Joint Task Force #2: America

by David E. Meadows

  A shadow blocked her vision. “Lieutenant, you all right?” the Senior Chief asked. He moved her slightly, drawing a cry from her. “Well, now you’ve gone and done it, ma’am. You done got yourself stabbed, and you ain’t even downtown.”

  A second shadow joined his. “We’ll get you some medical service, Lieutenant,” the person said. He had on camouflaged utilities. Early saw the specks of blood along the uniform and across the war paint, as they called it, applied to his forehead.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Commander Tucker Raleigh.”

  A couple of other shadows joined him. “Get this officer to the weather deck where Lieutenant Commander Bradley can see to her.”

  Early reached up. “The bomb, Commander. They armed the bomb.”

  “We’re working on it, Lieutenant Early. Do you know how long ago they armed it?”

  “Been about ten minutes,” the Senior Chief answered. “The Lieutenant here, she saw the key the leader used to lock the panel wash back toward the van.”

  “Thanks. Let’s go,” Raleigh said to two armed sailors standing behind him.

  Early drifted into unconsciousness, her mind swirling round and round as if following a whirlpool taking her into oblivion.

  WHEN EARLY WOKE, SHE DISCOVERED HERSELF IN THE ship’s wardroom lying on top of a mattress someone had placed on the table. She felt the slight rocking of the ship. Sunlight entered the room through the small portholes. A tall woman in khakis had her back to her. The sun gave the woman’s dark hair a reddish tinge. Early forced out, “Water.”

  The woman turned. “Ah, you’re awake, Lieutenant.” She poured a glass of water and brought it to the table. “Tried to make you as comfortable as possible.” The woman had the collar devices of a lieutenant commander and a member of the nurse corps. She lifted Early’s head and held it while she drank.

  “How long have I been out?” Early asked, figuring an hour or so, since she was still on board the freighter.

  “I would say about a day and a half. We have more medical personnel arriving later today, and, thankfully, one of them is a surgeon. He’ll be the one to reopen the knife wound and make sure I did everything right. Wouldn’t want any secondary infection.”

  Early’s eyebrows arched. “We’re still aboard?”

  The woman let out a big sigh. “Yes, we’re still aboard and will be for some time.”

  The door opened and Senior Chief Leary entered. The man had on a fresh flight suit with the sleeves rolled up. His weeklong beard was gone. “Lieutenant! Damn! Am I glad to see you back among the living. You had me worried there for a while; though Lieutenant Commander Bradley here, she said not to worry. It didn’t look as if that giant did much internal damage to you.”

  “Senior Chief, I saw him knife you, didn’t I?” she said softly, surprised to find her breath short.

  “He nicked me, you might say. Our favorite nurse on board said it was only a flesh wound. But, this is a flesh wound about eight inches long. Sure as hell didn’t feel like any flesh wound.”

  Early lifted the sheet slightly and was glad to see that her soiled flight suit had been replaced by a hospital shift. Anything was better than what she had been wearing for the past week. “Where’s Scott Kelly?” she asked, staring up at the Senior Chief.

  “He’s in another compartment. I believe in the former Captain’s Cabin. He’ll be fine, though. Lieutenant Commander Bradley here had to operate on him. He swears she didn’t use no novocaine or anathes . . . anates . . . Oh, you know. They didn’t put him to sleep.”

  Early turned to the nurse. “Why are we still aboard the ship?”

  The woman took the empty glass from Early. Early couldn’t even remember drinking the water, but she must have, because the glass was empty.

  “We’re quarantined for the time being, and that time being could be as much as a month.”

  “Quarantined? Why?”

  “Smallpox. Seems the terrorists on board this vessel were all infected with the smallpox virus. The Navy Intelligence rascal they sent on board believes their intentions were to come ashore with various dispersal orders. What they screwed up was that they were infected too soon. If whoever administered the virus had waited two to three days, then the fight could have been different aboard the ship, and if those infected had gotten off and made their way through America, everywhere they went they would have left an epidemic behind them.” The nurse sighed. “Thousands could have died.”

