Hannibal is at the Gates

by David Kershner

  “Okay,” she replied and then asked the question that had been haunting her since the day she found out about her father. “What did they do to you over there? What made Papaw decide you were too broken to be with my mom?”

  Josh thought for a moment and looked at Layla and Katherine.

  “Show her,” Katherine said.

  He glanced over for agreement from Layla. She nodded and added, “She’ll never understand it until she she’s it.”

  Josh proceeded to stand up and began unbuttoning his worn flannel shirt. Once all of the buttons were undone, he removed it to reveal the systematic scarring that adorned his body.

  Heather covered her mouth as she gasped, “Oh my God! Why would they do that?”

  “Well, not all of this was done by them. Some of it is from the doctors trying to address the injuries from a horribly executed rescue attempt. The long scars on my chest and back were the result of torture and interrogation. These here, here, and here,” he said as he began to point to different locations on his chest and shoulders. “The ones that look like stars, those are bullet wounds.” Next he held out his arms and explained, “These on my forearms are from surgery where they repaired tendon and ligament damage.”

  Heather stood up and walked timidly toward him. As she approached, she reached out her hand and began to run her fingers over the raised scars and burn marks on his chest and back. After a few moments of silence, she asked, “What caused these?”

  “A whip mostly. Some of it was red hot steel being pressed against my flesh,” he answered matter of factly.

  Josh had been through this routine before with Layla and Katherine when they were children. As parents, he and Amanda decided that they needed to teach the girls not to be afraid of their father’s scars. As a result, they youngsters examined their father’s chest and back, much like Heather was doing now, and ask whatever questions they wanted.

  Katherine interjected and said, “He’s got a real nasty one on his thigh too. The idiots crashed the helicopter on the way to the field hospital. It was the crash that broke his arms and leg and put him in a coma.”

  “To be fair, it was hit by an RPG,” her father corrected.

  “How did you get shot then?” Heather asked.

  “Have you ever heard the story of William Tell?” Josh answered.

  “The guy with the apples?” Heather answered.

  “Exactly, but they tried it with a can of beans and a pistol. The shooter was another prisoner with a broken arm. She couldn’t properly grip the weapon or deal with the weight so...”

  “So you got hit,” Heather said and finished his sentence.

  “Four times actually, but one bullet just grazed me here,” Josh said as he pointed to his ‘USMC’ tattoo on the outside of his left bicep and the scar that bisected it.

  “Why were they doing this?”

  “The Serbs were convinced that one of the soldiers under my command had raped a local village girl. When the Marine Corps, or more specifically your grandfather, wouldn’t turn the guy over, they kidnapped eight of us in the middle of the night.”

  “That’s when you stuffed mom in a wall locker?”

  “Yeah, I heard the commotion. Jessica snuck into my quarters a few hours earlier and the only thing I could think to do was stick her in the cabinet. No sooner had I closed the door as they burst into the room and dragged me off. That was the last time I saw her.”

  “And the woman you were kissing this morning on TV? Who’s that?” his daughter asked with a sly smile.

  Chapter 3

  October 16, 2022

  After recuperating at the house of Berwari for several weeks, Gregg was transported to the U.S. outpost on the outskirts of Mosul. While the roads near Chammah were passable, they were a far cry from the interstates that crisscrossed America. The thirty-kilometers jolted and jarred his body the entire way.

  Unaware of Emily’s involvement in the committee meetings, Gregg had tried numerous times to reach his wife. At every turn he was thwarted. Her cell was no longer in service, there was no house line to speak of, and her work number went straight to voicemail.

  Once his identity was confirmed at the U.S. controlled checkpoint, Gregg was spirited to the infirmary. He was hooked up to numerous solutions to rehydrate and nourish his ravaged body. While he lay there, he was scanned for tracking devices. The debriefings began immediately from his hospital bed. The former POW recounted everything he could remember about his captivity. As soon as the nuclear launch vehicles were mentioned, he was put on the first transport and shipped to Germany.

  Colonel Wilson James, head of the PSY/OPS division, aggressively tried to reconstruct Gregg’s disjointed memories. The doctor was able to confirm Gregg’s suspicions that he had been drugged in preparation for his transport. He stated that it wasn’t uncommon and that this was a known insurgent countermeasure against an attempted escape.

  Couch therapy and panel discussions revealed additional insight, but everyone was becoming frustrated because the man’s mind was severely damaged. In the end, it was determined that the key to unlocking the entire ordeal was going to require unorthodox techniques. As a result, Gregg was asked to agree to hypnosis. The prevailing thought was that the method might allow him to better recall the events in more detail. Reluctantly, Gregg agreed.

  The doctor and his patient watched the playback of the session recording together as it was sometimes deemed helpful in these situations. It wasn’t. The hypnosis procedure itself was somewhat successful in that it provided a clearer picture. However, the doctors were convinced there was more to be gained. There were still too many pieces missing.

  All Gregg wanted to do was give them what they wanted so he could get home and find his wife. At this point, he was willing to agree to just about every test they had.

