by David Shobin
“I think you’re dreaming.”
She took a deep breath. “Darling, I am not imagining this. You said it plain as day.” She paused. “It doesn’t matter though. A month from now is fine with me.”
There was a flash of annoyance in Meredith’s eyes, and he turned around to face her. “So, what’re you saying, that I don’t remember what we talked about twenty-four hours ago?”
She returned to the valet and put on her robe. “Of course not. But maybe you should tell me. What did we talk about at yesterday’s breakfast?”
Brow knitted, he looked toward the floor, concentrating. Then he paced across the floor until he put on his own robe. He wouldn’t look at her. “This is silly. Let’s change the subject.”
Roxanne tied her robe and looked away, saying nothing. She knew her husband’s physical health was good. According to Dr. Townsend, smoking and drinking were the only things Bob had to work on. But it was suddenly clear to Roxanne that her husband truly didn’t recall their breakfast table conversation. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t concern her. Any exceptionally busy person could be under enough stress to have an occasional memory lapse.
The problem was, this wasn’t the first time it happened. Bob’s forgetfulness was becoming increasingly noticeable. Rocky could recall three instances this month when he couldn’t remember something they’d discussed. The first time she’d pointed it out to him, he’d been so embarrassed that she didn’t point it out to him when it happened again—until tonight.
But he’d also been a little annoyed, something she noticed again this evening. When provoked in matters of state or politics, her husband could have a temper. Yet lately, he’d been growing terse with her, something decidedly out of character for him. Whatever strains their marriage had endured over the years, he’d never snapped at her. Now he’d begun acting peevish, crotchety, cranky as a baby.
Or was he at the other end of the spectrum? When Rocky’s mother had died two years ago, it had been from dementia. Even before the memory loss, the first symptom had been irritability. It had been an agonizingly cruel way to expire, and Rocky couldn’t imagine going through it again. But she was letting her mind run away with her. Doubtless there were other more plausible explanations for her husband’s behavior.
Although she might worry, she never thought it her role to be critical. Rather, her job was to be caring and supportive. Roxanne untied her robe and slipped out of it. Bob had just removed his shorts. She came up behind him, put her arms around him, and pressed her body into his.
“Changing the subject,” she said into his ear, “is just what I had in mind.”
San Diego, California
While the president was attending to matters in Washington, vice president Anthony Doria got out of bed, unable to sleep. It was four a.m. He’d always been an early riser, and this was particularly true when he traveled. He switched on the bedside lamp and got out of bed. Putting on the hotel’s complimentary robe, he walked to the heavy shades and pulled them open. His room had a terrace that looked out onto the Pacific. He unlatched the sliding glass doors and walked out into the early morning air.
The temperature was in the seventies, and a steady westerly wind blew warmly onshore, ruffling the vice president’s hair. He’d always loved an ocean breeze. When he was a child growing up in Quincy, he frequented the beaches at Cape Cod, where his brothers taught him to fly kites that soared aloft like sparkling prisms. There was something magical in the wind and the sky. He retained that fascination into adulthood and frequently referred to the elements in his speeches before the House of Representatives. He was an outspoken critic of pollution, and when Senator Meredith tapped him as his running mate, it went without saying that Doria would be the administration’s point man on environmental issues.
He’d only been out of politics for four of the last twenty-six years. Doria’s return to private life coincided with the oil crisis of the late 1970s. Applying his fondness of nature to business, he became president and later CEO of fledgling Trinity Energy Systems, a firm that specialized in alternative energy sources. Under his leadership, Trinity became a major manufacturer in wind and hydropower. When he returned to Congress, Doria remained a major Trinity board member.
Over the years, Trinity grew and expanded. They were now the national leader in providing clean, uninterrupted sources of energy and power. Trinity, always environmentally friendly, was opposed to the use of fossil fuels and combustion for generation of electricity. In addition to wind and waterpower, it had branched out into areas like proton-exchange membrane fuel cell development, fly wheels, and electrochemical technologies. If Trinity could have its way, it would pioneer the development of combustion-free vehicles and utility plants for the remainder of the century. Once he was elected to the vice presidency, Doria left Trinity’s board but was frequently contacted as an unpaid consultant.
