An Enemy Within (9 page)

‘I’ll tell it to the driver – if he hasn’t been shot already,’ she said haughtily, checking her camera. Bobby-Jo revved up the engine and clanked his way forward. Behind them followed the second Bradley, commanded by Sergeant Dan Rath.

It was soon unbearably hot inside the vehicle once the doors were closed; Alex felt it getting worse by the minute. She glanced up to see P.J. studying her, a mix of curiosity and indignation. He turned away from her gaze, a youthful act of self-consciousness that belied his ability to fire a rifle.

Banging his M16 on the side of the Bradley, it vibrated with a hollow clang. ‘Crank the A/C up a little, Bobby boy,’ he shouted to the driver. Everyone laughed except Alex who felt she was reaching boiling point. It didn’t help that she’d hardly eaten and her stomach still squirmed.

Determined not to react, it crossed her mind this machine might well have air conditioning and they had it switched off to test her mettle. It didn’t. The only relief came from a small ineffective fan.

Some twenty minutes later, she was thankful when they stopped and took up position on a wide, dusty street where a few of the locals had set up stalls. McDermott ordered his men out of the vehicle except for Bobby-Jo and Joe Herman, on observation. Both Bradleys then began following them at a preordained distance, not so close as to be intrusive. But only a glance away from being called to action.

Sgt Rath led out the patrol from his vehicle, the units joining as one platoon, fanned out at 5-yard intervals. His voice boomed to the men. ‘Hardware pointing to the ground – and don’t forget to smile, folks.’

Alex waited until the soldiers were some way off, then rattled off a few shots of McDermott, as if he were pointing to something in the distance. His men, in the background, gave the pictures a nice perspective.

A gang of children, curious, eager, some old enough to be at school, congregated around McDermott’s men.

The translator in Sgt Rath’s group addressed several of the older children. They said their classrooms had been bombed and they did not know when school would re-open. Soon, packets of sweets and chewing gum were handed out, drawing an even bigger crowd, hands outstretched, clamoring for a piece of the action.

A little further up the street she asked McDermott to stop by a stallholder who was offering flour and containers of drinking water for sale and snapped him shaking hands with the toothless purveyor. The man said something to him. McDermott called over the translator.

‘He asks if we know when the electricity is going to be back to normal, Lieutenant.’

‘Tell him, with God’s will, very soon. Ask how business is going.’

‘He says there is already a shortage of flour and water but trade is slow. Most of the people are hanging on to what little money they have because they are without jobs.’

Further along, in the flattened ruins of a bombed-out building, soldiers joined in a kids’ football game, kicking the ball to one another until, finally, passing it back. Two of the older children, apprehensive at first as if fearing they wouldn’t see their ball again, shrieked when it was returned. ‘Americano, Americano,’ they shouted, running off.

The lieutenant became aware of a young woman with a toddler making her way up the street towards them. She was holding the boy by the hand but he was crying, gesturing that he wanted to be carried. Eventually, the child stumbled. McDermott moved forward and swiftly picked him up.

‘Hey, hey, hey, what’s all this hollering about?’ He smiled at the mother reassuringly and quickly withdrew a lollipop from his pocket. The toddler immediately stopped crying and snatched at the brightly-coloured wrapper.

McDermott held him gently, looked into the boy’s eyes and, for a moment, saw the eyes of a dead baby, deep brown, innocent, smiling at him, felt the still-warm body. He saw, again, the cute little chubby legs. Just like the ones Mom used to tell him she could eat.

In a temperature of over 110 degrees, he went cold.

Some yards away, Alex was firing away on motor mode. She could not help but see the change in McDermott’s expression. His whole demeanor had suddenly altered. It puzzled her how visibly upset he had become, the colour quickly draining from his face. She continued firing and, within seconds, he had gone a deathly white.

He slowly handed the child back. ‘Take… take good care of him, Ma’am,’ he stammered, his voice croaking.

The mother smiled bashfully and continued on her way, the child looking back over her shoulder. McDermott stared after them.

