by C. G. Cooper
He envied Cal and Daniel. They lived in a world where it was much easier to separate right from wrong. Not for the first time, he questioned his decision to enter the political realm. It was like a constant race to the bottom, hooking and jabbing, trying to get a leg up on the competition, while simultaneously attempting to both appear as the good guy and represent one’s constituents. If the gold medal was the pinnacle of achievement at the Olympics, the United States presidency was like standing on the right hand of God in politics.
While he chided himself for his hypervigilance, he understood it was a necessary precaution. Even now there was a very real worry that the lead element of The Jefferson Group might be found and exposed. They were good, if not the best, but they were still human. And with Djibouti in seeming upheaval anything was possible.
"Mr. President, I have the president of Djibouti on the line," his secretary's voice came over the speaker phone.
"Thank you, Betty." He picked up the receiver. He hated talking over the speakerphone.
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. President," came the staticky voice of his foreign counterpart.
"No need to apologize," Zimmer replied. "I understand you’re having some problems, and I wanted to call to see if we could be of any assistance."
There was more static, and Zimmer wondered if his ally was searching for the right words or if the connection was really that bad.
"I'm sorry, Mr. President," came the staticky voice again. “They tell me the connection is horrid. We may only have a moment. As you have probably heard a curfew has been established in our capital city. I'm not yet aware of any fatalities, but there have been injuries, I am sorry to say."
Zimmer could have asked a laundry list of questions but he waited, providing the Djibouti president time through the bad connection to relay the information he needed to share. “I don't know how else to say this, so pardon my bluntness. My advisors believe there will be an attempt to remove me from power. As of yet, we do not know who the leader of the opposition is, but we are fairly certain that someone within the military is behind the coup."
There was shouting in the background now. Zimmer asked, “Is everything okay? Are you safe?"
The shouting continued, but his voice was calm when he replied. "They are trying to force their way into my safe house. Do not worry. I am surrounded by loyal men. It may seem melodramatic for me to say, but my life is of no consequence. I would gladly die for my country, Mr. President. But I must warn you that there are other powers at play that— well, I'm sorry to say I may have played into their hands."
A fresh wave of static hit the connection now, and Zimmer could only hear fractured words from the Djibouti president.
"Are you there? Are you still there?" Zimmer exclaimed. Then the line went dead. President Zimmer waited a moment before calling for his secretary. "Betty, can you get him back on the line, please?"
"I have him on line two," she said. The connection clicked over again. There was more static and more shouting.
"Mr. President, are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here," Zimmer answered.
"Your men. I wanted to tell you that they have your men." His voice was hurried now, almost panicked.
"Which men? Which men do they have?"
"The ones they captured when they blew up the plane."
At least it wasn't Cal, but it was finally confirmation that Vince and Karl had been captured.
"Tell me who has them."
"I—" There was lots of crackling static now. It sounded like he was saying that he was sorry, but Zimmer couldn't tell with the connection so bad. Like before, it clicked off, and his secretary came on the line again.
"I'm sorry, Mr. President. I've lost him. I will see if the Signal Corp can reestablish the connection."
Zimmer almost told her not to bother, but instead he said, "Thank you."
Now it seemed that the president's worst fears were coming to fruition. Whoever was behind the coup held hostage the two Delta operators. America could quite possibly be getting ready to receive a huge hit to its credibility. To make matters even worse, the Chinese were in play. They'd had something to do with it, and that made trying to predict what that communist government would do almost impossible.
He had to face the facts; it was his fault. If there was anything that he'd learned from Cal and his friends, it was that a good leader was always accountable and never shirked that responsibility, regardless how trying the times. Like the Djibouti president, he had to face the fire. Now wasn't the time to hide behind the shield of his office. Good men were out there; his men were out there, and he needed to help them. He couldn't do that by sending a protest to the U.N. or by ushering diplomats to the Chinese embassy.
Damn the election year, he thought. If it was his time then it was his time. Just like his embattled ally had just said, President Zimmer knew that he would die for his country. In his case that probably meant a political death, not a physical one. As he stared out the Oval Office window, he made his decision.
“Betty, get me the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of the CIA, the Vice President, and Congressman McKnight on the telephone."
It took almost ten minutes for all four men to get on secure lines. The president, without greeting the men, began delegating orders.
"General, I would like you and the CIA to provide me with a joint analysis regarding the current situation in Djibouti. How long do you think that will take?"
"My people are on it now, sir. I'd say we can provide the analysis within the hour.”
"Mr. Director?” the president asked.
