by Joe Buff
Jeffrey suspected the actual purpose of this particular drill was to establish zone security as the president was escorted from the hotel. He guessed these Washington old-timers knew it too.
Sure enough, in moments the drill was lifted. Jeffrey’s trained submariner ear sensed the air circulation fans start up again, even as the reception’s din increased.
Jeffrey noticed Commodore Wilson standing in one conversation group. A full captain, Wilson was the commanding officer of Challenger’s parent squadron in New London/Groton. He was Jeffrey’s boss. Half a year ago, Jeffrey joined the ship as executive officer, while Wilson was Challenger’s captain. The two men, so far, were being promoted upward in lockstep. Though a loving husband and father to his wife and their three daughters, Wilson was a very tough and demanding guy to subordinates.
The commodore saw Jeffrey. “Where have you been?” he snapped. He didn’t wait for an answer. “We need to be going. Where’s Lieutenant Reebeck?”
Jeffrey, Wilson, and Ilse were standing with some Federal Protective Service bodyguards in the vestibule to a side entrance of the hotel.
Ilse came up close to Jeffrey. “I’ll be much too tired to have dinner with you later,” she said in a meaningful undertone.
“I’m occupied myself,” Jeffrey said evenly. He knew he’d be swamped getting Challenger and her crew ready for sea and for combat. Jeffrey ached for more combat, for a chance to tangle decisively with the von Scheer.
As they waited for their transportation to arrive, Jeffrey was troubled by his discussion with the commander in chief. The president, as a man, had distinct charisma, an infectious eagerness to get on with the job, no matter how trying and grim. Jeffrey could detect, even in that close-range private interaction, no trace of the self-aggrandizing narcissism that could turn a national leader into a demagogue. Yet all the open references to politics as a profession, and the unveiled hints of backdoor support in the corridors of power, left Jeffrey wondering what it might be like to work in Washington after the war. Helping direct a new reconstruction abroad. Occupation of the aggressors once subdued, and war crime trials. Foreign aid. New global alignments. Hoped-for return to a time of plenty at home. The possibilities were almost too big to contemplate. In comparison, commanding a warship in battle was a simple and straightforward task.
Blue water in my service record is what I want…. Besides, so much has to happen first. The war has to be won before anyone can realistically plan for the peace.
But Jeffrey knew he couldn’t have Challenger forever, even assuming the ship and he survived. The navy didn’t work that way. It was up or out, for officers. Commanding a fast-attack submarine — or any other vessel — was supposed to be just one rung on the ladder. Selection boards for rear admiral required solid performance in land assignments too. Someone bucking for his or her first star had to look well rounded indeed — fewer than one in a hundred full captains ever made the cut for flag rank. After all, Jeffrey’s own inner voice nagged, the Pentagon itself, with its spiderweb of connections with Congress and command links to the executive branch, sat on solid dry land, not out in blue water.
Jeffrey’s father and mother hurried over.
“On your way out?” Michael Fuller said, annoyed.
Jeffrey nodded sheepishly. He’d been too cowed by the insistent Wilson to ask for time to look for his folks. Jeffrey was glad his father found him before the transportation showed up.
“Let me stay here and chat with Jeffrey,” Michael said to his wife. “Use the car, dear. My driver can take you home so you can lie down.”
Jeffrey’s mother kissed her husband on the cheek. Then she turned to Jeffrey. “Good luck. Keep safe. Call us when you can.” Jeffrey hugged his mom good-bye. She walked away, accompanied by Michael Fuller’s government chauffeur: undersecretaries rated official automobiles. Jeffrey wondered when he would ever see his mother again. He might be killed on his next mission. His mother’s breast cancer might recur, in the chest wall this time, where there was nothing the doctors could do.
“Finally,” Commodore Wilson said. Two town cars pulled up.
“Let me go with you to the airport,” Michael Fuller said to Jeffrey. “We can spend a few more minutes talking. I’ll take the Metro home.” The Metro, the Washington subway, was very overcrowded because of wartime gasoline rationing coupled with a surge in local employment.
