Clancy, Tom - Op Center 8 - Line of Control
Page 5
insides rattle. August and Rodgers loved it.
After school each day the boys would do their homework together, each
taking alternate math problems or science questions so they could finish
faster. Then they would build plastic model airplanes, boats, tanks, and
jeeps, taking care that the paint jobs were accurate and that the decals
were put in exactly the right place.
When it came time to enlist--kids like the two of them didn't wait to be
drafted--Rodgers joined the army and August went into the air force.
Both men ended up in Vietnam.
While Rodgers did his tours of duty on the ground, August flew
reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam. On one flight northwest of
Hue, August's plane was shot down. He mourned the loss of his aircraft,
which had almost become a part of him. The flier was taken prisoner and
spent over a year in a POW camp, finally escaping with another prisoner
in 1970. August spent three months making his way to the south before
finally being discovered by a patrol of U. S. Marines.
Except for the loss of his aircraft, August was not embittered by his
experiences. To the contrary. He was heartened by the courage he had
witnessed among American POWs.
He returned to the United States, regained his strength, and went back
to Vietnam to organize a spy network searching for other American POWs.
August remained undercover for a year after the U. S. withdrawal. After
he had exhausted his contacts trying to find MIAs, August was shifted to
the Philippines.
He spent three years training pilots to help President Ferdinand Marcos
battle Moro secessionists. After that August worked briefly as an air
force liaison with NASA, helping to organize security for spy satellite
missions. But there was no flying involved and being with the astronauts
now was different from being with the monkey Ham when he was a kid. It
was frustrating working with men and women who were actually getting to
travel in space. So August moved over to the air force's Special
Operations Command, where he stayed ten years before joining Striker.
Rodgers and August had seen one another only intermittently in the
post-Vietnam years. But each time they talked or got together it was as
if no time had passed. When Rodgers first signed on at Op-Center he had
asked August to come aboard as the leader of the Striker force.
August turned him down twice. He did not want to spend most of his time
on a base, working with young specialists. It. Colonel Charlie Squires
got the post. After Squires was killed on a mission in Russia, Rodgers
came to his old friend again. Two years had passed since Rodgers had
first made the offer. But things were different now. The team was shaken
by the loss and he needed a commander who could get them back up to
speed as fast as possible. This time August could not refuse. It was not
only friendship. There were national security issues at stake.
The NCMC had become a vital force in crisis management and Op-Center
needed Striker.
The colonel looked toward the back of the plane. He watched the group as
they sat silently through the slow, thunderous ascent. The
quick-response unit turned out to be more than August had expected.
Individually, they were extraordinary.
Before joining Striker, Sergeant Chick Grey had specialized in two
things. One was HALO operations-high-altitude, low-opening parachute
jumps. As his commander at Bragg had put it when recommending Grey for
the post, "the man can fly." Grey had the ability to pull his ripcord
lower and land more accurately than any soldier in Delta history. He
attributed this to having a rare sensitivity to air currents. Grey
believed that also helped with his second skill--marksmanship. Not only
could the sergeant hit whatever he said he could, he had trained himself
to go without blinking for as long as necessary. He'd developed that
ability when he realized that all it took was the blink of an eye to
miss the "keyhole," as he called it.
The instant when the target was in perfect position for a takedown.
August felt a special kinship with Grey because the sergeant was at home
in the air. But August was close to all his personnel. Privates David
George, Jason Scott, Terrence Newmeyer, Walter Pupshaw, Matt Bud, and
Sondra Devon the Medic William Musicant, Corporal Pat Prementine, and
Lieutenant Orjuela. They were more than specialists.
They were a team. And they had more courage, more heart than any unit
August had ever worked with.
Newly promoted Corporal Ishi Honda was another marvel.
The son of a Hawaiian mother and Japanese father, Honda was an
electronics prodigy and the unit's communications expert. He was never
far from the TAC-SAT phone, which Colonel August and Rodgers used to
stay in touch with Op Center
The backpack containing the unit was lined with bullet-proof Kevlar so
it would not be damaged in a firefight.
Because it was so loud in the cabin Honda sat with the TACSAT in his
lap. He did not want to miss hearing any calls.