"Yes, I think we can make that happen, Mr. President."
"Congressman McKnight, I know you're probably neck deep in the primaries right now, but I need your assistance."
"Anything, Mr. President," McKnight said.
"As my closest ally on the Republican side of the aisle, I was hoping you would help me settle the House Republicans with what's going to occur."
"I don't understand, sir. Has something happened?"
"I'll get to that in a moment, Tony."
"Vice President Southgate,” the president said, "I need you to return to Washington to help coordinate things for me here."
"Yes, Mr. President. But if I can ask, where are you going?"
"I guess there's no time left," President Zimmer mused aloud. "Gentlemen, I'm going to retrieve some friends who I put in a very precarious position, and I assume full responsibility. I—" There was silence from the others as they waited for the president to complete his announcement. "Gentleman, consider the following classified Top Secret Presidential. In fifteen minutes I depart the White House for Andrews Air Force Base. I want you to know I did not come to this decision lightly but this is the right thing to do. For once I feel like doing absolutely the right thing."
"Mr. President, maybe we should speak about this before—so—," Vice President Southgate tried to interject.
The president spoke over him, “I’m flying to Djibouti within the hour. I expect your reports by the time I am airborne. I'll relay follow-on instructions on the way there. Now if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a plane to catch."
Chapter 19
It took Congressman McKnight exactly thirty-one minutes to make his decision. This opportunity could be gone in the blink of an eye; it was one of those crucial moments he knew he’d never get again. He didn't really have an explanation for his actions. At face value, there didn't seem to be much future reward in the act, but McKnight believed offerings should come in small doses. It was better to give a little at a time, rather than giving away the farm in one fell swoop.
And yet, he struggled. Ever since declaring that he was going to run for president, he'd made it a habit to time himself every time he made an important decision. Prior to today, the longest it had taken him was nine minutes, so for the congressman, thirty-one minutes stretched out like eternity.
He'd often wondered how long it had ta
ken important men to make important decisions. In history’s hindsight, wasn’t it really the critical decisions that made the man? How long had it taken President Harry Truman to decide that he was going to drop the atomic bomb on Japan? How much time did it take Adolf Hitler to determine he needed to annihilate the Jews?
McKnight’s decision might not have seemed so earth shattering, but deep down he knew this was a decision that would either haunt him forever as an epic failure, or shoot him into the political stratosphere. When left to ponder those pros and cons, he decided to bet on himself.
Besides the coded message he sent was indecipherable. It was so every day common that no one could twist it. His secret was safe.
The world would soon know what President Zimmer was, and that was without McKnight's help. There were others who might be curious, if not concerned, about Zimmer's impromptu actions. So off the anonymous message flew - first to McKnight's moneyman, and then it would be passed off through the series of buffers that would scrub the cyber trail clean.
+ + +
It was the men on the receiving end of McKnight’s message who made the real decisions. Would the information be worth their time? It was those decision makers who soon began moving the chess pieces across the board. Those decision makers were in it for the long game. If this tiny distraction didn't work out, it didn't matter. No time would be lost, and no one would be the wiser.
But, if there was even the slightest chance of getting a step up on the American president, they figured it was well worth the risk. After all, it wasn't them on the ground, and it wasn't technically their people. Whatever came back pointed in their direction they could easily deny. But if they gambled on that minuscule probability, they would watch and wait patiently as they had for many years. By the time the information filtered its way into Djibouti, contingency plans had already been formulated.
Chapter 20
Although the distance from their hotel to either Camp Lemonnier or the embassy was essentially the same, MSgt Trent figured their chances of accessing the embassy were better. He believed because the entire city was on a curfew and communications block, the base would probably be on lockdown. If that were the case, so would the embassy. That presented a problem. While Camp Lemonnier might have seemed the obvious choice because of his and Gaucho’s military service, it didn't necessarily guarantee they would be granted entry.
Sure, they could go up to the main gate and flash their ID cards, but Top and Gaucho agreed it was better to take a risk outside the front doors of the embassy because of its status as a safe haven. And as a sliver of sovereign US soil, they should be allowed inside, as long as they could get there. That was the tricky part.
They snaked their way through the streets without detection. It had taken them over an hour to locate the assets they required. There just weren't many men that were as tall as Trent. The soldier they finally did settle on was a good six inches shorter than Trent, but he was a heavy man. Thus, the issued uniform had been larger in order to accommodate the man's extra girth, but the arms and legs were still long and had to be rolled to fit the current wearer. For Top, they were an almost perfect fit.
