Sudden Threat

by A. J Tata

  The commandant of the Marine Corps, General Rolfing, gave the marines in Okinawa the mission to be on their vessels in less than twelve hours, steaming south to a position to be determined. The key was to get them moving. And they would be soon. While Stone also approved this order, Rolfing would have done it anyway. The Marines always marched to the sound of the guns.

  The chief of Naval Operations made the critical decision to halt the movement of the supply ship that was a day’s steaming time from Subic Bay. If he let it continue, the soldiers might be able to use it for a way out, but it would also be too lucrative a target. It was doubtful, if the insurgents now controlled the small Philippine navy, that the ship could get in unescorted as was initially planned. At Stone’s direction, he also put the Fifth Fleet on alert.

  The men sat in the “tank,” a secret briefing room near the chairman’s office in the Pentagon. Available to them was every type of sophisticated communications and monitoring system in the world: secure telephones, secure radios, secure satellite radios, huge television screens that monitored CNN and could pick up foreign stations, and satellite downlinks. The chairman sat in the middle of one of the long sides of the mahogany table. The chiefs of staff surrounded him on either side. Seated across from him was Stone, who spoke first.

  “Gentlemen, we have a serious situation on our hands. It is a situation that has gotten out of hand very rapidly. We must get a handle on it ASAP, develop a strategy to recommend to the president, then be able effectively to execute it better than we—well never mind. We need to fix it. I’m pretty sure we don’t have a plan for this, so let’s figure out how to extract ourselves from it and drive on,” Stone said somewhat incoherently.

  Chairman Sewell, Stone’s military counterpart, leaned forward and laid out the situation as he saw it. He was an Army four-star general who had risen through the ranks from private. He had attended the University of North Carolina on a ROTC scholarship, where he played right tackle on the football team and had earned the Hughes award for the top ROTC candidate of his year. He had large arms that strained the material of his uniform, look-ing somewhat awkward. He had gone completely bald, with only gray stubble on each side to remind him that he had ever possessed hair. His face was round, and his jowls hung low like a bulldog’s. He had diagonal eyebrows that converged near the bridge of his nose, giving him a sinister look.

  He believed strongly in protecting his war fighters and wanted some quick, decisive action to get his young troops out of harm’s way. But he knew it would not be that easy.

  “The first thing we have to keep in mind is that we have a few personnel that we know of in captivity, Secretary Rathburn, Matt Garrett, and the pilot. Anything we do must be tempered with the realization that it might backfire against them—”

  “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a primary consideration, but again, it can’t be a massive operation,” Stone interrupted. Could Keith Richards really be a hostage?

  “Right,” Sewell continued, cutting an annoyed glance at the SecDef. “We’ve got an A team on Mindanao that’s probably about out of gas. They were supposed to be picked up near the City of Cateel yesterday, 1600 Philippine time.” As he talked, a lieutenant colonel pointed to a huge map of the Philippines, showing the town of Cateel.

  “We’ve also got a light infantry rifle company at Subic Bay. We think the commander has moved. It was probably a smart idea; we’ll see. So basically, we’ve got three groups of people we have to get, and we don’t have any real idea where any of them are. My first inclination is to let Special Ops prepare for the extraction of the hostages. We should be able to get a fix on their location in a couple of days—”

  “Couple of days?” Stone questioned.

  “Sir, we cannot go get people if we don’t know where they are. It’s that simple,” Sewell shot back, looking Stone directly in his eyes. Stone looked away. All part of the act.

  “Fred, how soon can you have an expeditionary brigade under way from Okinawa?” he asked General Fred Rolfing, the first black commandant of the Marine Corps. Rolfing looked like a Marine. His hair was cropped tightly to his dark skin. He had a thick, square jaw that sported an eight-centimeter scar he had received in hand-to-hand combat in Vietnam.

