Call to Duty

by Richard Herman

  Trimler pushed his way past the NCO, fully expecting to see one of the shooters lying on the floor in a pool of blood, ripped apart by his partner’s gunfire. The MP5 was horribly efficient at close quarters. But only three dummies were lying on the floor, their upper torsos shattered by gunfire.

  But instead of the dummy in the chair, Kamigami was sitting there, a rope looped around his body, making him look like the hostage. He glanced at the stunned men. “Good shooting,” he allowed. His voice unchanged from its usual soft and gentle tone.

  “Goddamn it, Sergeant Major!” the NCO roared. “You could’ve been killed. This was a live-fire exercise.”

  “You told me they were good,” Kamigami said.

  “Yeah, but Jesus Christ,” the NCO sputtered, “we don’t take chances like that.”

  The first shooter who had charged into the room sank to the floor on one knee, shaking slightly, staring at his weapon. “I didn’t expect to find a real person in there,” he muttered.

  “What did you expect to find in here?” Kamigami asked. There was no immediate answer.

  Finally the second shooter blurted an answer, the standard answer expected from Delta: “We expected to find three terrorists who we were to service.”

  “You mean kill them?” Kamigami’s words were barely audible.

  The first shooter stood up, now fully in control of his emotions and ashamed of the momentary show of weakness. “That’s the idea,” he said, his words much stronger. “Two bullets in each head.”

  “Have any of you ever killed anyone? Personally?” Kamigami asked. Only Trimler did not shake his head. “Okay,” Kamigami continued, “let’s end this. How would you get out of here now?” The four men were galvanized into action and they cleared the hall and moved Kamigami, now the freed hostage, out of the Shooting House. “What would you do if you stumbled onto a terrorist who was blocking your escape route but didn’t see you?” the CSM asked.

  The first shooter pulled out his Gerber survival knife. He was anxious to prove that what they had seen in the Shooting House was not a sign of weakness. “I’d proceed to debilitate my opponent.”

  “Does that mean kill him?” Kamigami asked. The shooter jerked his head yes.

  Kamigami pointed to the corner of the building. “Good. Do it.”

  It was a command and the four men responded to it. The first shooter worked his way to the corner of the building and bobbed his head around the edge in the approved fashion. “Shitfuckhate,” he groaned and stepped around the corner. The other three men looked around the building and followed him.

  “Going around the corner like that could get a dumb shit wasted,” the Shooting House NCO grumbled. He followed the team around the corner.

  Trimler and Kamigami were right behind and found the men clustered around four spring lambs frisking at the end of their tethers. “Goats,” Kamigami groaned. “I’d ordered goats, not lambs.” One of the lambs was full of life and jumping straight up and down, its legs little springs.

  “Well?” Trimler asked.

  The team looked at their CSM. “There’s the opponent you’re going to debilitate,” Kamigami told them.

  “Oh shitski,” the first shooter moaned. He rolled his knife in his hand and took a half step toward the lamb closest to him, the one jumping up and down and bleating lustily. He hesitated. With a blinding speed Trimler could not credit, Kamigami disarmed the shooter, threw him to the ground, scooped up his knife, and grabbed the back of the lamb’s head. With a quick motion he cut the lamb’s throat and dropped the lifeless carcass to the ground.

  “That’s what debilitating your opponent means,” Kamigami told them. “Now finish it.”

  Trimler watched as the three lambs were dispatched, none as efficiently as the first. “What now, Sergeant Major?”

  Kamigami shrugged his shoulders. “Barbecue tonight. I’ll probably have to show them how to gut and skin ’em,” he said.

  “You’ve made your point,” Trimler said, walking back to his office, deep in thought.

  The Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.

  Mazie Kamigami picked up the phone on the first ring. The message was a crisp “He’s out and about.” She hung up and surveyed the wreckage in her office. It looked no more cluttered than normal and she knew where everything was. Besides, the President had seen it before. She chuckled to herself, not worried about impressing Zack Pontowski during one of his so-called walkabouts.

