Terminal Impact

by Charles Henderson

  “Oh, Elmore,” Liberty said, and closed the door behind her dear friend. “I don’t care about all that.”

  “Jason told me he had relegated you to security over the copy machine and supply closet,” Elmore said. “After the stunt you and the CIA pulled with that Malone-Leyva boss, what’s his name?”

  Liberty laughed. “I should have gone ahead and killed the bastard. I planned on resigning from the FBI in a year or two anyway. Opening my own contracting business. Investigations, legal digging. Corporate intelligence. Some security work. That’s always been my goal, even before I went to law school. What Malone-Leyva proves to me, what I’ve always thought, is that a person with the right tools and contacts can get filthy rich in this business. I made some lasting friends with the CIA, and my contacts with DEA go way back. I’m ready to sprout wings and soar with the eagles.”

  “So getting more or less canned is no big deal?” Elmore said.

  “Not at all.” Liberty smiled. “It opened my cage and lets me fly.”

  “To be honest,” Elmore said, “Kendrick had a good laugh about how you put that boy through the wringer. Satanic rock music in the dark? What did you hope to gain?”

  “Satisfaction.” Liberty smiled again. “I just wanted to fuck him up.”

  “Then why the tears?” Elmore asked.

  “For a Marine colonel and a man married to one of the classiest women I have ever known, you’re not very smart,” Liberty said. Then Elmore noticed the little framed snapshot of her and Jack, lying on the bed.

  “You know, I travel with a small framed picture of June and me,” Elmore said, picking up the photograph and looking at the couple, smiling in front of the motel sign. “Our tenth anniversary. Niagara Falls, of course. We stayed in a beautiful stone three-story bed-and-breakfast on the other side of the river, in Canada. Why haven’t you and Jack gotten married? He’ll never love anyone but you, and I know you won’t have anyone but him. What’s the holdup?”

  “That’s part of why I was crying, the holdup,” Liberty said. “The biggest reason is my utter frustration with that asshole Senator Cooper Carlson. What could possess anyone, let alone a half-wit politician, to announce to the world and al-Qaeda that we have a Marine missing in the desert?”

  “And tell them it’s one of their greatest enemies, on top of that?” Elmore added. “It’s one thing to tell them it’s a Marine, but to let them know it’s Jack Valentine, their so-called Ghost of Anbar? Carlson ought to be indicted for murder if they get their hands on Jack now.”

  “I want to know who the hell told him!” Liberty fired back. “That’s the son of a bitch I want to lay hands on. What we did to Cesare Alosi is child’s play compared to what I want to do to the bastard that tipped off Carlson. Cut off his ears and fingers and feed them to the dog while he watches. Then cut off his dick and balls and stuff them down his throat.”

  Elmore took a step back. “Your beauty is only exceeded by your wrath. What if I told you that Colonel Roberts suspects that the man responsible for tipping off Carlson is the same man you had in your torture chamber?”

  “How’s that?” Liberty said, backing up, her eyes big.

  “His S3, Major Rick Stepien, sat next to Mr. Alosi during the secret briefing about the redeployment of one-five’s forces, and Jack’s situation,” Elmore said. “Alosi spilled coffee on Rick’s trousers leg and boots. He said that the so-and-so lit right up when the colonel announced Jack’s name and said he was missing. The NSA’s investigating, but Carlson won’t cooperate. He insists that he received the information through legal channels and warns against any witch-hunting.”

  “If Cesare was there, he told Carlson,” Liberty said. “They’re tight as Frick and Frack. Nobody else in Iraq would have done it. I wish I had known this while I had him chained to a chair in the CIA’s inquisition room.”

  “I think it’s probably lucky for you that you didn’t know it,” Elmore said.

  “Who in the hell else besides Alosi does Carlson propose could give him the information, legally?” Liberty asked, her arms folded and a frown on her face that would ice a lake.

