Sudden Threat

by A. J Tata

  “JUSMAG, this is Bravo six,” Zach said.

  They waited in the darkness as his men either slept or pulled security. He had one patrol, led by Second Lieutenant Mike Kurtz, the Second Platoon Leader operating under the call sign “White six,” clearing the perimeter two hundred meters to the west.

  “JUSMAG, this is Bravo six, we have crossed phase-line October and are awaiting further instructions. Your liaison element was incapable of communicating with us, and we had enemy contact on the objective. Request immediate link up, over.” JUSMAG was an adjunct to the U.S. embassy in Manila. A small mili-tary team coordinated all Department of Defense activities within the country, and Zach had been instructed to contact the JUSMAG immediately upon arrival.

  “Bravo six, this is JUSMAG, I’m the only one awake here at the moment. I will inform the colonel as soon as possible, over.”

  “Listen, this situation is not normal and requires immediate notification of your leader, over.” Zachary was getting angry. No one is awake? What kind of excuse is that? I’ll bet that lieutenant colonel with a bullet in his head wasn’t awake either.

  Zachary’s feeling about the mission did not improve when the voice came back, “Bravo six, this is JUSMAG. Your instructions are to continue with the mission, over.”

  “Continue with what mission, over?”

  “Wait one.” After a minute or two pause a different, harsher voice came on the line, “Bravo six, this is JUSMAG six, what seems to be the problem?”

  Finally , Zachary thought, someone with authority. The six suffix was the designator for the commander, so he knew the voice belonged to someone in charge.

  “Your liaison was incapacitated prior to our arrival. We need link-up with a member of your team for further instructions.”

  “Incapacitated in what way?”

  “Your man was shot through the forehead before we got here,” Zachary said, violating what he consid-ered to be operational security. There was a long period of silence.

  “What is your status?”

  “We have secured our equipment and moved across phase-line October, awaiting further instruc-tions.”

  “Roger, I’ll be at your location ASAP. Anything else?”

  “Negative, over.”

  Zachary and Slick looked at each other, wondering how long ASAP would be. A warm, moist wind pushed across their faces. Slick left the SCAMP operational as Zachary slipped on his night-vision goggles to get a glimpse of his unit’s security. From one knee, he could see all three platoons, tightly joined in a triangular formation. It was a bit close together for his liking, but considering the circum-stances, and the fact that he had three new platoon leaders, he was satisfied. The sun would rise shortly, giving him a clearer vision of what looked to him to be a wasteland of hardstand surrounded by high-rising hills on three sides and water on the fourth.

  Too vulnerable.

  As the morning sun crested the eastern moun-tains, scattering its rays through the jagged peaks, Zachary slept sitting on his rear end, leaning against his rucksack. He was tired and floated in and out of a dream state, vivid images of his parents’ farm in Stanardsville dancing through his mind.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Sir?” Slick said. “Sir, there’s a helicopter coming in.”

  Zachary pulled out of his dream slowly. It had been a rough two days for him, ever since the alert notification back in Hawaii. The only sleep he had managed was a shaky three hours on the airplane. The rest of the time he had spent making plans, reassuring soldiers, and thinking about his family. His mind rose out of the dream like a fighter pilot pulling out of a dive, spinning rapidly across the Blue Ridge, the continental United States, Hawaii, and landing with a thud in the Philippines. He rubbed his eyes and, in the wafting heat of the morning, looked at Slick, who was pointing at a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter flaring as it was about to land.

  A portly man in solid green jungle fatigues stepped out of the aircraft, holding his flop hat in one hand. His pistol holster slapped his thigh as he ran from under the prop wash. Zachary looked at his watch. 0830. So, ASAP meant three hours.

  Lieutenant Colonel Fraley, miffed that some of Zachary’s soldiers had challenged him before he could enter the perimeter, stood before Zachary in anticipation of something. Like two men squared off on a short distance duel, it finally occurred to him that Fraley was awaiting a salute.

