America jtf-2

by David E. Meadows

  “That’s the part of the story I don’t care for.”

  Abdo nodded. “It is the part I don’t like either, but a part that I do not worry about occurring in this day and age. The Americans would never do what is needed to stop those who willingly give their lives for their religion.”

  The shooting stopped. His bodyguards returned from their duties. No way could he allow the Africans to talk as soon as they reached home or one of those hovels converted to serve alcohol. It was in their best interests to have no witness left behind who could tell the Americans what was coming.

  On the stern of the ship, the Jihadists clapped in appreciation to the executioners as they hoisted their weapons and spread out along the dock beside the ship.

  “Single up all lines,” came the shout from the bridge. Leaning out from the edge of the bridge wing, a thin dark man, wearing a dingy Greek Navy cap with dirty embroidered gold leaves on its brim, held a bullhorn to his lips. On board the ship, two men stood at each of the eight lines holding the ship to the pier. On the pier, the bodyguards lifted the top line off the bollards and dropped it. The seamen, hand over hand, rapidly pulled the lines aboard the ship.

  The Captain rushed from one end of the long bridge wing to the other, watching his seamen build a stack of lines behind each portal where a mooring line threaded its way to the pier, until finally the end of each flew onto the deck and joined the neatly curled stacks.

  Satisfied, he raised the bullhorn. “Cast off lines one, two, three, four, six!”

  Four minutes later, the ship was tied to the pier only by the stern line. Abu Alhaul watched, but failed to understand why the Captain kept one line taut.

  On board the ship, the Captain leaned into the bridge.

  “Helmsman, right full rudder, three revolutions ahead.”

  The helmsman swung the wheel to the right, watching it spin, hand over hand, the maneuver most mariner work required. He kept the wheel spinning until, “Right full rudder, Captain.” He glanced at the annunciator. “Engine room shows ahead three revolutions.”

  The Captain ran to the front of the bridge wing and watched the bow as it slowly swung out, away from the pier. Then the ship inched forward. He glanced behind him at the remaining seventh line; it was slack as the stern swung in toward the pier. About six feet separated the ship from the pier. Raising the bullhorn, he shouted, “Take in seven!”

  Ashore, the bodyguards shoved the huge line off the bollard. Aboard the ship, the seamen hurriedly pulled the line on board.

  The Captain stuck his head into the bridge. “Ahead, twelve revolutions. Rudder amidships. Navigator, give me data.”

  “Recommend course two-eight-five, three knots.”

  “Helmsman, steer course two-eight-five, three knots.”

  * * *

  Abu Alhaul and Abdo watched the ship until it cleared the harbor entrance.

  Abdo cleared his throat. “My brother, the Irish have asked again for their money.”

  Abu Alhaul shook his head. “We have given them over a hundred thousand British pounds and they failed their mission. What do they—”

  “They think that they acted in good faith to extract your revenge from this American. The fact that they failed to do it is lost in their sense of mission.”

  Abu Alhaul stared at Abdo for a few seconds, then pointed toward the freighter. “That ship will take care of what they failed to do. I find it disgusting that we must work with infidels to do what we should do ourselves. They were your idea, Abdo — my brother — you take care of the Irish. I do not care to work with them again. Their battle with their British masters is theirs; not ours.”

  Abdo bit his lower lip, then replied. “Don’t you think you are allowing personal vengeance to cloud our war of faith?”

  Abu Alhaul remained silent, staring at the fading ship. Minutes passed with only the noise of the nearby jungle filling the air before Abu Alhaul finally turned and started walking away, remarking to Abdo, who joined him, “It’s time to go. The French will be here soon. The explosion will have been reported.”

  With bodyguards leading the way, the group walked through the vacant warehouse to the SUVs on the other side. Thirty minutes later the pier and harbor were quiet.

