The President's Doctor

by David Shobin

  The assisting Secret Service agent thumped Meredith’s back. “It’s okay, Mr. President. You feel all right?”

  A growing crowd of concerned guests formed a tightening circle. “Step back, everyone,” said Townsend. “Give him some room.” He saw the small green tank of oxygen being wheeled over. “I’ll take that. Help him into a chair.”

  As he cranked open the tank and unwrapped the plastic tubing, the agent and first lady helped Meredith into a chair. Townsend lowered the tubing over the president’s head and fit the prongs into his nostrils.

  “Try to relax, Mr. President,” he said. “It’s all over now. You probably weren’t that hungry anyway.”

  With a shaking hand, Meredith lifted a napkin and wiped his face and eyes. The raspiness in his chest soon cleared as he rinsed his lungs with fresh air. His breathing returned to normal, and he pushed himself upright. “That was close,” he finally said. “Thanks, Jon. Just like old times, huh?”

  “Yes, sir. Like old times.”

  The Secret Service agent leaned toward Townsend. “The ambulance is outside, Doctor,” he whispered. “Should they bring in the stretcher?”

  “I heard that,” Meredith said. “This is a state dinner, for God’s sake. I’m not going anywhere, especially horizontal.”

  “Mr. President….” the agent insisted.

  “He’s probably right,” Townsend said. “The worst is over. Give us five minutes. Come on, Bob. Let’s take a walk.”

  As he helped the president across the floor, everyone in the room rose to their feet. They began to clap. Meredith smiled gamely and waved at them.

  “Can you believe it?” he said through clenched teeth. “I nearly fall on my face, and they give me a standing ovation.”

  “You’re their man, Bob.”

  Secret Service agents in tow, they entered the kitchen. Inside, the kitchen staff hung back, giving them space. Townsend wasn’t sure how much they’d seen.

  “He’s all right, folks,” he said. “Just let him catch his breath.” He turned to one of the agents. “See if you can find me a stethoscope. It should be in the emergency supplies, where the oxygen was.”

  “I’m fine, Jon. Really.”

  “Well, you certainly look better. Let me check your lungs, and in a minute or two, I’ll send you out there to dazzle ’em.”

  The agent returned with the stethoscope. With everyone watching, the president opened his shirt, and Townsend listened to his chest. Soon he took the earpieces out of his ears.

  “Lungs are clear,” he said. “What happened, Bob? Did you notice other symptoms, anything unusual? Or are you just getting clumsy in your old age?”

  “That’s your diagnosis, senility? According to the latest Gallup Poll, most of your countrymen think I’m in pretty good shape.”

  “So you are, Mr. President. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Well, all I know is that I was eating one of those raviolis, and it was fantastic. Spicy, but fantastic. The next thing I know, I was choking.”

  “Okay. You’re good to go, Mr. President. Just remember to chew your food before you swallow it.”

  The president smiled and clasped Townsend’s shoulder. Then he straightened his tux, squared his shoulders, and returned to the dining room. After watching Meredith’s departure, Townsend called over an agent.

  “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but the appetizer didn’t taste spicy to me. It wouldn’t hurt to check out his food, would it?”

  “Yes, sir. I was thinking the same thing.”

  Deep in thought, Townsend sat there amidst the kitchen’s bustle. The president was right: that had been close indeed. He didn’t want to sound his own horn, but if he hadn’t come to dinner tonight, the president would now be dead. He was a little surprised by the feeble emergency efforts others made before he came over. Surely they’d heard of the Heimlich maneuver. He’d have to talk with everyone about that.

  Like old times, the president said. Townsend gave an amused snort, shaking his head. He reflected on that. When he closed his eyes, the sights and sounds of those days were as starkly vivid in his memory as they’d been thirty years before. He was young, then.

  But in the naked harshness of battle, one grew up very quickly.

