Colonel August holstered his Beretta. He faced the van and held up his ten fingers so the men in the window could see.
“Ten!” he shouted, and folded a thumb in. “Nine!” he shouted, and dropped his pinky. “Eight… seven… six… five… four….”
When he brought down the thumb of the other hand, that was obviously enough for the Kurds. The men on the side of the van scattered into the gorge. The two men who were inside the ROC ran for the passenger’s side door. They jumped out and joined their comrades.
“Grey, Newmeyer, cover us!” August shouted. “Striker, advance!” he cried as he led the charge to the van.
Prementine remained behind with Honda. There were ten seconds left on the corporal’s watch. Someone fired at August from a hillside. Grey shot back at the gunman and August kept running. He reached the door of the ROC and swung inside, followed by Privates Musicant, Scott, and George.
Prementine’s heart drummed as he looked at his watch. There were five seconds left.
August leaned out the door. “It’s ours!” he cried.
“Do it!” Prementine said to Honda.
“This is Striker B-Team!” Honda said into the phone. “The ROC is ours! Repeat! The ROC is ours!”
FIFTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, 8:00 a.m.,
Washington, D. C.
Bob Herbert actually had two lines open to the White House, just in case one of them went down. Martha Mackall’s desk phone and also the cellular phone on his wheelchair were both connected to the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Herbert was using the cell phone while Martha listened in on the other line. They were alone now, the night crew having left and the rest of the day team focusing on tensions which were still at a peak in the Middle East.
“Striker has retaken the ROC,” Herbert told General Ken Vanzandt. “Request immediate Tomahawk abort.”
“Acknowledged and hold,” said Vanzandt.
Herbert listened as what he called the “ball and chain of command” made its way from the people at the site, through the military bureaucracy, back to the site again. He would never understand why the soldiers on the scene, the people whose lives were at risk, couldn’t simply radio the HARDPLACE abort order to the missile. Or at least to Commander Breen on the USS Pittsburgh.
By this time, Vanzandt should have passed the word to his Naval liaison. With any luck, he would call the submarine directly. And promptly. The missile was due to strike in just over two minutes, and there was no window for error or delay. The time it would take a member of this relay team to sneeze could bring the Tomahawk an eighth of a mile closer to its target.
“This is madness,” Herbert grumbled.
“This is a necessary checks-and-balances,” Martha said.
“Please, Martha,” Herbert said. “I’m tired and I’m scared for our people there. Don’t talk to me like I’m a goddamned intern.”
“Don’t act like one,” Martha replied.
Herbert listened to the silence on the other end of the phone. It was only slightly more frustrating than Martha.
General Vanzandt came back on. “Bob, Commander Breen has the order and is passing it to his weapons officer.”
“That’s another fifteen-second delay—”
“Look, we’re moving this as fast as we can.”
“I know,” Herbert said. “I know.” He looked at his watch. “It’ll take them at least another fifteen seconds to transmit. Longer if they’re—shit!”
“What?” said Vanzandt.
“They can’t use a satellite to relay the abort code,” Herbert said. “The ROC has a window of interference that’s going to screw up the download from the satellite.”
Vanzandt echoed Herbert’s oath. He got back on the phone to the submarine.
Herbert listened as the general spoke to Captain Breen. He wanted to wheel himself into a closet and hang himself. How could he have forgotten to mention that? How?
Vanzandt came back on. “They realized the satellite wasn’t responding and switched to direct radio transmission.”
“That cost us some time,” Herbert said through his teeth. “The missile’s due to impact in one minute.”
“There’s still a bit of a window in there,” said Vanzandt.
“Not much of one,” Herbert said. “What’d they pack in that Tomahawk?”
“The standard thousand-pound high-explosive warhead,” said Vanzandt.
“That’ll take out ground zero plus a fifth of a mile in every direction,” Herbert said.
“Hopefully, we can pull the plug well before then,” said Vanzandt. “And if we do, then just the missile blows. Not the warhead. The team should be okay.”
