Internal Threat (18 page)

S
pecialist Jason Worth made the trip across the office floor with slow, deliberate steps. His right leg was beginning to feel like someone was holding the flame of a lighter against it. The injury he had sustained four years ago usually produced nothing more than a dull ache or occasional tingle throughout the workday. Today, however, it was a throbbing reminder of the stress he was enduring.

He dodged a worker hurrying past, focused on a paper in his hands. “Sorry, Worth,” the man mumbled without glancing up.

Worth moved on, thinking that it had not been so terribly long ago that he was sidestepping defensive tackles on the football field instead of harried government workers. In high school, he had been lauded for his running abilities and managed to set his fair share of school records. By his senior year, however, he realized that he was not going to get much bigger than he already was; a weight and height that would be quickly dismissed by any meaningful scout. His longing to leave the claustrophobic confines of Chalkville, Alabama was satisfied when an Army recruiter came to his campus. Suddenly, the world seemed wide open. Education, training, travel. Everything was within reach, including an escape from a life that promised to be nothing more than mediocre.

After basic training, Worth was put on the front lines in Iraq. He did his job dutifully and without question, respecting the absolute authority of his superiors. Three years and tours of duty later, Worth was a Private First Class on the road to being the man he always dreamed of.

Then al-Shepta happened.

It was a routine transport mission, with Worth and his unit shadowing a group of contractors that had received a tip about insurgent activity in the dusty village. As they approached, an RPG streaked in from over the horizon, connecting with the armored truck that was at the head of the line. The cars scattered with Worth and his comrades taking position behind a nearby sand dune. The Humvee that contained the contractors squealed into an abrupt U-turn and rushed back down the road in the opposite direction.

Worth returned fire with unseen insurgents as his Captain radioed headquarters for backup. As he peeked over the baking sand, Jason noted something from his vantage point. Where the armored truck had been struck was a smoking black crater. Beside it lay the scattered body parts of the soldiers that had occupied the vehicle. Among them lay an intact body charred on its left side. Worth could not be positive but the man looked like he was moving. He whipped up his binoculars and tried focusing on the injured soldier. Gunfire forced him back down before he could.

“Sir!” he called across the way. The Sergeant Major cupped his hand around the sat phone, ignoring Worth. “Sir!” Jason tried again.

At last, the squad leader looked in his direction. “PFC Worth, what the hell do you need? I’m trying to see if we can get backup here.”

“There’s a man down, sir.”

“What? Where?”
“There,” Worth answered, pointing. The Sergeant Major took his own binoculars and trained them in the direction of the crater.

“All I see is bodies, Worth,” he said, lowering the field glasses.

“I saw one of them move,” Jason pressed. The leader stared at him, assessing. “I think I did, at least,” Worth fumbled under his commander’s glare.

“You think or you know?” snapped his superior.

“I’m pretty sure, Sergeant Major, sir.”

Before Worth could say anything further, the leader’s phone squawked. He held it to his ear, barking something into it before turning back to the men.

“Let’s pack it up. HQ says there’s no need to hold this position.”

“What about backup?” Worth pushed his way towards the Sergeant Major as the rest of his unit hurriedly filed by.

“Not coming. They can’t spare it right now.”

“But there’s a man dying out there!”

“Stand down, Worth,” he was warned with a glare.

“Can’t they even send a medical transport out?” he shouted.

“I said, stand down, PFC!”

Worth saw the rest of his unit staring at him. The leader noted it, too, and Worth knew the man would lose face if he backed down now. Turning away, he pulled his binoculars back up and trained them on the downed man. He could not be sure but he thought he saw the faintest tremor of movement pass the man’s lips. The word “help.”

Without thinking further, Worth leapt over the protection of his sand dune. His commander’s voice screamed his name behind him but that was not his immediate concern. Bullets chewed at his feet as he ran in a zigzag pattern across the desert floor. A grenade lodged in the ground fifteen feet away, causing Worth to dive to the side. A geyser of sand erupted, providing him enough cover to make the last sprint to his destination.