  When he mentioned this, Col. James presented him with an option called Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT). The premise behind RMT was relatively straightforward and was not all that dissimilar to hypnosis. As an example, the doctor explained in lay terms that, “When someone drinks too much, they forget things. In order to remember them, they need to drink again. The idea is to recreate the conditions that a person was experiencing at the time of that memory’s loss.”

  “You want me to go back under the scopolamine?” Gregg replied astounded. “Go down that road again?” he concluded hesitantly.

  “Exactly,” the Colonel answered.

  Gregg reluctantly nodded his agreement.

  “If I do this though, no matter what I say, I want to be discharged from the Army and have transport back to the States. I need to find my wife,” he pleaded.

  “I can’t agree to that, Gregg,” he replied. “I have no idea what you told them. However,” the doctor started to continue, but stopped when he saw Gregg starting to perk up. He concluded with, “You have my word that the minute we feel we have extracted all available actionable intel from your damaged mind, you’re on the first transport off this rock.”

  He then picked up Gregg’s service record file and said, “You, young man, have done enough for your country.”

  Shortly thereafter, with video and audio rolling, Gregg was administered the scopolamine.

  While under the effects of the drug, answers with more specifics about the launch vehicles, details about the cave structure, and the rooms and people he had seen came freely. They asked him seven ways from Sunday about the other prisoner, but all Gregg could remember were his screams. He had a faint recollection about Mahtab or Taj referring to him as ‘Airman’.

  Over the course of the dozen years that the war in the Middle East had raged, numerous sides had captured prisoners. The coalition forces were holding hundreds of thousands of enemy combatants. The insurgents used the scant few they had, mostly civilian contractors, as pawns in various ransom schemes. A few were even beheaded live on the web. Only a handful of the POW’s, like Gregg, were active duty servicemen. The addition of the ‘Airman’ reference immediately narrow
ed the pool to three.

  The doctors and Gregg poured over the service records of the three Airman, only one stood out. Airman Cecil Sullivan had accompanied a shipment of B2 mounted nuclear tipped missiles to Bagram. He was the odds on favorite as the anonymous cellmate. He had only been on base a few weeks before his bunkmate was found with his throat cut and he went missing.

  However, since all three had been POWs, they were removed from the active theatre of operations and returned to the States for debriefing and therapy. Gregg was to accompany his doctor to Walter Reed. Once that task was complete, they would pay a visit to Cecil in Albany, New York. Given Gregg’s revelations, they needed to identify the Airman and take him into custody quickly.

  The first of the three ‘Airman’ was in fact a Captain in the Air Force. His service record indicated that his jet had been shot out from under him by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) as he patrolled the skies above southern Iraq and Iran. The detailed account of his captivity put him in an insurgent camp near the Iranian city of Ahvaz. Gregg and the Colonel attempted to get the pilot to contradict himself and reveal himself as the person in the other cell, but to no avail.

  The second Airman contained even less information. The man had been horribly disfigured and was left unable to speak due to the loss of his tongue. Through written word, the patient was cleared as well. As expected, only Cecil remained.

  Although he had been on the receiving end of hot meals, showers, and warm beds, Gregg still wasn’t back to full strength. The interrogation of the Captain, combined with the two days of non-stop travel, had taxed him in ways he wasn’t familiar. He needed rest. Colonel James agreed and admitted him to Walter Reed for recuperation and observation. All Gregg cared about at this point was that he was back on his native soil.

  That was halfway home to Emily.

  * * *

  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brent Howard, stood ramrod straight as units of men paraded past the podium. The former Camp Lejeune Base Commander had been invited to oversee maneuvers and inspect the military installation as part of the yearly base inspection and readiness tour.

  The man had served for over four decades and answered the call whenever the nation had a need for him and the Marines under his charge. Brent had survived numerous wars, battles, and skirmishes, but sadly he had also outlived both his wife and his daughter. If the losses were wearing on him, the casual observer wouldn’t have known. To those around him he seemed just a stoic as ever.

  Just when he thought his career was beginning to reach its waning years, his division was deployed following 9/11. The man had practically done it all militarily, but he was growing old, tired. Mandatory retirement age was fast approaching and he was grateful.

  General Howard was introduced with the usual pomp and circumstance befitting his rank and position as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. As he took the podium, and surveyed the hardened faces of the Marines making up the latest incarnation of Lejeune’s II Marine Expeditionary Force, he softly smiled to himself. He then proceeded to fold his speech back up and replaced it in his breast pocket. He then launched into a speech derived from experience, from memories.

  “Stand at ease” he started. “I have proudly worn this uniform for a shade over forty years. As a child, I remember reading about the glorious history of the Marine Corps in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. My brothers and I would run around the country side in our fatigues scaring holy hell out of the neighbors as we would pop-up from behind cover and yell ‘Bam bam bam, I got you!’,” he said excitedly to laughter from those assembled. “But playtime ended when I received my commission. In my forty years, I’ve seen my share of war. In that time, I’ve lost over seventeen hundred men under my command. It’s a staggering number, all dead,” he concluded woefully.