  Beneath the dock, the African pulled himself up until his head was just enough above the dock so he could see. He waited several minutes before crawling out and onto the dock. Another couple of minutes passed before he jumped up, and at a crouching run dived for cover behind a stack of rusting metal. Fifteen minutes he waited before he worked his way to the warehouse and followed in the direction Abu Alhaul had disappeared. At the far end of the warehouse, he squatted, running his hand along the tire marks on the ground. Then, apparently satisfied, he looked in the direction the SUVs had disappeared. He thought about going back to check on the other Africans, but to do so would leave signs of his presence. There had been a moment, when the ship was getting underway, when he’d thought the bow was going to jar the pilings where he had wedged himself. He rubbed his thighs. He was going to be one sore puppy tomorrow, but tonight he must report what he had seen. The lean African turned in the opposite direction from where Abu Alhaul and his group had disappeared. Moments later he turned off the road and onto a faint animal trail leading into the jungle.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Tucker, come in!” Rear Admiral Duncan James said, a broad smile etched across his face. The muscular fifty-three-year-old head of Navy SEALs briskly walked around his Pentagon desk, firmly taking Tucker’s hand and shaking it. “Here, have a seat and tell me how you’re doing.” Duncan pointed to one of the maroon leather chairs facing his desk.

  “I’m doing fine, Admiral,” Tucker replied, waiting a fraction of a second to sit, allowing Admiral James to sit first. Junior personnel never sit before the senior officer does. Neither do they sit first when civilian ladies are present.

  The door opened and Yeoman Chief Gonzales briskly entered the room. Balanced between her hands was a small aluminum tray with a silver-plated coffeepot between two small cups and saucers.

  “Thanks, Chief,” Admiral James said as she set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the two men. James smiled. Tucker’s eyes glanced for a moment at the nice well-rounded legs of the Chief. “Nice, eh?” he said to Tucker, pointing at the coffee, and smiling at the slight embarrassment he caused the Commander.

  “If you need anything else, sir, I’ll be at my desk,” she said, her voice a husky Chicano accent.

  Without waiting for a reply, she turned sharply on her heels, closing the door quietly as she left the room. A faint odor of perfume whiffed behind her.

  Admiral James waited a second for her to clear the outer door. “I’ll get us some real mugs for this coffee, Tucker,” he said, in a conspiratorial tone as if the two of them were breaking one of the Chief’s rules of the house.

  It made Tucker think of his two brothers and the nighttime raids on Mom’s cookie jar when they were lads. The Admiral rose quickly to cross the room to the cabinet where a host of official coffee mugs rested in a line. Mugs given to him from various commands and organizations over the course of his thirty-three years of service. “I’ve always thought that real men never drink coffee from a cup that causes your pinkie to stick out when you pick it up. I like a cup that fights back at you.”

  Tucker stood, waiting for the Admiral to return. “Some of the coffee I’ve had at sea would meet the Admiral’s expectation.”

  “Sit down, Tucker,” James said when he turned around. “It isn’t as if we have a bunch of rank-conscious, tradition-loving, rear-echelon mother lovers here,” he continued as he walked back, waving the officer down. James set the mugs on the coffee table.

  Tucker reached for the pot, but Admiral James beat him. “Now tell me,” he said as he poured, “how are you—really? Those wounds healed?”

  Tucker took his cup and nodded. “Still a little tight, but thanks to you giving me the time off to get my physical strength and stamina back,
along with that Navy Lieutenant Commander who says she’s a physical therapist — but I think her real job is an interrogator for the CIA.”

  “So, you’re ready to go back to the front lines?”

  “I think I am ninety-eight percent ready to go, sir. Of course, sir, if you listen to my physical therapist, I am about one step away from the grave.”

  Duncan laughed. “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. Nurse Bradley, right?”

  “That’s the one.”

  James shook his head, laughing. “She would have been at home during the Inquisition. When I came back from the North African campaign, from rescuing a bunch of American hostages”—he reached down and rubbed both knees—“these knees had given up the ghost. They went in, scraped some of the debris off them, then the doctors at Bethesda handed me over to her. They were as cheerful as sadists at a funeral. I know she may be your age, but she had no sympathy with an old man like me at fifty-two.”

  “She definitely believes in making you hurt.”

  “If it isn’t hurting, she used to say, it isn’t healing. I always told her that if hurting meant it was healing then I had two of the best knees in the military.”

