Terminal Impact

by Charles Henderson

  Cesare took two steps away and stopped, looking at the Escalade. “Blevins, when I get you booked on a flight, drive that piece of shit to the airport. Leave the keys at our liaison desk. Don’t let me ever see you again. You copy?”

  “Fuck you,” Ray-Dean said.

  “Mr. Alosi, sir,” Gary Frank pled, hurrying around the car, his pants pissed wet, smelling harsh, and getting under Cesare’s nose, wreaking of steroid urine. “I just drove! I never fired a shot! Why are you canning me?”

  Cesare looked at the sad sack with his urinated trousers. He didn’t know what to say, so he just walked away with the phony SEALs, George and Ken, and the other tattooed shaved head who drove their armored Escalade.

  He told George, “Round up these passengers and get this caravan to the airport. Then see me at my office.”

  “Tonight?” George asked, like it would interrupt his other important plans.

  “That would be helpful,” Alosi said, and walked back to his car.

  “Fuck him and the horse he rode in on,” Ray-Dean said, and slid in the driver’s seat, his ass squishing in the urine that filled the foam under the upholstery. He looked at Gary Frank. “Get the fuck in and shut the fuck up.”

  Cooder looked in the back, and Freddie Stein still stood in the open sunroof, whimpering. “Sit the fuck down!”

  Blevins then pulled the shifter into low D and smoked the tires as he left.

  —

  “I guess you got the word,” Liberty Cruz said on her mobile phone to Chris Gray, who sat in his temporary office in the one-five command center at Al Asad Air Base.

  “What’s that?” Gray, the seasoned intelligence officer answered, having several options for an answer to which word he got.

  “Malone-Leyva. They screwed the pooch,” Liberty said, and bubbled some laughter as she said it.

  “I heard chatter about a shoot-out in front of the embassy today. Somebody lit up a bunch of shoppers. That it?” Gray said.

  “Our boy, Ray-Dean Blevins and his Frank-n-Stein A-team mowed down thirty-five unarmed Iraqi civilians, shopping on a leisurely Saturday afternoon,” Liberty gloated. “It’s that runaway train we saw coming. It’s finally crashed.”

  Chris Gray began laughing.

  “So, what’s the joke?” Liberty asked, and she felt a little dirty laughing, too, in the midst of such a tragedy. She ought to feel terrible but didn’t. Yet Chris Gray’s laughing had brought it all home.

  “I’m laughing about Blevins, not the killings. That’s terrible,” Gray explained. “It’s just that of all people. Cooder Blevins and his crew of nitwits. The poetic justice is a little too perfect. Can you tie Alosi into it?”

  “Of course not,” Liberty said. “However, this incident may well dump the whole applecart for all these mercenary contractors. Put them under somebody’s jurisdiction. I just got off the phone with Jason Kendrick. They got the flash-message traffic from State Department, and Senator Jim Wells is on the warpath. They’re subpoenaing Victor Malone.”

  Gray laughed hard. “Oh, that’s too good. Malone will love that limelight.”

  Then the CIA operator cleared his throat, and asked Liberty, “How about some more interesting news?”

  “Like what?” Cruz said.

  “Some of our intelligence leads tell us that our boy Ray-Dean Blevins may have illegally gotten his hands on a copy of the First Battalion, Fifth Marines’ highly classified operations plan, and it possibly ties to Cesare Alosi using some inside information to land a couple of fat contracts,” Gray went on. “Just guessing, but Malone-Leyva did show up at the head of the line and nailed down some very nice contracts before anyone else had a shot.”

  “Where did he get the document?” Liberty asked, taken totally off guard with the news.

  “We’re just now looking into it,” Gray said. “MARSOC reported to higher headquarters this afternoon that their copy of the operation plan is missing from their classified-documents safe. Ray-Dean Blevins was a visitor to their office at that same time.”

  “Oh, that does point an ugly finger at him, doesn’t it,” Liberty said. “What about the people at MARSOC? Are they in trouble?”

