Sudden Threat

by A. J Tata

  “Where the hell are we?” Sturgeon asked, not really expecting an answer.

  “We’re just outside Cabanatuan. Used to be an Abu Sayyaf stronghold. Still is, I guess,” Barefoot told them. He had studied the country. He wanted to break the mold of the idiot, liberal journalist. Unfortunately, he was running for his life and not covering a story.

  The morning sun bore down on them like an eighteen-wheeler with high beams. At least they had made it past the sunken rice paddy area. They had hunkered down for the day in a low area about five miles from their former prison cell and had chosen to move at night. The sun was rising, and they needed to find concealment, Matt knew. Now they were standing amidst a desolate expanse of hardpan covered in white dirt with isolated patches of grass shooting through.

  Matt spied a small wooded area to the west and said, “We need to do something about Rathburn’s body. We need to bury him and somehow mark the spot so one day we can come back for him.”

  “Yeah. You’re right,” Sturgeon said.

  “There,” Matt pointed. There was a small hill with a tight cluster of hardwoods about three hundred meters to their west. The terrain feature contrasted sharply from the indistinct hardpan upon which they stood and the soggy rice paddies behind them. The town of Cabanatuan was less than a mile to the west, interrupted by the clump of trees on a small hill.

  “That looks good,” Sturgeon said, pointing to the trees.

  “Good,” Matt said, thinking. “Barefoot, is there any way we could get the place on film, in case, you know”—he paused—“something should happen to us. At least there would be a record of where we buried him.”

  “Why don’t I do a story on this if my batteries work,” Barefoot said. Barefoot carried with him a camera with tripod and remote, a satellite antenna, and the four-port uplink that linked the antenna to the camera and processed the information digitally over the computer. The beauty of the system was that it was all entirely battery-operated.

  “Yeah. Let’s do that, then tell the world where we are. Why didn’t you tell us your stuff worked?” Matt asked, hopeful.

  “It will only record. I’m sure the rebels pilfered my stuff,” Barefoot said. “I’ll check it once we get situated.”

  Two of the men carried the media equipment while a third carried Rathburn’s stiff, putrid body across the dusty surface. It was a short walk, but still, they took turns swapping Rathburn’s body among themselves. It wasn’t so much the weight as it was the smell. Plus, the rigid body was awkward to handle.

  They entered the comforting shade of the wooded knoll and disappeared amidst the trees. The mahoganies were tall and dark, blocking the searing, penetrating rays of the sun. Each man had a canteen of water they had found in the back of the truck, curiously, and drank without concern for where the next canteen would come from.

  Matt dumped Rathburn’s body on the ground. The dirt around the trees was darker and much softer than the crusted hardpan they had traversed. The woods were larger than they initially appeared, running a couple of hundred meters to the west, toward Cabanatuan. He found a tree branch, snapped the twigs away, and whittled the end into a spade with Sturgeon’s knife. He tossed the knife to its owner, who did the same.

  The two men dug a shallow grave in nearly an hour. They worked feverishly for some unknown reason—they had all the time in the world, but their sense was that Rathburn had been violated and by planting his body in the ground, somehow it would begin the healing process. Perhaps then, his soul could escape the horror of the past few days and ascend to the heavens.

  Meanwhile, Barefoot set up his equipment, testing and checking. He was surprised to find everything in working order. He pointed the satellite dish toward the sky until he got a red signal indicator showing that he had linkup with the CNN satellite. Then the signal faded. CNN’s satellite, Barefoot believed, was geostationary. So either he had lost the signal or his batteries were weak. Regardless, he pressed on.

  Matt and Sturgeon lifted Rathburn’s body into the grave and began the burial process. Barefoot popped a blank tape into his camera and began filming. Out of decency, he filmed only the faces of Jack and Matt, working feverishly to bury their fallen comrade. This will make a great story, maybe even win a Pulitzer. Barefoot’s immediate thoughts were with Rathburn though. He did not know the man, but knew he had probably suffered a terrible death. Worse, his after-death experience had been one of mutilation and agony. The gods may never take him, Barefoot thought to himself.

