Hannibal is at the Gates

by David Kershner

  Tom pushed it and said, “Would you like to know what I found out?”

  The Agent pressed its counterpart on the outside to reply. “What’s going on, sir? Where are we headed?”

  “Two of the convoys making their way to Omaha were hit by a portable EMP. All personnel were lost,” Sarkes answered.

  The four men stood crestfallen by the news.

  “Why did the Director order me to detain Agent Smith,” Ed said through the device.

  Sarkes replied in his usual candor, “That wasn’t Agent Smith. They just pulled the real Alister Smith from the Potomac.”

  * * *

  Airman Cecil Sullivan and Colonel Wilson James patiently stood and waited in the corner of the barracks with four MP’s as the Master Chief performed a head count. When they received his confirmation, they began their inspection.

  The pair had been on the ground only a few hours. In that time, they had managed to piss off a Major General, two full bird Colonels, and all of the personnel comprising their staffs. Calls were made, weight was thrown, but all requests for information were summarily denied. They met with the base commander and provided written authorization from the President to conduct house-to-house searches of the entire base. They were also to be presented with the service records of all personnel that had arrived in the last six months in addition to the addresses for those not residing on base.

  Cecil led the procession through the ranks of men with the Colonel and MP’s not far behind. Col. James had his hand on his side arm, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.

  On the flight in, the Airman had suggested that they winnow the number of troops to inspect by limiting the searches to male Spanish speakers and anyone looking remotely Latin or Arabic. The Colonel laughed and said, “Do you know how many laws that would violate?”

  Airman Sullivan didn’t much care about the civil liberties he stepped on, or over, as long as they found Abbas in time.

  The former POW looked over each of the assembled in turn, drawing close enough to smell their breath on some. He recoiled from one and declared, “Drunk.”

  Out of the fifty service members standing at attention, no one stood out. When they group made the last turn and began inspecting the final row of soldiers, one of the recently rotated airman bolted for the door. Cecil stopped the Colonel from giving chase and pronounced, “Too young.”

  Col. James waved the MP’s through the column and they apprehended the man not far from the barracks hiding under a car. When they searched him, all they found were four joints and a dime bag of weed. Dead end.

  “You boys seen enough?” the base commander bellowed as he entered and announced himself.

  “Not quite,” Cecil shot back.

  “Son, do you see the star I’m wearing?” the General replied.

  “Do you see the uniform I’m not wearing?” the Airman retorted.

  “How about I kick you and your shrink off my base, smartass.”

  Cecil spun abruptly, took the orders from Colonel James’ breast pocket, and flashed them in front of his face.

  “How about I raise you a Presidential Order, dipweed! I think I’d like to see the command bunkers for each set of silos now. We haven’t inspected those yet. How would you feel about that?”

  Taken aback by the civilian’s candor, the General chose a different tact, “Young man –,” he started to say.

  “Sir, may I speak with you in private?” Colonel James asked.

  The General unfroze the glare he was shooting in Cecil’s direction long enough to acknowledge the Colonel’s request.

  “Absolutely,” he replied with a smile.

  The two aging warhorses excused themselves and entered a barracks anti-room. Col. James held the door for the General and then rolled his eyes at Cecil once the man had passed. Cecil snickered.

  “How about you tell me what the hell –,” the General began as he started in on the Colonel.

  “Whoa, how about we dial it down a notch, sir. I asked you in here to explain a few things so this might go a little smoother.”

  “Great,” he replied. “I’d love to hear this.”

  “So far you only have a name, Cecil Sullivan. What you don’t have is a rank and a history. That man out there is Senior Airman Cecil Sullivan. He spent close to a year in an Iranian cave complex being beaten, whipped, branded, and all manner of torture I am not going to discuss right now. One minute he was asleep in his rack at Bagram and the next he was bound and in the back of a truck being kicked for a week before they made it to their camp in western Iran.

  “For the first few months, he told them nothing. He took all of it for God and country. Then they showed him a video that had been taken from inside his sister’s home in Albany, New York. He still didn’t break... swore it was movie set or a sound stage and didn’t believe them. A couple weeks later a second one arrived.”

  The General was completely enthralled with the story. “What was on that one?”

  “It was his sister walking through a park with a sniper’s scope trained on her.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “We are here because of what he and another prisoner divulged once they were broken,” the Colonel replied.

  “And what was that?” the General asked with baited breathe.

  “Cecil provided instruction on the U.S. nuclear arsenal. More specifically, he divulged information regarding the Minuteman III and its launch and navigation systems. He also provided a detailed layout for the service tunnels and the controls in the bunkers.”

  “And the other prisoner? What did he tell them?”

  “He was a Special Forces operator,” Col. James answered knowing it would be more than enough detail to get his point across.

  The General slumped in his chair and sighed. “Oh, crap,” was his response.

  The man reflected on the ramifications for a few moments before the Colonel added, “In a nut shell, he basically told them how to bypass a number of our measures and systems and launch one.”

  “Great. Just so I understand you correctly, you’re telling me that there is a lunatic running around my base with the knowledge and skills to sidestep all of our protocols and send up one of our birds?”