‘Brilliant,’ Alex whispered to herself.

There was nothing better than to capture a natural action like this, one when the subject was unaware of the camera, not inhibited by its presence. All the same, she found the lieutenant’s reaction mystifying.

McDermott suddenly became aware of Alex and her camera and quickly composed himself. ‘Right, let’s move on,’ he ordered with a wave of his arm.

*  *  *

It was several days later when Gene Kowolski decoded the email on his laptop within the Palestine Hotel, a smile spreading across his face as he quickly devoured its contents. It was from a senior assistant at the Defense Department, instructing him to ‘seek out, interview and prepare’ one Lieutenant Matt McDermott for military honours. It stated that the issue had top-level clearance and included a list of recommendations and
suggestions, all of which, of course, Kowolski already had covered.

He sat back in his chair, lazily putting both hands behind his head, allowing himself a sly chuckle. The CIA’s idea had nearly come full circle, having traversed the corridors of power in the White House, the Pentagon, too, then back to the man charged with carrying it out for Northwood.

If only they knew, he thought. But, in reality, it was the subterfuge, the intrigue, the machinations his position allowed that gave him the greatest pleasure. He replied to the sender, making a mental note to print a copy of the email for his file at the earliest opportunity. He was always careful to do that. In his job, you needed backup if the fire ever got out of control.

He took a car to the Green Zone, calling Major Douglas on the way. In the major’s office, he got straight to the point. ‘We need your boy back home. There’ll be quite a welcoming party.’

‘I’ll have to clear it with CENTCOM, of course. Their wish is… well, you know how it is.’

‘It’ll look good for the division, reflected glory all round. This lieutenant, he’s a good kid?’

‘Sure. I have his file.’ The major handed it over. Kowolski could almost recite the contents off by heart, but still made a show of reading it.

‘He still look like his photo?’

‘Yeah, good-looking guy.’

‘You realise, Major, that the President himself is likely to take a great personal interest in this lieutenant?’

‘That’s very gratifying. How long will you need him and when?’

‘Well, things are pretty hectic back home right now so we wouldn’t need your boy for a little while. I guess the military honours committee don’t work too fast and we’d want to tie it all up so the President himself is free to present whatever medal they give him.’

Kowolski handed the file back. ‘How long will we need him?
We’d have to monitor it all closely, of course, but, hey, we’re in the hands of the media. I mean, we can’t say no to front page of
Newsweek
if it comes up. Exactly what is your boy’s tour of duty?’

The major swept a hand over his crew cut, glanced at some notes on his desk. ‘He’s due back home next March – will have done his twelve months, counting his few weeks in Kuwait. Wouldn’t be good for morale if he only served a couple of months here then went back home for an easy spell – medal or no medal.’

Kowolski took out his Filofax diary. ‘What say we settle sometime in August? He will have gotten six months in here – practically a veteran. We have him for a month or so back in Washington, do the rounds and send him back to complete his tour.’

‘A month?’

‘Should wrap it.’

‘Will leave us short.’

‘I’m sure Central Command will come up with something. There must be a young lieutenant scratching his fanny down in Dofa just itching to get to the frontline.’

Kowolski got up. As far as he was concerned, his business with the major was over. This was all mere protocol. CENTCOM would soon be made aware of the request from Washington. And their co-operation was guaranteed – right up to the top if need be.

All publicity was a matter of timing. And he would choose the occasion himself no matter what the major said.

The thought struck him as he left the Green Zone that these soldier boys loved their guns and their tanks, the bombs and the missiles. But the political clout of Washington was infinitely more powerful than all the army’s weaponry put together.

He had learned from bitter experience never to slap his own back on a job well done until he’d seen it through to the end. Even so, he still felt a certain measure of gratification.

After all, he asked himself, what could possibly go wrong?

*  *  *

When Kowolski left, Major Douglas locked his office door, returned to the desk and put in a call to CIA headquarters in Virginia.

‘Northwood,’ the voice answered, stern.