  “You wonder sometimes why we train, teach, instruct, scold, and harangue you day and night. We do these things so that when the situation arises, you will know exactly what to do at all times. War causes chaos, gentlemen,” he said and then added, “and ladies. Chains of command are broken. Communications go down. We train so that I don’t see that number reach eighteen. Technology and advanced weaponry help, but the greatest attribute a Marine has is six inches above his neck.”

  He paused as he looked over the ranks and saw some of them shifting. “I can see from some of your faces, you’ve lost men too. Some were friends. All were Marines.” He then proceeded to engage his audience, “How many officers here today have served as enlisted?”

  A dozen or so hands were hesitantly raised.

  “NCO’s, how many of your commanding officers came to you, on day one of their assignment, and asked for a status of the men? How many asked what their needs were? How many asked your opinion?”

  An equal amount went up.

  “Those of you with your hands up, how many of your CO’s raised theirs?”

  None went down.

  “I see,” said the wizened warrior. General Howard then changed his tone and demeanor and barked an order, “I want all officers’ front and center right now!”

  When the senior staff and dignitaries seated on the stage didn’t budge, General Howard turned, glared at the assembly, and said, “That means you gentlemen. Move your ass and toe the line!”

  The men hastily exited their seats, quickly went single file down the stairs, and stood at attention with their officer corps.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff became more reflective and he started describing the man that he thought would have been his heir, Josh.

  “Thirty years ago,” he began. “I had a soldier under my command that took everything I knew about the Marine Corps and threw it out the window. Gone are the days when you taught and administered out of fear or an iron fist. I watched this man lead troops through Khafji while coordinating a multinational multi-branch assault on that city. He did all of this while directing air assets overhead. He took over three hundred men through the gates of hell and he brought every one of them home, save six. Yesterday, I saw this same man tell a Congressional Hearing that he doesn’t acknowledge a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel because he didn’t feel that he had earned it. Unbelievable.”

  The General became quiet. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to go with his speech. Then he remembered Josh’s playful banter with him the night he was abducted.

  “What I learned from this man was that, as officers, your sole responsibility is simply to address the needs of the men and adapt to the situation given the task at hand. If your soldiers are lacking equipment, training, anything, you improvise. You overcome. You beg, borrow, and steal whatever you have to until they have what they need to get the job done. Your comfort is always secondary. If your men are sleeping in the mud, you are too. Am I clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” erupted from the officers.

  Out of the corner of his eye, General Howard saw an aide sprinting towards the stage. He stopped his speech and turned to watch the man bound the stairs two at a time, stop several feet shy, and immediately snap a salute.

  “What is it, Corporal?”

  “Sir, you need to see this,” the enlisted man replied and handed the General the hand held electronic device.

  The General quickly glanced down to read the headline of the article: Serial Rapist Accosts Actress. He only made it as far as the first paragraph before turning to the microphone, “Colonel, I need to borrow one of your choppers!”

  General Howard pushed his way past the young man and started heading to the stairs and his waiting Humvee. The Base Commander and Deputy Commander were right behind him. Before entering the military vehicle, the Chairman turned and said, “Dismiss the troops, Sergeant Major,” and flashed a quick salute.

  The General took his seat and tersely said, “To the flight line, double time it, son.”

  The driver slapped a devilish grin on his face, jammed the pedal on the floor, and tore across the parade ground. General Howard used the minutes of the drive to finish reading the article on th
e aide’s smart phone.

  To his astonishment, not only had his granddaughter been accosted by a drug addled lunatic, but she had also managed to find her father. The author didn’t state this detail per se. The text simply stated that ‘Layla and Katherine Simmons happened upon serial rapist Javy Dolbrow assaulting actress Heather White while out on horseback. The three women then restrained him until authorities arrived. The wanted fugitive was currently in surgery under heavy guard’.

  Josh was the son he never had. As a result, he didn’t think twice about tasking him as his daughters chaperone. The young Major had accomplished his mission and saved his daughter from herself by giving her a purpose in motherhood. That one act brought Jessica back from the precipice she was fast approaching. Brent was able to return the favor by providing Josh’s military records during his double murder trial. All the while, he had always kept a watchful eye on his pupil and his family. He knew exactly where he had relocated and why.

  The General pulled a small leather bound black notebook from his inside breast pocket. He quickly turned pages to find what he was looking for and then handed it to the Base Commander. The page was blank with the exception of a set of coordinates for Josh’s farm.

  Over the droning of the loud military tires on the pavement, the General commanded, “I need to get here, ASAP!”

  The driver, under General Howard’s direction, brought the Humvee to a screeching halt in front of one of the dozen CH-53E Super Stallions parked on the tarmac. Next to the line of massive choppers were dozens of aging UH-1Y Huey Venoms. General Howard always prided himself on knowing the machinery being utilized by his men and knew that the workhorse choppers didn’t have the range to get him where he needed to go. He would have gladly hitched a ride in a Harrier, but all were either in various states of repair or were deployed on maneuvers elsewhere.

  The Base Commander exited the now parked Humvee, followed closely by General Howard, and handed the coordinates to the Super Stallion flight officer who promptly punched them in to the computer. As the Base Commander and Brent looked over the man’s shoulder, the distance came back on the flight system screen.