  “Twelve hours,” he said, without flinching. A Marine expeditionary brigade (MEB) included an air attack team, a regimental landing group, and its own organic service support group. It was a completely self-sufficient battle group capable of conducting sustained operations. The Marine aircraft group of the MEB included twenty AV-8B Harrier fighter aircraft, twenty-four F/A-18 fighter aircraft, and over seventy cargo helicopters. The ground element consisted of seventeen tanks and three infantry battalions. The entire MEB nearly had the firepower equivalent of an Army infantry division. “But it will take away from our Iraq prep. Those guys are getting under way for the Middle East.”

  Stone thought that was a good comment. Iraq prep. It was all about Iraq prep, wasn’t it?

  He looked at Dick Diamond and Saul Fox. With every mention of this unit or that unit being possibly diverted away from “Iraq prep,” both Diamond and Fox appeared visibly to take a body blow, like a fastball to the stomach.

  To avoiding protesting too much, Stone let Sewell take the lead.

  “So our first move is to get people ready. Tad, you’ve got the Rangers ready go right now, correct?” Sewell asked. General Tad Murphy was the new Special Operations commander. He had been in the position for less than a year and had established himself well. But he knew a simple Ranger mission would not get the job done. Nor would a Marine expeditionary brigade. They needed some good intelligence and they needed to be able to talk to someone in authority, whoever it might be.

  “Yes, sir. But let me say something,” Murphy said. The others looked at him. It was nearly 0300 hours, and everyone was tired. No one was in the mood for any pontificating.

  “Sir,” he said looking at Stone, “I have to say that this looks like the next front in the GWOT. This Iraq thing will take hundreds of thousands of soldiers to do it right, so we will have to determine what the main effort is,” Murphy continued.

  Fox coughed, “That’s preposterous, General.”

  Stone rubbed his face. Hmm, how to play this one? Side with my deputy or encourage the counterplan? Stone was reveling in the discourse and determined he should remain consistent.

  “Let me make one thing clear, everyone. Iraq is a go. So we have to plan around it. Anyone who can’t live with that can go find another job,” Stone said.

  Two Oscars in one day, Stone thought. Iraq is a go! Genius. By so strongly arguing for the affirmative, a simple debating technique, he was certain that someone would begin to harden their position against going to Iraq, the counterplan. If that failed, well, Wood and Watts, the bass and lead guitarists, would certainly come to the rescue.

  And the real problem, Stone thought, was that the best way to kill a venomous snake was to cut off its head. By shifting focus to Iraq, Stone believed America’s hand was releasing the viselike grip on the neck of the viper and sliding along the scaly abdomen, opening the possibility for another fanged attack.

  But thankfully, the Rolling Stones had a solution for this little problem, and it hadn’t cost the American taxpayer a dime.

  Better than Iran-Contra!

  CHAPTER 50

  Greene County, Virginia

  Karen Garrett, Matt’s and Zachary’s sister, had been calling the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and her congressman for the last twenty-four hours, but only ran into the usual bureaucratic nightmare. Nobody could tell her the location of either of her brothers. Not only because they did not know, but also because everything was “classified.”

  Angry and frustrated, she had not slept for almost two days. Their mother had passed away, and the funeral was scheduled for that day. They really could not put it off any longer. She reported to her father, almost shamefully, that nobody could locate his two sons. Her father looke
d away, sad. “Bring the boys home,” was all he said, then walked away.

  Karen turned her coffee cup in her hand, looking out the window, recalling the events of the past few days. With the help of the bourbon, she had not cried, but her eyes remained moist, ready to gush whenever the switch flipped. She watched curiously as a sedan pitched and rocked, slowly making its way to the house. By then she could see some writing on the door of the car.

  Usually, uninvited visitors in that part of the country did not bring good news. Had she paid the taxes this month, she wondered? Was she behind on her fertilizer payments? As the car parked in the gravel lot to the front of the wooden porch, she read the words: u.s. government on its side. The car stopped, and she watched the blond woman step out of the driver’s seat. She was wearing a nice blue dress with high heels. Karen checked her own visage in the hallway mirror as she stood. Trademark ponytail yanked into a knot revealing a fresh, sans-makeup look.