That was something he’d do today, in fact. And after breakfasting with Trinity executives, he was off to tour the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park before returning to La Jolla for a dinnertime fundraiser. It was common knowledge that the president would announce his reelection bid soon, and the party’s coffers needed replenishing. When that was concluded, Air Force Two would fly him back to Washington.
Anthony Doria smiled at the prospect of reelection. Although he once had aspirations of the Presidency himself, he enjoyed being vice president. Bob Meredith was both a capable national leader and a longtime friend. The president liked trinkets, and as Doria stood there savoring the pre-dawn breeze, he knew precisely what he’d bring to the White House this time.
CHAPTER 8
South China Sea
1971
The U.S.S. Sanctuary, an old converted cargo ship, was one of seventeen U.S. Naval hospital ships assigned to the Seventh Fleet during the Vietnam War. Anchored three miles off of Da Nang, the seven-hundred-fifty-bed Sanctuary often cruised the coastal waters of the southern Gulf of Tonkin abreast of the TAOR of I Corps, between Chu Lai and Hue. For patients, the ship’s most conspicuous feature was a sign near the helicopter landing area that read, “You find ’em, we bind ’em. Open 24 hours.” The Sanctuary often received casualties right out of the field. After Jon, Captain Meredith, and the other Marine were medevacked to the Sanctuary’s flight deck, they were rushed to triage. It had been a scant fifteen minutes since they left the field.
The ship’s triage area, four main ORs, x-ray, and recovery room were amidships on the main deck, forward of the landing pads. The ship had two crews—one naval, one medical. When casualties were flown in, the deck was a frantically busy place. The wounded were often in such critical condition that they couldn’t wait to be sent to the OR. Rather, they received urgent, lifesaving care right in x-ray or triage. Intubations were performed, blood was hung, and arterial bleeders clamped; chest tubes were inserted, urinary catheters were placed, and, time permitting, the patient was completely shaved and prepped for the OR.
Patients not quite so grievously wounded were assigned to surgical teams, such as general surgery, orthopedics, or urology, depending on their injuries. Captain Meredith was in that category, for although seriously injured, his life did not, at that point, hang in the balance. In triage he was stabilized and evaluated, where it was determined that the organs most likely damaged were the abdominal viscera, which was the domain of the general surgeons. The surgeons quickly readied him for the OR. At 0830, he went under the knife, and by 1000, he was in recovery. Everything considered, he was a lucky man. His spleen had to be removed, but aside from moderate blood loss, nothing else was seriously injured.
Patients not requiring exploratory surgery were treated in minor procedure rooms near the main ORs. Jon and the other Marine were in this category. Jon’s gunshot wound was scrubbed, thoroughly debrided, and loosely closed with sutures. He’d be left with a noticeable scar, but no major deficits. By early afternoon, everyone, including the captain, was sent from recovery down to A Deck to convalesce.
The wards we
re unbelievably crowded. On occasion, those patients with minor wounds who awaited discharge were stacked six high in cramped bunks. Immediately post-op, however, patients had separate beds within an arm’s reach of one another. Jon and Captain Meredith found themselves side by side on A Deck. When he awoke the day after surgery, Jon looked over at the captain, who was still asleep. An IV dripped into Meredith’s arm. And his abdomen was dressed with gauze bandages that were held down with adhesive tape. A faint, watery bloodstain darkened the dressing under the tape.
“How’re you feeling today, corpsman?”
A nurse at the foot of the bed had come to take his vital signs. She was young and pretty, with a pert, fresh-scrubbed look that seemed out of place among the wounded.
“Pretty good, ma’am.”
“Do you have a lot of pain?”
