Sudden Threat (16 page)

“Sir—”

“At ease, soldier. Come down here itching for a fight, are ya?” Fraley said. “Well, you just better back off it, son, and do exactly what I tell you to do. Are you sure you saw a dead body, I’m beginning to wonder—”

“Yes, sir. I’m positive. I’ve stood here and listened to you rag me out in front of my troops, but I will not allow you to question my integrity,” Gar-rett shot back.

Fraley did not budge.

“Listen here, Captain. This ain’t no game, and you ain’t in charge. I’ll have your ass locked up for insubordination next time you talk to me like that.”

Zach stared at the overweight and unprofessional officer. It was easy. He decided to employ the method of voluntary disobedience; in short, he would do exactly the opposite of what the colonel had told him not to do.

As Fraley remounted the Black Hawk, Slick looked at the commander, holding the radio handset in one hand and his M4 in the other, saying, “Boy, what an asshole.”

Fraley’s head turned, as if he heard Slick.

“You said it, my friend,” Zachary said to Slick, who knelt back down and continued to monitor the SCAMP, his FM radio, and the phone line that he had run to each platoon command post.

Zachary watched as the Black Hawk pulled away from the ground, sucking twigs and dirt into the air and spitting them back down upon his troops as the pilot flew low over his company perimeter, blowing hot dirt onto the men.

“Go to hell,” Zachary said under his breath, watching the aircraft fly away. Slick looked up at his commander and smiled, as did some of the other headquarters platoon troops who had overheard the ass chewing. Nobody gave their commander shit and got away with it. They were sure of that.

He called his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants in. This was a time for both commissioned and noncommissioned officers to receive the word straight from the commander. He briefed them on exactly what had transpired between him and the colonel. They shook their heads and offered words of support to the commander, which he quickly hushed.

“Here’s the deal. We will only rotate one platoon at a time into the barracks. The other two will dig fighting positions and defend the primary avenues of approach into your area of operations. Headquarters, you’ll set up in one of the buildings also, but we will change barracks every night to avoid presenting a stationary target. If we have to, we’ll even pilfer the ammunition stockpile. If you haven’t already done so, I want leaders to distribute all of the ammunition we brought to every soldier. I’m talking everything we’ve got,” Zachary directed.

As the commander talked, the group coalesced. They became more cohesive as a result of the simple altercation between an outsider and their com-mander. In all, Zachary figured, things had actually worked out for the best.

“Platoon leaders, you need to sight weapons and give me your sector sketches so I can develop a company fire plan. We want aggressive patrolling within the confines of the base and you have my order to take suspicious personnel captive for tactical questioning.” He did not know if his directive was within the rules of engagement, but he did not want strays roaming around the vacant, windswept base.

Zachary finished the meeting by saying, “As long as we are in this ghost town, B Company is the sheriff.” His leaders smiled and crowed with a few “hooahs,” the standard infantry signal of approval. One of the troops even barked out the name “Garrett’s Gulch,” which would stick. They had to call their new home something.

His briefing had been more like a halftime pep talk at a football game. Indeed, Zachary recognized that part of his job was to motivate these people.

Quickly, they moved out to perform their missions. They checked ammunition, dug foxholes, and determined the location of their machine guns.

Zachary stood in the middle of the activity in the same fashion that a head football coach directs a practice session. In his mind, he gauged his playing field and assessed his position’s strengths and vulnerabilities.

With sudden clarity, he realized this was an away game.

CHAPTER 25

Palau, Pacific Ocean

Matt bolted upright in the bed and was momentarily confused by his surroundings. He was in a plush hotel room, swaddled in thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and resting on a bed that seemed to swallow him. In addition, there was the blond woman again, hovering over him.

“My Virginian,” he said, turning and looking at her. She was dressed in a turquoise business suit and had obviously been in some professional environment.

“Time to go,” she said curtly, stuffing her Blackberry into her purse.

“Did you file my report?”