  “Captain Mike Burkehart, the detachment officer in charge, has his tit in the wringer over it,” Gray said. “He received the document from First Sergeant Alvin Barkley, who hand carried it to him, and the skipper signed for it. He said he put it on the desk for the admin corporal to log in, and from there it disappeared. I’ve known Mike for a long time. A good man, but he won’t see promotion to major. He does have his twenty in, so he’ll gracefully disappear.”

  “What a shame,” Liberty said. “Fucking Blevins. That figures. Alosi had to have sent him after it.”

  “You’d think,” Gray said. “But as far as any real evidence goes, we got jack shit. Just coincidental happenstance at this point. I don’t even know that Ray-Dean really has the plan or how much of this is true or just bullshit. You need to get your FBI team busy. Definitely get yourself officially in his apartment with some kind of warrant and start tossing over the furniture.”

  “Oh, that’s a given,” Liberty said. “I’ll have to get State Department to arrange with Iraqi officials to give us jurisdiction cooperation. That shouldn’t take long, given their attitudes about security breaches.”

  “Another interesting twist,” Chris Gray said. “Cooder’s girlfriend, Francoise Theuriau. You remember her? The mouthy little dog-faced French reporter in the tight pants he was thumping on at the Baghdad Country Club? She’s flown into the wind.”

  “Really,” Liberty said.

  “We put a tail on her this morning, and she went to an office in the International Zone belonging to a couple of other frogs from Avignon,” Gray said. “They’re suspicious because they seem to go anyplace with no trouble at all. Like the bad guys gave them a hall pass.”

  “Hum,” Liberty mumbled, and said, “spies maybe?”

  “France and al-Qaeda don’t make a lot of sense, but you can never tell about rabid socialists like Francoise,” Gray said. “This Davet Taché and Jean René Decoux materialized in Avignon some years ago, coincidentally with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We find them as students, at the same university with Francoise Theuriau. Early life? Nonexistent. But they claim French citizenship by birth in Paris. Parents all dead. No living relatives. Very stinky.”

  “Passports?” Liberty asked.

  “Sure. All quite legal, and the French say the two men are solid citizens. Philanthropists and patrons of the arts,” Gray said. “Wealthy men of position and influence in Avignon, and a bit of pull even at our own embassy. The State Department folks I queried on these two jokers got downright defensive when I started prying into the closet.”

  “Pull them in. Have a talk,” Liberty said.

  “I would, but no one has seen these clowns for a couple of weeks,” Gray said. “They went up north to Baiji, buying antiquities. Nobody at the hotel they checked in has seen either man or their drivers and bodyguards since that first day. They checked in at the hotel and vanished. Their cars are still parked in the hotel garage. Not a scratch on them.”

  “What about Francoise?” Liberty asked.

  “Oh, Miss Theuriau.” Chris laughed. “Our eyes watch her go in the frogs’ trading company office, and she doesn’t come out. One of our Iraqi agents goes inside and talks to the receptionist. She says Francoise went to the restroom, then left. She didn’t come out front or back, so I’m betting they have underground that leads to al-Qaeda.”

  “Wow,” Liberty said. “You think that Blevins could be committing espionage in cooperation with her?”

  “For a pile of money? Yes,” Gray said. “I think that Ray-Dean Blevins and Cesare Alosi both would cut their own mothers’ throats for a price. I don’t put treason past either one of them.”

  “I’ll keep this in mind while
we investigate the shooting today,” Liberty said.

  “That shooting is the perfect door opener,” Gray said. “Just don’t let them see you coming. Especially Alosi.”

  “Oh, I’m keenly aware,” Liberty said.

  “By the way,” Gray said, his voice casual. “A little bird offered a tip on Blevins. Check close in the kitchen. You know, dump out the drawers. Apparently, Cooder likes to hide his drugs and stuff there. So, look under stuff, not just inside the obvious. No telling what you might find.”

  “Very interesting. We’ll do that. I’ll let you know what we find,” Liberty said. Then added, “So, you’ve had yourself a busy few days.”

  “Yes, I have,” Chris said. “Now I also have some particularly disturbing news. Especially for you. I saved it for last because it is that bad.”

  “What’s that?” Liberty said, a jolt of adrenaline hitting her like a brick.

