"C'mon," said Welsh, sticking his head through the window. "Let's confiscate this car and get the hell out of here. I know the back roads; we'll miss the traffic."
"I suppose there's nothing else to do here," MacNeil sighed.
Welsh took a circuitous route back to Jacksonville. After they passed a few familiar landmarks, MacNeil sat up and took notice. "Where are we going?" he demanded.
"To get a drink," Welsh informed him.
"You've got to be kidding," MacNeil said. Welsh could see he was angry. "Turn this thing around right now."
"Look," said Welsh. "It's over. Nothing either of us could do right now is going to make things any different. So let's go get a couple of drinks and try to tune it down. Believe me, it's a lot better than staring at the walls of your hotel room all night." He glanced over at MacNeil, who didn't say anything.
"We're all standing in the shit," Welsh added. "The only difference is the depth, and that's no fucking difference at all." He snuck another quick look, and MacNeil was smiling faintly.
"All right," MacNeil said. "Let's go."
Welsh made a few more turns, and MacNeil asked, "We're not going to the Officers' Club?"
"Shit, no," said Welsh. "Outside of Friday night happy hour, the only people who drink at the club are alcoholic colonels who crawl across the lawn to their housing after last call. I know someplace more congenial."
They went to one of Welsh's former favorite bars, a neighborhood spot nestled in a little mall off all the main drags. It was nearly deserted. They took a booth.
MacNeil ordered scotch and water. Welsh had a beer. He made sure to hide a few bills for cab fare; he felt the drinking was bound to become serious.
MacNeil started off talking shop. Welsh figured it would take more than a few drinks to change the subject.
"But how in the hell did they know everything?" MacNeil asked him. "The bastards knew everything!"
Welsh shrugged. That didn't seem important. "I don't know, maybe they had really great intelligence. It's not like we're hard to spy on, or that the U.S. military has any great appreciation for security. Maybe they grabbed some Marine off the street and tortured it out of the poor fucker."
"You're pretty cold, you know that?"
"Whatever you say," Welsh replied.
They drank in silence for a while, then MacNeil started again. "But why the weapons?" he said. "It breaks every rule in the book. They should hit once and then run like hell for home."
"They're planning something big," said Welsh. "So big they wouldn't give it up even after they lost everything on the beach. I'll tell you the truth, these people scare the living shit out of me. This is not your usual brand of fanatic freak. Christ, they're professional. The landing, the booby trap in the house, the raid on the bivouac—all right out of the textbook. The advanced textbook," he added.
"Whatever it is, they're fully armed now," MacNeil said glumly.
"And they could be anywhere. Oh, and I wanted to tell you," Welsh added, "before I get shitfaced. I'm going to call the office tomorrow and suggest that the secretary of defense petition the attorney general to suspend Posse Comitatus."
MacNeil nodded. "There's not much HRT left. We'll have to activate Joint Special Operations Command for missions in this country. I'll give the Director a call tomorrow, if he still wants to talk to me."
Welsh ordered another round. "This shit is not your fault," he said forcefully.
"You didn't want me to send HRT into that house," MacNeil said.
"That's personal judgment," Welsh replied. "If they'd gone in two hours or two days later, the fucking bomb would still have been there and they probably still would have hit it."
MacNeil was becoming looser as he got drunk. "Out in the woods, when you said you thought you'd never have to see another dead Marine. It doesn't get any easier, does it."
"At the time there's always too much to do," Welsh said frankly. "Even if it's just getting them into a helicopter. It's later that the processing gets difficult. Because it's always pounded into you that you're responsible for everything your Marines do or fail to do. So if they die how can you not be responsible? After the first one you lose you deal with it, but you never get used to it. At regiment a dead man's just a number on a chart. At battalion he's paperwork. At the company it's a memorial service. But in the platoon it's a shattered family. And at home it's a family that's been destroyed forever."
MacNeil downed some more scotch and shook his head.