His thigh wound throbbed continuously. But he was twenty years old, with a pretty girl in front of him. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Good. You’re going to get out of bed today, and it might be a little uncomfortable at first. Don’t be too proud to ask for a pain pill. Put this under your tongue.”
After taking his temperature, pulse, and respirations, she wrote in her log and moved on to the next bed. By now, Meredith was awake.
“How was your night, captain?” she asked. “Were you able to get any sleep?”
“Off and on. I’m thirsty as hell. Any chance I can get something to drink?”
“That’s a good sign. The doctor will be by soon on rounds. He might start you on some liquids. Open up, and I’ll take your temperature.”
Soon she moved on. The patients didn’t know it, but her bouncy, cheerful mood was as important to their recoveries as antibiotics. Meredith turned toward Jon.
“You have a girl back home, Doc?”
“’Morning, sir. No, no girl. I figure I’ve got plenty of time. Why, you think the nurse is available?”
“You never know. Of course, you’d have to fight off fifty other grunts, and probably a few dozen officers.”
“You got that right,” Jon said. “You sound pretty good, sir. But it must hurt like hell.”
“It doesn’t feel too bad. The doctor said most people don’t need a spleen anyway. I’ll tell you one thing, that Demerol is good stuff. I bet it’d go real well with some Kentucky sippin’ whiskey.”
Jon laughed. “Don’t get too used to it, sir. It’s addictive.”
“I can understand why.” He paused. “I want to thank you, Townsend, for what you did for me back there. The surgeon said your IV might’ve saved my life.”
“Just doing my job, captain. But…I want to apologize for what happened. I feel really bad about it. I think I let everyone down, including myself. It was on my mind all night. When I saw that guy in front of me, I just sort of froze, and—”
“Don’t dwell on it, son,” Meredith interrupted. “It’s over and done with. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already said all I want to about it.”
Until then, Jon had been dreading this moment. Whatever his feelings were about the war, ever since he’d arrived at Camp Pendleton, he’d become a member of a team. Although he had a non-combat role, the men in his platoon had depended on him if things got hairy. But because of his inaction—or worse, cowardice—a fellow marine had been wounded. Why hadn’t he been able to shoot? What did the word courage mean to him? Had the years of non-violent confrontation come back to haunt him? As much as he thought about it, he didn’t know. He fully expected to be reamed out for what happened, yet here, his CO had been unusually understanding. Had the roles been reversed, Jon didn’t know if he could have done the same.
“Thank you, sir. I don’t know what to say.”
“Jesus, didn’t I just tell you to forget about it?”
“Yes, sir. Are you really thirsty, captain? I don’t know if they can give you anything to drink after a bowel injury.”
“They said my guts are fine,” Meredith said. “The only thing that little piece of shrapnel just tore up was my spleen. What about you?”
“Just a deep gash. They told me I’m lucky. They debrided it and stitched it up. A month from now, I’ll be back on patrol.”
“Don’t count on it, Doc. That might’ve been true a year ago, but I just heard it’s DEROS for the entire MAF by May. Everyone’s going home. Once that happens, the whole Corps will probably downsize. They don’t need us any more, Townsend. We’ll probably both get medical discharges.”
“I don’t get it, sir. Why would we be discharged?”
“Because it’s too expensive to keep us in. We aren’t going back into the field because there’s not going to be any field, except for some army units. So why pay us? I was a reservist who got called up, and you didn’t want to be here anyway.”
“Wow.” Jon couldn’t believe it. The war in Vietnam was finally drawing to a close, like he’d always wanted. It seemed so long in coming. But now that the end was in sight, it was rather unexpected, especially since he’d been in the thick of it. “That’s great news.”
“What are you going to do?”
“To be honest, captain, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I expected to be here a while.”
“You were in school, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Jon replied. “I finished two years at Northwestern.”
“Seems like a perfect opportunity to go back. Who knows, if all your papers come through, you might even make it for the fall semester.”