When he was in the field, Honda wore a Velcro collar and headphones of
his own creation. They plugged directly into the pack. When the collar
was jacked in, the "beep" was automatically disengaged; the collar
simply vibrated when there was an incoming call. If Striker were on a
surveillance mission there was no sound to give them away.
Moreover, the collar was wired with small condenser microphones that
allowed Honda to communicate subvocally. He could whisper and his voice
would be transferred clearly to whoever was on the other end.
But Striker was more than just a group of military elite drawn from
different services. It. Colonel Squires had done an extraordinary job
turning them into a smart, disciplined fighting unit. They were
certainly the most impressive team August had ever served with.
The plane banked to the south and August's old leather portfolio slid
from under his seat. He kicked it back with his heel. The bag contained
maps and white papers about Kashmir.
The colonel had already reviewed them with his team.
He would look at them again in a few minutes. Right now August wanted to
do what he did before beginning every mission. He wanted to try and
figure out why he was here, why he was going. That was something he had
done every day since he was first a prisoner of war: take stock of his
motivations for doing what he was doing. That was true whether August
was in a Vietcong stockade, getting up in the morning to go to the
Striker base, or leaving on a mission.
It was not enough to say he was serving his country or pursuing his
chosen career. He needed something that would allow him to push himself
to do better than he did the day before. Otherwise the quality of his
work and his life would suffer.
What he had discovered was that he could not find another reason. When
he was optimistic, pride and patriotism had been his biggest motivators.
On darker days he decided that humans were all territorial carnivores
and p
risoners of their nature. Combat and survival were a genetic
imperative. Yet these could not be the only things that drove us. There
had to be something unique to everyone, something that transcended
political or professional boundaries.
So what he searched for in these quiet times was the other missing
motivation. The key that would make him a better soldier, a better
leader, a stronger and better man.
Along the way, of course, he discovered many things, thought many
interesting thoughts. And he began to wonder if the journey itself might
be the answer. Given that he was heading to one of the birthplaces of
Eastern religion, that would be a fitting revelation.
Maybe that was all he would find. Unlike the mission, there were no maps
to show him the terrain, no aircraft to take him there.
But for now he would keep looking.
CHAPTER SIX.
Srinagar, India Wednesday, 4:22 p. m.
There was a two-and-one-half-hour time difference between Baku and
Kashmir. Still on Azerbaijan time, Ron Friday bought several lamb
skewers from one of the food merchants. Then he went to a crowded
outdoor cafe and ordered tea to go with his dinner. He would have to eat
quickly.
There was a dusk-to-dawn curfew for foreigners. It was strictly enforced
by soldiers who patrolled the streets wearing body armor and carrying
automatic rifles.
Though the rain had stopped, the large umbrellas were still open over
the tables. Friday had to duck to make his way through. He shared his
table with a pair of Hindu pilgrims who were reading while they drank
their tea. The two men were dressed in very long white cotton robes that
were tied at the center with a brown belt. It was the wardrobe of holy
men from the United Provinces near Nepal, at the foot of the Himalayas.
There were heavy-looking satchels at their sides.
The men were probably on their way to a religious shrine at Pahalgam,
which was located fifty-five miles south of Srinagar.
The presence of the satchels suggested that they were planning to spend
some time at the shrine. The men did not acknowledge Friday as he sat,
though they were not being rude. They did not want to interrupt his
tranquillity. One of the men was looking over a copy of the
International Herald Tribune. That struck Friday as odd, though he did
not know why it should. Even holy men needed to keep up with world
events. The other man, who was sitting right beside Friday, was reading
a volume of poems in both Sanskrit and English.
Friday glanced over the man's forearm.
" Vishayairindriyuraamo na thrupthamcidhigwhathi ajasrain pooryamuanoopi
samudraha salilairiva," it said in Sanskrit.
The English translation read, "The senses can never be satisfied even
after the continuous supply of sensory objects, as the ocean can never
be filled with a continuous supply of water."
Friday did not dispute that. People who were alive had to drink in
everything around them. They consumed experiences and things and turned
that fuel into something else.
Into something that had their fingerprints on it. If you weren't doing
that you were living, but not alive.
While the pilgrims sat at the table they were approached by a Muslim.
