Viper Team Seven (The Viper Team Seven Series Book 1) (17 page)

Parks quickly
nodded and followed the tech sergeant who was motioning for the rest of the team
to follow him. The next thing that Parks knew, he was looking at the rather
large C-17 called BIG BIRD.

“Hop in, sir,”
Wilcox offered. “She’s ready to go.”

Parks embarked, and
was greeted by a man in an Air Force flight uniform.

“I’m Senior
Airman Thomas, Major Parks,” the man told him. “The crew chief.”

“How are you,
Senior Airman?” Parks asked out of courtesy.

“Most excellent,
Major. Thank you. Uh, all of your war bags are over there, sir,” Thomas stated
as he pointed to the bags. “Rifles, ammunition, night-vision goggles, radios,
and the like, are toward the rear, and of course the Stinger missile launcher
is at the tail-end.”

Parks thanked
him, grabbed his bag, unzipped it, and fished out his black utility uniform.
The NSA had issued each man an anonymous utility uniform to be worn on
operations such as this. He had said that anonymity was important, which was
the reason Parks couldn’t wear his Marine utilities. He quickly changed and
shoved his civilian clothes back inside the bag.

“When are we going
to takeoff?” Solomon asked Thomas with concern.

“We are about to
right now I think, sir. Why, do you get motion sickness?”

Solomon shook
his head. “Only on helicopters. I always puke when I get on those.”

The plane
lurched forward onto the runway and began to pick up speed. In the next minute,
they were in the air, gaining both speed and altitude. The C-17 was not the
most agile or speedy of planes. Top speeds were about 520 m.p.h., with average
speeds around 450 m.p.h. It wasn’t the perfect luxury plane, but it would get
the job done, and that was all that mattered.

Tuesday, March 18
^th
– 0030 hours

BIG BIRD

“What? A drill?
A
drill?
” Parks asked in utter disbelief.

The C-17 had
flown into the air a distance only to circle and land back at the very spot it
had taken off from not ten minutes before. The crew chief was just now
informing the team that the whole ordeal had been a drill ordered by the
National Security Advisor.

The crew chief
shied away some at the tone of Parks’ voice. “Yes sir, that seems to be right.”

Parks sighed
deeply and turned to Solomon who was shaking his head slightly and chuckling. “Did
you know about this?” he questioned his deputy.

Solomon raised
his arms in innocence. “Not a clue. But I’m not shocked that they’d order a
drill. Actually, they do it all the time.”

“I know, but did
it have to be so late at night?”

“I guess the
National Security Advisor wanted to check on our late-night skills,” Solomon
suggested as he vainly tried to rub some feeling into his tired eyes.

Parks surrendered
to his exhaustion and slumped into his seat, whipping out a pocket-size
Germ-X
bottle.

“You’ll be able
to get out and go home soon,” the crew chief assured them. “It’s been a long
night.”

Parks nodded and changed out of his uniform and back into his civilian
clothes. It had been a chaotic night. A purposeful night, but still very
chaotic.

*          *          *

Parks came into
the National Security Advisor’s office and stood at attention.

“How are you,
Keith?” Smith asked. “I hear you made good time and handled things well.”

“It went all
right for the first day, sir,” Parks responded.

“Is that all you
think?” Smith wondered aloud.

Parks hesitated.
Was he really supposed to tell the National Security Advisor that he didn’t
enjoy the time he’d just spent doing a drill? Instead, he chose a different
answer. “I’m glad that we all have an idea of what will happen when a terrorist
does come in.”

 “Yes, yes.
That’s why we did it. My apology for the late hour it was performed, but we all
feel that the sooner we train, the better.”

“Yes sir,” Parks
agreed. 

“Sir, who was in
that vehicle when you had the image playing? I mean, was it just a civilian who
didn’t have a clue about it, was it an agent, or...” Parks let Smith finish for
him.

“It was an FBI
agent. We set him up for the job so everything would be realistic.” The
National Security Advisor paused and after a few seconds said, “I must say, you
and your guys got in the air pretty fast.”