Smoke and dirt stinging his eyes, he nearly tripped on the injured soldier. He knelt down and heaved the man across his shoulders. As he stood, he was grateful to hear covering fire being laid down by his unit. Taking a different route back, he hustled as quickly as possible with his weighty load. The helmets of his fellow soldiers were in his sights as he forced himself to dredge up a last burst of speed. He would arrive to safety in mere seconds.

The first bullet struck Worth in his right hamstring.

Crying out, he stumbled forward. His leg screamed in agony but he knew that if he had any chance of surviving, he had to keep moving. Cresting the sand dune, he dropped the injured soldier and was almost behind it when the second bullet hit. It tore through his right thigh and exploded in a burst of blood. He fell down into the waiting arms of his squad.

His commander’s face loomed above him. “Worth, I’m going to have your head for this!” Indistinct swear words followed as Jason began to fade from consciousness.

But Worth was not truly listening. He was face-to-face with the soldier he had risked his life for. At this close distance, there was no mistaking it.

The man had the glassy-eyed look that only the dead wear.

A few weeks later, Worth was brought back to the States to rehabilitate from his wounds. Although the Sergeant Major had wanted him dishonorably discharged because of his flagrant disobeying of orders, the higher-ups deemed it unnecessary. They thought that if the story ever leaked that a young man who had risked his life for a downed soldier was punished outright, the media would pounce on it.

They instead quietly promoted him to Specialist and let their disapproval be known in other, more subtle, ways.

Chief among those was Worth’s recuperation facility. The young man had been in a rural hospital not known for its cutting edge practices before, mainly when he faced injuries from the football field in his home town. Yet, this was a place incredibly different. Men were sent here to die or be forgotten. The doctors there were military men themselves that were one of two types: arrogant young men completing their medical internships or autocratic old windbags serving out their last duty before official retirement. Both groups cared little for their patients. The injured soldiers were nothing more than stumbling blocks on the road to their long-term goals.

In his first week at the facility, Worth laid in a cramped and uncomfortable bed crammed in a room with a dozen other men in various states of distress. Worth counted himself lucky that he retained all his limbs when he felt strong enough to take in his surroundings. Three different doctors took turns flipping with disinterest through the chart hanging on Worth’s bedpost while barely glancing at the young man beneath it.

All pronounced the same verdict in varying language, “You’ll never walk again.”

Each time, Worth swallowed his anger and requested more pain medicine. It was the one request the doctors seemed eager to oblige and Worth lost himself in numbness for days at a time. When sleep came, it was haunted by the face of the dead soldier he had risked his life for. In his dreams, the man was alive. Thanking Worth for his bravery, returning to a girlfriend and family grateful to have him back home. Yet when his eyes opened and the realization slowly seeped back in that he was in a tangle of sweaty hospital sheets, Worth sank back into despair.

It was one of these dreams, however, that brought Worth back from the brink of darkness. In it, he was running back towards the safety of the sand dune, the soldier slung across his back. The bullets struck in a burst of searing pain. Worth crossed back into the safe zone of his unit, flopping the man down on to the ground and staring into his eyes. This time they were lacking the light of life, empty dark sockets staring back at their rescuer.

“You didn’t make it,” Worth said to the man in his dream.

“No,” the corpse replied. “But
you
did.”

Worth shot upright in his bed, blinking away the traces of the dream that still clung to his eyelids. The message, whether it was delivered by a ghostly apparition or the dredges of his own subconscious, was clear: embrace the life you were lucky enough to continue. Over his current doctor’s objections, he began to shun his pain medicine. When his head had lost the fuzzy feeling it had grown accustomed to buzzing with, he began his physical therapy. The first day, Worth collapsed on the parallel bars after two steps, his legs numb and useless beneath him. At the end of the first week, he had managed to take one full step without help. After two months, he was able to walk the length of the room with assistance. By the next month, a cane got him around more than the doctors had ever dared encourage him.