  The door to the wardroom opened and Commander Tucker Raleigh stepped through. Seeing Early’s open eyes, he smiled. “Looks like you’re with us again, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ve had better days,” she said humorously. “Six days ago, if someone had told me that as a P-3C pilot I would be lying wounded on a wardroom table on a terrorist ship, I would have taken bets.”

  “Lots of us would have.” He turned to Sam Bradley. Early saw the change in the man’s face. She had seen that look only once in her life, and for a brief second she felt a slight envy of the nurse.

  CHAPTER 12

  ADMIRAL HOLMAN LOWERED HIS BINOCULARS AND TOOK a deep puff on his cigar before lifting his ball cap to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The two-star Commander of the Atlantic Fleet Amphibious Group Two leaned forward, folding his hands across the top of the starboard wing stanchion. Grunting, he pulled his khaki belt tighter. God, it was good to see a couple of pounds gone this morning. He lifted the binoculars again and scanned the horizon for a moment before lowering them.

  “Damn!” he said, slapping the metal railing. “How in the hell did we allow them to slip through our net and make it this far? You tell me, Leonard Upmann, how in the hell we allowed this to happen?” He looked up at his Chief of Staff, meeting his stare.

  “Well, sir, if I may be so kind,” Upmann said, jerking his head to the right sharply. “I would say there is enough blame to go around for everyone. What part would you like me to share?” he asked, his voice level.

  Holman smiled slightly as he put the huge cigar back between his lips, shoving it to the left. “I’ll tell you, then, my fine Chief of Staff. I’m the one who should shoulder this debacle.” He pointed at the anchored freighter and then tapped his collar devices. “Right here is where the buck should stop.”

  The chop-chop-chop of an approaching helicopter caught their attention. A second later a huge CH-53 Sea Stallion flew over the USS Boxer, its prop wash rushing down on the two Navy officers standing on the starboard bridge wing, the smell of its exhaust enveloping them. Holman instinctively squinted his eyes shut to keep the fine particles the wind would churn up from blowing into them. Burning ashes from his cigar stung his cheeks. As the prop wash vanished and the propeller noise diminished, he opened his eyes. They watched silently as the battle-green helicopter continued toward the quarantined freighter. The freighter rode lightly on top of the calm seas, the slight west wind spinning it slowly on the single anchor running from its bow. Huge spots of rust rode over the dull red hull of the ship.

  “Daily rations,” Upmann said. He reached up, removed his ball cap with the scrambled eggs of a senior officer embroidered on its brim, and ran his arm along his brow to remove the sweat.

  “What did Mary Davidson say this morning?” Holman asked, referring to the Amphibious Group Two Intelligence Officer.

  “She said two died last night.”

  “Americans?”

  “No. Just assholes.”

  “When do these medical pariahs think we can bring our people home?”

  Upmann shook his head. He pulled a small tube of sunscreen from his khaki pants pocket and started rubbing the lotion on his forehead. “They haven’t. Right now, we are on the same ‘subject to change’ time schedule they put out a week ago.”

  Holman glanced at the man, pointed at the sunscreen, and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Don’t even think it, Admiral,” Upmann said. “It is indeed an urban folk myth that black people don’t sunburn. We just camouflage it better th
an you white folk; kind of like blushing.”

  Holman’s mouth dropped, causing him to nearly lose his cigar. “Captain Upmann, I am truly appalled you would think that such a thing was crossing my thoughts.”

  “Your apology is accepted, sir,” Upmann said with a slight nod. He screwed the top down on the tube and stuck it in his pocket. “Lots of good information this morning at the intelligence briefing, Admiral. You may want to have Mary do a swing-by at your convenience and give you an update.”

  Holman nodded.