"It's an unforgiving business," said Welsh. "But you have to find some way to forgive yourself."
"I just have to remind myself to run the investigation by the numbers," said MacNeil. "If you do that you'll always get them."
"If we have time," said Welsh. "These guys have just rendered a trillion dollar military machine totally useless. No ships to sink, no planes to shoot down, no armies to fight. They are not only hard core but they're good and they're not letting anything stop them. Which to me means they're planning on dying for their objective. We think they're crazy, but that's just simplistic shit. They have a completely different set of values, a different outlook on the world. Islam is all about revealed truth, religion providing the final word on every aspect of life. That kind of system creates people with no doubts, and that's the most dangerous thing in the world. And they hate us. Don't underestimate hate, my man; it'll keep you going through anything. These people live on it."
"We're going to get them," said MacNeil.
"Yeah, but they're going to move fast now. They just have to accomplish their mission. We have to deal with the politicians, generals, and bureaucrats for whom catching these guys will be much less important than making sure they don't get personally blamed for anything. A press that's going to report this in one minute segments with a crawl at the bottom letting you know that Lindsay Lohan's in rehab again. And the attention deficit disorder American public who couldn't pick Iran out on a map if you held a pistol to their head but are going to be screaming to just do something."
MacNeil smiled over his glass. "Excuse me, but aren't you supposed to be cheering me up?"
Welsh drained his beer. "Fuck. Sorry about that, man."
"Anybody ever tell you that you're a cynic?"
"I'm not a cynic," Welsh said firmly. "I tell the truth as I see it, and that seems to piss people off wherever I go. I call myself a skeptic—I have to run everything through my bullshit detector. I found out the hard way that when someone in authority invokes national security, patriotism, or loyalty to the team, what it usually means is that something got screwed up and they're looking to sweep a load of shit under the rug. I'm definitely a realist." He broke into a loopy smile. "But anyone who looks at reality long and hard enough is bound to become a little cynical. What I really hate is complacency. That's what killed those Marines."
"I've been at some bad scenes," said MacNeil. "But that was the worst I ever saw."
Welsh drained his beer and started on another. "I loved enlisted Marines. Lot of officers didn't. Of course, I never let my Marines know how I felt. It's like your kids—you love them even when they're a pain in the ass. I thought they were the greatest guys in America. But a lot of times they get treated like just another piece of gear. I could deal with basic stupidity, but that kind of unfeeling negligence always pissed me off."
"Is that why you left the Marines?"
"There were a lot of reasons. If you work for IBM and your boss fucks up, it doesn't mean much. But if you're an infantryman and your boss fucks up, you're dead—nothing you can do. Napoleon said there were no bad regiments, only bad colonels. And believe me, the little bastard knew what he was talking about." Welsh looked over. MacNeil was stiff and almost comically attentive.
"One thing war did for me, though," said Welsh. "Most people in this country get so comfortable and insulated they forget the world is a very dangerous place. Not me. Not ever."
CHAPTER 25
The Iranians sat around the television set like
children watching Saturday-morning cartoons. With elbows firmly planted on the rug, chins cupped in hands, and mouths slightly open in concentration, they watched news reports of Camp Lejeune and the house in Jacksonville. Ali sat in an armchair in front of the set. The Hostage Rescue Team had been more than he hoped for.
At the sight of the smoking devastation the Guards cheered and pounded on the rug as if they had witnessed a brilliant soccer play. The spies were shocked by the magnitude of the explosion.
Karim reached over the arm of the chair and took Ali's hand. "What a wonderful idea," he said.
"More than that," Musa said. "It will be some time before they are ready to go into action again. And any evidence we may have left is now gone."
A picture of Hafiz's face suddenly filled the screen. Hafiz stared at the TV in shock. The Guards hooted and threw cushions at him.
Ali motioned for Karim and Musa to follow him into the kitchen. "So they have Ghalib's picture," he said.
"The idiot probably left a trail," Karim said angrily.
