Cobra tsf-4
Page 36
“Devlin will do what he is ordered to, of course, but”—Hoi-man smiled and raised a finger—“he’ll bitch and moan about it all the way. Let me read the Stars and Stripes if you’re done with it, Duncan?” Dick Holman asked, reaching across the table for the military newspaper.
Duncan handed the paper to Dick Holman, glancing over the top of it at the new stars. One-star admiral: something he never was and now never would be. There had been a lot of surprises two days ago when General Lewis and Admiral Devlin had announced the results of the promotion board that had been hastily convened in Washington last month.
“How about that?” Dick Holman asked, slapping the newspaper. “The President gave Warren Spangle’s wife his Medal of Honor yesterday. If they don’t name a ship after that hero, then the Navy has its head up its ass.”
Duncan looked up. “Congratulations on your Silver Star, Admiral. What you did, taking this carrier battle group through a minefield, is something like Spangle’s actions that will live on in Naval history.”
Dick pointed at Duncan’s left chest. “And the same congratulations on your Silver Star, sir,” he said respectfully. “I think our Navy will have more heroes and history this year than anytime since World War II.
Of course, those Purple Hearts you and your fellow SEALs received made me realize how much I prefer my line of duty to yours.” Rear Admiral Lower Half Dick Holman slid his chair around sideways to the table and crossed his legs. The new one-star flag officer handed a small slip of paper with his breakfast order on it to the MS and crossed his legs.
“Did you notice the two Marines behind Spangle’s wife?” Dick asked.
“I saw them. Don’t know what they did, but according to the article, they both received Medals of Honor, also.”
“The young man is twenty-six years old and was in charge of a Marine force that fought its way out of the southern Algerian desert with a bunch of American oil riggers. The other Marine is Gunny Sergeant Stapler, who refused to be wheeled into the White House for the ceremonies. He was shot up pretty badly and nearly died. Typical Marine, refuses to acknowledge his own mortality. Of course, I wouldn’t want them any other way. According to the article, after the ceremony, he collapsed back onto his bed at Bethesda Medical Center and slept for sixteen hours.”
“I remember reading about them. Quite a story when you stop and think about it. A small group of Marines, stranded in the desert, forced to take off across the sands with unarmed civilians, fighting off enemy forces and, as they are about to be overrun, the cavalry charge over the hill to save them. Somebody ought to make a movie out of that.”
“This has been and is a challenging time to America’s leadership in the world, Duncan. But, we will weather these trying times like we did in our first war of the twenty-first century. The men and women in the armed forces sacrifice so much for their country. A sacrifice our fellow citizens who have never experienced military life find hard to appreciate sometimes; though, I think, most recognize it. That’s what tells me America’s day in the sun is far from over.”
Duncan lifted his cup, Dick did the same, and the two clicked the edges of the porcelain china together. “I’ll drink to that.”
The two men returned to their newspapers. The French were not reacting well to the political victory of the British last week. When America withdrew its NATO nomination of Admiral Walter Hastings as the new Allied Forces Southern Command and threw its weight and influence behind a Royal Navy nominee, the French had foamed at the diplomatic mouth.
They even made veiled threats about the future of the European Union.
The other members of NATO, seeing a quick exit to the impasse between the French and American nominees, confirmed the British admiral within twenty-four hours. The French blustered they would refuse to turn over command to the British admiral when he arrived. Despite the bluster, the actual change of command went off with only a mild diplomatic rebuff when the acting AFSouth, French General Jacques Leblanc, refused to shake the British admiral’s hand. At the end of the ceremony, the British admiral had surprised the French general by awarding him an Order of the Garter signed by King Charles. Leblanc could hardly refuse, and the photograph of the two shaking hands with Admiral Walter Hastings, the new commander of the United States Naval Forces Europe, standing between them made world news — front page in most European newspapers.
An audible sigh escaped Duncan, drawing Admiral Hoi man’s eyes briefly before he returned to the Stars and Stripes.