They ditched the fat soldier and his companion not far from the hotel. They were tied together nut to butt. Other than headaches when they awoke, they would be no worse for wear when they were found hours later.
The part of the whole scheme Gaucho resisted was the cuffs. They looked like a relic from the first World War, and when they didn't immediately lock into place, he wondered if they’d be able to ever get them off.
"You just sit back there and relax, Gaucho," Top said, putting the Humvee in drive and pulling away from its former home as an impromptu roadblock.
"Do you really think this’ll work?"
"There's always a chance we'll be shot, of course. I'd say we've got a sixty-forty chance of getting into the embassy, but let's not talk about that. Let's talk about why my Latin little brother isn't his normal cheery self.”
"Well, let's see, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm pretending to be a prisoner right now, and we have no idea as to the location or status of our friends. Oh yeah, and we can't even use a cell phone to request assistance. And the cherry on top is we just witnessed my friend, Sergeant Peabody, get killed before our eyes."
Top's smile disappeared. "I'm sorry about Peabody; I really am, Gaucho. But to survive, we've got to look past all of that. You know how this works. If we start second guessing ourselves, who knows what hell we're gonna catch."
"I know, and it's not that I blame myself, or anything we did, for what happened, but I just can't shake what Peabody said."
"Which part?" Top queried.
"The part where he said we better watch our backs, that there's other stuff going on in the wings that we don't know about yet."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that, too. What do you think he meant?”
"I guess we'll find out, won't we?" Then Gaucho forced a smile, "Come on, Top, let's see if we can't cheat death again."
The trick was to pretend that you belonged, and that's exactly what Top did. The good news was that there was no traffic on the streets. The bad news was the only traffic were military vehicles, but it was easy enough for him to mimic whatever motions the other passing Humvee drivers made. A nod here. A curt wave there. Miraculously, no one stopped them.
"See, I told you that this was going to be easy,” Top said as they cruised along.
"We're not there yet.”
“And here I thought your attitude had just turned a corner.”
And just as they did turn a corner, the United States Embassy came into view. Whatever relief they felt was quickly stripped away when they saw what they faced. A semicircle of military vehicles, machine guns mounted in the beds, had cordoned off the street and main gate leading to their target.
At first Top thought, or rather hoped, that they were security forces on the American payroll. But his hopes were dashed as they neared the embassy.
"Okay, then," Trent said, "We knew this was a probability, so let's just take it slow and hope that none of these idiots gets a happy trigger finger."
Top eased the Humvee up to the first vehicle, and he noted the Marine sentries atop the embassy building. A serious-looking character stepped out of an armored vehicle and headed their way. He asked Top something in Arabic which, of course, he didn’t understand so he decided to improvise.
In his best accented English, he said, "Did they not tell you? We must speak English."
"I had not heard," the surprised soldier said in English that sounded better than Top's. "I will pass the word to my men.” He looked past Top into the backseat. "Who is this?"
"Prisoner for trade with the Americans. General's orders."
Apparently whoever this general was, he demanded the utmost respect of his men because no further questions came forth. The soldier turned and yelled something to his men. Then, remembering the general's alleged orders, he yelled in English for his men to move the trucks aside to let them through.
"Keep your fingers crossed," Trent muttered to Gaucho.
"If you pull this off, drinks are on me for a month," Gaucho promised.
"I'll take two months, thank you very much."
Once the barrier was finally moved, the soldier motioned for them to pass.
"Madre de Dios," Gaucho whispered, "I can't believe you did it."
Top tried to keep a straight face as they rolled past curious eyes following them the entire way. "Here's the tricky part," he said.
They pulled up to the second barricade manned by the United States Marines. One soldier stepped around the barricade and the guy, despite his full combat attire, was all spit and polish. The kid looked like he had jumped off a recruiting poster and spent time as a rifle twirler at 8th and I.
Trent was surprised to see the rank insignia of a Gunnery Sergeant on the Marine’s uniform.
"May I help you gentlemen?" the Marine politely asked. There wa
s no question in MSgt Trent's mind that the young gunny would have no problem signaling to his comrades up on the roof to shoot the blazes out of the Humvee if required.
"Well, gunny, my friend and I were wondering if we might seek asylum in your fine establishment."
A slightly raised eyebrow was the initial response that Top received.
"Am I correct in assuming, sir, that you've commandeered this vehicle and have impersonated yourself as a soldier of the Republic of Djibouti?"
Top could almost hear Gaucho flinch. "That's about the long and short of it, Gunny."