NORTHEAST PROVINCE, IRAQ - 5:53 P.M. Baghdad Time. Dusk of one more day was swiftly approaching in As-Sulaymāniyyah Province as the Blackhawk MH-60 and Apache attack helicopter lifted off in clouds of swirling sand leaving behind the men of the border-outpost, "Fort Wilderness." This was "Navaho Country," a phrase coined by the Arizona National Guard Commander Colonel Max H. Heston to describe one of the wildest provinces in Iraq, a 150-kilometer swath of mountainous terrain that offered an ideal place for outlaws, smugglers...and terrorists. Most of the contraband going through this region would ultimately wind up in devastating attacks on civilian and military targets. The President and the generals would be blamed for the carnage in the featured headlines of tomorrow's tabloids. It was a daily assault on both fronts.
The Colonel glanced briefly at his watch, and then at the junior officer Lt. Tim McFarland rocking back and forth in a seated position across from him, fast asleep. The Lieutenant was a young man from Flagstaff, Arizona and represented the kind of American who enlisted following the harrowing attacks of September 11, 2001. The Colonel thought about waking the officer but his questions regarding his observations on the outpost’s defensive measures could wait. McFarland would be little good to him without some rest; it was after all probably going to be one more long night.
The weather was surprisingly good this time of year with cloudless blue skies and eighty-degree temperatures, a welcomed reprieve from the past two months of near constant rain. Who would have thought a monsoon season existed in this otherwise barren part of the world. The rain did, however, bring with it a positive side: it limited the mobility of both man and beast and created supply problems for America's fanatic enemies. With the improvement in weather, that all changed. The raids and trafficking had picked up and everyone inside the battalion was now on full alert.
Colonel Heston carried the Army-issue Baretta M9 on his right hip, with an effective range of fifty meters and fifteen round magazine. It would offer some means of protection in close-quarters fighting. Heston wore the familiar desert-tan, camouflage, combat fatigues and correspondingly festooned Kevlar helmet designed to blend into their desert surroundings. A pair of shatter-resistant goggles completed his ensemble.
The drone of the voices from the flight crew over his headset, the whine of the turbine engines, the rocking motion of the chopper all began to blur together and was a sign the Colonel was also beginning to succumb to his own exhaustion. The recent flurry of fourteen-hour days and stress of command, on this, his second tour of duty were beginning to take a toll on his physical conditioning. Colonel Heston unconsciously shifted his gaze to the open sliding door of the Blackhawk, at the passing mountainous terrain. His eyelids became heavy before closing. Heston was soon fast asleep.
A veteran of both Iraq Wars, Colonel Heston was called “Granddad” by his men when he was not looking. Heston was aware of this of course, but played along with the game. He was after all retiring soon, and this was to be his final tour of duty.
Retirement would bring with it a new career, politics. Already, Heston had begun getting the word out. The Colonel felt something was wrong with today’s Republican Party. It needed people with more backbone, more willingness to stand up for their values, and more fortitude when taking on the Democrats. Heston was convinced most Republican voters wanted the same thing. The current crop of politicians was not cutting it and that was especially true for the two Arizona senators. Heston would run for politics with an agenda that would be based entirely on orthodox principles...and the Colonel was confident he would win.
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The Colonel was violently shaken from his sleep by the earsplitting crack of an explosion. A ground-to-air missile had found its mark. The impact was terrifying, the fireball searing, the sound overpowering and the pressure wave felt like he’d been hit by a Mack Truck. Heston first gasped for a breath! The Colonel could not see anything, was he blind? Heston ripped off the shattered goggles and froze in terror. The gunner had been cut in half, and only the lower portion of the torso remained strapped in. The Colonel saw that the Lieutenant was still alive. The Colonel saw his own terror reflected in the soldier’s blood-spattered face.
They were going down! Was it all over?
Heston’s surroundings became a blur like the one experienced on a spinning carnival ride; he was being pinned to his seat by terrific centrifugal forces.
God help us! The Colonel thought just before everything went black.
Fourteen minutes later, the last light of the setting sun helped the Colonel make out several dark shapes struggling to pull him from the wreckage. Several strong hands held him firmly in place as one of the figures struggled to release his straps. His head was swimming, but Heston had the presence of mind to stay calm and looked to see if anyone else was alive. The Colonel then caught a glimpse of the Lieutenant. His body was limp and it appeared his hands were bound behind him. The Lieutenant was being half-carried, half-dragged between two white-robed figures toward what looked like vehicles.
The Blackhawk was a battle-tested design, which was why the Colonel and Lieutenant managed to survive the impact, that and a great deal of luck. Unbeknownst to the Colonel, the escorting Apache attack helicopter had also taken a direct hit, only it altogether lost any lift and plunged to the ground, instantly killing the two-man crew and leaving behind a jumbled metal wreck.
Heston was about to look in the direction where the two pilots should have been when he was all of a sudden snatched from his seat. Two pairs of hands restrained him while pulling him from the wreckage, maintaining their grip as Heston tried to steady himself.
About him stood the dark faces of a dozen or more bearded men, most dressed in white, but half a dozen in black, all wearing the familiar keffiyeh headdress. Each carried the terrorist weapon of choice, the AK-47. Two of the men dressed in the dark robes caught his eye, smiling with teeth missing. Each carried empty launch tubes for the ground-to-air missile used to bring the choppers down. The scene reminded him of a successful big-game hunt in Africa where he and the Lieutenant were the trophies.