Herbert felt a jolt. “That’s not true. What if the missile blows in the cave?”
“Why would it?” Martha asked. “Why would the missile even go into the cave?”
“Because the new generation of missile operates via LOS,” Herbert said. He was thinking aloud, trying to figure out if he was right. “In the absence of geographical data, the Tomahawk identifies its target through a singular combination of visual, audio, satellite, and electronic data. The missile probably won’t have visual contact because the ROC is behind a mountain, and the satellite’s been shut down. But it will pick up electronic activity—probably through the cave, which is the most direct path. And the missile will go after it along that route. Sensors in the nose will warn it to stay away from everything which isn’t the ROC, such as the sides of the cave.”
“But not people,” Martha said.
“The people are too small to notice,” Herbert said. “Anyway, it isn’t the impact I’m worried about. It’s the abort itself. Even if the order is transmitted in time, it’ll come when the missile is already inside the cave. Everything in the cave will be caught in the explosion.”
There was a short silence. Herbert looked at his watch. He grabbed the phone to Ishi Honda.
“Private, listen to me!” Herbert said.
“Sir?”
“Take cover!” he yelled. “Any cover! There’s a chance the missile’s going to abort in your laps!”
FIFTY-NINE
Tuesday, 4:01 p.m.,
the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Mike Rodgers had no desire to watch the B-Team Strikers help the Kurds. They were pulling burning bodies from the hell of the burning headquarters. The Strikers used dirt from the floor of the cave and even their own bodies to extinguish flaming clothes and hair and limbs. Then they began carrying them outside, to the light, where they could be given at least basic first aid.
Rodgers turned his own burned body from the rescue effort. He didn’t like what he was thinking and feeling—that he hoped they suffered. Each one of them. He wanted them to hurt the way he did.
The general let his head roll back. Pain continued to flare along his arms and sides. Pain caused by a willful disregard for every legal and moral code. Pain ordered by a man who demeaned his cause and his people by inflicting it.
Rodgers walked back into the cave. He would rescue Seden later. Right now, he wanted to see if there was anything he could do to help take back the ROC. The ROC which had been his to command, which he had lost.
He listened as he approached. There were gunshots, followed by Colonel August counting down. He arrived just as Ishi Honda radioed Op-Center that the ROC had been retaken.
Rodgers faded back against a wall. This was August’s triumph and he had no right to share in it. He looked down and listened. He could hear the relief in the voices of the Strikers as A-Team moved in to secure the van. He felt nearly alone, though not quite. As the Italian poet Pavese had once written, “A man is never completely alone in this world. At the worst, he has the company of a boy, a youth, and by and by a grown man—the one he used to be.” Rodgers had the company of the soldier and the man he’d been just a day before.
After what was only a few seconds but seemed much longer, Rodgers heard Private Honda call for Colonel August.
“Sir,” Honda said quickly, “the Tomahawk may strike the ROC or abort in the cave in approximately forty seconds. We’re advised to seek cover—”
“Strikers assemble on the double!” August yelled.
Rodgers ran toward them. “Colonel, this way!”
August looked at him. Rodgers was already running down the other fork.
“Follow the general!” August cried. “Ishi, radio B-team to get down the slope with the prisoners!”
“Yes, sir!”
Rodgers reached the prison section even as they heard the bass horn roar of the Tomahawk racing toward the cave. The general ordered the men to throw open the grates and jump into the pits. He opened Colonel Seden’s prison himself, making sure that no one hurt him as they climbed in.
Private Honda was the last Striker into a pit. As soon as he was crouched down, his arms over his head, Rodgers stepped back. He stood in the end of the cave, listening to the bellowing as it grew louder. He felt proud of his countrymen as he thought of the Tomahawk, the result of applied American intellect, skill, spirit, and purpose. He felt that way about the ROC as well. Both machines had worked exactly as they were designed to. They did their jobs. So had the Strikers and he was deeply proud of them as well. As for himself, he would have wished for the blast to consume him, whatever form it took, were it not for the fact that his own job was not yet finished.