  The funeral was not for another two hours. What could she be doing here? And who was she? She let the woman knock on the door.

  Walking to the door, she pondered what bad news the woman would bring. Her mother was dead, her father was ill, and she had been in her room crying for two days. Where she got her strength, she did not know. But it seemed to grow with each passing moment. For some reason she knew she could hold on. Opening the door, she stared at the mountains behind the woman’s pale hair.

  She could feel their strength building inside her, as if her mother’s passing had left something tangible in her character; another I-beam. She would need it.

  “Hi. I’m Meredith,” she said, seeing Karen in person for the first time. “You must be Karen.” Meredith looked at Karen’s clean face, so fresh and pure. Her eyes were penetrating, like they knew what she was thinking.

  “That’s right,” Karen said, blankly, not making a connection. She held the door open with one hand, her body blocking the entrance to the wooden foyer.

  “Karen, may I come in for a second? I’ve driven down from DC.”

  “No. Let’s sit on the porch,” she said, closing the door behind her, as if to protect what remained of her family from the intruder. The porch was a typical farmhouse addition. The roof hung over a high wooden structure that had old metal chairs that would rock if one leaned back in them hard enough. The red bricks from the house were stained with red clay. She let the screen door slam behind her and walked over to a metal chair, taking a seat.

  “I’m sorry, Meredith, did you say?” She cupped her hands on her knees. “The funeral’s not for another two hours—”

  “I’m so sorry for the loss of your mother,” Meredith responded, covering her mouth with her hands. She had been traveling for the past two days on her return from Palau. A secretary had told her that Matt’s mother had died and that a woman was trying to get in touch with him for the funeral.

  Her first stop, though, had been at the home of Chief Warrant Officer Ron Peterson outside of Seattle, Washington. She accompanied the casualty-assistance team on their grim notification duties and passed Ron’s identification tags to his wife, as she had promised Matt. Now, having just arrived on the East Coast, Meredith was exhausted, but decided to travel to the farm, two hours away, immediately, and inform the Garrett family of the situation.

  “Karen. I have some information on Matt and Zachary,” Meredith started.

  “Yes,” Karen said, eyes darting up quickly, “tell me.”

  “Both of your brothers are in the Philippines. We have communications with Zachary, who is in the jungle with his company. They have been fighting, but he is fine. Matt,” she sighed, “Matt …” She hesitated again.

  “What’s happened to him?” Karen screamed as she stood and approached Meredith dangerously.

  “Karen, Matt’s been taken hostage by some Filipino rebels,” she said, finally.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God,” she screamed. “My family. What’s happening to my family?” Meredith stood and hugged her, dropping her purse on the wooden porch. Karen was limp in her arms and actually pushing away from the bearer of bad news. Meredith’s clutch was too tight, though, and they both were crying.

  “We’ll get him back. He’s special, I know.” Karen hugged Meredith back, more from lack of strength than for any other reason. The dam of stoicism burst under the relentless pressure. Even the bourbon couldn’t help. The news had sapped her strength the way the sun sucked the life from a man stranded in the desert. She felt isolated, with nowhere to turn, so she held on to Meredith for no particular reason. She could not show her father such emotions. She had to be strong for him.

  But her father watched from the field. He saw the two hugging on the porch and had heard her scream. Once again, he dropped his hoe, took a knee, and grabbed a fistful of dirt, squeezing tightly, trying to wrench one more drop of good fortune. He knew that something was badly wrong and only wanted to make it right. His family had toiled hard for decades. They had served their country better than most.

  Looking at the loose, red dirt in his hand, he prayed for the safe return of his boys. “Bring the boys home,” he said, loudly and with passion. “Bring the boys home!” he screamed at the heavens, arms stretched high reaching toward the God he knew and loved.