“That was
Corporal Yahtzee’s doing, sir. I had nothing to do with that. Oh, by the way,
sir, is there really a Naji Wa’il?” Parks prodded again, desperate for answers
to his many questions.

“Yes, there is
as a matter of a fact. He’s the number five-ranked terrorist in the world. There
is a very real threat that he’d come into the States and try and pull off a
terrorist attack.”

“When you play
act you go all the way, sir.”

“Yes, I suppose
so, but we have to. We have to make sure that everyone on your team is ready
for what lies ahead. We don’t have time to take things slowly; we have to push
things through quickly. For all we know, a real terrorist could come in
tomorrow.”

“I understand,
sir.”

“Now that you
have an idea of how things should go, I’d say when it’s time for the real
thing, it’ll go pretty smoothly. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes sir, I
should say so.”

The NSA rubbed
his eyes and yawned. “Get some rest, Major. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

“Yes sir,” Parks said. Then he did a quick about-face and left the
office.

*          *          *

The President, VP,
NSA, and the Directors huddled in the Situation Room for a late-night meeting.
They were the only White House officials still at work, and though the
President wanted to talk with them about the drill, he mainly wanted to hear
what everyone had to say about the crisis unraveling in the Middle East.

“It went well,
Mr. President,” Smith stated, breaking the ice.

Winnfield nodded.
“I like it. I like it a lot. They were pretty quick and they’ll only get faster
with time. After ten or fifteen drills they should be set to go.”

“Parks seemed to
think it went well,” the National Security Advisor added.

“Yes, well
there’s a lot more to their job than getting to Andrews in a timely manner,” Cummins
retorted. “I’m going to like to see how Parks will handle a real operation with
real terrorists.”

“He’ll do fine,”
the Vice President countered. “What else can you expect from a Marine?”

After several
minutes of discussing the drill, the President brought up the topic of Israel. “While everyone’s here,” he began, “I’d like to ask you all what you make of this
Israeli-Lebanon deal. Do you think it’s a threat? Do you think it’ll blow over
in a few days? Or do you think this is going to be something serious?”

For several
seconds, no one spoke. Everyone evaluated the possibility of another Lebanon-Israeli
war and everyone knew that it was highly probable.  

“
If
, I
say
if
, Israel went to war with Lebanon,” Anders spoke up after a long
silence, “what kind of damage do you think would be done to the Israelis?”

Winnfield looked
over at his friend, partner, and Vice President. Anders’ advice was usually
solid and correct, so the President was eager to hear what he had to say on
this situation. “Depends,” Winnfield stated bluntly.

“On?”

“What approach
they took.”

The VP nodded
slowly and quietly asked, “What about a nuclear approach?”

The thought had
been on the minds of many, but Anders was the first to vocalize that
possibility.

“I think using that
approach they would be the most unscathed, at first,” the President replied. “Lebanon would be done and gone, and Iran would be skeptical and cautious about attacking Israel. They’d know that the Israelis would be ready and willing to nuke them at the first
sign of trouble.”

“What about
global opinion?”

“There’s the
catch. I believe the U.N. would jump on Israel if they went nuclear. They’re
trying to keep the Israelis in check, and if they think Israel could be getting nuke happy, I believe they would move against them. The Israelis
would make short work of Lebanon and Iran by going nuclear, but then the U.N. would
most likely try and make short work of Israel.”

“Worst case
scenario?”

The words hung
in the air unanswered. A nightmare could definitely unfold for the worst case
scenario, and at best, a bad dream.

“Worst case
scenario would be every hostile Middle Eastern nation against Israel,” Winnfield finally answered. “They couldn’t handle that; we’d have to jump in with
them.”

“Nuclear or
militarily?” the VP questioned.

Winnfield shook
his head with uncertainty.

“You think that
it’ll really come down to that, Mr. President?” Cummins wondered.