  “Carlson says that he receives legal information from constituents serving in Iraq daily,” Elmore said. “People who were not in that classified briefing and not constrained by the National Security Act, per se, but who knew of Jack’s missing in action and were compelled to ask their senator to put pressure on the president to rescue the man. Then Carlson goes on his rhetorical tirade about representing the truth and protecting the low-ranking people in uniform who suffer at the whims of the elite commanders.”

  “Oh, what a crock of shit!” Liberty said.

  “We had a lot of Marines on that reaction force that rescued my seven operators,” Elmore said. “They knew that Jack had stayed behind, and I am sure that was the talk of the teepee when they got back to base. Any number of people who heard the tale could have called the senator.”

  “And Cesare Alosi skates again,” Liberty growled. “He is made of Teflon. Gets away with murder and sharing classified information with the enemy, and now this, too.”

  “One day, God will judge him,” Elmore said, offering her consolation. “We have to forgive those who hurt us and pray for those who hate us.”

  Liberty looked at him, pursed her lips, and replied, “Let God forgive him. I want to punish the slimy bastard.”

  Elmore smiled at her. “You never answered my question.”

  “What’s that? Marriage?” Liberty said, and laughed. “The short answer, Jack is just so Jack!”

  Elmore laughed. “Yeah. That describes everything about Mr. Valentine. Jack is just so Jack. No other words can explain it. He is unique.”

  “He paints pictures, pens poetry, writes literary-fiction short stories.” Liberty sighed. “He thinks that Harper Lee hung the moon. He keeps looking for her to publish a next novel. A sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  “Don’t forget J. D. Salinger,” Elmore added.

  “Oh, my goodness, yes! Jack Kerouac, too, but Salinger stole his heart.” Liberty laughed. “Jack drew a charcoal picture of how he imagined Holden Caulfield looked. I had it framed because it looks so much like Jack!”

  “Ah, the Catcher in the Rye, Jack Valentine.” Elmore smiled.

  “Why did you allow him to get that Bachelor of Arts degree?” Liberty asked. “Completely useless! What’s he going to do? Teach? Read Henry Miller to the boys?”

  “They might enjoy hearing the stories written by that nasty Bohemian.” Elmore laughed.

  “Seriously, Colonel Snow,” Liberty said. “You had to approve his off-duty classes. Why art and literature?”

  “Jack is a classically educated man. Brilliant. Gifted in so many ways,” Elmore told her. “He’s studied Shakespeare and the Holy Bible cover to cover. He knows a Henri Matisse from a Claude Monet by just glancing at the painting when most Marines wouldn’t even know who they are. Jack feels the emotions of Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne when he shows you their works. He lights up! He laughs at the ridiculousness of life, seen in the works of Salvador Dali, and the lust of life shown to us in the works of such impressionists as Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh.

  “How many Marines have you met who can paint your portrait, and make it look like you, and at the same time recite in entirety the wonderful speech made by Prince Harry to his men before battle in Shakespeare’s Henry V?”

  Liberty smiled and began to quote, “‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.’

  “Elmore, it’s more than a speech. It’s the love of my life’s ethos. And it makes me cry when I think too much abou
t it,” Liberty said. “Jack is so Jack.”

  “The poet warrior,” Elmore said. “He lifts my heart.”

  Then the old Marine snuffed back tears after he said it, rubbing away their wetness with his thumb knuckles.

  He reached inside his back pocket and took out his wallet. He unfolded a piece of paper.

  “Two years ago,” Elmore said, clearing his throat, “Jack wrote a poem for me. He has this secret soft and loving side to him. He loves God. Never doubt that boy’s faith, regardless of his foul mouth and rough exterior.”

  Liberty looked at him and wrinkled her forehead.

  “I know that, too, Elmore,” she said. “We went to Sunday School together. I saw him stop his car on a busy highway and rescue a stray puppy, when someone had dumped it in the country. And don’t forget what got him in the Marine Corps. His best friend was gay. Jack didn’t care. He loved Marco Gonzalez from the time they were little boys, and Jack risked ridicule from everyone by loving the boy. He didn’t care. He didn’t judge his friend. He loved him. It didn’t make Jack gay. It made him a good Christian! And I love Jack, and I loved Marco, too! Because Jack taught me.”