She looked away, then back at him. “I did, with Rathburn, who called back.”

“So, can you give me a status of what’s happening in Mindanao?”

“We’ll do that in the car. The secretary wants you to fly to Manila with him. It’s a short trip, and you can update him on everything during the flight.”

“Manila?” Matt was thinking out loud as opposed to questioning her directly. That would put him in the thick of things, he realized. He would get back to his assigned country and could perhaps pick up the trail of the Predators again. On that thought, he asked Meredith, “Any status on the Japanese float plane?”

“It departed quickly after refueling. It hasn’t been sighted since,” Meredith replied.

“Anyone check the refueling logs?”

“Let’s go,” Meredith said impatiently. “You’ve been out of it a day now, so you should be well enough rested to make a short plane flight.”

“Who are you, Florence Nightingale?” Matt laughed. It was a defensive mechanism for him. An attractive woman was in his hotel room, and he had the distinct impression that she was bothered by something. “By the way, how did I get naked?”

Again she averted her eyes. “Pino undressed you … and I’m not sure what else he did.”

“Not again. C’mon,” Matt said, standing and wincing at the pain. She was flashing a movie-star smile back at him, chuckling a bit.

“Thought that might get you moving. Here’s a bio on Rathburn. You two will be going to Manila, then you’ll be further assigned from there. We talked to your agency.”

“Further assigned?”

“I assumed you would have a better feel than I for what that meant,” she said, smiling.

He looked at his shoulder, which in all honesty felt okay.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“It’s just as well,” she said. “Ten minutes. Be dressed and downstairs.”

“Okay. One question?”

“One.”

“Are you going to Manila?”

Meredith walked to the window, which provided an expansive view of the Pacific. Closer in were palm trees and beautiful horseshoe beaches that appeared as a series of semicircles beneath the bluffs.

“No. I have to get back to DC. I was the advance team for Mr. Rathburn’s Asia trip. I have briefed him on everything he needs to know, the trip is set, and I’m heading back.”

“Don’t sound too happy about it,” Matt said.

“How would you like to be the expert on the region and get punted by a bunch of women?”

“Women?”

She turned and looked at him.

“You ever hear of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service? DACOWITS?”

“I’m not even going there with that acronym. And no,” Matt said, pulling his washed and pressed cargo pants over his legs.

“They are going with Mr. Rathburn to Manila, Okinawa, South Korea, and Hawaii on the way back in order to assess the status of women in the military.”

“You’re a chick, why can’t you do that?” Matt was pulling his shirt over his bare chest, but needed some help with the shoulder.

Meredith walked over, lifted the shirt, and slid it over his arm so that Matt didn’t have to raise it above shoulder level. He felt her place her soft hand on the small of his back as she used her other hand to manipulate the shirt.

“We talked, didn’t we?” Matt asked.

Meredith moved around to his front once her chore was complete.

“Yes. You were doped up, but we talked,” she said.

“That’s about the only way to get me to talk. Did we watch Oprah, too?”

Meredith laughed. “No, but you told me about your brother Zachary and how much you love him and your sister, Karen.”

Matt shrugged. “As long as I’m not remembering stuff, you’re in my room watching me get dressed. How was I?”

“I’m not smoking a cigarette, am I?”

“Ouch.”

“Actually, I was unaware that you were naked, but time is of the essence here, and you didn’t respond to two phone calls and five minutes of knocking on the door.”

“So a little Givenchy did the trick?”

“Works every time.” She smiled, picked up his rucksack, and said, “C’mon. We’ve got an assistant secretary of defense waiting on us.”

“Who gives a shit?” Matt said. “That’s just some dude who sucked up to the right guy at the right time. Give me a minute to do some personal hygiene here.”

Matt did his business in the bathroom, brushed his teeth with the gratis incidentals that he guessed always came with thousand-dollar-a-night rooms. He studied his four days of growth and decided not to shave. If he was riding shotgun with a defense department assistant something or other, he wanted to look either like security or galley help.