“Who knows? But
we need to be prepared. I pray to God that we won’t be faced with a situation
like that. But it all rests on Prime Minister Aziza. Will he go hastily against
Lebanon and risk being obliterated by Iran or the entire U.N.? Or will he
think things through and decide to wait for more positive information, like we
have done?”

  “I seriously
doubt the U.N. would go against both Israel and us, Mr. President,” the Secret
Service Director put in. “We have a high enough seat that we could throw our
weight around and the U.N. would adjust to our bidding.”

“We’ve got a
good seat in the U.N., but not that good,” Watkins shot back seriously. “We can
only swing our threats around for so long before they become dull and unheeded.
We have to prepare for the worst, and pray for the best.”

“We can prepare
for support or a counterattack if and when Aziza moves into Lebanon or Iran,” Winnfield finalized.

Anders nodded
and then stared at the floor. It was too late for comfort. Someone had moved
their chess piece against the U.S. as well as Israel, and now both nations were
put on the defensive side of things. Someone needed to take the offensive and
stop this threat in its tracks. Before it was too late.

Tuesday, March 18
^th
– 0930 hours

Jerusalem, Israel

It was time to
do something. Today was a new day and it was a day of decisions. The happenings
of yesterday had pointed toward war for today. It was Tuesday, still early in
the week. What Aziza decided for today could make or break the rest of the week
to come.

The prime minister
was sulking in his office. A meeting had been scheduled with his top advisors
for 1000 hours today, and he knew it was going to be a war zone. Every person
had a different opinion and various advice to give. Very few people agreed on a
single matter. Somehow though, Aziza had to get everybody on level ground so he
could reason with them. He had to get everyone agreeing on matters and
solutions. But how? It would be hard. Very hard. His own wife did not totally
agree with what he was planning to do. So how could he possibly make all of his
advisors agree?

“Mr. Prime
Minister, may I have a word with you?”

Startled, the prime
minister looked up to see General Ahiezer Zimri, the top military commander in
the Israeli government. “Come in, Ahiezer,” Aziza invited. “What is it?”

“Mr. Prime
Minister, may I start out by saying that it is nonsensical
not
to
mobilize our units in the Golan Heights. We are risking being blindsided by the
enemy every moment we allow our forces to remain isolated and unprepared.”

“General, I
ordered you yesterday to prepare our units in the Golan for mobilization. I did
not tell you to mobilize them, but I did order you to have all forces ready and
waiting should we decide to. Did you not carry out that order?”

The general
nervously rubbed his left hand and continued speaking. “I carried out your
order, Mr. Prime Minister. But I must say, we need to,
need to
, mobilize
our military in the Golan and prepare for a preemptive strike or a strategic
defense. If we do not, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to the
enemy’s attack. The time to move is now, Mr. Prime Minister. We have no time to
lose.”

Aziza turned and
stared at the wall. A framed map of Israel was proudly displayed there, and
from his chair, he could see every detail plainly and clearly. He could see the
Old City, and Bethlehem, and all the other historic, holy sites. He could see
the military bases and camps, missile silos, and every other defense mechanism.
Aziza began to think hard about if Israel really was strong enough to take on
the Middle Eastern powers threatening to destroy them. He wondered if maybe his
military and weapons were not as capable as he thought them to be. It was very
possible that other Middle Eastern nations’ militaries and weapons were
equivalent to Israel’s.

The thought made
him insecure, and he didn’t like it. Turning back to Zimri, who had been
standing quietly for that time, he gave a desperate, three-word order.
“Mobilize them.
Now
.”

“Everything, Mr.
Prime Minister?”

“Everything Israel has. Prepare rockets, nuclear missiles, military units, support units, everything. Do
it fast. As you say, there is no time to lose.”

The general
quickly nodded and left the room, eager to carry out the new order.

This was it. Israel was preparing for war. Not declaring a war, but
indeed preparing for one.

*          *          *

Parks rubbed the
sleep out of his eyes as he turned a hard right into the White House parking
lot.

It had been
quite a night last night. Too much excitement for the first night on duty. So
much had happened yet none of it was real; Parks was still trying to process it
all. That was a slow ordeal. Especially since he had only caught two hours of
sleep at most last night.