Middle East Command only just discovered that Iranian-backed fanatics were armed with the late-model Chinese copy of the Stinger missile. This was a weapon the American intelligence community long feared would fall into terrorists' hands. Light to carry and easy to use and like the Stinger was a fire-and-forget weapon. Fired from the shoulder, the sixty-inch long missile carried a twenty-two pound charge of high explosives that was more than enough to bring down a commercial aircraft and just about anything in the U.S. military arsenal.
The Colonel’s hands were still free, but the two men holding his arms behind him had leverage and strength working for them. If he were going to do something he would have to do it...too late!
A black-robed figure broke ranks and approached. The next thing Heston remembered seeing was the man suddenly lashing out with the butt of his assault rifle, pain, then darkness.
The Colonel woke for a moment looking down at sand and gravel passing beneath him. Heston then felt a sharp, stabbing pain in both shoulder joints as they were being forced into an unnatural position. Everything became a blur and then again, darkness.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - One hour, twenty-one minutes after the Colonel was first reported missing, the sun was streaming through the windows of the West Wing briefly brightening up the room before disappearing behind the dark clouds of a winter day. President William W. McKinley was seated in his leather chair at the middle of the sixteen-foot black-cherry wood table, his back to the west-facing windows. This was a daily briefing where cabinet members had a chance to bring up issues and ideas for his consideration.
The President was now midway thru his second term, and for much of that time McKinley and his Administration had been the media's punching bag. Blamed for everything ranging from ordering the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, to steering Hurricane Katrina into New Orleans, to a climbing unemplo
yment rate hovering just above four percent, the most recent attacks had him facing charges that he purposely deceived the nation into attacking Iraq. McKinley and his staff recognized the stories were lies; they also understood they were powerless to respond to the attacks in any meaningful way.
McKinley was growing tired of being forced to defend his administration at every turn from daily attacks from the likes of World News Network, American News and World Tribune. McKinley believed if he and his administration succeeded in dispelling one set of myths they would only be replaced by some newly contrived fabrication, or worse yet, add creditability to the press’ bizarre claims.
McKinley had arrived just short of six years ago. He had come to Washington carrying an olive branch with the same high-minded principles he had used with success in his home state. Unfortunately, McKinley was not acquainted with states where unions and high numbers of welfare recipients dominated elections and sent to Washington politicians who embraced a near socialist outlook. The only thing that had saved him in 2006 and ensured his reelection had been the outcome of his policies following the attacks of September 11th. For a time McKinley was unassailable by the press.
The assaults from the media began again in earnest during his reelection campaign. Everything McKinley’s policies accomplished during his first term: saving the country from economic ruin to eliminating terrorist breeding grounds abroad, were rapidly forgotten by an establishment that secretly loathed the President’s success. The accomplishments of the first term were replaced by one-sided attacks most of which were based on pure falsehoods.
McKinley was convinced that responding to the press’ misrepresentations was beneath the dignity of the office, his lack of riposte, however, would exact a price on his party, give the media a freehand to get into the heads of the voters and hand the Democrats control of Congress...the White House appeared to be next.
The Commander and Chief now sat among his cabinet, the noise of journalists’ cameras having long disappeared. McKinley was now thought of as a “Lame Duck,” and there was nothing for the Press Corps to do. It was time for the press to move on to new ground. There was, after all, one more election coming.
Discussions for the day were winding up, and the staff were leaving the Cabinet Room when the Secretary of Defense, Donald Taggert, approached the President somewhat furtively.
“Mr. President.”
“Yes, Don.”
“We have an issue.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
The cabinet member glanced up to see that everyone had departed the chamber save the security detail. Seeing the coast was clear, Taggert went on.
“We have two officers who have been captured. Army Intelligence is convinced the officers are being held behind Iranian lines.”
“How long ago?”
“Last evening, Baghdad time. Sir, the last thing we need to see are those two officers being beheaded on the internet.”
“You say they’re being held behind Iranian lines?”
“Yes, Mr. President, that’s what intelligence believes.”
“Let me get to my office. I need to get Derrick on the line.”
“I agree wholeheartedly, Mr. President.”
The Special Activities Division (SAD) was a clandestine group that provided the Executive Office with options when overt military and or diplomatic actions could not be taken. Created in the mid-1980's by an Executive Order from President Ronald Reagan, SAD was the crème de la crème of covert US paramilitary organizations. It fell under the umbrella of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service and would carry out 'Black-Operations' known as “Special Activities." SAD was an offensive weapon, a surgical scalpel, on call for just one man, the President of the United States.
The history of SAD began as a result of Reagan’s stated aim of slowing the spread of communism by the Soviets. China at the time was nothing more than a small blip on anyone’s radar. The Democrats, then in charge of Congress, resisted Reagan’s endeavors to combat communism in countries like Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Afghanistan. The President’s response was the creation of the Special Activities Division.
SAD resembled a twentieth-century incarnation of Rome's Praetorian Guard, an elite unit made up of the absolute best. They were also a group of men who did not officially exist and risked everything on the missions given them by the President of the United States.
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