  Sure, give this dude a sniper check. Zachary smiled, then snapped a sharp salute. The overweight lieutenant colonel performed a sloppy half-salute. Zach smirked and considered it the lieutenant colonel’s good fortune that none of his men had shot him as he blew into their perimeter. He was doubtless a garrison officer. He had a thick, bushy mustache that hung over teeth stained from smoking, and his hair, while balding, was long by Army standards.

  Earlier, Second Lieutenant Andy Taylor’s First Platoon, going by the call sign “Red six,” had moved back to the airstrip where the colonel had been shot to secure the body they had left behind. Taylor had radioed back that the vehicle and the body were nowhere to be found.

  “Whaddya mean you don’t have the body?” Fraley lashed out at Zachary in the middle of his company perimeter, troops watching.

  “Sir, the vehicle was rigged with explosives. My immediate concern was for the safety of my troops,” Zachary responded with authority.

  “You ever think he might still be alive!?” Fraley barked, his mustache catching spittle as he talked. Zachary looked awkwardly at the man, then his own soldiers, who were hovering around the two men and staring at the ground. He had always followed the leadership maxim to “praise in public and punish in private.”

  “And who the hell do you think you are sending those two airplanes away—they were supposed to backhaul some equipment.”

  Zachary felt less bad about that, figuring he might have saved the government two airplanes. But the dead colonel was another matter. He was sure that man had a family somewhere and would at least want a proper burial for him.

  However, he took consolation in the fact that he still had all of his troops, and remained poised despite Fraley’s ranting.

  “I’m calling your division commander and tell-ing him not to send another hothead commander in charge of a ragtag unit to my islands,” Fraley said, launching rockets of spit at Zachary.

  “Sir, any intel you think you can give us in light of what happened last night?” Zachary asked, ignoring the rebuke.

  “Your clearance ain’t high enough, son. Now move your shit into those buildings, lock up your ammo, and don’t breathe unless I tell you to,” Fraley ordered. “The ammo’s over there, and the boat will be here tomorrow to pick it up. Not hard, Captain.”

  “Sir—”

  “At ease, soldier. Come down here itching for a fight, are ya?” Fraley said. “Well, you just better back off it, son, and do exactly what I tell you to do. Are you sure you saw a dead body, I’m beginning to wonder—”

  “Yes, sir. I’m positive. I’ve stood here and listened to you rag me out in front of my troops, but I will not allow you to question my integrity,” Gar-rett shot back.

  Fraley did not budge.

  “Listen here, Captain. This ain’t no game, and you ain’t in charge. I’ll have your ass locked up for insubordination next time you talk to me like that.”

  Zach stared at the overweight and unprofessional officer. It was easy. He decided to employ the method of voluntary disobedience; in short, he would do exactly the opposite of what the colonel had told him not to do.

  As Fraley remounted the Black Hawk, Slick looked at the commander, holding the radio handset in one hand and his M4 in the other, saying, “Boy, what an asshole.”

  Fraley’s head turned, as if he heard Slick.

  “You said it, my friend,” Zachary said to Slick, who knelt back down and continued to monitor the SCAMP, his FM radio, and the phone line that he had run to each platoon command post.

  Zachary watched as the Black Hawk pulled away from the ground, suck
ing twigs and dirt into the air and spitting them back down upon his troops as the pilot flew low over his company perimeter, blowing hot dirt onto the men.

  “Go to hell,” Zachary said under his breath, watching the aircraft fly away. Slick looked up at his commander and smiled, as did some of the other headquarters platoon troops who had overheard the ass chewing. Nobody gave their commander shit and got away with it. They were sure of that.

  He called his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants in. This was a time for both commissioned and noncommissioned officers to receive the word straight from the commander. He briefed them on exactly what had transpired between him and the colonel. They shook their heads and offered words of support to the commander, which he quickly hushed.