  When Rathburn was covered with dirt, Matt took the two field-expedient spades and drove them deep into the ground with a rock, marking the head and foot of the grave. When the June rains came, and all the ground seemed the same, the two branches should still be protruding a foot or so from the earth’s surface.

  “I would just like to say a few words,” Matt said, unaffected by the camera. He stood with the mound of dirt behind him, framed by the two branches. To his rear, the trees thinned, giving way to the hardpan below and the city of Cabanatuan to the west. The cement road was visible in the background as it emerged from some tiny shacks on the edge of the town only two hundred meters from their location.

  Sturgeon took a knee in his salt-lined flight suit. He had sweat completely through it digging the grave. Barefoot didn’t notice the red light from his satellite transponder, it had come back on. He was transmitting.

  Matt was a continuing contrast, like a photo-negative. His khaki shirt was now gray from dirt stains collecting on the wetness of his sweat. His cargo pants were nearly white from the dusty hardpan. Sweat had washed away the film of dirt from his unshaven face, revealing his drawn, hardened features. He had not eaten for two full days and was weak. His hair was matted and unclean. His voice was solid, though, as he spoke.

  “Today we mark the death of Mr. Bart Rathburn, the assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. Two days ago rebels from the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped Mr. Rathburn, myself, Matt Garrett, and Jack Sturgeon, the pilot of the destroyed Department of Defense airplane. We are fortunate enough to have the company of Johnny Barefoot, a CNN correspondent whom the rebels mistook for a spy. It is a sad day. Bart Rathburn gave his life in the service of his country. The rebels attacked, took us hostage, and for two days we sat in a rat-infested jail cell at a place called Fort Magsaysay near a small town on the island of Luzon called Cabanatuan.

  “Bart Rathburn is a man who died before his time and an American hero in his own right. He had resisted in the spirit of the American fighting soldier, but in the end the Abu Sayyaf tortured and killed him.

  “I did not know Bart Rathburn well, but his assistant, Meredith Morris, described him as a dedicated family man with a beautiful wife and two boys. We are making this documentary to record the location of his burial in case we do not escape from this conflict.”

  Curiously, as Matt talked, Barefoot could see through the camera a group of people walking on the road and thought he heard a faint, high-pitched squeak of machinery. Momentarily, he cut the camera to the side of Matt’s face and zoomed past the trees onto the edge of the town. He saw about twenty Filipinos dragging in the dirt. Behind them were soldiers wearing dark green, olive drab uniforms, holding weapons and sometimes prodding the stragglers.

  Zooming even closer, Matt’s voice droned on about Rathburn while Barefoot watched with horror as Japanese soldiers poked and prodded the emerging masses along the road. Another contrast.

  Through the zoom lens, Barefoot taped, but actually transmitted to a satellite, images of another era. This is not possible today, he thought. He filmed soldiers herding young children onto the hot pavement in the afternoon sun. He saw muzzle flashes of random gunfire that somehow seemed too accurate. He saw tanks and mechanized fighting vehicles rolling slowly, setting the pace of the march from the rear. But there was no rear. The fifty-mile march from Manila had swelled to over six thousand. Mothers and fathers carrying their children. Some shot through the backs if they could not keep up.

/>   He watched in horror and zoomed to a full body view, as a young Filipino male shouted angrily at a Japanese soldier, who leveled a pistol at the young man’s head and squeezed the trigger. Through the camera, the execution seemed to have a higher resolution. The faces of the two men. One angry, the other cold and expressionless. Simply doing a duty. Asian faces, one soft, almost European, the other harsh, brutally so. Their bodies. One brownish, the other yellow, one lean and malnourished, the other strong and stocky like a barrel. Their weapons. One his temperament, the other a Japanese 9mm officer’s pistol.

  Matt and Sturgeon snapped their heads when they heard the gunshot that sounded so close. They had become accustomed to the random, distant firing of weapons, but knew this to be something else.