“I suppose. What about you, Captain Meredith? Aren’t you a lawyer?”
“In fact, I am. I had a nice little country practice in Charleston. I doubt there’s much left of it now.”
“People always need the law, sir.”
“Yes, but I wonder if I need it as much as they do. To tell you the truth, after what I’ve seen over here, I don’t know if I have the heart for the law any more. You know, speeding tickets, drunk driving, petty larceny. I’m thinking of an entirely different direction.”
“Like what?”
“Ten years ago, when I finished my first hitch and went to law school, I wanted to be a public defender, believe it or not. Instead I wound up working for the DA’s office just before I opened my own practice. But I still like the idea of public service. Next year’s an election year, and I’ve been toying with the idea of running for Congress.”
“For what it’s worth, sir, you’d get my vote,” Jon said. “You’re a natural leader, and all the men look up to you.”
“Thanks. My country’s been good to me, Townsend. I think it’s time I gave something back.”
CHAPTER 9
Northern Israel
They picked up the van in Acre, an old Arab city to the north of Haifa. On its cargo panel, the van bore the Hebrew inscription, King David Plumbing. King David Plumbing was a legitimate, Israeli-registered business. What the Israelis did not know was that its Arab owners had strong sympathies with both Hamas and the Palestinians.
The van wound its way up Mt. Carmel toward the neighborhood of Nave Sha’anan. The mountain overlooked the picture postcard city of Haifa, whose neat white-roofed buildings unrolled carpet-like toward the Mediterranean. The striking views from Mt. Carmel were often compared with San Francisco. The van slowed and parked in an inconspicuous spot.
Mahmoud got out of the passenger seat and waited in front of the van for the driver, Ibrahim Abu-Khalil. Both men wore plumber’s overalls and work caps. A heavyset man in his thirties, Abu-Khalil had intense dark eyes and a thick, full mustache. Intimates called him The Bear. And a bear he was—deliberate, slow moving, yet extremely strong.
“What do you see, Mahmoud?” he said in a resonant voice.
“I see a view of Haifa Bay.”
“Is that all?”
Mahmoud was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you should also see opportunity. All of this,” he said, gesturing expansively, “is the Haifa Bay Industrial Zone. The complex there is the Lev Hamiffatz Shopping Mall. Beyond
it, across the Histadrut Road, are the oil refineries. You see the space between them?”
“I do. What of it?”
“That is where the Americans will build their headquarters.”
A sly smile spread across Mahmoud’s face. So, this is what the leaders had been planning. It was perfect. For weeks now lower echelon Hamas members had been speculating on the likely target for a rumored strike. As Mahmoud recently learned, it was no rumor; once the Americans landed, Hamas would strike hard, delivering a decisive blow to anyone who dared interfere with their jihad.
There was never any doubt that American intervention would imperil their cause. The bully Americans were everywhere: the Balkans, Afghanistan, Somalia, and throughout the Middle East. But once the Americans had an Israeli presence, they—along with the Israelis—would use any pretext to expand their “peacekeeping” efforts. The term was synonymous with a crackdown on Hamas and Palestinian freedom fighters. But Hamas believed that the American public had no stomach for the shedding of American blood. If, once American troops arrived, they suffered a catastrophe far greater than the botched attempt on the destroyer Cole in Aden, the American people would insist on canceling the operation. Such had been the case in Beirut in 1983, in Saudi Arabia in 1991, and in Mogadishu in 1993.
“I like it, Ibrahim. I like it a lot.”
“Very appropriate, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do. All along we have been speculating on the target. When we first learned their troops would arrive by ship, we first thought of dealing a blow to one of their warships.”
“Impossible,” said Ibrahim. “It was hard enough in Aden, but this port is too well guarded. Only Americans and Israelis can go in by land or sea. We considered an underwater approach, to the ship’s keel, but their underwater surveillance cannot be defeated.”
“Perhaps once they’ve established their base in the Golan, we could attack with rockets
“Too puny. No real damage.”