  “Klutzes,” she mumbled to herself. “They haven’t figured it out.” She found it a never-ending source of amusement that so many of the White House staffers would screw themselves into the ceiling whenever Pontowski chose to go on one of his unscheduled visits through the White House executive offices. It was obvious to her that the President used these informal visits to boost morale and keep people on their toes. Nothing focused the mind like knowing the most powerful man in the world might drop in unexpectedly and ask a simple question like “What are you working on?” and then sit and listen to your answer. It gave him a source of unfiltered information totally free of the spins and twists that bureaucrats put on information and intelligence as it passed through their clutches. Mazie understood how the man worked.

  She glanced at her desk, not bothering to sit down, picked up the letter from her father, and stuffed it into one of the cavernous pockets of her skirt. Every skirt, dress, or pair of pants she owned had pockets that served as part of her filing system. She didn’t care that a full pocket only made her look more rotund and dumpy. A typical letter from Pop, she thought, clearly recalling every word:

  Dear Mazie,

  I just got a new assignment. Not coming to Washington after all. This will be my last tour and then I’ll retire. Hope to see you soon.

  Love, Dad

  She pulled out the letter and glanced at its postmark: Fort Bragg, North Carolina. You must have gotten Delta Force, she decided. Why else would you turn down Command Sergeant Major of the Army? Mazie also understood her father. She was still standing in the middle of her office and holding the letter when the President of the United States walked through the door with her boss, National Security Adviser Cagliari.

  Cagliari came right to the point. “What’s the latest on the hostages?”

  “Perhaps,” Mazie said, “we had better go down to the vault and talk with Colonel Mackay.”

  Pontowski listened without comment while Mackay went over their latest information. “So, you’re telling me,” he finally said, “that Miss Anderson has been separated from the other three hostages, who, we assume, are now in Chiang’s compound, and that we need a much larger force than Delta to neutralize Chiang’s defenses.” He paused, thinking. “Do we know where Miss Anderson is?” Mackay shot a questioning look at Mazie and did not answer. He knew when he was in over his head.

  “Officially, sir,” Mazie began, choosing her words carefully, “we don’t know.”

  “And unofficially?” Pontowski replied.

  “She’s with the three guards who killed Troy Spencer. They got worried about what Chiang would do to them for killing Spencer and took off with their own hostage—Nikki Anderson. They’re hiding in a village in Thailand just south of the Burma border, Ban Muang Dok.”

  Pontowski chewed on this latest intelligence.

  “When and where did this information come from?” Cagliari asked. He was upset because this was news to him.

  “I received it over the weekend,” Mazie answered.

  “Why wasn’t it included in the PDB?” Cagliari asked. The PDB, President’s Daily Brief, was a glossy, slickly printed intelligence summary that appeared every morning on the President’s desk. It was assembled by a committee of bureaucrats in the CIA and given limited distribution. Supposedly, it contained the best intelligence available in the United States.

  “It was backdoored to me.”

  Silence. Mackay studied them, trying to fathom what was going on. To him it was a simple matter of command and there should be no reas
on for all this pussyfooting around. Either they had good intelligence or they didn’t.

  “I see,” Cagliari finally said. “Your source has an informant that he doesn’t want to pass over to the CIA.” Mazie only nodded in reply. She gave a silent prayer that he would not upset the apple cart and tell the CIA. “Which,” Cagliari continued, “makes sense considering the recent leak about Troy Spencer.” Mazie gave a very visible sigh of relief, which contrasted with the perplexed look on Mackay’s face. He hadn’t heard of any leaks.

  “Who is your source?” Pontowski asked.

  Mazie did not hesitate. “An Air Force general, William Carroll. He recruited a Buddhist monk who has set up a network of monks throughout Thailand and Burma. The village monk at Ban Muang Dok saw Anderson and the three guards.”

  “I know Bill,” Pontowski said. “I thought he was a Middle East expert. How did he get involved in the Far East?”

  “He’s in command of the Special Activities Center now, handling HUMINT for the Air Force.”

  “We need to get this into the system…officially,” Pontowski said. “Let Carroll keep his source.”