After a few months, Worth felt the world may be worth living for after all. It was only when his physical therapist, a gentle bear of a man named Marc, was doing a resistance exercise with him that he was thrown mentally off-balance.

“So what are you going to do when you leave here?” Marc asked.

“Leave here?” Worth responded, fumbling for an answer.

“Sure. Now that you’re walking again, they won’t want you to stick around for long.”

Worth sat back in contemplation. He had spent so much of his recent time focusing on just regaining his will to live and then using its brunt force to overcome his physical challenges, that he had not spent one minute thinking what he might
do
when he was healed. After his session with Marc, he went to the administration office to inquire what he might be eligible for within the system.

“Not active duty,” the bespectacled official brusquely informed him. “Office work, maybe.”

“Office work,” Jason echoed with a sinking heart. He never saw himself as the type of person who pushed papers around a desk.

“Let me make some inquiries,” the official said.

The next day, Worth was summoned to the office again.

“Something is open in Colorado Springs,” the same man told him. “Interested?”

“Yes, sir,” Worth replied. Anything to get out of here, he thought.

“You’ll fly out in two days. Be ready.”

Jason found himself staring at the snow-dusted Rocky Mountains less than forty-eight hours later, heading deep inside their belly. He was led through a warren of offices, his leg throbbing with the effort to keep up, until he was asked to wait in a glassed-in conference room. He watched as uniformed men and women passed, along with casually dressed office workers. Each time someone in an officer’s uniform approached the door, he straightened in anticipation of their entering, only to see them keep moving. It’s why he was so caught off-guard when a diminutive Asian woman who looked barely older than him pushed through the door.

“Specialist Jason Worth,” the woman said, flipping through a manila folder in her hand.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, rising out of his chair with practiced Southern courtesy.

“You can sit down. And you don’t have to call me ma’am.”

“Yes-” replied Worth, stopping before saying “ma’am” again and finding himself thoroughly confused.

“You’re damaged goods.”

“Excuse me?” Anger colored Worth’s cheeks.

“Your experience,” the woman replied, tapping the folder. “You tried to save a man’s life by disobeying orders and so the Army is looking to put you somewhere where you won’t cause any trouble.”

Worth stared, nonplussed.

The woman continued. “Despite the objections of the other members of the unit, you were even denied a purple heart. Words they used to describe you include ‘smart’, ‘brave’ and ‘loyal’.”

“How do you know all this?” Worth finally managed to ask.

“Oh. I hacked into all confidential emails that included your name,” she answered as if it were the most logical thing in the world.

“I see.” He stood on unsteady legs. “Well, thank you for your time.”

It was her turn to look confused. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Back home, I guess.”

“Why? I want to hire you.”

“You
what
?” Worth sat back down, completely flummoxed.

“Hire you. You’re exactly what I need. Someone who values loyalty but is not the biggest fan of the system he resides in. I’d say that’s you, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I would.”

“Fine,” she said, rising to indicate the meeting was finished. “You can start next week as my direct report. Any questions?”

“Just one.”

She looked askance at him.

“Your name, ma’am.”

“Sorry,” she said, extending her hand for a shake. “I’m Emma Hosobuchi.”

Worth was at Emma’s office, facing her firmly shut door. He knocked softly. Getting no answer, he knocked again.

“Ms. Hosobuchi, it’s me,” he said loudly. There was a muffled shuffling before the door clicked open. Emma ushered him inside before quickly shutting the door behind him.

“Tell me you’ve got good news,” she practically begged.

“Afraid not, ma’am.”

Emma sighed and headed back to her desk chair, sinking down into it. On her desk were three laptops scrolling endless lines of code. Her bloodshot eyes roved back and forth between them.

Worth had never seen her like this. The woman he usually admired for her cool and calm demeanor was clearly coming apart at the seams.

“Well? Talk,” she barked at him.

“FALCON is still down.” She gave him a look that said, ‘no duh.’ He plunged on, “I don’t think Griggs knows about it. Yet.”