from a mosque in Austin.”
That gave McCorkell something to chew over with his salad lunch.
“Why do you figure that location?”
“Feds have some wire taps in there under the auspices of the Patriot Act,” O’Keeffe said over his soup. McCorkell had never known the guy to have a lunch he couldn’t drink in one way or another. “One of their high-ranking members was picked up in a suspected DUI stop a few months back, and he had a trunk full of bomb-making equipment.”
“I remember, that was in Brentwood, right?”
“Yep. Well, they put in the bugs and we picked up chatter that something was being planned, references to sending a present to their friends in Vermont via the post.”
“So where are the Feds at on that?”
O’Keeffe checked his watch. “In about ten minutes I’m gonna be briefed,” he said. “They want blood, but the last thing we need is news footage of black-clad FBI SWAT teams kicking down mosque doors.”
“That’s why they don’t wear black any more,” McCorkell said. “Pop your head in and brief the Press Secretary on this, would you, Seamus?”
“Was just on my way,” O’Keeffe said.
McCorkell pushed the last of his salad around in the container, then got up and tossed it in the nearby trash.
“Bill?” O’Keeffe said.
“Yeah?” McCorkell turned. O’Keeffe was standing now too, close to him. He could see the lawman was tired, worn out from too many years of chasing down bad guys. He had seen too many innocent lives taken, been through too many trials and security crashes of the White House. The crashes, almost monthly events since September eleven, were total security lock-downs of the House that managed to pretty well piss off every staffer while they sat confined to their offices. McCorkell could see this man wanted peace, needed it, like everyone else in this room, in this House, this city, country, planet.
“You think this is gonna end?” O’Keeffe asked. His eyes said this was a sincere question. “In our lifetime? These constant terror threats? These jihads and Islamic fundamentalists?”
McCorkell mulled it over. Watched as the staff milled about the room. White, black, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic … Men and women sharing the same tables, the same discussions, the same rights.
“This has been going on a long time, long before we got here,” McCorkell said. “Will it change? I can’t see it happening, not in our lifetime.”
O’Keeffe nodded.
“But it don’t worry me that much, because I see the best and the worst, every day,” McCorkell said. “Look around this room, Seamus. Whaddya see?”
“People with eight different levels of security clearance,” O’Keeffe answered. They both chuckled.
“Yeah, well, I see the ultimate multicultural society,” McCorkell said.
“I was gonna say that,” O’Keeffe added.
“Abe Lincoln said that it was the ideas that make us Americans that are greater than anything else. The people in this room get that,” McCorkell said. “They all believe in America. They’re together in their belief in political democracy, religious freedom, capitalism, choice. We’re tied together because we respect human life, and because we respect the rule of law. We’re a plural society, Seamo, and these guys we’re fightin’ hate us for it. Why, because they’re stuck with strict adherence to seventh-century beliefs. I think there’s always going to be nutters out there, no matter what.”
“I just hope Joe Public still believes in America like these good people in here,” O’Keeffe said.
“Most of them do, Seamo,” McCorkell said. “We’re fightin’ the good fight. Most of the successes we’ve had won’t be public under FOI for fifty years. The stuff we stopped on the millennium? It’ll be our kids and grandkids who’ll look back from 2050 with pride at what we’ve done. The good work that’s gone on behind the scenes? There’s plenty of people in here and out there who thank us for it every day.”
“You really think they appreciate what we’re doing? Forgive us the mistakes we’ve made, the lengths we’ve had to go to in order to get the jobs done?”
“I know for a fact that every day thousands of ordinary Americans thank us in prayer for the work that we’re doing,” McCorkell said. “Many more love us than despise us. So long as we stay a step ahead of the bad guys, I can sleep at night.”
24
LAGOS, NIGERIA
The Press Club in Lagos was a building dating back to the first British colonialists in the city. It had been built by a cacao exporter as their Nigerian base and turned into a saloon during the nineteen-thirties. It was a whitewashed two-storey stone structure with towering arched windows and doors with pale blue shutters. A first-storey terrace opened out onto the palms that lined the street. Inside, little had changed since the set-up in the thirties. Dark wood panelling surrounded a bar and a raised dining area, green palms grew thick and fast like they were in a greenhouse, sunlight shone in through the shutters over the windows. It resembled Rick’s from Casablanca, and the clientele looked like a cross between those of Rick’s and of the bar scene in Star Wars.
Fox sat at the time-scarred wooden bar and Gammaldi followed suit. Both sipped the complimentary iced tea poured by a smiling waiter.
“No, this place doesn’t feel scary at all,” Gammaldi said, trying hard not to stare at an eye-patched guy on the opposite side of the bar.
&nbs
p; “Relax, Al, we’ve been in rougher bars in Brooklyn,” Fox said. He scanned the room—a couple of tables in the centre full of white reporters, the rest either local reporters or from other African countries. Ceiling fans did little to cool the place, more than anything they just moved the smoky air about. The two walls that were not made up of arched openings were covered in blue and white mosaic tiles and hanging rugs. Dark booths were overstuffed with rowdy patrons getting their morning drinks in.
The barman came around, and Fox gave him a twenty.
“We’re looking for a local guide, someone with transport?” Fox said.
The barman took the money, smiled and disappeared.
“That was money well spent,” Gammaldi said, crunching on the ice-blocks from his drained glass. “Oh yeah, another wise investment from the guy who’s been making my hair grey over all these years.”
“You’re not going grey, Al, it’s just thinning out,” Fox said in between sips of iced tea. “I think it could actually be that your head is growing up through your hair.”
“Okay, Mr Forehead,” Gammaldi said, still chewing hard on the ice-blocks. “Recede much?”
“Easy, tubby,” Fox replied.
Gammaldi looked hurt.
A guy came up, dressed in a faded blue suit, sweat-stained shirt and cheap tie. He sat next to them like their best friend.
“You need a guide,” he stated with slick confidence. “I can offer you much more. Whatever you need—”
“A driver to Port Harcourt and Abuja, that’s all we need,” Fox said.
The guy’s face sank, and he left them.
The barman came back and nodded to a white guy sitting at a table by himself, reading a newspaper. He appeared to be the other side of seventy, Leo McKern playing Horace Rumpole. Bulbous red nose and the ruddy cheeks of a professional drinker.