  CHAPTER 6

  Petra, Jordan

  O’Brien disliked flying. But as there was no way to finalize the plan without a face-to-face meeting, and as it was impossible these days for an Islamic Arab to be assured of safe travel to the United States, Sean was forced to meet his Middle-Eastern contact on the man’s home turf. In fact, the man was not Jordanian at all, but a heavyset Yemeni who usually resided in Ramallah, on Israel’s West Bank. Israeli security was so tight that it was more prudent to meet in a nearby Arab country. O’Brien suggested the capitol of Amman, but his contact pointed out that the Jordanian secret police was notoriously anti-Palestinian. They agreed on the ancient city of Petra, south of Amman, a site that would be filled with travelers, even at that time of year.

  O’Brien took the red-eye on Austrian Airlines from Dulles Airport to Vienna, connecting the following morning to a Royal Jordanian flight that flew to Amman. He arrived in mid-afternoon. He was not due to meet his contact until noon the following day. This would give him ample time recover from the flight. Taking a cab into town, he registered at the new Hyatt. The concierge arranged a rental car for early the next morning. With no desire to see the local sights, O’Brien bathed, settled in for the night, and went to sleep.

  He was up at six and out by seven. Although he didn’t look forward to the car ride, the two-and-a-half-hour drive south from Amman to Petra was remarkable for its beauty. The ancient city was located on an old crossroads for a caravan route, strategically situated on a pass through the Shara Mountains that divided ancient Arabia and Syria from Palestine and Egypt. As it came into view in the mid-morning sun, the canyon city looked vast, mysteriously alluring. The concierge had told him that this had once been the realm of the Nabateans. Even from a distance, Petra still seemed to echo with mysteries of the past. Its ancient buildings, forgotten for centuries, were anchored into the cliffs from which they were carved.

  To O’Brien’s relief, there were countless tourists milling around when he pulled up, with their requisite vans and buses. He was early and still had two hours to kill. He parked his car, opened his map, and slowly made for a place called Al Deir. Once an immense monastery, the site was thought to have been a Nabatean shrine. En route, he could not help being dazzled by the rich structures and subtle palette of colors around him. Following the Wadi Musa, he took in the Winged Lions Temple and the Byzantine Church before reaching the Wadi al Deir, the path that led to the monastery.

  He checked his watch. It was precisely twelve. Up ahead, he couldn’t spot anyone who seemed to be his contact. O’Brien was gazing up at the quiet grandeur of the immense stone building when there was a tap on his shoulder.

  “Remarkable, isn’t it?” asked a heavily accented man’s voice.

  Startled, O’Brien whirled. The man before him was dark and mustachioed, with intense black eyes. Although only slightly taller than O’Brien, he was thick and heavyset, which was no doubt why he was called The Bear. He certainly resembled the photo O’Brien has studied. “And who might you be?” he asked. There was only one acceptable reply. His hand settled around a knife in his pocket.

  “A friend in need,” said the Arab, using the code phrase.

  “Is a friend indeed,” O’Brien replied in kind. “Now—”

  “One minute, my newfound friend,” said the man. He grasped O’Brien by the elbow and casually steered him away from the crowd. “Do not look up. There are security men up there. They are dressed like Bedouins. Walk with me, smile a little, and pretend we are very old friends.”

  The Middle Easterner was obviously an old hand at inter-Arab surveillance. As he slowly led O’Brien back toward the wadi, he offhandedly pointed at various rock formations, as if he were a tour guide.

&n
bsp; “Two thousand years have passed since this was the Nabatean capital. Now it is a living antiquity. This was once a natural fortress, rich and alive, but now….” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small slab, handing it to O’Brien. “I was told that to fully identify myself, I must give you something that shows I know you.”

  Sean looked obliquely at the plastic-slabbed item before his eyes widened and he inspected it more closely. “This is a Carl Yastrzemski rookie card. Is it real?”

  The man shrugged. “So I have been told. It has meaning for you?”

  O’Brien’s eyes went far away and his thoughts thousands of miles distant, to hot summer afternoons at Fenway Park. “You might say that.”

  “Good. Then you may have something for me.”