  “That’s about the long and short of it. But there’s a catch.”

  “Of course there is,” the General replied sarcastically. “Why wouldn’t there be. What is it?”

  “Airman Sullivan was stationed at two bases, F.E. Warren and Minot. If we don’t find him here, we have to do the same thing all over again in North Dakota.”

  “If he’s a missile systems operator, why was he even in the Gulf in the first place?”

  “If there are nuclear weapons in country, someone trained in their maintenance tags along, you know that,” the Colonel replied.

  “They deployed nukes to that hotbed? Were they crazy?”

  Col. James just shrugged.

  “Nice. So what are we looking for? Specifics?” the General asked.

  “That would be profiling, sir,” came the immediate reply.

  “I don’t give a damn what you want to call it, Colonel. Gimme what I need!”

  “Fine. We are searching for a male, approximately six feet in height, aged thirty to thirty five years, looks to be of Latin or Arabic descent and speaks fluent Spanish. We believe the person we are after managed to replace a service member and infiltrate one of those two bases. He’s been embedded for months and the only person alive that can identify him is standing right out there.”

  Chapter 18

  Gregg watched Emily deftly work the controls of Jesus’ new quadcopter. She didn’t seem like she had a care in the world. Has she moved on? Am I already just a faint memory?

  The radio controlled device swooped and soared across the fields. Emily maneuvered the toy with amateurish skill, but skill all the same. Gregg continued to observe as she practiced hovering the contraption above the brush, and then without warning it would suddenly pop up several hundred fe
et and then come back down. On its way down, Emily would slow the quads descent before it crashed and return it to a hover. Well I’ll be. She could barely work her cell phone before I left.

  When the battery charge finally waned, the return to home feature slowly and softly landed the copter at her feet. Now or never.

  Gregg slowly emerged from the hedgerow. He only made it a few feet and then froze. What am I afraid of? She’s already been told the truth about my career. Can she even begin to forgive me? Gregg quickly backed up and returned to the cover.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” came a voice from behind him.

  Gregg spun around and reflexively reached for his side arm. Damn it. That skinny one took my weapon. Before him were Josh’s daughters.

  “I said, what are you doin’?” Katherine asked, repeating the question.

  “I… she,” Gregg began to stammer. “Wait, you look familiar,” he replied as he looked over the three. “Why do I know you?”

  “Name’s Heather White,” she said as she extended her hand to Gregg. “These are my sisters, Katherine and Layla. You’ve already met our father Josh.”

  “The actress?”

  “One and the same,” she answered.

  “This day keeps getting weirder,” Gregg said half under his breath.

  “What’s so weird? You’ve returned home and you haven’t seen you wife in over a year. She misses you. You can see it on her face. You should go to her. The only thing that’s out of place around here is you hiding among the brambles. Do you want us to take you over there?” Heather offered.

  “No,” Gregg said harshly, but quietly.

  The girls were taken aback, but Layla would have none of it.

  “Don’t bark at us! From what we understand, she was a wreck after she lost another baby, her husband, and learning you lied all on the same day. Emily put herself back together and was one of the key scientific witnesses at the Congressional Hearings. According to our stepmother, Emily never gave up hope on a reunion with you. She knew you’d come home to her. Secretary McInerney took care of her until you returned. So don’t you dare take issue with us after what everyone has done for you, Sgt. Chastain.”

  Gregg swallowed hard and glanced longingly back at his wife.

  “Wait a minute. Why didn’t you react when she said Emily knows about your career?” Heather said.

  Gregg returned his gaze back to the three interrogators, but said nothing.

  “Answer me, Gregg,” she demanded.

  Softly, almost in a whisper, Gregg finally answered. “A couple months into my captivity, my Iranian ‘hosts’ showed me a video of Em being told that my transport had been shot down. I watched from the other side of the planet as my wife had yet another miscarriage. I continued to watch as the doctors said she had ovarian cancer. Do you have any idea what it’s like to want to be somewhere, to help someone, to comfort and protect them, and not have the power to do anything about it?”

  “I do,” Katherine answered solemnly. “I know exactly what that’s like.”

  “Look, soldier,” Layla started. “She’s either gonna hug you or hit you, or maybe both. It doesn’t really matter though because, in the end, she’s already forgiven you.”

  “Yeah, now move your ass!” Heather added. “Tell her that dinner’s at six.”

  Gregg smiled at their candor. “Now or never then, I guess, right?”

  “There is no ‘never’. Only a ‘now’,” Layla said and shoved him out of the hedgerow.

  Gregg crashed through the brush landing on his side and rolling on to his back. With the quadcopter off, Emily was able to hear the commotion and glanced over. Gregg didn’t move.

  Emily returned her focus to the device and started downloading the video the machine had taken. She quietly hummed to herself, lost in her own world, as she connected cables and scrolled through various prompts on her tablet. Gregg slowly rotated his head and began turning on to his stomach. He crawled on his belly toward the side of the cabin.

  “What is he doing?” Heather asked.

  “I have no idea. It looks like he’s trying to sneak up on her,” Layla answered.