  “Gunnery Sergeant Valentine’s team got way in over their heads earlier today,” Gray said.

  “Is Jack alright?” She gasped, fighting back the urge to scream at him.

  “Two of his men wounded, not bad. Broken ribs and a few bullet holes,” Gray said.

  “And Jack! What about Jack?” Liberty wailed, her voice straining with fear.

  “Their last communication with him, he was fine,” Gray said. “He’s on his own, however. Out in the badlands.”

  Liberty groaned on the phone, unable to speak.

  “Look, Liberty,” Gray offered, “Colonel Roberts has pulled out all stops to find him and get him out. He’s an old friend of Jack and Colonel Snow. So, it’s more than just a Marine MIA. Which is bad enough. It’s also very personal for him.”

  “How did it happen?” Liberty choked out in a broken voice.

  “Jack being Jack, sacrificed himself to give his Marines a chance to escape,” Chris told her. “They got entrapped. The enemy knew where the Marines were operating and set up an elaborate ambush. Somehow, the gunny and his men avoided getting caught in the middle. Jack set up a base of fire with his machine gun, kept the bad guys busy while his boys ran out the back door.”

  “Oh! That’s Jack Valentine alright!” Liberty said, a surge of anger in her voice. “He thinks he’s bulletproof!”

  “Well, there’s a little more bad news,” Gray added.

  “Why not! If I don’t have enough bad news, just pile it on,” Liberty let out, her voice cracking, and now she broke into full-fledged tears. “When Jack gets in the shit, it’s not just bad, it is always really terrible. There’s no half stepping with Gunnery Sergeant Valentine.”

  “The enemy has mobilized a major force on the desert,” Gray went on. “Large numbers pouring in from Syria and the north. Looks like a major offensive by Zarqawi and several insurgent affiliate groups. My opinion? They got that operation plan, and formed a counterplan of their own.

  “Colonel Roberts has shifted everything to a counteroffensive posture. All positions and camps on high alert. I’m afraid they’ve got their hands full. Finding Jack in the midst of this? Well, it doesn’t look good. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh no!” Liberty moaned, crying hard. “Oh my God!”

  “Liberty, listen to me,” Chris Gray said. “It is very, very important that this conversation remains between you and me. Jack’s life depends on secrecy. Al-Qaeda may not even know that we have someone missing. However, if they realize that Jack Valentine is lost in their desert, they’ll pull out all stops to find him. He would be a prize.”

  Liberty could say nothing more. She just cried.

  _ 12 _

  Jack walked all night. Judging from his normal pace, about three and a half miles in an hour, given his rest stops, he estimated that he traveled twenty miles. He angled slightly southwest from the wadi, and crossed the T1 roadway sometime after midnight. He decided to go parallel to it as a means of keeping his direction from veering too far right or left. He chose walking on the south side of the highway because of increasing cross-country traffic he heard north.

  All he had to steer by was his little bubble compass on the side of his watchband. It worked well for establishing directions, but serious navigation across open wastelands for long stretches, trying to follow an azimuth, required something with more guts. With his radio and GPS position locator sat link dead, he wished that he had gone ahead and stuck his old trusty Silva Ranger in his vest pocket.

  He always carried the timeworn compass, just in case. Only this trip, Billy Claybaugh had called him OCD for always packing it and never needing it. So to show the staff sergeant he wasn’t OCD, and didn’t need a security blanket, nor would he need to suck his thumb without it, Jack dropped the Silva compass in the flat middle drawer of his desk.

  “I guess I showed Billy.” Jack had laughed to himself.

  The reason he veered south, rather than remain on the closer, north side of the T1 road, was that all night long he kept hearing trucks and cars with bad mufflers driving fast across the wastelands to his north, coming from the west and heading east. The elevated highway gave him a slight buffer as well as a known landmark to use for orientation.

  Half a day more walking west, and Jack planned to arc northward, before he drew too close to the city of al-Qa’im, which lay just off the Syrian border. Another ten miles from where he called it a night and stopped to rest through the next day. He would make his turn well before T1 made its bend north and intersected MSR Bronze, Iraqi Highway 12, outside the town of al-Obaidy, a farming community on the south banks of the Euphrates River, just east of al-Qa’im. A busy place for al-Qaeda.