  The helicopter tail spun to the east, aligning the fuselage with the stern of the freighter. The dark van was still anchored to the stern deck, but the raised afterdeck where the helicopter hovered remained bar. They had been using this uncluttered area as an ad hoc helicopter deck. Several white-clad figures emerged from the main forecastle, edged their way around a bunch of figures working on the van, and climbed a ladder to the raised afterdeck. Shielding their eyes from the summer sun, they looked up at the helicopter as its side door slid opened. An aircrewman inside the CH-53 leaned out the open door, slung out the metal arm that held the line, and pushed out a load of cargo. A cargo net, wrapped around a jumble of boxes, eased downward to the waiting personnel on the ship.

  “Guess life goes on, doesn’t it,” Holman said, pointing at the replenishing evolutions ongoing with the helicopter. He looked up at the tall, lean Surface Warfare officer who was finishing his second year as his Chief of Staff. The Bureau of Navy Personnel would up and jerk Upmann away from him in the coming year, and Holman would be faced with the prospect of selecting a new COS to replace him. The Navy worked to ensure the leadership triage of command never changed all at once, so the commander, his or her deputy, and the senior enlisted leader were transferred and replaced one per year. Holman had never had a deputy as Commander, Amphibious Group Two, though it was the largest amphibious fleet in the world. Next year, Holman would transfer, and the following year his Command Master Chief would hit the road. Thus, continuity of command was maintained. Everyone got his or her chance to screw up.

  “EOD is still working on the van,” Upmann said, casually pointing at the freighter. “They cleared the last booby trap inside the door and the probe came back indicating all clear. They’ve been in about thirty minutes. It’s lucky for us that Commander Raleigh had MacOlson’s EOD sailors with him. I don’t think SEALs would have figured out how to turn off the arming mechanism. If they hadn’t disarmed that device we wouldn’t need lights tonight—our own glow would suffice.”

  “Are they certain it’s a nuclear device?” Holman asked. He held the cigar over the railing and flicked the ashes off. “I figured the van was maybe a large bomb, but when the nurse—what was her name?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Samantha Bradley.”

  “Yeah. I figured when she identified smallpox on board the freighter that the true weapon was biological and, as we have discovered, terrorists, like criminals, are usually stupid anyway. This time, they infected themselves too early.”

  Upmann sighed. “Still not sure if the van was a feint. Commodore West’s EOD’ers have stated it’s not a nuclear weapon in terms of an atomic bomb. But they detected radiation when the door leading into the van was opened. Then there was the rigged grenade discovered that caused them to take two days to make sure there were no other bobby traps. Now whether it means we have a dirty bomb sitting out there or the radiation is a diversion for the human biological attack they mounted we won’t know until they finish their work.”

  Holman nodded. “Saw on CNN that the smallpox outbreak in Summer Haven, Florida, is contained. FEMA is handling it with experts from CDC in Atlanta. Soldiers from Fort Stewart have quarantined the small city for the time being.”

  “It could have been worse. If those deputies hadn’t stumbled on the terrorists when they beached themselves last week, they could have been anywhere in America—Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, even Washington. They could have split along four different routes and infected hundreds of thousands—millions, even—as everyone they infected passed it on to others. God was definitely looking down on America when those deputies grabbed them.”

  “They were at the right place at the right time.” Holman shuddered. “I hate to think what might have been.”

  “The Army has sealed the roads leading into and out of the small coastal village, and the FBI is joining the effort by going house to house with FEMA and local authorities to check on everyone, looking for any others who may have been exposed.”

  Holman glanced through the open hatch to the bridge before returning his gaze back to the freighter. “They’ll expand that effort farther and farther out—an expanding circle in the hopes they have stopped it.”