  “Here’s the deal. We will only rotate one platoon at a time into the barracks. The other two will dig fighting positions and defend the primary avenues of approach into your area of operations. Headquarters, you’ll set up in one of the buildings also, but we will change barracks every night to avoid presenting a stationary target. If we have to, we’ll even pilfer the ammunition stockpile. If you haven’t already done so, I want leaders to distribute all of the ammunition we brought to every soldier. I’m talking everything we’ve got,” Zachary directed.

  As the commander talked, the group coalesced. They became more cohesive as a result of the simple altercation between an outsider and their com-mander. In all, Zachary figured, things had actually worked out for the best.

  “Platoon leaders, you need to sight weapons and give me your sector sketches so I can develop a company fire plan. We want aggressive patrolling within the confines of the base and you have my order to take suspicious personnel captive for tactical questioning.” He did not know if his directive was within the rules of engagement, but he did not want strays roaming around the vacant, windswept base.

  Zachary finished the meeting by saying, “As long as we are in this ghost town, B Company is the sheriff.” His leaders smiled and crowed with a few “hooahs,” the standard infantry signal of approval. One of the troops even barked out the name “Garrett’s Gulch,” which would stick. They had to call their new home something.

  His briefing had been more like a halftime pep talk at a football game. Indeed, Zachary recognized that part of his job was to motivate these people.

  Quickly, they moved out to perform their missions. They checked ammunition, dug foxholes, and determined the location of their machine guns.

  Zachary stood in the middle of the activity in the same fashion that a head football coach directs a practice session. In his mind, he gauged his playing field and assessed his position’s strengths and vulnerabilities.

  With sudden clarity, he realized this was an away game.

  CHAPTER 25

  Palau, Pacific Ocean

  Matt bolted upright in the bed and was momentarily confused by his surroundings. He was in a plush hotel room, swaddled in thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and resting on a bed that seemed to swallow him. In addition, there was the blond woman again, hovering over him.

  “My Virginian,” he said, turning and looking at her. She was dressed in a turquoise business suit and had obviously been in some professional environment.

  “Time to go,” she said curtly, stuffing her Blackberry into her purse.

  “Did you file my report?”

  She looked away, then back at him. “I did, with Rathburn, who called back.”

  “So, can you give me a status of what’s happening in Mindanao?”

  “We’ll do that in the car. The secretary wants you to fly to Manila with him. It’s a short trip, and you can update him on everything during the flight.”

  “Manila?” Matt was thinking out loud as opposed to questioning her directly. That would put him in the thick of things, he realized. He would get back to his assigned country and could perhaps pick up the trail of the Predators again. On that thought, he asked Meredith, “Any status on the Japanese float plane?”

  “It departed quickly after refueling. It hasn’t been sighted since,” Meredith replied.

  “Anyone check the refueling logs?”

  “Let’s go,” Meredith said impatiently. “You’ve been out of it a day now, so you should be well enough rested to make a short plane flight.”

  “Who are you, Florence Nightingale?” Matt laughed. It was a defensive mechanism for him. An attractive woman was in his hotel room, and he had the distinct impression that she was bothered by something. “By the way, how did I get naked?”

  Again she averted her eyes. “Pino undressed you … and I’m not sure what else he did.”

  “Not again. C’mon,” Matt said, standing and wincing at the pain. She was flashing a movie-star smile back at him, chuckling a bit.

  “Thought that might get you moving. Here’s a bio on Rathburn. You two will be going to Manila, then you’ll be further assigned from there. We talked to your agency.”

  “Further assigned?”

  “I assumed you would have a better feel than I for what that meant,” she said, smiling.

  He looked at his shoulder, which in all honesty felt okay.

  “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  “Remember what?”

  “It’s just as well,” she said. “Ten minutes. Be dressed and downstairs.”

  “Okay. One question?”

  “One.”

  “Are you going to Manila?”

