The Last Phoenix

by Richard Herman

  “Why only two thousand?” she asked. “Surely those aircraft flying troops in can take them all out?”

  “Many of the less seriously wounded have returned to their units,” Scovill explained.

  “Why?” Turner asked.

  “They do it voluntarily. But we’re replacing them as fast as we can.”

  “But why do they do it? I don’t understand at all.”

  For a brief moment silence held them all. Finally Mazie started to talk. “One time in China, I asked Matt Pontowski the same question. He couldn’t answer. But he did tell me the story of an Air Force colonel named Muddy Waters. Waters commanded the Forty-fifth Tactical Fighter Wing during the fiasco before the Gulf War.”

  “I remember that,” Turner said. “That was before the Soviet Union collapsed, and everyone was worried it would turn into World War Three. As I recall, we withdrew the Forty-fifth at the last minute.”

  True to his nature, Bernie Butler had been hovering in the background and mostly listening. Now he had to talk. “Not exactly,” he said. “The base was under heavy attack, and they had to fight their way out. Waters fought like a demon while he evacuated his people. But many of them wouldn’t go at first. They wanted to stay with him and fight. He held on long enough to get most of them out, along with his last five aircraft. Waters gave the pilot who led those five aircraft, a Captain Jack Locke, his personal call sign before they took off. But Waters was killed before he could surrender the base.”

  “According to Matt,” Mazie added, “Jack Locke was the finest leader he ever knew.”

  “Knew?” Turner asked.

  “Locke was later killed in a training accident,” Mazie said. “Matt said Locke set the standard, and he only hopes he can measure up.” She searched for the right words. “It’s like a torch they pass on, and for some reason it reminds me of the legend of the Phoenix—the giant bird of mythology that is consumed in the fire of its own nest and then arises reborn out of the ashes.”

  The Marine colonel shook his head. “It’s not that complicated, Mrs. Hazelton. It’s a combination of leadership and unit identification. They go back because that’s where their buddies are.”

  Turner came to her feet, a decision made. “As of now I’m ordering an all-out effort. Pull out all the stops short of going nuclear.” Anger filled her voice. “And let them know that option is not off the table.”

  Maddy retreated into her private study next to the Oval Office. “Nancy, please close the door. I don’t want to be disturbed for a few moments.”

  “Yes, Madam President.” Nancy closed the door and leaned against it, her eyes closed. I wish I could help, she thought. But no one could.

  Maddy stared out the window as tears streaked her face.

  The Plains of Pahang

  Friday, September 10

  Kamigami’s internal alarm clock sounded, waking him up. Automatically, he checked his watch. He had been asleep three hours, and it was the beginning of morning twilight. He carefully shifted his weight and blinked twice. Tel was sitting against a tree devouring a cold meal pack. His Minimi and bergen were beside him, ready to go. “The rest of the men are ready,” he told Kamigami.

  “I must be getting old,” Kamigami said. He called the team leaders together for a final briefing. “Nothing’s changed,” he told the four men. “This is a reconnaissance mission. Get your team into your assigned area as quickly as possible and find the bastards. I can’t stress it enough—silence is golden. Transmission protocols are standard, and maintain radio silence to the maximum extent possible. Do not engage unless attacked. Shoot only if shot at, and then scoot for all you’re worth. If you find anything that resembles a main camp, they’ll be using motion detectors and urine sniffers to monitor the perimeter.” He pointed at his map. “Our current location. Memorize the coordinates and rendezvous here in six days. Any questions?” There were none. “Okay, good hunting.”

  He listened as the four teams moved out. Satisfied that all was well, he hoisted his bergen. “Let me guess,” Tel said, his voice barely audible. “We’re going to the base camp.”

  Kamigami gave a little grunt as he settled the bergen on its shoulder straps. “Wouldn’t hurt to pay them a visit.” He set a fast pace, moving silently as they headed into the heart of the Taman Negara.