  Karen retrieved her father, and they moved inside to the parlor, as they still called it in the Garrett house. Karen had started to fix coffee, but Meredith quickly took over, floating around the kitchen as if she had lived there forever. Soon she came out with a tray of coffee and hot tea. The Garrett family drank heartily, warming their dank spirits. Meredith repeated the story, this time with less emotion on both sides. She said that the Departments of State and Defense were doing everything they could to get a handle on the situation. Meredith tried to be positive, talking up the actions of Zachary’s company. Word had gotten back to the Defense Department that he and his soldiers had acted bravely, she told them.

  “I expected nothing less,” Mr. Garrett said, proudly.

  Then Meredith told them about the airplane and how lucky Matt was to be alive. She choked on her words when she said it, but she was looking for something positive. It had backfired, though, only serving to underscore the gravity of the situation.

  Meredith stayed with the family that day, attending the funeral and meeting many of the fine people of Stanardsville, who had always relied so heavily on Karen and the rest of the Garrett family. They reminded her so much of her own family and friends from her part of Virginia. The accent was the same: Elizabethan English. They all pronounced their “ou” words with the same throaty mountain drawl. The “u” was never silent. “House” became a two-syllable word, stressing the long “u.”

  It seemed that everyone from town came to the funeral. The Reverend Early arrived beforehand and consoled Karen and her father. He delivered a warm and powerful eulogy, describing their mother as a woman of the soil. Recalling her family tradition throughout the county, he quoted from Romans 11: “If the root is holy, so are the branches.”

  “Elizabeth Garrett was a loving and caring person,” he had said. “Someone who would give a stranger water if he was thirsty, someone who would feed a starving man, someone who provided for her family without complaint. She was holy, and her life produced three holy “branches,” two of which are not here. She was a rock, and the Blue Ridge formed around her; indeed this community formed around her. And now she returns to the soil that sustained her, the dirt she had tilled and caressed.”

  They attended church that afternoon, as well. It was a small brick structure. The four of them were the only ones there. They sat in a row and prayed for Zachary and Matt and all of the other soldiers in the Philippines as well as those deployed in Kuwait and Afghanistan. It was hard, but they all had faith. Then Meredith helped cook for all of the well-wishers who stayed after the funeral and visited with the family. Many people stayed late into the evening, and she enjoyed the company, but the pall of Matt’s and Zachary’s absences hung over the room like a deadly fog. No
one could concentrate.

  After the mourners departed, Meredith went out to her car and changed back into the pair of sandals she had driven down in. There were cups and dishes everywhere, and Karen looked at Meredith, noting her change in footwear, and plopped onto the sofa.

  “Thanks, Meredith. You didn’t have to do all of this.”

  “Why don’t you just go to bed,” Meredith said, holding an armful of plates.

  “No. Just leave it. I’ll get it later. I think I’m gonna go sit on the porch for a while,” Karen said in an exhausted voice.

  “Okay But I want to help, so just accept the fact that I’m gonna do this,” Meredith said. Karen looked at her and smiled for the first time in days. There was nothing self-serving about Meredith. She was all give and no take. She was just like Karen. Karen walked up the stairs, then came back down.

  “Here,” she said, tossing Meredith a pair of blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. “You’ll be more comfortable in these.”

  “Thank you, Lord,” Meredith said, looking skyward. “My first prayer of the day has been answered.” The two women laughed, but it was a fleeting moment, gone like a rabbit into the bush. Nonetheless, Meredith changed into the more comfortable clothes, noticing that they fit rather well.

  Karen walked onto the porch and sat on the steps while Meredith busily cleaned the rest of the dishes. When Meredith was done putting them away, she walked into the cool mountain air, letting the screen door slam against the door frame. Karen looked up.

  “Sorry,” Meredith said.

  “No bother. Daddy’s a sound sleeper,” Karen replied. Meredith sat on the steps next to Karen. Two women cut from the same cloth. Neither knew the depths of the Depression or world wars that their parents had experienced, but they recognized that life was polarizing. They maintained a source and sense of idealism, the lure of the majestic Blue Ridge, while having the grit to perform the tasks at hand. They were driven by lofty ideals but not stymied by the idealism.