  Tucker smiled. A memory flashed through his thoughts of the young, thin Navy nurse. They had become more than patient-doctor after about a month together.

  “I am firmly convinced,” James said, leaning forward and in a soft voice, “that the Air Force intentionally seeks out the best-looking women in America, and it’s the Navy that puts them in uniform.”

  “She was definitely that,” Tucker added. He recalled the forced march Samantha Bradley—call me Sam—took him on his second day out of surgery. Three miles up the Potomac and back — badgering him along the way about a lowly Navy nurse outpacing a hard, war-tempered Navy SEAL. It was only through tenacity and force of will that he had completed the walk. It was only through double doses of whatever the military was using for bad joints at the time that he had successfully forced himself out of bed the next morning.

  Duncan chuckled. “I see from your face you agree with me. Sam Bradley forced me on a six-mile round-trip exercise my first week out of surgery, telling me how happy she was to know that a Navy nurse was able to outpace an old, has-been Navy SEAL.” He paused. “I thought at the time, if I caught up with her, I’d throw her in the Potomac.”

  “The thought crossed my mind also, Admiral. I had a similar experience with her.” Three weeks together and he had asked her out. Nice dinner, with wine, candles, and a horrible piano player with two left hands. He had been pleasantly surprised at her feminine side. Nothing pretentious, he dropped her off at her apartment in Crystal City; a quick buss on the cheek and the next morning she was twice as horrible. Next time, he had decided, more wine, less talk.

  “How far you running now?”

  “I jogged with a bunch of the Joint Staff J3 SEALs yesterday. We did a fifteen-mile run along the Potomac, across the Memorial Bridge, through Washington, D.C., toured all the monuments, ran through a nude ‘no minks’ demonstration, and returned over the Fourteenth Street Bridge.”

  “And, I suspect you felt wonderful,” Duncan James remarked, thinking of his gone-to-hell knees and how they would feel if he did a fifteen-mile run.

  “I felt like hell, sir. My lungs ached. My legs ached. I think even the hair on my head ached. But, when I finished, it was a great feeling. It was as if the exertion burned out the poison in my body. Not to mention that first beer tasted so damn good.”

  “I know what you mean, Tucker. The best reward for completing a hard physical workout is that first beer.” He paused and then, with a sigh, continued. “Tucker, down to business. The reason I asked you here today is to personally provide you a debrief on the events at your home in Urbana, Maryland, three months ago — May. My contacts at Naval Security Group Command tell me you’re asking questions and trying to determine why these three men attacked you.” James leaned over and pulled a thick binder off his desk. He opened it, took a sheet of paper from it, and laid the binder on the coffee table.

  Tucker recognized the sheet as a blue blazer. A one-page tickler of bullets that gave just enough information for an uninformed reader to comprehend what the subject was about; why it was important; and what courses of actions were being recommended.

  Tucker set his coffee on the table and clasped his hands together. He did want to know what happened. He had spent nearly three weeks in Bethesda — one in intensive care — as they dug out the bullet and repaired the damage to his body. It had taken another six weeks of physical therapy to allow him to reach a point where he was able to return to the heavy physical regime demanded of a United States Navy SEAL. The vision of Sam broke into his thoughts as he recalled his first run after several platonic dates with her. They were standing on the paved trail that ran along the Potomac near the Pentagon North parking lot. The run was going to be a short one. Two miles up and two miles back. He finished stretching and turned to start, her alongside him to the left. Suddenly, she had leaned against him, pressing her small breasts against his arm.

  “If you catch me,” she whispered softly, “you can have me.” Then, she had pushed him away, causing him to trip, while she took off at a dead-heat down the path. It had taken him several seconds to give chase, but he never caught her. It took a week to catch her. He smiled. She had been true to her word, and now he couldn’t quit thinking of that lithe, smooth body—

  Admiral James saw the smile and smiled himself. “You didn’t think you could try to find out what was being kept from you without it being noticed, did you?”