  Elmore smiled. “You, too, know Jack’s secret soft side. Out with the boys, he’s just one of them. He keeps his faith in his heart and lives the honesty of the moment. Jack’s foul mouth, rude behavior, and abject honesty hide a lot of that secret soft side and, unfortunately, his Christian faith.”

  “Not so secret if you know him, and not soft,” Liberty told the colonel. “A real man! Real men don’t worry about softness or what people think. They do what their hearts say. Kind of like a colonel I know, too.”

  “So.” Elmore smiled. “That good-hearted man, a real man, he wrote this poem and gave it to me. I’m a Jesus guy, and Jack knew I’d like it. He calls the poem ‘Somewhere Beneath the Rain.’ Jack wrote under the title, ‘A Lyric Inspired by the Holy Spirit.’ I love that!”

  Then the colonel began to read:

  Somewhere, beneath the rain,

  a soul cries out for God to end his pain.

  Somewhere, inside the night,

  a soul cries for God to end his fight.

  But I am happy.

  I am saved.

  Christ has found me,

  He ended my pain.

  Yes, I am happy,

  I’m all-right.

  Christ has found me,

  He ended my fight.

  Somewhere, beneath the sky,

  a soul cries to God for answers why.

  Somewhere, on a city street,

  a soul cries out to God for comfort,

  for eternal peace.

  And where am I?

  And where are we?

  What have I done to bring Him to you?

  Liberty threw her arms around the aging Marine’s neck and hugged him hard.

  “What will we do if Jack doesn’t come home?” she cried, and a whole new flood of tears rained from her eyes as she held on to Elmore Snow.

  _ 14 _

  For three nights, Jack Valentine had walked with confidence. Moving after dark and going into hiding before sunrise to sleep through the day, he made good progress, unseen by anyone except the men in the truck he killed the second day, and a caracal that came sniffing just after sunrise the third day. The cat looked just like mountain lions he had seen as a youngster in the Guadalupe Mountains near El Paso, but stood half their size, and had long, black hair tufts coming off his ears like those on a lynx.

  Jack lay still with his eyes open, blinking at the beautiful tawny cat with black muzzle and big, clear brown eyes. The animal came searching for rodents among the thornbushes where Jack had hidden to sleep through the day.

  He had finished his last bottle of water with the end of his food when he had tucked himself to bed that morning, watching the nonaggressive cat nose around. Jack thought in another night’s walk, he should see signs of Haditha, the dam, and, hopefully, his cohorts. He could do that with ease, well rested, hydrated, and fed.

  After no luck the fourth day, no food nor water, his lips already swelling, mouth sticky with thirst, Jack realized he had mistaken a low, long-running ridge for Main Supply Route Bronze, and had turned east too soon. Now, for all the Marine knew, he could be walking in circles.

  When he realized the mistake, he felt stupid. He had wondered why he heard no traffic on the highway, and it just didn’t click in his tired brain. To make matters worse, the gunny had followed that long-running line of the higher ground rather than steering first by his little bubble compass on his watchband and using the land feature as a reference.

  “Where the fuck am I,” Jack reeled, searching the darkness in every direction with his night-vision optics. Panic struck him hard. His gut twisted as he considered how much greater his thirst and fatigue would now grow.

  He had fallen victim to an increasingly complacent routine. With each passing day, his confidence had grown, trusting his sense of direction and the high ground rather than fundamental, disciplined land navigation, shooting an azimuth with his little bubble compass, finding landmarks along that line and walking to them. Too simple. Too stupid.

  Now he faced bleak water options, too. He had to do something drastic simply to sustain his life. Digging holes under Alhagi outcrops might find moisture, but Jack also considered he could be digging a long time with a little shovel and no result. Like the mesquite and ocotillo of his native desert near El Paso, Alhagi roots can grow thirty feet deep underground before finding water.