  “Look between the trees,” Barefoot said, pointing, unaware that a young college intern in Atlanta, Georgia, was watching the scene as he transmitted his signal to the Syncom 3 satellite, an old coaxial slotted array communication satellite positioned nineteen hundred kilometers north of Fiji. Almost forty years ago, American television companies used the same satellite to transmit the Olympics from Tokyo.

  The young woman was unsure if she was watching HBO, reality TV, or a broadcaster’s transmission. Thinking she had better check it out, this being her first day on the job, she asked the Headline News production manager, Lewis Silver, to take a look at what was on her screen. He did so gladly, wanting to help the young lass. Carrying a cup of coffee into the room with a bank of television sets, all transmitting different images, he sat down and looked as she pointed. It was early in Georgia, only five o’clock, and Americans were not awake yet. At least most were not.

  President Davis looked away from the television screen and at Palmer.

  “There it is,” Palmer said.

  “I agree,” Stone said, working off his champagne hangover. Thankfully, Fox and Diamond hadn’t been called into the early-morning meeting in the White House.

  “There are other options,” Lantini protested mildly, drawing a curious stare from Stone.

  “We’ve got to do it,” Sewell said, then looked at Stone.

  Three to one, Davis thought, then said, “Pull the trigger.”

  CHAPTER 80

  Pentagon, Washington, DC

  The next morning Saul Fox and Dick Diamond licked their lips as they watched the video of Secretary Stone assaulting Meredith Morris. From a speaker in the corner of the office, Jean Valjean was belting out “Who am I?” from Les Miserables.

  “We could not have asked for better timing,” Fox said.

  “Nothing better,” Diamond agreed, stuffing his digital assistant into his suit coat pocket.

  The two men sat in Fox’s office, where they always seemed to be. His was a large square workspace with a huge mahogany desk and matching conference table that jutted off the front of the desk forming a T. The arrangement allowed Fox to sit at his command center while his minions briefed him, talked to him, paid homage, whatever the task. Diamond, however, being as important as Fox, sat in a leather chair to the side of Fox’s desk, facing him.

  “So let’s review the bidding,” Fox said.

  “Let’s,” Diamond concurred.

  “First, these silly Rolling Stones have been trying to do an amateur diversion in the Pacific to divert attention and forces away from that which will give us lasting fame.”

  “Do we know who all the members are? Do we need to do anything more regarding the Rolling Stones?”

  “Well, Stone is obviously Jagger and Takishi is one of them. Probably Rathburn also. Then, of course, you know who the fourth is.”

  “Yes. Mighty surprising, don’t you think?” Diamond asked uncomfortably. In fact, he had no idea what Fox was talking about, but decided to play along. Does he really know?

  “I do, but as long as we can keep him saying publicly that Iraq is a threat, the idea builds a momentum all its own, even if privately he’s participating in a scheme to forestall the invasion.”

  “I just thought, you know, why does he have Stone do his dirty work?”

  “You can ask the man,” Fox said, indicating he was ready to move on.

  “Yes, well, Rathburn is dead, and Takishi is both out of control and under control, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, good find there,” Fox agreed.

  “So, we have Takishi turn up the volume with his tank divisions and push the administration into negotiating mode. No way in hell is anyone going to want to go against the equivalent of a tank corps in the Philippines.”

  “What about the soldiers who are there?” Fox asked. “We just leave them, right?”

  Diamond chuckled. “Hey, they signed up for it, so they deserve to stay put.”

  “Yes, agreed. So, I’ve already denied several troop requests from Pacific Command and am diverting them to Central Command, and if you can kick old Jim Fleagles in the nuts and get him to use some ‘statecraft,’ well, that would be good.”

  “I’ll call him shortly, just as soon as Stone leaves.”

  As if on cue, Stone walked into the office. Diamond didn’t move, nor did Fox, relegating the senior ranking man to the “minion” table.

  “What’s up guys? You said you wanted to talk about the situation?” Stone asked.