‘Okay, we’re one down, sixteen seconds to play. I’m throwing the ball now – a great lateral pass across field. Northwood collects, he’s got a seventy-five yard run to win the game. He sprints. The opposition close. They’re not going to catch him. My God, it’s a touchdown. Hoo-hah, we just won the cup, buddy-boy.’

‘Walter, how you doing?’

‘Just great, Richard. I wanted to let you know Kowolski was here. He’ll no doubt tell you everything’s progressing concerning young McDermott.’

‘Good, good,’ Northwood murmured.

‘You asked me for a hero, Richard.’

‘And you did good, Walter, real good. It won’t be forgotten.’

The major put his feet up on the desk and lit a cigar. Favours made the world go round. If his old college pal ever made it to the top as was expected, who knew how it would be repaid in the future.

7

The President was due to make his speech to the nation from the flight deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln
off the coast of San Diego.

Kowolski turned on the radio. The news anchor, a woman, was interviewing a military expert on the occasion. Both were gushing in their praise of the President who had landed on the aircraft carrier earlier in the day.

‘I thought he looked real, well… manly as he stepped from the plane in that flying suit,’ the anchor swooned.

‘Well, of course, it was just amazing, landing like that at one hundred fifty miles an hour on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The President is no stranger to airplanes, of course. Don’t forget he was in the Texas Air National Guard…’

The anchor interjected, ‘We must point out to listeners that, on this occasion, the President was in the co-pilot’s seat and did not land the plane himself. But he was loudly cheered by the crew of the
Abraham Lincoln
when he got out of the cockpit… it was a scene straight from the film
Top Gun
.’

Having snatched a few hours’ sleep on a camp bed in the corner of his office, Kowolski put in a call to a White House press assistant who was on the
Abraham Lincoln
, having landed there several days earlier on one of the helicopters ferrying in the many members of the media.

‘How’s life on the high seas, old buddy?’

‘Everything’s primed – the President’s landing went great today.’

‘Yeah, I heard and I just saw the pictures on CNN. Fantastic. The weather okay?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Told you the coast of San Diego would be a helluva lot better than the original idea up there in Everett. The North Pacific in Washington State can be unpredictably windy at this time of year – you’d have the TV cameras rolling all over the place to say nothing of the President’s hair. You see land from the viewpoint?’

‘Not from the angle of the ship – we’re only thirty miles from shore, though. We broadcast in less than an hour. What time do you have over there?’

‘Just after four in the morning the next day to you, my friend.’

Kowolski knew the President could simply have jumped a chopper from the California coast to the vessel. But it was so much more dramatic to have him flown in on the four-seater S-3B Viking for a tail-hook landing – all captured by live television and replayed throughout the day on every news programme in the country.

No one would know the plane made the ten-minute journey without retracting its wheels. Undercarriage problems? No sirree.

Kowolski had been delighted to see the paint-stencilled markings on the plane caught on camera: ‘Navy 1’ on the jet’s fuselage, the words ‘Commander-in-Chief’ just below the cockpit window.

The President had definitely looked the flying ace, just as planned, as he stepped from the cockpit in his tailored olive-green flying suit, a white helmet tucked under his left arm, leaving his right arm free for the handshakes and backslapping that went down so well with all and sundry.

And all that paraphernalia around his neck with the oxygen mask. Folks would think he’d just flown in from a sortie dropping bombs on Saddam himself, even though the man had never seen combat duty in his life.

Kowolski’s only reservation; the two rows of flight-deck crew forming the guard of honour and saluting the President as he
sauntered between them. They looked straight from Hollywood, dressed in brightly-coloured bibs and t-shirts, coordinated in yellow, purple, blue, red, and green. But, what the hell, he thought. It looked dazzling on screen; the work, no doubt, of one of the former TV producers, now on the White House staff, who choreographed such occasions.

The President’s speech would go out live at peak viewing, 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. That meant it would be six in the evening in California, the golden hour before sunset when the light was at its flattering best. Other than send the White House several observations and suggestions on how the show should proceed, Kowolski had left it to the people in Washington. He was impressed with the results so far.