Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (44 page)

 
          
“Are
those guys crazy?” Busick exclaimed. “Are they
trying
to start a war?”

 
          
“Martindale
is not doing anything illegal, at least not in the
United States
,” General Venti interjected.

 
          
“But
we can refuse to shield him against foreign indictments,” Kercheval shot back.
“
Russia
,
China
,
North Korea
,
Iran
,
Iraq
,
Libya
,
Syria
, and a half-dozen other nations have all
pressed criminal charges against Martindale for his activities—”

 
          
“Alleged
activities.”

 
          
“Call
it what you want, General—you and I both know he’s involved,” Kercheval said.
“We can threaten to not block extradition.”

 
          
“We
are
not
going to turn over a former
president of the
United States
to any foreign country,” Busick said.
“That’s crazy. Martindale will never believe our threat. But we can sure as
hell bust McLanahan and his men.”

 
          
“Let’s
stick with the problem at hand, shall we?” Kercheval asked. “We need some kind
of consensus about what in the hell to do about
Libya
.”

 
          
All
eyes turned toward Thomas Thom. He considered it for a few more moments; then:
“Have the
Reagan
and
Stennis
groups proceed with their
planned exercises,” he said. “No changes whatsoever in their plans—in fact, I
want Pentagon briefers to start including a few details of the exercise to the
press, just so everyone knows we’re not adjusting the exercise to threaten
Libya.”

 
          
“Sir,
are you
sure
don’t want to put any
additional military pressure on
Libya
?” Goff asked incredulously. He was
accustomed to the various surprises served up by this very new and certainly
different commander-in-chief, but he still couldn’t control his reaction when
he made such unexpected decisions. “Mr. President, I’d like to prepare a
briefing regarding
Egypt
’s importance to—”

           
“Save it for now, Robert,” Thom
said. “Gentlemen, I need to hear just one thing before I make the decision to
commit American troops against
Libya
: that the people of
Egypt
want the help of the
United States
. From what you’ve said, that hasn’t
happened.”

 
          
“That’s
not true, Mr. President,” Kercheval said. “We’ve had calls from the prime
minister, from major opposition groups, from leaders in the Pan-African
Leadership Council ...”

 
          
“That’s
not good enough,” the President said. “You say that Khan, the chief justice of
their supreme court, might have been involved in the Salaam assassination—and
then you tell me that he was the front-runner in the national election? This
tells me that the people of
Egypt
condone and even embrace these actions.”

 
          
“Maybe
they were too scared of Khan to resist him, sir.”

      
     
“I don’t believe that’s possible,” the
President said. “We’ve seen too many cases of common people toppling
dictatorships, and we’ve seen too many cases of common people embracing
dictatorships—not because they were coerced into doing so, but because they
liked having a strongman in charge. If that’s what the people choose, they can
have it—and everything that goes along with it.
Egypt
is a progressive country. It currently has
a free press, allows free expression of ideas, and easy immigration.”

 
          
“Mr.
President, certainly, you can’t believe—?”

 
          
“I
most certainly do, Edward,” the President said. “If
Egypt
wants our help, they need to prove to me
that they really want our help—we will not impose our ideals on them, no matter
how much we distrust
Libya
.” He turned to Goff and Venti and went on:
“I want the theater and naval commanders fully briefed on the situation in
Libya, I want our forces in the Med, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the
Persian Gulf on the highest state of alert, and I want contingency plans drawn
up for air strikes against Libyan forces that move against Egypt. But I am not
going to threaten
Libya
or come to the aid of
Egypt
unless the people of
Egypt
elect a president that wants to cooperate
and work with us.”

 
          
They
outlined what they would discuss with the media, including a few items to be
leaked by “unnamed sources” in the White House and Pentagon, and then the
meeting broke up. Thomas Thom went upstairs to the residence to see what the
family was up to and visit with the kids who weren’t in school, and then he
entered his bedroom and shut the door behind him. The children and his wife all
knew not to disturb him now.

 
          
Thomas
Thom first learned meditation in the U.S. Army Sniper School at
Fort Benning
,
Georgia
, where he trained as a sniper himself in
order to be a commander of a Special Forces Group. To tell the truth, Thom was
not the best shot in the world, and he wondered if he could cut it. But he soon
learned that being a sharpshooter was only twenty percent of being a sniper—the
mental struggles and challenges of stalking and shooting a living target was
the hard part. Snipers had to learn how to move without being detected,
sometimes within mere feet of the enemy, and they had to learn to detect a
target out of camouflage or deep in cover. They had to have perfect eyesight
and exceptional infantry and outdoorsman skills, but most of all, they had to
have the mental discipline required to inflict quick, catastrophic, and “one
shot, one kill” finality to a pursuit. Thom soon learned that mental
discipline—what he called “mental quietude”—was the most important
qualification.