  O’Brien took the thick envelope containing fifty thousand dollars from his inside windbreaker pocket. The Arab took it with the casual ease of someone accustomed to accepting large cash transactions and slid it into his pants without checking the amount. “Thank you. Do you know the most precious thing to the Nabateans?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Water. This is a desert, but they somehow managed to harvest water like the Egyptians did grain.”

  They walked and talked, easily and with apparent good nature, so that anyone paying them unusual interest would spot nothing out of the ordinary. Yet most of what they discussed was far from ordinary. It involved complicated plans and scheduling and timing in a distant land far from the carefully carved cliffs at Petra. And finally, it involved accuracy, the sort of accuracy only a well-tuned rifle could bring.

  Without naming names, O’Brien described C.J. Walker, the person who would serve as a cut-out for his side. “And your man?” he asked.

  “Oh, he is good. Very dedicated to the cause. He considers himself a martyr.”

  “Does he have a name, this martyr?”

  The big man fixed O’Brien with a piercing stare. “He is called Mahmoud.”

  Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam

  February, 1971

  “Just grit your teeth, corpsman,” the crew chief shouted over the noise of the rotors. “Don’t even think about puking on this slick.”

  Jon Townsend, a pasty-faced twenty-year-old Marine corpsman, simply nodded his head, wondering what in the world had possessed him to down the greasy rations before boarding the helicopter. Around him, twenty other Marines—half of 4th platoon, Company M, 2 Battalion, Fifth Marines—seemed to be faring much better. No one else had a complexion so green that it matched his fatigues. But then, most of them had been in country much longer than he had. Perhaps they’d become used to dawn helicopter insertions near an enemy determined to kill them.

  “Five more minutes, son,” shouted Captain Meredith, seated diagonally across from Townsend. His voice could barely be heard over the din of the twin rotors. “You’ll feel better once we’re on the deck. Check your gear and tighten your straps.”

  Like the others, Corpsman Townsend was seated in a web seat against the helicopter’s fuselage. His M-16 was between his knees, stock down, barrel straight up, with mag in, a round in the chamber, and safety on. His rucksack was full, and the wide pockets on the front of his web gear carried the first-aid items he might need quickest.

  Townsend had met the captain only once before, when he was cherry in the platoon ten days before. Word had it that Meredith was liked and respected by the men under his command. Part of the reason was that, like most of his men, Meredith was not a Marine lifer. He’d been a young officer stateside right out of college, remaining in the Marine Reserves. When the captain’s unit was mobilized a year ago, he was sent to Vietnam.

  Stomach swimming, Townsend gazed through the porthole windows of the CH 4D Boeing Sea Knight. It was similar in appearance to the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, which was often referred to by the troops as Shithook, or simply Hook. Townsend noticed that up ahead, the Que Son Mountains were wreathed in rain clouds, and the weather looked dismal. It seemed a particularly treacherous time to seek out the enemy; but then, no weather was ever ideal for the grunts humping the mountains and rice paddies of Quang Nam Province. According to recon, their quarry was a band of VC spotted on one of the mountain infiltration routes.

  For the Marines in I Corps, the war in Vietnam was fast drawing to a close. The large, major battles of three years before were a thing of the past. There were no more regimental size conflicts. By mid-1970, NVA and VC units were infrequently encountered in more than platoon strength. The level of enemy activity continued to decline in early 1971. Rarely did the Marines encounter the enemy in groups larger than six men. Today’s patrol was a continuation of what was called Operation Imperial Lake.

  Imperial Lake began five months before in the eastern Que Son Mountains, twenty-five miles southwest of Da Nang. The enemy had never been completely flushed from the area, for the lowlands of Quang Nam Province were rich in rice, and the mountains beyond provided excellent trails for infiltration of men and supplies. Typical of field battalion operations, Imperial Lake consisted of one or more companies conducting snoop ‘n’ poop operations—cordon and search efforts against areas suspected of harboring enemy soldiers. The goal was to keep pressure on the enemy in the Fifth Marines tactical area of operations.