Duncan flipped the page. Page two had photographs of the dead in the streets of Benghazi. Italian troops patrolled the city in masks to filter out the smell. The anthrax threat was still real, according to the article, but only inside buildings yet to be cleaned. He had read the “Secret — No Foreign Dissemination Allowed” message yesterday about what happened. One of the Hue City Tomahawks had destroyed a Libyan Al-Fatah III missile as it was preparing to launch, The anthrax warhead destroyed in the attack had dispersed its deadly cargo into the air and rapidly covered Benghazi. Over one million Libyans had died of inhalation anthrax in and around Benghazi, nearly one forth of the population. Without the intervention of the Italians in eastern Libya, more would have died in civil chaos. Italian f01 ccs had also occupied Tobruk and the border area with Egypt. The Islamic Republic of Barbary and North Africa had faded from its short political life. Only Egypt emerged unscathed in this attempt to unite the entire North African coast from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Intelligence was still analyzing the enormous volumes of papers and computer data obtained from Libya. Al-Qaida had never died. Like a malevolent virus, it had just evolved, and the work was pointing more and more to the radical Islamic government of Egypt.
The same message also reported that the Libyan leadership responsible for the crisis in North Africa died in Benghazi, but not before ordering their troops to leave Tunisia. Tunisia routed the remaining Algerian forces a week ago, taking about one hundred miles of Algerian territory in the process. The most westernized nation on the North African littoral was already beginning to rebuild its country with the help of Britain and Italy.
The French had gotten some of what they wanted. They had replaced the American Marines in Algiers and were already negotiating with President Hawaii Alneuf, who had reentered the country at Oran, once Spanish forces had joined up with the remaining loyal Algerian forces. The French could do little, other than appear magnanimous and return control of the capital back to the democratically elected President of free Algeria. The formal ceremony was scheduled to occur next week. If there was one thing the French knew, it was how to have a ceremony.
Great Britain was the surprise winner. A toothless lion the world called this island nation after World War II when, economically broke, it had little recourse but to withdraw as it rebuilt a shattered infrastructure. What many failed to recognize was that Britain capitalized on its skill in diplomacy, a skill unsurpassed by the rest of the world as it managed to maintain a role as a world leader through the remainder of the twentieth century. Now that very art of diplomacy had restored it as a major naval power and the leader of a free Europe.
The special relationship between the United States and Britain had grown over the years. It was a strong bond, forged in mutual interests and history.
“Says here that President Crawford fired his National Security Advisor Franco Donelli,” Dick Holman offered.
“Yeah, I read that. I thought he was the real power behind the throne.”
“I think he pissed off the old man. I heard he was behind Admiral Cameron being relieved, court martialed, and forced to retire, and when the president figured out what happened, all fingers pointed to Mr. Donelli.”
Duncan lifted his cup, motioned toward Dick with it before taking a sip, and replied, “Then being fired is the least that should have happened to him. What is Admiral Cameron doing now?”
Holman shrugged his shoulders. “Last I heard, he was taking some time off, but CNO has asked him to serve as a
n unofficial member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Advisory Board.” Duncan nodded in reply and then asked, “How is your former command master chief taking his promotion?”
Holman chuckled. “Not too well, I heard. He had not even sent in a package to the special promotion board, and they selected him for warrant officer three. I wasn’t there when the new four-striper Tucson Conroy made the announcement, but I can imagine the cursing and swearing that erupted.”
The MS returned with Admiral Holman’s chipped beef on toast — fondly known as SOS by the Navy — and placed it in front of him. He lifted the silver-plated coffeepot to refill the cups. Duncan put his hand over his and shook his head.
“You going to miss being CO of the Stennist “You going to miss being a captain in the SEALs?” Holman retorted, smiling, his eyes raising with the question.
Duncan laughed. “No, I think I can handle the situation.”
“You’re flying off tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, Beau, who is still staring in the mirror at the silver commander’s leaves, and HJ, who was released from medical yesterday, will also be going with me.
“What happened to her?”
“Those nanorobots that Bethesda put in her don’t want to die. They keep reconstituting themselves. Looks as if our lone woman SEAL will have these little medical machines circulating through her body while those mad scientists from Bethesda keep watch to see what happens. She will be released from the SEALs upon our return. When we talked yesterday, she said the medical team expects the nanorobots to continue to decrease in number until they eventually fade away. But what they are not sure about is that the programming of those ‘ shits’ include a subroutine to build new ‘ shits’ if she is injured or gets sick.”
“Little shits. Got a nice ring to it, Duncan.”