  Meredith walked to the window, which provided an expansive view of the Pacific. Closer in were palm trees and beautiful horseshoe beaches that appeared as a series of semicircles beneath the bluffs.

  “No. I have to get back to DC. I was the advance team for Mr. Rathburn’s Asia trip. I have briefed him on everything he needs to know, the trip is set, and I’m heading back.”

  “Don’t sound too happy about it,” Matt said.

  “How would you like to be the expert on the region and get punted by a bunch of women?”

  “Women?”

  She turned and looked at him.

  “You ever hear of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service? DACOWITS?”

  “I’m not even going there with that acronym. And no,” Matt said, pulling his washed and pressed cargo pants over his legs.

  “They are going with Mr. Rathburn to Manila, Okinawa, South Korea, and Hawaii on the way back in order to assess the status of women in the military.”

  “You’re a chick, why can’t you do that?” Matt was pulling his shirt over his bare chest, but needed some help with the shoulder.

  Meredith walked over, lifted the shirt, and slid it over his arm so that Matt didn’t have to raise it above shoulder level. He felt her place her soft hand on the small of his back as she used her other hand to manipulate the shirt.

  “We talked, didn’t we?” Matt asked.

  Meredith moved around to his front once her chore was complete.

  “Yes. You were doped up, but we talked,” she said.

  “That’s about the only way to get me to talk. Did we watch Oprah, too?”

  Meredith laughed. “No, but you told me about your brother Zachary and how much you love him and your sister, Karen.”

  Matt shrugged. “As long as I’m not remembering stuff, you’re in my room watching me get dressed. How was I?”

  “I’m not smoking a cigarette, am I?”

  “Ouch.”

  “Actually, I was unaware that you were naked, but time is of the essence here, and you didn’t respond to two phone calls and five minutes of knocking on the door.”

  “So a little Givenchy did the trick?”

  “Works every time.” She smiled, picked up his rucksack, and said, “C’mon. We’ve got an assistant secretary of defense waiting on us.”

  “Who gives a shit?” Matt said. “That’s just some dude who sucked up to the right guy at the right time. Give me a minute to do some personal hygiene here.”

  Matt did his business in the bathroom, brushed his teeth with
the gratis incidentals that he guessed always came with thousand-dollar-a-night rooms. He studied his four days of growth and decided not to shave. If he was riding shotgun with a defense department assistant something or other, he wanted to look either like security or galley help.

  As he exited the bathroom, Meredith turned and began walking at a fast clip along the hallway. They took the elevator down to the lobby and immediately walked out and got into one of two waiting Suburbans.

  “He in the other one?”

  “Yes. Now I’m warning you that he’s got a bit of a temper.”

  “That doesn’t bother me,” Matt said, a confused look on his face.

  “Then what does?”

  “That you’re not going.”

  Matt’s compliment seemed to stagger her for a moment, but she regained her composure, and said, “Thank you. I wish I was going, too. I’ve not been to Manila or Okinawa, though I’ve been to Korea.”

  “I just think you’re hot.” Matt smiled. He followed up his awkward comment with, “Do me a favor. When you get to DC, if you have the chance, tell my sister I said ‘Hi’ and that I’m okay. She worries, and sometimes I’m not as good as I should be about keeping up. Mom and Dad are getting up there, you know, and she’s trying to hold everything together.” He pressed a phone number into one of Meredith’s hands.

  Meredith looked at him, then at her hand, and said, “I will.”

  “But before you do that,” he said, looking at her, “take these and make sure his family knows he died a hero, and I want you to close the loop on where his teammates are and that they’re okay.”

  Matt placed Peterson’s dog tags into her other outstretched palm as they bounced along in the back of the Suburban. Her eyes dropped to the two metal strips with Peterson’s name and other identifying information. He closed her hand around them and held it.

  “I can joke around with the best of them,” he said. “But I never forget my mission.”