  Jack decided that when he reached the point that he could see MSR Bronze on the horizon, he would turn his course eastward. Remaining well in the wild lands, he’d move parallel to that highway at a distance, as it took him homeward, bending toward the south and Haditha.

  Once he got close enough to Haditha Dam, he’d turn on his MARSOC short-range intercom and start calling. One or all of his four-man Mob Squad, Iceman, Sal the Pizza Man, Nick the Nose, and Momo, standing duty with Alvin Barkley and his Marines, would surely have their ears on, listening. Undoubtedly, they would also have the S2 and S3 cued up on the channel. He absolutely didn’t want to approach their base unannounced.

  In a matter of days, Jack could grow a healthy dark beard. With his tanned complexion, inherited from his Latina mother, he knew he would look way too much like an Arab. On the run, he considered, that might be a good thing. But hiking toward the forward operating base at Haditha Dam, the look could get him killed.

  As Gunny Valentine tucked himself into a cozy hide that he dug with Sergeant Quinlan’s entrenching tool among a bunch of rocks and a crop of two-foot-tall Alhagi camelthorn bushes, just before sunrise, he heard the coursing sound of diving jets followed by the rolling thunder of their bomb loads delivered on targets far to his east. He wished badly that he had some way to talk to those guys. He’d direct them on the trucks and cars rumbling all night to his north.

  —

  A n hour before morning Colors, an over-capacity number of military officers and ranking enlisted Marines stuffed the briefing room at Al Asad Air Base. Cesare Alosi had caught a ride on the Osprey out of Baghdad carrying the headquarters contingent of so-called security experts and intelligence analysts and other big thinkers.

  First seat he grabbed belonged to the Marine Expeditionary Force chief of staff, at the end of the conference table, just to the right of the commanding general. To his right, the regimental landing-team commander had his seat. The battalion sergeant major caught the blundering civilian before the bosses entered the room. He promptly hustled Alosi out of the colonel’s chair and pointed at the seats along the wall, in the rear.

  “I need to be at the table,” Cesare argued.

  “I need to see documentation of your top secret security clearance,” the sergeant major answered.

  “Do you know wh
o I am?” the Malone-Leyva boss huffed. “I have the same rank and privileges as an oh-six colonel!”

  “I need to see that clearance, or you’re not staying in here at all,” the sergeant major responded, and tagged at the end, “sir.”

  Alosi reached in his breast pocket and took out his passport. Folded inside, he kept a copy of his clearance document. He wagged it under the Marine’s nose.

  The sergeant major took it, checked his name, and looked at a list of invited guests on a clipboard, found Alosi’s name, checked it, then handed him back his clearance.

  “Nothing that anyone says or anything that you see goes outside this room,” the sergeant major told Cesare. “Your seat is back there, not at this table. According to the list, you’re only a guest, here in purely a consulting capacity. If someone asks you a question, you answer it. Otherwise, you remain silent. Do you understand? Sir.”

  Alosi glared at the Marine, found a chair at the very back of the room, against the wall. On his way to it, however, he stopped at the coffee urn on a side table and poured himself a steaming cup of the general’s brew.

  The room quickly filled, and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Bartholomew Roberts took his place at the lectern on the right side of a large rear-projection screen in the front of the room. Seconds later, everyone stood, and the MEF commander and his chief of staff entered and sat down.

  Alosi juggled his coffee getting to his feet. When he sat, he spilled a third of the hot joe down his trousers leg and on his shoe. It splashed on the boots of the major sitting next to him, too, and drew a frown.

  “As you no doubt know, gentlemen,” Black Bart began, “we have shifted from an overall offensive posture in Operation Quick Strike Vengeance to more counteroffensive actions. This is due to a breach of security that is under investigation, and the resulting enemy buildup of forces. Before we had a handle on this, our units suffered a series of surprise ambushes along MSR Bronze and ASR Phoenix.

  “We managed to thwart one action of particular note that was directed at a Marine Special Operations team, and rescued seven of their eight members. Two of those men suffered non-life-threatening wounds. One Marine remains missing in action.