The bodyguards didn’t argue. Jeffrey’s father had pull.
Wilson and Ilse got into one of the town cars, Jeffrey and his father into the other. They sat in back, with Michael on Jeffrey’s left — it was navy etiquette for the senior person to enter first so he or she could exit last. In the front passenger seat, his eyes very alert and an Uzi submachine gun in his lap, sat a bodyguard. District of Columbia police cars, one in front and one behind, started their flashers. The motorcade moved out.
The group of autos weaved through side streets rather than heading directly to the airport. Jeffrey figured this was for extra security. Seeing all the precautions needed just to get to the airport made him glad he’d be taking navy transport to New London; commercial airline check-in was a nightmare.
Jeffrey’s father lowered the armrest between them, to relax. “So how did you make out? I lost track of you there for a while.”
Jeffrey turned to his father. As deadpan as he could, he said, “I spent half an hour alone with the president.”
“Of the Naval War College?”
“No. Of the United States.”
“You’re kidding.” Michael Fuller seemed impressed, even envious.
“I wish I was.”
“What did you talk about?”
“It’s secret.”
“Good,” Jeffrey’s father said at once. “Loose lips sink ships…. Like I already told you, this town’s gossip circuit is too leaky as it is.”
In the front seats, the driver and bodyguard ignored Jeffrey and his dad, intent on possible threats from outside the town car.
Jeffrey looked around. It was late afternoon, still light, with a gentle breeze and clear blue sky. A handful of people, mostly young or very old, strolled the spotless sidewalks. Some men and women between twenty and seventy walked more purposefully, with heavy and bulging briefcases, the beginning of evening rush hour for those who worked the early shift and then brought more work home. Some of them, Jeffrey thought, were probably heading to their jobs, if their assignments — civil service or private sector — helped the city and the national government keep running around the clock.
“A bit of advice?” Jeffrey’s father said.
Jeffrey hesitated. “I’m all ears, Pop.”
“You’ve got to maintain a rather difficult balance here, son. I know I just told you to mingle more, but part of you has to forget all this fancy publicity. Just do your job. Keep your head down with other officers.”
“Huh?”
“Campus politics get ugly. You’re in a very competitive business. You’re already attracting jealousy. Self-appointed enemies, at your level, and up.”
Jeffrey felt a shiver along his spine. This was something he hadn’t even thought about.
“Not everybody loves a winner, son. That bauble around your neck could turn into a lightning rod for resentment by the people who come in second or third.”
“Are you saying this for a reason, Dad?”
“Obviously you need better antennae. Didn’t you see those sidelong glances back at the hotel?”
“Frankly, no.”
“I’ll do what I can from where I sit,” Michael Fuller said. “I know what you aren’t good at, son.”
“That’s a rather odd way to offer a relative help.”
“You’ll get pigeonholed behind your back, if you aren’t careful. As a war fighter who’s reached his peak of competence, topped out at the single-unit operations level… Washington isn’t a family business, Jeffrey. But every connection helps. You’re my kin, my own flesh, even if we didn’t talk for so long… Maybe especially be
cause we didn’t talk. I’d hate to lose you now, sunk in the ocean. But I’d hate almost as much to see you break your heart dead-ended on the beach, after going out there again and then coming home safe.”
Jeffrey hesitated. There’d been deep worry, poorly disguised, in his father’s tone of voice. “Dad, do you know something you’re not supposed to know?”
Michael Fuller shook his head. “Remember, I’ve got a security clearance too, and ‘up there’ contacts in the Pentagon. My work at homefront conservation, fuel allocations and lubricants and all that, depends a lot on knowing supply and demand, the total picture. I therefore cannot do my job without access to the needs and plans of the fleet. The very near-term plans.” He gave Jeffrey a meaningful look.
“I really can’t comment, Dad.”
“Then don’t. Just remember, son, for later, God willing, the games they play in this town, they play very rough.”
Jeffrey’s procession halted at a red light. Cross-traffic moved, using the opposing green. One big truck rolled into the middle of the intersection. It reminded Jeffrey of a traveling carnival ride, painted in moving, gaudy red and yellow triangles. Then he realized it was a cement mixer. Jeffrey’s traffic light turned green, but the cement mixer still sat there.