  “I’ve got to drink piss,” he told himself, and filled one of the empty water bottles with it, rather than wasting the body fluid on the ground. Salty, foul-tasting, loaded with dangerous bacteria, the risk of illness easily won over his alternative, dying of dehydration and heat exhaustion.

  “Piss drinking. It’s a last resort. I’m not there yet,” he said, scanning the horizon with his night-vision scope. “My best option now is to find a house. Deal with the inhabitants. Get food and water and press on.”

  When he took the night-vision scope from his eyes, and rested them in the darkness, he noticed from his side vision an area along the skyline brighter than others. If he looked right at it, the bright area disappeared. If he looked away, he saw it.

  “Imagination,” he thought at first, but remembered what a seasoned Force Recon Marine had taught him in Basic-Recon school about night fighting in Vietnam. They had no night-vision optics except the bulky Starlight Scope, and it was a piece of shit compared to the clarity of what every Marine had hanging on his helmet today. Instead of technology, those old war dogs had used their God-given night vision and mastered the darkness.

  “Don’t look right at something to see it in the night,” the salt had taught Jack. “Look about ten or twenty degrees to the side. Let your rod vision go to work. Scotopic vision they call it. The center of your eye is filled with cones that see color and bright-lit objects. We’re day creatures, so we rely on our cone vision more than rod vision. Cones dominate our eyesight. But we do have a good number of night-seeing rods, if we just learn to use them.

  “Animals, like horses, have fewer cones and more rods in their eyes. They see better at night than purely day animals. Nocturnal creatures, like owls and cats, have nearly all rod vision and can see at night as if it were daytime.

  “Your rods surround the outer area of the eye while cones fill the center area. So to see something in the dark, look slightly away from it.”

  Jack laughed, his thirst pronounced but heart uplifted. “Definitely a house there, just over the horizon.”

  He checked his little bubble compass, determined that the lights glowed just northeast of his location.

  “I may even see Haditha when I reach this farm,” Jack said to himself as he trudged toward the brightness.

  Every tenth step that he took, he sidestepped to his left o
ne step.

  “Right leg stronger than the left leg,” he reminded himself. “Compensate for the tendency to drift the direction of my dominant leg.”

  Little things from the introduction to land navigation course that he had taught his Scout-Snipers perked to the front of his consciousness as he pressed onward, checking his compass and keeping his bearing on the bright spot.

  “Funny how life can suddenly depend on something so trivial as a dime-store compass,” he said as he followed the little trinket that he put on the side of his watchband. He had bought it more for looks than function; however, now he appreciated how well it really worked.

  With each step, the brightness that he had hardly noticed became brighter so that he could see it when he looked directly at it. He thought how easily he could have passed up noticing it, and would have continued walking in a circle to the south and, without a question, died.

  “With the jackals and cats and rats out here, they might never have found my body,” Jack said as he trudged. “Elmore must have prayed for me. Definitely my mom. She’s got a hotline to God.”

  An hour later, with the brightness getting more pronounced, Jack finally saw the house lights glowing.

  “Thank you, God!” he said, and meant it.

  He looked at the farmhouse and outbuildings with his sixty-power spotting scope. Three trucks sat outside, and two men with rifles walked guard duty while their brothers slept inside.

  Jack prayed as he looked through his scope. “So far, so good, God. Your hand brought me this far, so I’ll just have to trust You the rest of the way.”

  When he checked his watch, he realized he had less than an hour before sunrise. To the right of the house, he looked at the sky. Rather than black, it now shone gray, and the stars faded.

  He looked for a place to hide. Very little offered relief to the flat landscape. Little patches of Alhagi and weeds that grow with them seemed his best option. Then way ahead, perhaps even too close to the farm, about a half mile from it, he noticed the hump. Rocks covered with windblown dirt. Alhagi growing around it. Perfect.