"If he were captured, it would take the Americans at least five minutes to make him talk," said Musa.
"He will not leave the house," Ali ordered. He filled a glass of water at the sink. "Yes," he said idly, "we will have to do something about this."
There were happy shouts from the living room. The Sergeant Major turned to quiet them down, but Ali stopped him. "Let the men enjoy themselves for now," he said. "But we must guard against overconfidence." He took a long drink. "Because compared to what we still have to do, this was nothing. Nothing at all."
* * *
Every morning after that, Ali took up position on the living room couch, surrounded by all the fruits of the American press. That first week the coverage took on a tone of incomprehensible outrage. Ali imagined it reflected the American mood. With the bombing, the slaughter of the Marine company, and the elimination of half the Hostage Rescue Team, Americans were having an unpleasant week. He was quite pleased; they were always so eager to bomb anyone who annoyed them; let them try and keep their appetite for it now.
The first item of business now that they were settled was to attend to the new weaponry. The American weapons, though solving most of Ali's problems, created a set of new ones. The Guards would have to quickly become expert in the operation of an unfamiliar family of small arms.
Mehdi toured military-surplus stores in the area and purchased the technical manuals for the M-16 rifle, the M-249 squad automatic weapon, and the M-240 machinegun.
Ali knew the Guards would have to fire the rifles and machineguns before the attack, if only to zero the sights. And bitter experience had taught him that men were doomed if they needed to consciously think about using their weapons in the stress of combat So they needed to find a place to shoot. Karim suggested traveling to a secluded stretch of forest. Ali thought it too risky. They might be stopped by police or discovered by some hiker. He was determined to stay hidden until the attack on the White House. While he thought about it, the Guards began preparing the weapons.
Karim and Musa decided that the repeated disassembly and assembly involved in cleaning the weapons was the best way for the men to become familiar with their operation. The arms were unpacked and spread throughout the rooms, and the Guards set to their labors. Each new discovery would provoke a round of conversation as they argued over a weapon's merits. Ali would watch with a bemused smile. What engines of creation could provoke such fascination among human beings as engines of destruction?
Few were happy with the M-16A4 rifle. The sights were much better than the Kalashnikov, but the rifle seemed so long and ungainly. The Marine company had a few of the shorter M-4 carbines, but not enough for all the Iranians. And the M-16 magazines were terrible. You could put thirty rounds in a Kalashnikov magazine but these were so flimsy it was possible to load only twenty-eight. They also had some M203s—M-16s with a 40mm grenade launcher mounted under the barrel. The launcher was a single-shot, pump-operated weapon that fired a grenade out to three hundred meters.
The American M-240 machinegun was not so different from the Russian PKM they were used to, though it was heavier.
But the weapon they all loved without reservation was the M-249 squad automatic weapon, or SAW. It was a light machinegun that fired the 5.56mm round of the M-16 in a belt whose carrying box clipped conveniently to the underside of the weapon. The SAW was light, had superb firepower, and was extremely reliable. They had captured fifteen of the weapons, and Ali planned to use as many as he had ammunition for.
The AT-4 antitank rocket was a one-shot disposable launcher, thirteen pounds and a meter long, that fired an 84mm rocket. The rocket had a three-hundred-meter range, and the warhead could penetrate 450 millimeters of armor. Fortunately the firing instructions were simple, and printed, with diagrams, on the side of the launcher tube. They had sixteen rockets, more than enough; they could afford to miss with a few.
The grenades and pyrotechnics were the same type they had trained with in Iran. They had nearly two hundred fragmentation grenades. The M224 60mm mortars were identical to similar weapons the world over, except for a much longer range.
That first week the Guards also put together the rest of the ordnance they would need for the attack, in case they were discovered and had to move quickly. They made firebombs first. These were sophisticated versions of the Molotov cocktail. They had a filling of napalm, or gasoline brought to a gel-like consistency. The burning gel would stick to whatever it touched. The clever ignition system would not have to be lit with a match—it would explode upon hitting anything hard. Except for the gasoline, the ingredients were available in any supermarket.