  “It can be passed through Mossad to the CIA,” Mazie suggested.

  “The Israeli connection is always helpful to a Middle East specialist like Carroll,” Pontowski said. He looked over his glasses at Mackay. “Welcome to the wonderful world of the bureaucracy.” Then he rose and was out the door.

  “What was that all about?” Mackay asked.

  “Turf battles,” Mazie told him. “Every intelligence agency wants to control its own sources. But it’s more efficient if a single office manages it all. In this case, the CIA.”

  “I thought that was the way the system was set up.”

  “It is,” Mazie explained. “But what happened to Troy Spencer was leaked to the press. With the CIA resembling a sieve, the smart players are running for cover until the leak is plugged.” Without thinking, Mazie pulled her father’s letter out of her pocket and stroked it. Oh, Pop, she thought, I may have put you back into it.

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Mackay said.

  The three men who made up Pontowski’s inner core of advisers relaxed into the couches and comfortable chairs clustered in front of the President’s big desk in the Oval Office. Leo Cox, his chief of staff, sat farthest from the desk at one end of a couch sipping coffee. Michael Cagliari, his national security adviser, thumbed through the notes carefully arranged in the folder on the couch beside him. Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, fidgeted in the big overstuffed chair, his restless hands darting from the arm of the chair to the folder in his lap. They were an unlikely trio who would never have struck up a friendship on their own. But they had been individually captured by the magnetism of Matthew Zachary Pontowski and had been pulled into his orbit, becoming a powerful constellation that guided United States policy.

  The tall and skinny, cadaverous Cox had reached the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force by kicking the intelligence structure until it became responsive to operations and plans. It had been a painful but productive experience for many intel officers. Like most professional officers in the military, Cox had an innate distrust of intellectuals like Michael Cagliari, a former Princeton professor who specialized in national security and foreign affairs. Cagliari, a former student of Henry Kissinger, looked like an Ivy League professor, always wearing a rumpled Harris tweed sport coat with leather elbow patches and sporting a well-developed beard. Behind his bland brown eyes and hidden somewhere in his flabby body beat the heart of a tiger and one of the most devious souls in the United States. Bobby Burke, the director of central intelligence, and consequently in charge of all intelligence agencies in the United States government, was a professional bureaucrat who had worked his way up from the lowest ranks of the CIA. When asked by strangers what he did, he would fidget, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and tell them that he was a bureaucrat. And like many bureaucrats, he spoke in a pompous voice, obviously impressed with his power and position. Most people instantaneously dubbed him an “asshole,” and never suspected that the chunky and slightly balding fifty-two-year-old man was in tip-top physical condition, had a record as an outstanding agent in the field, spoke six foreign languages, and had personally killed four people in the line of work. He was a bureaucrat whose specialty was intelligence and covert operations. And like most high-ranking bureaucrats in the government, he was very good in his field of expertise.

  While the three men waited for Pontowski to enter the Oval Office, Burke seriously pondered the feasibility of eliminating two men: Courtland’s aide George Rivera, and the CIA staffer who had leaked the photos of Troy Spencer. Burke wondered if he could bring it off. Pontowski would crucify him or any government official caught engaging in “wet operations.” Burke suspected that Pontowski would enjoy the task, relishing the opportunity to give an object lesson to other power brokers in ethics, civics, and personal responsibility.

  “Good morning,” Pontowski said when he entered the office. Only Cox stood up, his old habits from years in the Air Force overriding Pontowski’s wish to keep things informal. Pontowski sat down and picked up the PDB, the President’s Daily Brief. “Mossad seems to have expanded its operations into the Far East,” he said. “Good work, Bobby, keeping the Israeli connection open.”

  Burke accepted the compliment. “Well, sir,” he explained, “this one was pure luck. The Mossad didn’t tell us how they learned about Nikki Anderson but you can be sure the intelligence is reliable or they wouldn’t have passed it on. Besides, this couldn’t have come at a better time. Courtland is using the press to put the heat on and force us into a precipitous action to rescue the hostages. If a rescue attempt fails, he could use it to his advantage in the upcoming election. It has happened before.” Both Cagliari and Cox nodded in agreement.