 
          
Not
everyone at Benning used meditation, but it worked for Thomas Thom. Meditation
helped him relax, helped him rejuvenate his body and mind, and it helped him
concentrate, focus, and clarify his task and objective. Some likened it to a
catnap but, properly done, it was the exact opposite—it was a recharger, a
rejuvenator. It served Thomas Thom well after he left the U.S. Army—he had
meditated for twenty minutes, twice a day, every single day since he received
his mantra and learned how to do it properly.

 
          
It
took only moments for Thom to slip into his higher state of consciousness, and
then the journey began. The reason Thomas Thom never took vacations, rarely
visited
Camp David
, played no sports other than T-ball with
his children, and had no hobbies, was that he took a “vacation” twice a day
when he slipped into a transcendental state. Arriving at that level was like
stepping off a supersonic jet and arriving at a different place every time.

 
          
But
it was not such a journey this time. Instead of traveling himself in a
different world, dimension, or time, he was a spectator this time, watching
events happen. That was unusual—certainly not impossible or unheard of, since
the soul has no beginning and no end—but why couldn’t he watch it as well as
experience it?

 
          
He
awoke with a start—also not an usual occurrence. He glanced at his watch and
realized with relief that his meditation lasted almost exactly twenty minutes,
as it should have. So why did he feel so odd?

 
          
He
knew why he felt that way—he felt it for a long time now, ever since the
Turkey-Ukraine-Russia conflict over the Black Sea, ever since the raid against
Pavel Kazakov’s base in Romania. He knew what was happening.

 
          
“Patrick,”
he spoke.

MUNKHAFAD AL-QATTARAH
LOWLANDS
,
 
THIRTY-TWO MILES SOUTHWEST OF
 
MERSA
MATRUH
,
EGYPT
 
THAT SAME TIME

           
The gas had run out, both in their
vehicles and in the men themselves. Patrick and the rest of the Night Stalkers
had taken shelter in yet another complex of oil wells—these appeared to be
bombed out rather than run dry. They provided minimal cover: Chris Wohl had the
men dig foxholes in the burning sand to conceal themselves as much as possible
and wait for rescue.

 
          
They
were all exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Patrick told them
about the detonation over Mersa Matruh. They had received no other reports from
anyone— the electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear device had electrified the
atmosphere so badly that no satellite transmissions could get in or out. . .

 
          
“Patrick.”

 
          
Or
so he thought—apparently now the satellite transceivers implanted in their
bodies were up and running again.

 
          
He
recognized the voice immediately, of course—and his next move was also
immediate: “Cancel Thom to Patrick.” And the voice went silent.

 
          
It
was the one thing that kept Patrick and the other Night Stalkers out of prison
after their first series of raids the year before: They were still tied into
the subcutaneous microtransceiver system they had received while working at the
Air Force’s High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center in Nevada—and the
President of the United States got one too, a tiny rivet-sized wireless
biotransceiver injected into a shoulder, powered by a radioisotope power supply
worn as an anklet. The satellite transceiver allowed global communications,
tracking, biofunction monitoring, and data transmission, although the user
could selectively cut off individual functions.

 
          
This
was the first time the President of the
United States
had activated his transceiver—and it
startled Patrick completely. But what surprised him even more was to hear:
“Patrick. Talk to me.” Even though Patrick had instructed the transceiver
satellite server to cut out the President, he was still coming through!

 
          
“What
is it, Mr. President?” Patrick finally responded.

 
          
“I’m
sorry about Paul,” Thom said. The transmission was scratchy, but the emotion in
the President’s voice was still evident, still genuine. “I know you loved him,
and that it hurt you to have him go into battle with you.”

 
          
Patrick
immediately recognized the subtle query—he was hunting for information—but
Patrick didn’t have the energy to try to resist an interrogation right now.
“Someone had to go in and stop the Libyans,” he responded. “You won’t do it.”

 
          
“What
else happened, Patrick?” Thom asked. “Why didn’t you come home with your
brother?” No reply. The President’s eyes narrowed, thinking hard—and then they
widened in absolute horror. “My God, not
Wendy.
Was she caught in the attack on your ship? Was she... oh, no ... was she one of
the prisoners sent to Mersa Matruh? Oh God, Patrick ...”

 
          
“Mr.
President, soldiers are resting here, preparing for battle,” Patrick said
woodenly. “You know the old saying—lead, follow, or get the hell out of the
way.”