  “Yes,” Fox said, picking up the remote and pressing play. “It seems that Mick Jagger is going to be asking, how shall I say it, to ‘gimme shelter’?”

  The television showed Stone in full color playing the air guitar, then screaming, “Mick Jagger!” Next they watched as Stone slid behind Meredith and kissed her ear.

  “Shall I go on?” Fox asked.

  “You son of a bitch,” Stone said.

  “Not nice to talk about my mother that way, Bob,” Fox said.

  “Not nice at all,” Diamond added.

  “Now here’s what were going to do,” Fox related. “State has lead on the Philippines. Defense focuses on Iraq. And while we can push a lot of forces in that direction, they will be a show of force. Nothing will become decisively engaged in the Philippines, and everything that is not already there will keep moving around the Celebes Sea, into the Indian Ocean, and into Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East to begin preparation for the destruction of Iraq.”

  “You mean Saddam Hussein, right, Saul?” Stone rebuked.

  “Whatever,” Fox replied.

  “What, you think you’re the only player with dirt on somebody?”

  Fox looked at Diamond, then at Stone and shrugged, as if to say, Show me what you got.

  “I will show you. I can play this game, too. Have been, you idiots,” Stone said, standing.

  “Tsk, tsk, Bob,” Fox said. “Dick here will put this on his blog site in an hour if I don’t have a firm commitment from you on the Iraq plan.”

  “In thirty minutes, I’ll put all the evidence of your short trading in AIG two days before Nine-eleven,” Stone said. “You think that won’t raise some eyebrows? Okay, so I was trying to get some skank, but at least I didn’t bet on the Nine-eleven attacks. And if you bet on those attacks, guess what, genius, you knew about them. And if you knew about them, you might have been involved in them. Need me to keep going?”

  “What evidence do you think you have?” Fox asked, all of a sudden less confident.

  “All that I need, and I can see I’ve got your attention.”

  “Certainly have mine,” Diamond said.

  “Well, I believe you were in on that short sale also, no?” Fox smiled.

  Stone stood and said, “You know I wasn’t. Here’s the deal. We will send what we think we need to the Philippines, slip the Iraq war a year to next spring, and develop a better plan.”

  “That’s unsatisfactory,” Fox replied.

  “That’s the deal. I have compelling evidence of your shorting 500,000 shares of AIG two days before Nine-eleven. The insurance company dropped forty points over the next three months. How much is that, Saul? Two hundred million?”

  “My name is nowhere on an
y of those transactions,” Fox said, a film of sweat forming on his brow.

  “Maybe not, but we’ve traced it to you. Are you getting satisfaction now?”

  “What about the Predator deal? Where did that money go?” Diamond asked, trying to rescue his friend.

  “That’s classified, Dick, and I’m having your security clearance revoked immediately,” Stone said. He stood, walked to the DVD player, pulled the disc out of the machine, snapped it into little pieces, stuffed those into his pocket, and walked to the connecting side door.

  Stopping in the doorway, Stone pointed at Fox, and said, “One word of this leaks, the world will know that you are a Nine-eleven coconspirator and that you became rich overnight. How many years do you think you’ll get? It won’t be much fun being ‘inside’; maybe even GTMO? Treason? How’s that sound?”

  Fox nodded. Diamond looked at Fox, then at Stone.

  Stone walked into his office and shut the door.

  Phase V: Hard Landing

  CHAPTER 81

  USS Carl Vinson, Celebes Sea

  Admiral Jennings put the secure red-switch telephone back in its receiver and turned the plastic key that contained a digitized microchip to encode the phone conversation. Chairman Sewell had called him to tell him that the secretary of defense had authorized the plan for major combat operations in Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines.

  In essence, they had already “pulled the trigger.” Jennings had, on the order of Sewell and the president, executed the initial phase earlier that morning by sinking the six ships anchored off the Luzon Straits. A Los Angeles-class submarine had systematically eliminated each vessel with a torpedo in the fore and aft hulls. The SEALs had provided critical information regarding hull density of the vessels, and sinking them had been a quite simple operation.