As he exited the bathroom, Meredith turned and began walking at a fast clip along the hallway. They took the elevator down to the lobby and immediately walked out and got into one of two waiting Suburbans.

“He in the other one?”

“Yes. Now I’m warning you that he’s got a bit of a temper.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” Matt said, a confused look on his face.

“Then what does?”

“That you’re not going.”

Matt’s compliment seemed to stagger her for a moment, but she regained her composure, and said, “Thank you. I wish I was going, too. I’ve not been to Manila or Okinawa, though I’ve been to Korea.”

“I just think you’re hot.” Matt smiled. He followed up his awkward comment with, “Do me a favor. When you get to DC, if you have the chance, tell my sister I said ‘Hi’ and that I’m okay. She worries, and sometimes I’m not as good as I should be about keeping up. Mom and Dad are getting up there, you know, and she’s trying to hold everything together.” He pressed a phone number into one of Meredith’s hands.

Meredith looked at him, then at her hand, and said, “I will.”

“But before you do that,” he said, looking at her, “take these and make sure his family knows he died a hero, and I want you to close the loop on where his teammates are and that they’re okay.”

Matt placed Peterson’s dog tags into her other outstretched palm as they bounced along in the back of the Suburban. Her eyes dropped to the two metal strips with Peterson’s name and other identifying information. He closed her hand around them and held it.

“I can joke around with the best of them,” he said. “But I never forget my mission.”

CHAPTER 26

As the plane taxied along the Palau International Airport runway, Matt’s thoughts reflected back to his foggy day with Meredith. He honestly couldn’t recall much about their conversation, though much of it had occurred poolside, where he remembered falling asleep. How he had gotten the room, or even to the room, was anyone’s guess.

He was facing the rear of the airplane and seated across from Assistant Secretary of Defense Rathburn. The U.S. Air Force Gulfstream 5 jet ambled along the runway and lifted slowly off the ground, then banked hard to the right, turning from south to west to northwest as it climbed to altitude.

Matt had actually been mistaken for security by one of the female officers belonging to the advisory committee that Meredith had mentioned. She had handed him a bag to carry as she ascended the steps to the aircraft. Once he saw she was inside the airplane, Matt walked over to a local, who was toying with the auxiliary power unit for the Gulfstream, and said, “On behalf of the President of the United States, please accept this as a small token of appreciation for all that you do for us.”

The man smiled back at him with what teeth he had left in his mouth, took the shopping bag, and nodded. For all Matt knew he had just given the man a bagful of thongs, which he was sure would be put to good use. He smiled at the image of returning to Palau and all of the ground maintenance crew wearing thongs around their heads like surgical masks.

Secretary Rathburn and Matt sat on opposite sides of a foldout table in the forward cabin. The female delegation was in the aft cabin, which was separated by a pocket door. Rathburn placed a small personal digital assistant into his briefcase, leaned back, and slid the door shut, saying, “Bunch of women,” as if he disagreed with their presence. Matt got the distinct opposite impression as he observed the few minutes of interaction between Rathburn and one woman in particular. His ever-churning mind began to wonder if Meredith’s simmering rage wasn’t jealousy as opposed to professional displeasure.

“Meredith told me your story. Fascinating,” Rath-burn said.

Matt couldn’t see what was so fascinating about a dead American and chaos in Mindanao, so he didn’t take the bait and remained silent.

After a moment Rathburn continued staring at him and said, “She also told me you were a tough nut. I’m assuming her assessment is based on reading your dossier as opposed to personal knowledge.”

Matt didn’t exactly like where the conversation was headed. He believed he was going to get an update on the
Shimpu
, the situation in Mindanao, and the float plane that had both carried him to safety and deposited him in the lap of a mystery.

“A little of both, I guess,” he said in reply to Rath-burn’s comment, which elicited a raised eyebrow from the political appointee.