“We’ll fly off this afternoon to Gibraltar, where an aircraft is waiting to fly the three of us back to Washington.”
The door opened to the flag mess. Newly promoted Commander Beau Pettigrew of the Pettigrews of Newnan, Georgia, stuck his head inside.
Seeing Duncan, he smiled, motioned behind him, and entered. HJ Mcdaniels followed, her new lieutenant commander leaves shining on the collars of her khaki uniform.
“Admiral,” Beau said as he approached.
Both Duncan and Holman answered, “Yes.”
“Sorry, Admiral Holman, I meant Admiral James.”
Duncan noticed the reflection of the two stars on his collar in the shiny water glass in front of him. They had skipped the one-star rank at the ceremony two days ago because of the orders received from the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
“Beau, how is my EA doing?” Duncan joked, remembering how speechless his sidekick had been when he told the blond haired Romeo that his new orders were to be the executive aide to the new commander, Naval Special Warfare Command.
Beau blushed. “Sir, we need to get to the flight deck as soon as possible. The flight to Gibraltar has been moved up. We’re leaving this morning.”
“HJ, how are you doing?”
She straightened her arms by her sides, rolled her eyes back in her head, and bounced several times from one stiff leg to the other before stopping the theatrics to look at Duncan. “Okay, Admiral, just every now and then these little shits want to trade sides within my body,” she said, grinning. Secretly, she was glad she was leaving the SEALs. She had proven her point about women in Naval special warfare, but the incident with the captured rebels haunted her. Chief Wilcox had never said anything about stopping her from cutting the prisoner’s throat, and she had never thanked him for doing it. For the two of them, the incident never occurred.
The three laughed. Duncan noticed that faraway look he had seen several times since Algeria cross HJ’s face for several seconds before she relaxed and joined the laughter. He wondered what went through her thoughts at those times.
“The truth is, Dick, little shits wasn’t my term.”
Duncan slid his chair back. He reached forward and shook hands with Dick Holman, who stood in deference to the senior officer. “Good luck, Dick.
When we get back to the States, Beau and I will be visiting the Western Pacific Theater, and I will try to spin through the Stennis.” “But, boss,” Beau said.
“I’ll look forward to seeing you, Duncan. Good luck in your new job in Washington. You will need it with all the politics there. At least our success here and in Korea stopped Congress from considering reactivating the draft.”
Duncan agreed. “Sometimes I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a draft, but I have to admit that we have a strong volunteer force, and if we can avoid returning to the draft, then we should.” “But—” Beau said.
“We’ll discuss that over a beer or two once I get back to Norfolk,” Dick Holman said.
“Boss—”
“No but bosses, Beau. You can go to London after the war.”
A twinkle in his eye, Dick Holman stared at Beau. “London? I’m heading east, and you want to take time off to go to London?”
“Yes, sir,” HJ added. “He fancies a small Irish pub there called the O’Conor Don and has this fantasy about adding his photograph to the hall of heroes leading up to the restaurant.”
Duncan laughed. “It’s more than that. He fancies leaning on the bar, slurping Guinness, and flirting with the waitresses that work there.”
“In that case. Admiral, I will relieve him of that duty and go myself,” HJ offered, bowing at the waist. “There is a redhead I fantasize about.”
“Methinks Bethesda cloth want you first,” Duncan said, laughing. “See you around the waterfront, Dick. Good luck, and hope the war is over soon.”
“And, you, Duncan?”
“Well, Dick, I think my wife and I are going back up to Frederick, Maryland. Spend some time antiquing at the Antique Station and just sitting in the shade outside of the Church Street Cafe, watching the tourists.”
The two admirals shook hands. “Godspeed, my friend, and good luck.”
“You, too, Dick.”
Duncan stepped toward the door, stopped suddenly. Beau bumped into him.
“Beau?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You’re my EA, right?” Beau sighed. “Yes, sir, I am.”
Duncan handed him his briefcase. “According to the manual, you carry the briefcase.” He reached up and touched the stars on his khaki collars. “I never saw Admiral Hodges carry his own briefcase.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want the admiral to strain his arms,” Beau said, taking the briefcase and trying to balance it with his seabag.
“Beau, if you can’t be kind, then at least have the decency to be as vague as hell.”
Duncan winked at HJ. “I think I am going to really enjoy being an admiral.”
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