  “Even so, how do we know some visitor, some tourist, didn’t stop by there on his or her way home and is even now carrying the smallpox virus to some other place in America? It would definitely complicate things. Look what happened out there,” Upmann said, pointing at the freighter. “Every military man and woman vaccinated against smallpox and we still had five people come down with it. Two of the medical group, two of the EOD’ers who seized the ship, and one of the other EOD people who arrived within minutes of taking the son-of-a-bitch. Every one of those who came down with the disease had been vaccinated, and every one of them now with the disease. Maybe it’s a variant—something some mad scientist worked up to defeat the vaccination.”

  “Hope you’re wrong, Leo,” Holman answered. “Three of our people who had the vaccination did come down with smallpox, but Doc told me this morning that the other two who got it had never received the vaccination, which, of course, raises the question as to why they were sent out there anyway.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Holman nodded and flicked ashes off the end of his cigar. “One of the SEALs wasn’t vaccinated. He had been excused because of some sort of allergy complaint.” Holman shook his head in disbelief. “And one of the corpsmen was a Jamaican national—not even an American citizen—and somehow managed to avoid taking his. The other three we don’t know why or how they came down with it. They should have been immune. Which is why we have isolated the freighter, and inside that rusting bucket of bolts out there, all five of them have been further isolated. They are doing everything they can to control it. Bethesda Medical is sending down experts to help Portsmouth Naval Hospital, who provided the bulk of the doctors and nurses out there now. They’ve been working nonstop since the SEALs seized the freighter ten days ago.”

  “Good thing we didn’t bring the freighter in—”

  “Good thing Commodore West had the foresight to send a Navy nurse with them. I don’t think I would have thought of it.”

  “We have four wounded out there.”

  “I understand with the exception of the copilot of the P-3C, the others have minor wounds and will recover. The report I saw this morning from Captain Olensyski, head of the medical team, says even Lieutenant Kelly will recover. The emergency operation they performed within minutes of the medical team arriving on board appears to have succeeded. I like an officer who can make a decision. Some insist on having one hundred percent of the information they need before they’ll reluctantly do something. Sometimes you have to do things without knowing everything you’d like to. Eighty percent—give me eighty percent of the information needed and I can make a decision. That surgeon—whoever he or she was—had the copilot under the knife within thirty minutes of them landing. Two things about that decision: one, it probably saved the officer’s life, and two, if they had waited to ferry him to Portsmouth Naval Hospital, they could have unknowingly taken the smallpox virus with them.”

  Approaching helicopters drowned out their conversation as two more Sea Stallions approached the operations area, flying across the bow of the anchored USS Boxer, heading toward the freighter. The CH-53 hovering over the stern deck of the freighter had finished its mission. They watched as the helicopter veered away from its position over the freighter, freeing the
deck for the two approaching.

  “That’ll be the mortuary team,” Upmann volunteered.

  “Throats slit and they videotaped each one,” Holman said, venom in every word. “CDC has cleared the bodies for removal and turnover for cremation. Because of the smallpox, Department of Defense won’t be turning the bodies over to their next of kin.”

  “Did you have an opportunity to read the message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral?”

  “The one saying they intend to maintain the quarantine for forty days?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They’re basing their decision on the opinion of the Joint Staff J4, who based her decision on the disease. It takes one to five days for smallpox infection to set in; six to seventeen for it to incubate; then comes the critical period when for the next four to five days anyone coming in contact can catch it.”

  “That only adds up to twenty-something days, Admiral.”

  “It’s what happens afterward. For a period of around twenty to forty days the disease breaks out, and you either live or die, depending on your own health and the ability of your body to fight it. We know some of those—the terrorists—are in the later stage. What the message doesn’t say, but we know, is that the quarantine isn’t so much for those enshrouded in the throes of smallpox but because of the possibility others may catch it. That forty days is only if no one else comes down with it. Between us, Leo, I suspect we’ll have this little bit of God’s ocean roped off for more than forty days. Wouldn’t surprise me to see the Coast Guard continuing their round-the-clock patrols of this freighter for two to three months. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.” He flicked the cigar over the rail into the serene sea that belied its turbulent nature of ten days before.