The coffee in the
cup that he was balancing as he drove almost spilled onto his Service Bravos.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Parks rapidly drank the remaining liquid. That would
not have been good had he spilled coffee on his uniform. He had done that many
times while wearing his utilities to work and nobody had noticed, but to do it
while wearing
this
uniform, everyone wouldn’t have been able
not
to notice.

Parks waved to a
passing Secret Service agent who just stared back without as much as a nod.
Real
nice guy
, he thought.
The Marine Corps would chew that guy up, spit him
out, and do it all over again. What is wrong with these people? Don’t they have
any respect for anyone?

The truth of it
was, he already missed seeing Marines. He was used to seeing hundreds per day,
and it was hard to adjust to some of the longer-haired, sometimes unshaven,
disrespectful people working around him.

Military life
was in his blood. All of his early childhood years he was moving every three
years or so, always seeing his dad come home in uniform, constantly seeing
long, impressive lines of Marines drilling on the field; everything was
military oriented. Now with his own military career he was even more used to
those things. It was killing him to be off a military base, even for a couple
days. He needed the military as much as it needed him. He couldn’t do without
it. It was hard to explain to anyone, but he knew that he would be miserable
doing any other job.

Parks turned the
truck into his personal parking spot but he waited a while before shutting off
the engine. He was tired. Almost too tired to concentrate fully on the tasks
that could be waiting for him today. After staying up most of the night last
night, and the night before, and the night before that, he was drop-down-dead
tired. He needed to catch up on some sleep soon. But when would he have the
time? After today he was sure to be even more tired. He had planned rigorous
training for his team today. Physical fitness was the plan for the first few
days, and after that, strategy plans and scenarios would be hammered out.

To be honest
with himself, Parks wasn’t really looking forward to it all. He knew it was
going to be a battle to get those agents doing Marine Corps training
techniques. But he was the leader, and the way he wanted to train was the way
they’d train. They had better get used to the idea because he wasn’t about to
bend too far to their agency tactics.

Parks turned off
the truck and headed for the office. It was going to be a long day.

“
KP
,” a
voice yelled from behind him. “
Wait up
.”

Parks didn’t
have to turn around to know that the Jamaican voice was Solomon’s. There he
was, clad in his usual garb, including a turtle-neck sweater, jogging toward
him.

“KP,” he said
again upon his arrival. “Good morning.”

Parks just
stared at him in confusion. Had he really run for who knows how long just to
say good morning to him? He must have because no other words were being spoken.
“Well, good morning,” Parks replied, brushing off the dust on his uniform
pants. “Something you want to tell me?”

Solomon paused
to catch his breath before speaking. “No. Actually, I wanted to ask you
something. What time are you planning to start training?”

“Oh, about 0700.
What do you think?”

Solomon didn’t
think twice before saying, “Sure, that sounds great. What have you got planned?”

Parks began to
walk toward the EEOB and Solomon followed close behind, eager for a detailed
answer. “Well, you are gonna love it, believe me,” Parks joked, pulling out his
badge and handing it to the guards. Solomon did the same, and this time the
agents did not scrutinize Parks’ badge as much as they had the other day.

Solomon was not
satisfied with the answer so he pressed on. “Like what?”

“Like running,
sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups. You know, the basics. Is that fine by you?”

“That’s cool by
me, KP.”

Parks was silent
for the rest of the way to their offices. Solomon did all the talking. He
talked about the drill last night and what he felt like this morning, and on,
and on, and on. Finally the two reached their destination and split ways.

Parks closed his
office door, slumped down into the swivel chair, and powered up the computer.
After quickly scanning the price of gold and silver, he logged on to his email
account and punched in his password. There were dozens of messages in the inbox.
All were from Langley, and all were about the crisis unfolding in Israel.

After reading all the messages, he logged off and walked over to the
windows. It was yet another beautiful morning. Solomon had said that it was an
unusually warm March day for D.C. It was perfect weather for PT.