  “That’ll never work,” Katherine remarked.

  “Let’s wait and see how good this guy is. Sam said he was Special Forces for how long, twenty years?” she replied.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right,” her sister answered as the three watched him easily climb the side of the porch. “Oh, oh, he’s up over the railing. Did she hear it?”

  “Wait for it. Emily stopped whatever she was doing. She’s looking around. He’s totally busted,” Katherine observed.

  Gregg pressed his back against the structure and began slowly working his way toward the door and stairs. He froze and held his breath every time she looked up or turned her head slightly. He crept forward, slowly inching and progressing across the decking.

  He was about to sit on the top step and announce himself when Emily said, “I heard you a mile away. What do you think you’re doing?”

  “She got him,” Layla noted. “Let’s give them some privacy. We’ll see them at six for dinner.”

  “Well I thought I’d try and surprise my girl.” It was lame, but it was all he could think to say.

  Emily spun around to see her husband sitting casually on the stoop of the farmhouse. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she rushed to him.

  * * *

  At precisely 6:00 PM, Emily walked through the door with her husband in tow. All heads turned to see the couple entering the cabin. Gregg was now showered and clean-shaven. Emily had a glow about her that had not been present when she arrived earlier in the day. She pulled his hand to bring him forward and then glared at him.

  “Go on,” she admonished him. When he hesitated, she released her grip and smacked him on the butt. “Now,” she quietly commanded.

  Gregg cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Mr. Simmons?”

  Josh beaconed, “Come in to the kitchen, Gregg.”

  Gregg did as he was asked. When he entered he saw Josh chopping vegetables, Dallas reading the paper, and the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs basting chickens as James placed the pan on the stove top.

  “What the hell? Is this the friggin’ twilight zone or what?” Gregg said more to himself than anyone else.

  “Got any cash on you, Gregg,” Brent asked.

  Shocked that the retired Four Star even knew who he was, Gregg answered, “Yes, sir. I have a few bucks. Why?”

  “Put two of em’ in the swear jar over there,” Brent answered as he nodded at the container half full of dollar bills behind Gregg.

  “You gotta be sh— ,” Gregg started to say.

  “Better just go ahead and throw in what you’ve got, son,” Josh said as he cut him off.

  The four men watched as he reached into his pocket and then threw in a wad. “That ought to cover me for the rest of the evening,” he remarked.

  “Now, what was it you needed?” Josh asked as he returned his attention to the vegetables.

  “I just wanted to apologize for stealing your .50 and takin’ potshots at ya’ll. I’ll replace the fence post in the morning, and I’ll pay for a new tire and lumber for the porch,” Gregg said as if he were reading from a sterile prepared script.

  The four glanced at one another then Brent asked, “Emily put you up this?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gregg answered immediately.

  The four men laughed at the response. When the laughter was heard in the other room, the women breathed a sigh of relief.

  When Josh was finished chuckling, he asked, “Is there anything else?”

  “I’d also like to thank you for your willingness to take on Emily. She tells me she’s been moving around the country working with farmers and tracking whatever she tracks for the USDA. I don’t think I can ever repay that kindness, to you or to Secretary McInerney” Gregg concluded in a more heartfelt tone.

  “Oh, there’s plenty out here that needs to be done. You have
an extraordinary skill set. I think we’ll have to trade on that. How’d that be?” Josh replied.

  “What did you have in mind?” Gregg asked inquisitively.

  “We’ll get to that, in time” Josh answered nonchalantly. “Those were some nice shots though. What’s that distance, James?”

  “Four eighty seven,” the large man answered without batting an eye.

  Josh whistled at the pronouncement, “Four hundred and eight seven yards with no spotter. That’ll do.”

  “Well there was no wind to contend with and I found the bore sight in his pack,” Dallas said clearly not ready to let Gregg off the hook just yet.

  “Are you and I gonna have a problem?” Gregg said answering Dallas’s challenge.

  Never one to shy away from anything, Dallas answered him without taking his eyes off of his paper. “The only problem I have, friend, is with you taking potshots at my family and then being brow beaten by your wife to come in here and give an almost robotic apology. I would have thought that after being reunited with her and spending the last couple hours together you would have, at a minimum, displayed some contrition. Frankly, you strike me as unrepentant. That’s what I have a problem with.”

  Emily and the rest of the assembled group heard Dallas’ speech. A collective gasp went through the room. “Gregg?” she called out.

  “Yeah?” he answered without removing the imagined daggers from the man’s lifeless torso.

  “Gregg, honey,” she started to say as sweetly and as melodically as she could. “If you can’t do it right, your first night will be spent on the porch and not in my bed.”

  Gregg felt the flush of the heat starting to build in his face. He gritted his teeth and gutted out, “Mr. Simmons, I would like to apologize for my behavior. I misunderstood someone’s comments and perceived them to indicate that you and my wife were an item. I didn’t take it very well. My actions were unbecoming. I have no excuse.”

  Dallas shot out of his seat and extended his hand, “Now that’s an apology! Welcome to the farm, kid.”