  Eleven

  Oakland

  Friday, September 10

  Don’t jump to conclusions, Bloomy cautioned herself for perhaps the hundredth time. She slowly rearranged the note cards on the table, searching for another pattern. But nothing else made sense. Feeling the need for a caffeine jolt, she checked the clock on the wall. It was exactly 9:00 A.M. She grabbed her empty coffee mug and walked briskly to the break room. The entire staff was there, oblivious to the television and transfixed by Matt Pontowski. He was leaning against a wall, his hands wrapped around a coffee mug. Bloomy filled her mug as she listened.

  “General,” one of the volunteer graduate students from UC Berkeley said, “eleven hundred have been killed so far. How much longer will this go on?”

  “The number is one thousand ninety-five,” Pontowski replied.

  “What’s five, more or less?” the grad student replied.

  “A great deal, if you’re one of the five. But you’re right to be worried about the high casualties—as are the commanders.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” the grad student said. He stood and walked out of the room, leaving a stunned silence behind him.

  “General,” Bloomy said, “I apologize for—”

  Pontowski shook his head. “No apology is needed.” He motioned at the screen, where an attractive young couple was dancing around a bed in an underwear commercial. “It’s the fifth day of the war, and you’re seeing raw, unedited coverage directly from the battlefield. What you’re not getting is the big picture.” He walked over to the map of Saudi Arabia tacked on the wall. He drew a broad, slashing arrow from Iraq through King Khalid Military City, with the arrowhead fifty miles to the south. “The UIF’s goal is the capital, Riyadh, approximately a hundred and seventy miles away.” He drew a flat, oblong circle under the arrowhead. “This is where the fighting is.” Next he drew what looked like a set of horns on each side of the oblong circle, curving back toward Iraq. “As the UIF advances into Saudi Arabia, it must extend its flanks to the east and west, making the front much wider. This also reduces their mass in the center.” He made the horn on the right, or eastern side, much longer than the horn on the west. “Slowly their eastern flank is extending, inviting a counterattack.” He drew a perpendicular arrow from the right that pierced into the side of the arrow representing the UIF’s advance.

  “They must know that,” a voice said.

  “Indeed they do,” Pontowski said. “That’s why speed is critical. I figure they’ve got three weeks max to capture Riyadh before we have the forces in place to mount a major counterattack.” He pointed to the TV, which now showed a dirty and tired reporter standing in front of a first-aid station.

  “Peter,” the reporter said, “I recorded the following scene thirty minutes ago, less than a mile from where I’m now standing.” He turned and pointed to the north as the screen flickered, showing a squad of American soldiers hunkered down behind a low ridge as they moved a TOW antitank missile into position.

  “Incoming!” a voice shouted. The scene twisted and turned as the cameraman jumped into a shallow depression. An explosion blasted smoke and debris over the camera lens, but the audio was still good.

  “Oh, God!”

  “Medic!”

  “Shit! Sarge got it!”

  A fourth voice took command. “Forget Sarge! Get that weapon in action!”

  Before the screen could clear, Pontowski’s calm voice was there. “The fact that the reporter had time to set up and broadcast so soon, and so close to the action, tells me the UIF is slowing down. The next two or three days are going to be critical, and I’m afraid we’re going to lose a lot of good men before we can stop them
.”

  Bloomy studied Pontowski’s face as he spoke. Had the president been like that? she wondered. Suddenly she had to know.

  Before he left his office that evening, Pontowski telephoned his son at NMMI. He listened to Zack’s excitement over the TV coverage coming from the war and let him unwind. A knock at the door demanded his attention, and he turned around. Bloomy was standing in the doorway, nervously fingering a letter. “Zack,” Pontowski said into the phone, “can I call you back in a few minutes?” He listened to the reply before he broke the connection. “What’s up?”

  “My resignation,” Bloomy said. She handed him the letter.

  The announcement stunned Pontowski. “Why? Is it something I’ve done?”

  She shook her head. “The letter explains it.”