The man offered low-price shelter at his home if they wished to stay the
night. Often, pilgrims had neither the time nor the money to stay at an
inn. The men graciously declined, saying they were going to try and
catch the next bus and would rest when they reached the shrine. The
Muslim said that if they missed this bus or one of the later ones he
could arrange for his brother-in-law to drive them to the shrine the
next day. He gave them a card with his address handwritten on it. They
thanked him for his offer. The man bowed and excused himself. It was all
very civil. Contact between the Muslims and Hindus usually was cordial.
It was the generals and the politicians who provoked the wars.
Behind Friday two men had stopped for tea. From their conversation he
gathered that they were heading to the night shift at a nearby brick
factory. To Friday's left three men in the khaki uniforms of the Kashmir
police force were standing and watching the crowd. Unlike in the Middle
East, bazaars were not typically the scene of terrorist attacks in
Kashmir.
That was because as many Muslims as Hindus frequently mingled in
marketplaces. Hindu-specific sites were usually targeted. Places such as
homes of local officials, businesses, police stations, financial
institutions, and military bases. Even militaristic, aggressive groups
like the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen guerrillas did not typically attack civilian
locales, especially during business hours. They did not want to turn the
people against them. Their war was with the Hindu leaders and those who
supported them.
The two pilgrims quickly finished their tea. Their bus was pulling up
three hundred yards to the right. It braked noisily at a small, one-room
bus stop at the far western side of the market. The bus was an old green
vehicle, but clean. There were iron racks on the roof for luggage. The
uniformed driver came out and helped passengers off while a luggage
clerk brought a stepladder from inside the bus stop. While he began to
unload the bags of riders who were disembarking, ticket-holders began
queuing up beside him to board.
For the most part the line was extremely orderly. When the two men were
finished they both entered the small wooden structure.
The two pilgrims at Ron Friday's table had put away their reading
material and picked up their big lumpy bags. With effort, the men threw
the satchels over their shoulders and made their way onto the crowded
street. Watching them go, Friday wondered what the punishment was for
stealing. With customers packed so closely together and focused on
getting what they needed, the market would be a pickpocket's heaven.
Especially if they were going to get on a bus and leave the area
quickly.
Friday continued to sip his tea as he ate the lamb from the wooden
skewers. He watched as other pilgrims rushed by.
Some of them were dressed in white or black robes, others were wearing
Western street clothes. The men and women who were not wearing
traditional robes would be permitted to worship at the shrine but not to
enter the cave itself. A few people were pulling children behind them.
Friday wondered if their hungry expressions were anxiety about getting
onto the bus or a physical manifestation of the religious fervor they
felt. Probably a little of both.
One of the police officers walked toward the bus stop to make sure the
boarding process was orderly. He walked past the police station, which
was to his left. It was a two-story wooden structure with white walls
and green eaves. The two front windows were barred. Beyond the police
station, practically abutting it, was a decades-old Hindu temple.
Friday wondered if the local government had built the police station
next to a temple in an effort to protect it from terrorists.
vision al house of worship that honored both Shiva, the god of
destruction, and Vishnu, the preserver. The main portal was fronted by
the five-story-tall Rajagopuram, the Royal Tower. To the sides were
smaller towers over the auxiliary entrances. These white-brick
structures were trimmed with green and gold tile and honored the two
different gods. The walls were decorated with canopies, roaring lions,
humanlike gatekeepers in what appeared to be dancing poses, and other
figures. Friday did not know a great deal about the iconography.
However, he did recall that the interior of the temple was designed to
symbolize a deity at rest. The first room was the crest, followed by the
face, the abdomen, the knee, the leg, and the foot. The entire body was
important to the Hindus, not just the soul or the heart.
Any part of a human being without the other part was incomplete.
And an incomplete individual could not manifest the ultimate perfection
required by the faith.
However fast they were going, each pilgrim took a moment to turn to it
and bow slightly before continuing on. As important as their individual
goals were, the Hindus understood that there was something much greater
than they were.
Other pilgrims were exiting the temple to catch the bus. Still other
Hindus, probably local citizens, as well as tourists were moving in and
out of the arched portal.
A block past me temple was a movie theater with an old style marquee.