  1st Platoon was divided among two Sea Knights, both of which began descent as they neared the LZ. The LZ was not supposed to be hot, and the elephant grass at the base of the mountain had already been flattened by fifteen-thousand-pound Daisy Cutters. Captain Meredith got up and shouted words of encouragement to each marine. Behind him, the crew chief spoke to the pilot through a headset. Townsend was surprised Meredith knew everyone’s name. As CO, he had four platoons and one hundred fifty men under his command. Meredith was tall, about six-two, and he had a lanky muscularity.

  His short, jet-black hair had a touch of gray at the temples. Soon he stood over Townsend.

  “You’re going to be okay, Doc,” Meredith said. He had a rich, kind voice.

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “This your first patrol?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m a field hospital kind of guy.”

  “So I heard. Just stick with me, and I’ll keep you out of trouble. I know how you feel about combat, but keep your weapon ready, hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He wasn’t surprised the captain knew his views on the necessity of war; few people didn’t. They were probably written on the jacket of his personnel file. Until a year ago, those feelings were the cornerstone of his young existence. Those who knew him thought of Jon as a young man with a social conscience. He’d been against the war in Vietnam for years. When he turned eighteen, he was registered 1-0 with the Selective Service Administration as a conscientious objector; and that summer, he demonstrated at the Democratic National Convention in his hometown of Chicago.

  Northwestern University had an active antiwar movement, and when Jon registered for classes in the fall, he participated in campus protests. It was a heady time of activism liberally mixed with marijuana. And then, in the late spring of 1970, Jon’s world fell apart. Word came that his best friend had been killed in combat.

  Jon was devastated. He and Randy had been closer than brothers since kindergarten. They agreed on virtually everything except the war. The saddest moment of Jon’s life was when Randy joined the service. But on the eve of Randy’s departure, they celebrated old times together, kidding one another good-naturedly, promising to get together as soon as Randy returned home. But then.…

  When he heard the news, Jon went into an emotional tailspin. He couldn’t eat or sleep for days. The pointlessness of Randy’s death was precisely the sort of thing over which the two of them often quarreled. But in the wake of his friend’s death, something strange happened to Jon. Given the circumstances, any other person would have redoubled his antiwar efforts. Yet Jon couldn’t. He felt profound guilt, and a part of him died along with his friend. The other part would not, or could not, keep demonstrating. The day the
spring semester ended, he enlisted in the navy.

  He didn’t want to fight. He had no interest in pay back, no desire to hurt the enemy as they’d done to him. Rather, he wanted to serve. To help. To be there for others the way he hoped someone would have been there for Randy. To that end, he hoped to become a Marine corpsman. If he couldn’t stop the fighting, at least he could come to the aid of those wounded by it.

  The navy agreed—but first he had to become a soldier. After basic training in San Diego, they sent him to Camp Pendleton, where they taught him to shoot and fight like any other grunt. Only once he qualified with his weapon did they teach him about battle dressings and plasma expanders and sucking chest wounds. They taught him quickly, and they taught him well. By New Year’s Eve, 1970, Jon Townsend was a Marine corpsman.

  His platoon, however, was not sent to Vietnam. With peace negotiations underway, Marine units were returning home. Still, there was a need for individual soldiers, and Jon was ordered to Vietnam as a replacement. Once in country, he was first assigned to an evacuation hospital, which was temporarily shorthanded. Shortly thereafter, he was sent to 1st Platoon, M Company, as a replacement corpsman.

  The men in his platoon were distant, noncommittal. They had little inclination to socialize. Redeployment was in the air, and they’d heard that the Marines would soon cease combat operations. Staying alive and unhurt was paramount in their minds, but they still had to do an occasional patrol. Their last one had been scrubbed; but now, as the Sea Knight descended toward the LZ four klicks from Fire Support Base Ross, they were once again in the thick of it.

  As they came in for a landing, Jon saw the base of the mountain before them. Up in the hills, the clouds had opened up. In the distance, he could see rippling sheets of gray rain sliding down the mountain in ghostly waves. The crew chief was shouting, readying everyone up; but as Jon had become lost in his own fear, he scarcely heard what the man was saying. His knees shook, his bowels tightened, and he was experiencing maximum pucker factor. The chopper wheels hit the ground with a thump.