  He carefully read the letter while Bloomy waited nervously. “I think it’s great you want to write Gramps’s definitive biography. But why do you have to resign from the library to do it?”

  “Because of what I might find,” she answered.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think there’s any big surprises lurking in the woodwork.”

  “There’s the missing year,” she said quietly.

  His brows knitted in worry. “Have you found something?”

  Again she was certain that he knew. “There is a most unusual pattern that I can’t explain.”

  Pontowski kicked back in his chair. “The only thing that matters is the truth. So find it.”

  Bloomy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “No other conditions?”

  “None.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I trust you to do the right thing.” He handed back the letter. She gave a little nod and quickly left. Pontowski stared at the vacant doorway for a moment and gave a little shake of his head. You’re in for some real shockers. But better you than someone else. He hit the speed dial to telephone his son.

  “Zack,” he said, “you calmed down yet?” He listened for a moment. “Hey, you’re not even sixteen yet. This ain’t your war to miss.”

  The White House

  Friday, September 10

  “It’s a good one,” Shaw said as the crew filming the TV clip quickly cleared the Oval Office. More and more, Shaw was managing Turner’s election campaign and portraying the president as a resolute but embattled leader in the mode of Winston Churchill. She leaned back in her chair, taking a few moments to relax. “I’ve got Sam slated to cover the talking heads Sunday,” Shaw told her. The talking heads were the Sunday-morning political talk show pundits. “Unfortunately, he’s on with Leland.”

  “I think the vice president is more than capable of handling the good senator,” she said. A vision of Sam Kennett strangling Leland with his one hand on national TV played in her mind.

  Nancy Bender appeared in the doorway as an assistant straightened the office. “The deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on six,” Nancy said. Button six on the intercom was the hot line to the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. Nancy closed the door to give her privacy.

  Turner picked up the phone. “Good morning, General.” She listened for a few moments and closed her eyes. “No, he hasn’t arrived yet. I’ll tell him.” She dropped the phone in its cradle and looked at Shaw. “General Wilding is on his way from the Pentagon for a meeting with the ExCom. Please show him in the moment he arrives. I need to speak to him in private.”

  Her look told Shaw everything. “Yes, Madam President.” He quickly walked to the entrance to the West Wing to wait for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The Army staff car arrived exactly four minutes later. “The president would like to speak to you,” Shaw told Wilding. “Alone,” he added. Please read me right on this and get your act together, he mentally begged. The general jerked his head yes and handed his aide his briefcase.

  Maddy came to her feet the moment Shaw ushered Wilding into the Oval Office. She took a little swallow as the door closed behind him, leaving them alone. “I’m afraid there’s bad news, General. We just received news that your son was…” She swallowed harder, hating what she had to say. “Killed in action.” She reached out to touch him but thought better of it. For a brief moment she was back in time, telling another general that his only child, his daughter, had been killed in an aircraft accident. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Wilding’s eyes turned misty. “Thank you, Madam President, but no.” Unbidden, he sat down on a couch. She joined him and waited. The general looked at her. “It was what he wanted, to lead men in combat. He knew the risks. He once told me that he would rather be killed than taken prisoner.”

  “Because of who you are?” she asked.

  Wilding shook his head. “No. Because of who he was.” A long pause. “I think he knew he didn’t have much time. He did everything at full speed. He turned down an appointment to West Point so he could finish college early. Did it in two and a half years and earned a commission through ROTC. But you have to be twenty-one to be an officer, so he enlisted and went armor. He loved those machines. The day he turned twenty-one, I administered his commissioning oath. By then he had two children.” He stared at his hands. “He saw this coming and moved heaven and earth to get to Saudi Arabia.”

  Maddy had to ask the question. “Did he use your influence?”

  Wilding gave a little snort. “Out of the question. For a moment I almost did intervene and cancel his assignment. But he would’ve disowned me and transferred to the Marines. He told me so.”