*          *          *

“They are?” President
Winnfield was not shocked at what his National Security Advisor was telling
him, he was more concerned than anything.

“Yes sir, Israel is mobilizing everything military oriented in the Golan. Missile silos have much
activity around them, military units are being moved to the front, support
units are being rushed into the Golan at alarming rates, and it’s looking as
though Aziza is moving into Lebanon.”

“Moving in, or
just defending the Golan?” Winnfield asked.

“No one can tell
for sure, Mr. President, but given his reaction yesterday, I wouldn’t be
surprised if he nuked Lebanon within the next hour.” Smith cracked open a fresh
can of breath mints and threw two or three in his mouth. “Do you still think Iran is the bad actor?”

The President
leaned back in his chair and pondered the question. “Given what we know now,
yes. Considering what we might know in the next hour, no. But I do know one
thing.”

“And what is
that, sir,” Smith pressed.

“The same person
or persons that ordered the attacks on us – whether Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, you name it – have ordered the attack on Israel.”

“I’d say so, Mr.
President. But who? We need to strike back as much if not more than Israel does, we just need information.”

“I know,”
Winnfield assured him. “Hamas looks guilty but something doesn’t match up. The
terrorists/Secret Service agents had absolutely no dealings with Iran. I’m thinking we would have found out about it had they done so. It makes no sense.
That’s really the only reason I have not declared a full-scale war on Iran. I don’t want to start a war with the wrong enemy. I’d like to see Iran taken out, again. I will not attack them, however, without further confirmation that they are
behind the attacks on the U.S.”

“I don’t see how
anyone else, Lebanon included, could have performed those attacks, Mr.
President,” the National Security Advisor told him. “All the terrorists, minus
the agents of course, were workers for Hamas, not Hezbollah, Al-Qaida, the
Taliban, or otherwise. I don’t know what to tell you yet, Mr. President.”

“We’re going to
find out who’s responsible soon. When we do, the culprits will wish they were
never born. That, I promise you.”

“I believe you,
Mr. President, completely. I want revenge as much as you do. I just hope we can
unleash a bit of our fury on the ‘culprits’ soon.”

Winnfield looked
out his many windows and suddenly realized he missed his daughter so much. He
also missed his wife, even though he’d just seen her that morning. He wanted to
be near her at a time like this. Mary Winnfield was the only thing keeping him
running, and he wanted to spend more time with his beloved wife. He wanted more
than almost anything to bring his daughter to the White House and spend a few
family days together. Time was flying by so quickly, and he needed to
prioritize the important things.

“Tom,” the
President said, looking back to his National Security Advisor, “I need to bring
my daughter here, soon.”

Smith seemed
taken aback by the statement. “Who, Renee? Now? Why?”

“What other
daughter do I have? And no, not now, but soon. As for why, if you ever had a
daughter, you’d know the feeling I have now. I want to see my baby girl
together with my wife. I want to make some memories. That’s what really counts.
She’s not even married yet you know. I want grandchildren and my only child is
not even married.”

The NSA looked
sideways at the President. “Are you sure that now is the time to think of those
things, Mr. President?”

Winnfield hung
his head. “Yes, I’m sure. What’s more important than family anyway?”

“Nothing I
guess, but we do have a possible war on our hands. We have to stick with our nation’s
best interests now more than ever.”

“I know, I know.
I didn’t say I was going to spend three months at Camp David, I only said I
wanted to see my daughter. Is that really too much to ask?”

Smith didn’t
respond. To be truthful, he didn’t know how to respond. He knew what the
President was saying was right, but he needed to keep Winnfield focused on what
was happening with the Nation. Not on children and grandchildren. “Mr.
President, may I remind you, your daughter is merely a phone call away,” the
National Security Advisor finally stated, trying to cheer the President a
little.

Winnfield stood
up and agreed. “Tom, that’s right. If I can’t see her in person, at least I can
talk to her.”

“That’s the
spirit, Mr. President. Family first and country second.”

The President
patted Smith on the back and they both walked out of the Oval Office.