  “I think,” National Security Adviser Cagliari interrupted, “that Bobby and I are thinking along the same lines.” He immediately relinquished the floor to Burke, not wanting to steal his thunder.

  “Ah, yes,” Burke continued, aware that Cagliari had given his words added support with the President, “we can act on this and preempt any of Courtland’s attempts to embarrass us.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” Pontowski asked.

  “Rescue Nikki Anderson,” Burke replied. Again, the other two men supported the DCI.

  “There’s another problem,” Cagliari said. “Whoever gave Courtland those photos might tell him about a planned rescue of Anderson. He won’t like us going after Anderson and not his daughter.”

  Burke stopped squirming and looked directly at Pontowski. The tone in his voice was calm and his words carefully measured. “I’ve solved that problem. One of my people was the leak.” Cagliari almost asked the DCI how he could be sure but stopped himself in time. With a flash of the intuition that amplified his prodigious mental skills, he knew that Burke had spoken the truth and that no one in the room needed to know the details. Plausible denial had to be a reality at their policy level when Burke went about the dark business of disciplining rogue intelligence officers. Cagliari filed a mental note to watch for any unusual incidents among CIA personnel. “Also,” Burke continued, now squirming again, his voice pompous, “I would rather the CIA did not effect the rescue. We would have to clear the operation through the Senate Intelligence Committee and that would invite delay and the possibility of another leak.”

  “Delta Force should be able to handle this one,” Cagliari said, thinking about what Mackay had told him and the President.

  Pontowski leaned back in his chair, his decision made. “Order Delta Force to rescue Miss Anderson as soon as possible. Start looking at ways to get the remaining hostages out. Dry up Courtland’s sources as best you can.”

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  When the order came down from USSOCOM tasking Delta to deploy to Thailand and effect the rescue of Nikki Anderson from the village of Ban Muang Dok, the men started
a well-rehearsed routine. Ammunition and explosives were checked and packed in special containers. Radios were carefully tested and fresh batteries installed. Personal weapons were gone over with a fanatical care before being carefully stowed. Uniforms and personal equipment were stuffed into the rucksacks known affectionately as Alice the Wart.

  The staff fell into a flurry of activity as they reviewed the basic plans they had developed and trained to implement. They studied the intelligence available to them and selected their course of action. Then fourteen men received a special briefing, were issued tickets and money, and sent on their way as tourists.

  The fourteen men were careful to travel in pairs or alone and to ignore each other. For the most part they looked liked civilians, except that most of them sported mustaches that only approximated Army regulations, wore an expensive Rolex or Seiko watch, and all were in exceptionally good physical shape that no casual clothes could hide. Kamigami inspected each man before he left the compound and made sure that no traces of Skoal rings were present on the hip pockets of their jeans. The sergeant major seriously doubted they could slip by a watchful observer. But he was certain they would know if they were “made” and could avoid being followed.

  Fresh intelligence came in and the staff started to modify their plan. It was a process that would go on until they actually launched the mission and they would have no end of help and inputs from higher headquarters.

  “I think we should take fifty shooters,” the lieutenant colonel in command of A Squadron told Trimler and the rest of the staff after seeing the latest high-resolution reconnaissance photographs of the Thai village where Nikki Anderson was being held.

  “Too damn many unknowns,” Trimler finally said. “We don’t know the exact location in the village where Anderson is being held, what the defenses are…. Hell, we’re not even sure how many guards there are. We could be walking into a meat grinder.”

  Kamigami used a magnifying glass to study the photos. Then he fished through a stack of older photos and pulled one out that was twenty-four hours older. “Here.” He pointed to a small compound on the western edge of the village. “In the older photo, you can see a Range Rover in the compound. That’s too expensive a car for a village like Ban Muang Dok. Now look at the latest photo. No Range Rover. But there are a single set of fresh tracks leading into a shed.” He passed the two photos around. “I’m willing to bet the tread of those tracks is the same as a Range Rover.”