  “I have considered keeping the children of flag officers from combat, at least when their parent is on active duty.”

  “Save that for the politicians.” The general stood up. “Madam President, please excuse me. I need to tell my wife.”

  “Certainly.”

  Now he was the military professional again, rigid and un-bending, determined to answer the call to duty. He hesitated for a moment. “Madam President, I must warn you. The next thirty-six to forty-eight hours are going to be horrendous. But it’s either fight or surrender.” She stared at him in shock. She had never thought of it in those terms.

  Maddy nodded. “Thank you, General, but surrendering is not an option. Take care of your wife and family.”

  You’re part of my family, too, Wilding thought. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Taman Negara

  Sunday, September 12

  A small bean pod bounced off Kamigami, and he looked up. An unbroken jungle canopy stretched over him, effectively hiding the sun. High above his head, Tel’s hand emerged from foliage. Two fingers made a V sign, followed by a finger pointing at the base camp. Tel made a fist, and then fingers extended as he counted. The hand disappeared back into the foliage. Nine enemy in camp, Kamigami thought. They had been watching the old base camp for two days, and this was the first sign of activity.

  A few minutes later the radio operator motioned to Kamigami when the LED display on the PRC319 radio flashed. A message was coming in. He entered the decryption code on the keypad, the screen blinked, and the message started to scroll. Delta Team under Lieutenant Lee operating in the north sector had finally reached their objective, some fifty miles north of Kamigami’s position. They made good time, Kamigami conceded. But not worth breaking radio silence. He made a mental note to knock some heads when they got back to the island. The radio operator scrolled the message. Delta team had discovered a wide and well-constructed dirt road hidden underneath the tree canopy. A diesel-powered, eight-wheeled vehicle carrying a forty-foot missile had passed their position and was heading south. Two support trucks accompanied it. Again the message scrolled. Unless otherwise directed, Lee was going to recce the road to the north.

  Kamigami nodded. He had been premature in deciding to knock heads. Good thinking. Silence implies consent. Another bean pod bounced off his head, and he looked up again. Tel’s hand was sticking out of his perch high in the tree and moving furiously. A large number of men were returning to the base camp. Kamigami checked his watch. Forty minutes to
sunset. He looked up and flashed a hand signal for Tel to climb down when it was dark. Now he had to wait, something he was very used to. He went to sleep.

  Tel nudged him awake forty-five minutes later. “Over two hundred men and women returned to camp,” he said in a low voice. “They came down the road from the north and were carrying shovels, picks, buckets, things like that.”

  “Sounds like a work detail building the road,” Kamigami said. He showed Tel the message that had come in earlier. “We need to find out if that missile is headed for one of those tunnels dug in the ridge.” He thought for a moment. “Too many people around now. We need to pull back.” Within minutes the three men were up and moving, with Tel in the lead. They had gone less than fifty meters when Tel made a waving motion by his ear and pointed straight ahead. He had heard something. Kamigami quieted his breathing and closed his eyes. He was not straining to hear but in a receptive mode. Finally, over the slight ringing in his ears that plagued him, he also heard it. A man and a woman were talking softly. Kamigami flashed a hand signal, and the three of them melted into the brush.

  After a few moments the voices changed into moans and breathless pants. The couple was making love. It didn’t last long, less than a minute, and the man started talking much more loudly. He spoke in Chinese and was anxious to get back to the camp. The girl protested in the same language, demanding that he treat her with respect. They walked by, less than six feet from Kamigami, easy targets. How old are they? he thought. Eighteen? Nineteen? How do you tell turbocharged teenagers that sex in a combat zone can kill you? Where the hell are their commanders?

  They waited to ensure that no one else was wandering around in the dark in search of more nocturnal pastimes. Kamigami didn’t stir for over an hour and was ready to move out when the distinctive sound of a diesel engine drifted up the path. He came to his feet, but Tel was already moving, ghosting down the path leading to the Tembeling River. Kamigami followed and immediately lost contact.