Spill-back. Washington rush-hour traffic jams are infamous. Still, you’d think that with carpooling, and gas rationing, in a residential neighborhood…
Jeffrey glanced behind him. He saw the town car with Wilson and Ilse, and the other police car, and craned his neck to see behind him more. Past the rear of their little motorcade, in the far intersection, was a fire engine — a long and heavy ladder truck. No sirens, but its flashers rotated as if it was returning from a run.
In front of Jeffrey’s car, the cement mixer hadn’t moved. The big hopper holding the wet cement continued to revolve. The red and yellow of the hopper, the bright red of the fire truck, and the flashing lights of the fire truck and the police cars gave the scene a strangely festive look. Jeffrey turned and watched as six firemen dismounted and opened equipment bays in the side of their truck.
Jeffrey’s heart leaped into his throat as his bodyguard shouted into a walkie-talkie. The firemen now held assault rifles and rocket launchers. Three more armed men left the cement mixer’s cab. They took up firing positions under the massive vehicle. Things hit the front of Jeffrey’s car with terrible force. Jeffrey and his father flinched and ducked.
Despite himself, Jeffrey looked up. The glass was pockmarked but the bullets hadn’t penetrated the armored windshield — yet. Now Jeffrey recognized the unmistakable rapid-fire boom-boom-boom of AK-47s. He saw glass in the police cars shatter, the cars jumping and sagging as their tires were ripped to shreds. The policemen tried to shoot back, using their riot shotguns and pistols. The noise of the firefight grew. It was a very uneven contest. Bullet-riddled men in blue collapsed to the asphalt, writhing in expanding pools of blood.
CHAPTER 5
“Sit tight,” Jeffrey’s driver shouted. “We’re armored all around!” A voice crackled over the bodyguard’s walkie-talkie, something unintelligible to Jeffrey.
“Christ,” Jeffrey’s father said as he stared back at the fire engine. “He’s aiming a rocket launcher.”
Jeffrey saw a fireman crouch on the ladder truck. He held a long tube over one shoulder. At the front of the tube was the bulge of an ugly warhead. It looked like an RPG-7, Russian made — aged, like the attackers’ rifles, but flooding the world’s arms markets and impossible to trace.
There was a flash and a blast of smoke and dust. The warhead tore at Jeffrey’s car, skimming over the intervening vehicles.
Jeffrey heard a ripping sound overhead. The incoming rocket missed the top of his car by an inch and kept going. As Jeffrey watched, it hit the cement mixer in the side.
There was a deafening concussion and a flash of searing flame. Shrapnel flew, pelting other vehicles, breaking windows in nearby buildings, chipping bricks on their facades.
The hopper of the cement mixer continued to revolve. There was a four-inch hole in its side, and wet gray concrete poured from the hole as the hopper turned around and around.
Bullets continued to crack through the air. Jeffrey’s car jumped with every impact. He saw the fire truck taking hits, and silvery dents appeared in the red of its sheet-steel side. Pedestrians on the sidewalk cowered, pinned down; some were trying to use their phones, but hysterical fumbling and frustrated rage seemed to show that the cell phones were jammed. Both sides of the street were littered with now-abandoned civilian cars.
One of the attackers climbed higher on the fire truck with another rocket launcher, trying to get a better shot at Jeffrey’s vehicle.
Jeffrey’s bodyguard saw it too. He hefted his Uzi and did a calculation. Enemy bullets were grazing the auto from both front and behind — to crack the door invited instant death.
Just one of those rocket-propelled shaped-charge warheads will turn this car into an inferno.
A wounded cop emptied his revolver at the enemy with the rocket launcher. The launcher fired at the same time the man who held it fell straight back off the truck. The warhead came in at an angle, barely missing the left side of Jeffrey’s car.