  Tucker quit smiling. What did the Admiral mean? “Sorry, Admiral, my mind wandered for a moment.” His thoughts came back to that event in May. Every door he beat on since leaving Bethesda Naval Medical Facility had slammed shut in his face. Every question asked was met with feigned ignorance even as he knew they were lying.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice slightly irate. “I want to know why I had an Irishman and a couple of dumb American buddies trying to kill me. And, Admiral, with all due respect, maybe someone can tell me why it seems that everyone but me knows why?”

  “Don’t blame you at all, Tucker. Let’s start with the world in the twenty-first century…”

  Tucker’s eyes narrowed. He had heard so much about Rear Admiral Duncan James, and here the man was fixing to go off on some tangent to avoid telling him the truth.

  “It’s gone to shit in a handbasket. We fight an enemy who is stateless and ruthless. He crosses national borders as if they don’t exist, and when we follow him to take out those nations who harbor terrorists and provide them sanctuary, we’re the ones called terrorists. When we do find and shut down his financial backings, he moves on, depending on fake charities and business fronts to provide money to take anarchy, death, and destruction to those who refuse to believe as he does. Between you and me, nothing scares me more than a religious fanatic, regardless of what religion he or she belongs to. When you have no tolerance for how others believe and worship, then you’re dangerous to everyone around you. They’re the most dangerous of the terrorists because deep within their religion they believe that terrorism is an acceptable means to spread it.”

  Tucker listened even as he picked up the coffee and sipped. The words of Duncan James caused him to recall the story of a radio interview where the woman reporter proclaimed that if we hadn’t taken God out of schools and turned our backs on Him in our lives, September 11th would never have happened. The radio show ended quickly when Admiral James pointed out that, one, it wasn’t God that did the horrors of that day — it was his followers, and, two, the Taliban had prayer in every school and forced it on everyone’s lives. Admiral James continued to talk about the importance of tolerance as Tucker feigned interest. He didn’t care why they were killing and running amok. His job was to find and kill them. Tucker didn’t see much reason to sit around philosophizing when the people he was fighting were shooting back at him. Tucker forced himself to
pay attention. When flag officers spoke, you at least kept your eyes from glazing over. Rumor had it the Chief of Naval Operations had asked Admiral James to avoid future interviews after several demonstrations broke out over his words. Someone had told Tucker that a mullah in Iran had declared open season on Admiral James. If so, Tucker could see why.

  “Sorry about that,” Admiral James said. “I tend to digress sometimes. That digressing keeps getting me in trouble. If it wasn’t for some congressmen trying to insure that we in the military have some sort of freedom of speech, it’d be good odds I’d be gone by now. Let’s get back to you and what happened in May. You recall a mission in Yemen two years ago?”

  Tucker thought for a moment. There had been so many missions. It had to be one staged out of Djibouti. “Yes, sir,” he finally replied. “I think I do. If I’m right, it would have been Operation Wipe-up. We followed a major campaign of Joint Task Force Promote Freedom. Promote Freedom was a massive hunt-and-kill operation against a reemerging Al Qaeda base in the Wild West hill country of Yemen. Lasted about three weeks. Everyone said it was a great success. Army Blackhawks dropped us to ground in the hills around a lawless tribal area of Northern Yemen. We waited a week after Promote Freedom had ceased and the bombing had stopped for those terrorists hiding to reemerge. Then we started a covert search-and-destroy against them. We had a two-prong effort with us Americans operating on the southern end of the operations zone and the British-Australian Special Forces working their way south from the northern edge of the zone. We engaged and destroyed numerous small groups of terrorists active in the area.”

  “I have read the operations report, Commander. You make it seem easier than what the reports show. Your group broke into teams, and our closest allies in the north broke into teams. At one time, we must have had twenty special-operations force teams running about the countryside killing and destroying. Essentially, when you finished, you had wiped out nearly all of the new Al Qaeda camps. The teams also stumbled on a couple of new training camps with young recruits eager to commit martyrdom to meet Allah, and the teams arranged those meetings for them. Nope, it was truthfully a great moment in special-operations history, which is one reason that as a commander you were awarded the Silver Star.”