To deal with any armored doors or obstacles the Guards made small breaching charges from leftover plastic explosive. A ring of detonation cord would hang it over a doorknob.
Ali settled on the date of the attack during their fifth week in Virginia, while reading the morning papers. He called Karim over.
"What is it?" Karim asked, leaning over the couch.
Ali pointed to the article. "The President is to sign important legislation next week."
Karim read it over Ali's shoulder. "Do you think it is the proper moment?" he asked.
"Perfect," Ali replied. "We will be able to depend on the President being at a specific location at a specific time, which is all we need. And with luck there will be other important officials present. It would be an achievement if we could kill some of them, also."
"But that means a daylight attack," Karim said, biting his lower lip as he studied the article.
Ali shrugged. "Less easy perhaps, but the streets will be crowded so the confusion will be greater. And we have plenty of smoke grenades. After all," he said, "we must take the opportunities we are given."
Karim bobbed his head in agreement. "The paper does say that the signing will take place in the Oval Office instead of the Rose Garden, for reasons of security."
"Even better. They are worried about snipers. So instead of the rats staying in the open, where they can run in every direction, they put themselves in a box for us."
"It says they have extra security. What will they use?"
"Extra police and Secret Service." Ali smiled. "But I think we will be able to surprise them."
"Really?" said Karim. "After all that has happened?"
"Exactly. When you are weak, you worry about everything and prepare for the worst. Any other country would have a battalion of troops guarding the White House. But the Americans do not think that way."
Suddenly, shouting erupted from the kitchen, where the morning cooking detail was at work. Ali and Karim were both pulling themselves up from the couch when the sound tapered off. They sat back down.
"Well," Karim said, "in that case. ..."
He was interrupted by a shrill scream from the kitchen. They both sprang off the couch, but Ali made it through the door first. A Guard was lying on the tile floor, bleeding from a puncture wound in his side. Another stood over h
im waving a bloody kitchen knife. He had his back to the door, but whirled about after hearing Ali enter.
"Drop the knife!" Ali shouted.
The Guard's eyes raced wildly about the room, as if looking for a friendly face or a way out of his present situation. He made a quick slashing motion with the knife. It may have been a bluff to keep Ali away long enough to gain time to think, but Ali chose not to interpret the movement that way. He swept a container off the counter and hurled it at the knife wielder's head. The man ducked and Ali moved in. He grabbed at the knife with his left hand. The blade sliced into his forearm, but he had a grip on the Guard's wrist—and the knife was immobilized. Their chests were almost touching. Ali brought his right hand up from his waist in a sweeping movement, and with all his strength jammed his thumb in the man's eyeball. The thumb went in over the knuckle; the sensation was disgusting. Ali remembered it described in an unarmed-combat course as a most effective technique—if you could bear to do it. The man let out a piercing scream and automatically threw his hands up to the eye, the knife clattering to the floor. A snap kick to the side of the knee brought him to the floor. Ali swept the blade away with his foot and sagged back against the counters. He picked up a washcloth and wiped the viscous ocular fluid from his hand as quickly as he could, before pressing the cloth onto the slice in his forearm. Karim rushed in and applied a battle dressing to the wound. The Guard writhed on the floor, his screams filling the kitchen. Then there was a crack like a muffled bullwhip, and the screaming stopped abruptly. The Sergeant Major stood over the body on the floor, one of the sound-suppressed Uzi's tucked under his arm.
The dead man was buried in the yard that night. The medic tended the slash wounds on Ali's arm and the other Guard's side with stitches and antibiotics.
"Did you find out what caused it?" Ali asked Musa after the evening meal.
"There was an argument over who would clean the vegetables."
Ali grimaced. "Idiots!" He thought for a moment. "He was with the second support team. I will replace him with one from the mortar team. That leaves only two men to operate the mortar, but there is nothing else we can do."
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