The warhead detonated against the pavement. The blast lifted Jeffrey’s town car violently. It bounced down on its reinforced suspension. Jeffrey’s arms and legs felt numb from the punishment. His ears ached from the noise. The side windows of his car on the left were pitted by sharp steel fragments, and the glass was partly obscured by soot. Other autos — private cars and taxis — were starting to burn.
“We can’t take any more of this,” Jeffrey’s father said.
Again the bodyguard’s walkie-talkie crackled.
“Sit tight,” the driver yelled. “Help is coming!”
Jeffrey watched in horror as a spray of bullets ricocheted off Ilse’s and Wilson’s car. He saw the headlights shatter, chrome molding twist and break, sheet metal tear, and fiberglass fracture. The whole vehicle shivered on its springs.
The sound of firing suddenly intensified.
The three men under the cement mixer turned and aimed the other way, away from Jeffrey. The ground around them was slippery as concrete continued to pour from the hopper — it still rotated mindlessly, coated more and more by the clinging goo.
Those three attackers opened fire again, shooting at something or someone on the far side of the cement mixer, where Jeffrey couldn’t see. There was another hard concussion. The three attackers disintegrated. Fresh concrete quickly covered the gore. The hopper finally stopped; the cement mixer’s powerful diesel engine was burning now, and soon the entire front of the truck was engulfed in roaring red flames. The flames reached threateningly for the fuel tank down behind the cab; the tank was leaking from shrapnel punctures. Jeffrey felt the radiant heat through the windows of his car.
More AK-47 slugs came at the back of Jeffrey’s car. The attackers were smashing their way through the rear windshield, concentrating their fire in a single spot. Bullets chewed and chipped at the armored glass.
A handful of men in black uniforms ran from around the far side of the cement mixer. They took up positions and began to engage the attackers on the ladder truck.
Friendly troops. Who are they? Their only insignia were small American flag patches on their sleeves.
The smoke of burning rubber and diesel was thick. The stench of it got into Jeffrey’s car.
The men in black combat fatigues advanced steadily. Some fired their weapons on full automatic while others dumped empty magazines and reloaded their assault rifles. The weapons didn’t look at all like M-16s. They had boxy optical sights, with a little video imagining screen and mirrors to see around corners. The men worked their way up the street. They shot and moved with skill, darting from cover to cover, advancing relentlessly.
A rapid-reaction force. Are there enough of them?
AK-47 rounds from the fire truck poured in Jeffrey’s direction. Bullets hit
the back bumper and pounded into the trunk. The vehicle jolted with each heavy impact.
“Jesus,” Jeffrey’s father said under his breath. Streaks and puffs of dark smoke drifted everywhere outside.
The friendly troops worked their way past Jeffrey’s car, closer to Ilse’s. Now Jeffrey saw they wore thick flak vests and ballistic-ceramic battle helmets, and talked to one another by tactical radio with microphones next to their lips.
Jeffrey looked around. He saw a young woman lying on the sidewalk, curled up and clutching at her abdomen. There was a lot of blood, and she looked pregnant.
One of the friendly troops shouted something. Jeffrey read his lips. “Grenade!”
The man aimed a grenade launcher at the ladder truck. The launcher was clipped beneath the barrel of his rifle. The launcher and rifle kicked. There was another tremendous concussion — against the side of the fire truck.
Jeffrey saw his chance. He unlocked the door and dashed from the car.
“What the—” the bodyguard shouted. Jeffrey couldn’t hear the rest. Ricochets screamed; rifle reports were much louder outside the car; the smell of burning things was awful. There was more blood on the woman’s dress already, and Jeffrey needed to drag her behind good cover and stop the bleeding fast. The bodyguard opened his door enough to take aim across the top of the town car. He emptied his Uzi at the ladder truck. Hot spent brass flew everywhere.
A man in black ran up to Jeffrey with his rifle held at port arms. In that fleeting instant Jeffrey saw that a wire ran from the rifle to a computer pack on the soldier’s thigh; he also wore a keypad strapped to his forearm; there were tiny disk and rod antennas on his shoulders over his flak vest.
With his left hand the soldier grabbed Jeffrey by the front of his uniform, throwing him backward into the car and slamming the door.