Arriving at the Pentagon, General Clancy stopped in a small wooded area, close enough to observe the building but not be seen. The General got out of the SUV and with field glasses studied the Pentagon. There were armed military personnel all around the perimeter of the building and a heavily concentrated force at all entrances. General Clancy set the binoculars on the hood, “What the devil is going on? It looks like we are at war with so many troops guarding the building. It appears the Pentagon is under anti-siege orders which is an order I have never seen carried out. According to policy, this is only to be instigated if we were under attack. They obviously know something we don’t,” He looked at Gus hoping he might have an answer.
Gus just looked at the General, shrugged and then reached out his hand for the binoculars. Surveying the same scene he handed them back to the General and didn’t have answer, “I suppose this makes access impossible?”
“Not necessarily.”
The General’s security access allowed him to enter any area of the building, but entering wasn’t the problem, it was getting out with Jess—a prisoner, that was the problem, “My guess is that they are holding him in the lower level incarceration unit where special detainees are held when the world can’t know about them. It’s highly secure as you can image, but before we all risk a limb, I’ll go inside and see if he is there first.”
“You’re forgetting something General,” said Ted as he limped around the side of the SUV. “You shot your admin yesterday. Don’t you think someone will be looking for you?”
“If I were stupid I suppose they would be—I wouldn’t be so careless to use my own gun. With all the commotion in the city after the embassy bombings I was able to leave the scene unobserved. Besides, being a Four Start General has its advantages—since we are now apparently at war, all I have to claim is that she was a spy and a threat—which she definitely was. I’m sure I will be all right. You all wait here. I should be back within the hour.”
The General casually began walking down the street toward the Pentagon as if he were just out on an afternoon walk. Gus and Ted watched as he eventually walked through the armament outside the gates and passed by the soldiers as they saluted.
“I guess that’s about as good as we could hope. It appears no one missed him or suspected him as the one who killed his admin,” said Gus as he opened the door to the SUV and slipped inside.
Ted walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in behind the wheel and turned on the Transnet, a standard in all vehicles. He navigated directly to PubEx and then sat back and put his foot up on the dash.
“How’s the foot?” asked Gus as he leaned a little closer to inspect the bandage.
“Still very painful—such a small wound, I can’t imagine what a serious one might feel like.
Gus unwrapped the bandage just enough to inspect for infection, “Well, the General did a good job of both putting the hole there and cleaning it up it appears.” Inspecting closer Gus exclaimed, “He’s a damn good shot, straight through the tissue, no bones. You should heal rather quickly, though I’m no doctor, and I’ve never been shot, so—whatever that is worth.”
“You’ll be in pain for a while, it takes longer than you think for your body to grow back together after it has had a hole punched through it,” said Matt waking up from the short nap he took on the way from Alexandria to the Pentagon.
“So is that the voice of experience?” said Shay in an unsurprised and flat tone. When it came to the human body, Matt seemed to have experienced it all and was a self-proclaimed expert on fitness, nutrition, broken bones, ripped and torn everything and now gunshot wounds.
Matt reached over the back of Shay’s seat and ruffled his hair in an endearing and playful manner, “As a matter of fact my dear Shay, I am.”
Shay turned around in an equally playful but confrontative tone, “Prove it.”
Matt pulled his shirt over his head and before he could point to the scar, Gus, Ted and Shay all exclaimed in surprise, “Holy crap!”
Matt had a scar that started just under his right peck and went up about seven inches then reappeared on the top of his shoulder. It was pretty obvious that a bullet grazed up his chest, entered just below his shoulder and then exited out the top of his shoulder where there was a very large circular scar about three inches in diameter.
Shay was sometimes critical of Matt’s macho disposition but he was also genuinely impressed by it, “So, this is a story I’ve got to hear.”
Matt started slowly and somewhat reluctantly, “We’ll it’s really not that impressive of a story.” Matt paused, “But let’s have some fun while we wait for the General shall we? I’ll tell you two stories and you tell me which one is true. First story, I was leaving the San Francisco stadium after a game and it was late since I sprained my knee and I was icing it and then sat in the hot tub for an hour or so. The rest of the team had already left and I called a taxi to take me back to my place. Just outside the main tunnel I saw a couple fighting and it appeared to be just a boyfriend girlfriend spat. I tried not to pay attention but they were getting louder and more violent. Then the dude started wailing on her knocking her to the ground then started kicking her.”
“Holy hell, what did you do?” said Gus, every concerned and then considering Matt’s scar he added laughing, “Obviously you intervened.”
“I ran over to the couple and yelled at the guy to stop. He started to run away at first thinking I was a cop or something but when he saw I was just a guy, he came back and started kicking her again, like he needed to finish the job. By that time I was about 10 feet away and he pulled out a .38mm, I dove for cover over the hood of a nearby car as he pulled the trigger.” Pointing to his scar he explained, “The bullet sort of grazed me going into the muscle about a half inch then went in here, and out my shoulder.”
Ted twisted around in his seat so he could hear better, “That one gets my vote, even if it’s not true. What happened next?”
“I wasn’t sure how badly I was hurt and like being at the bottom of the pile after a tackle on the field, I thought, I feel pain so I must not be dead. The guy ran off and I finally got up and went to go find the girl and she was gone as well. It was probably just a drug deal gone bad and I was just the stupid sucker that got in the way—it was all for nothing.”
Shay was impressed as were both Gus and Ted, but Shay was eager to hear the other story hoping it would trump the one he just heard, “OK, what’s the second story?”
Matt laughed, “OK, let’s see—I had just purchased my first firearm and shortly after I got a shoulder strap that fit a little too tight and it was difficult to get my gun in and out. One night after too much to drink I was showing off for some girls after the division playoffs in ’36 and I stumbled backwards while trying to get the damn gun back in the holster when I accidently pulled the trigger. Since I was falling backwards, the bullet grazed me like I already mentioned and exited my shoulder and then,” Matt started laughing, “the slug knocked a beer can out of my buddy’s hand, scared the hell out of him!”
The SUV was quiet for a minute as everyone weighed both stories. “I still want to believe the first, I don’t care if it’s true. That is a great story of personal sacrifice for a complete stranger. Things like that never go unnoticed by God,” said Gus.
Ted concurred, “I’m with Gus on this one—Shay, how about you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, the second seems more plausible but…”
Just then Ted made a loud shush sound, trying to get everyone to be quiet. The Transnet was broadcasting live footage from St. Louis where a group was firing at another group in a city park of sorts. There were already many casualties and bodies were lying everywhere in between the opposite sides. The newscaster said there was no official report of what the conflict was about but the Vice President’s position of neutrality prompted it according to the reports. The only thing that was actually known is that both sides appeared to have law enforceme
nt officers opposing each other along with hundreds of civilians. This was clearly not a public uprising where law enforcement was called in for crowd control.
Officers were firing their weapons and the unarmed public was using anything they could as a weapon. Some were wielding tire irons, others garden tools and many had large kitchen knives and hunting bows. Watching the Transnet intently, Gus yelled, “Pause it! Go back just slightly.” Ted rewound the broadcast and froze the screen at the place Gus indicated. “Look! There just off the walkway,” he said pointing, “See that man, look at his neck. See anything familiar?”
The dead man in the broadcast was definitely a victim of a harbinger attack. Gus had Ted rewound the entire broadcast as they watched it again in slow motion looking for other harbinger attacks and anything else that looked like Toprak.
Shay pointed from the back seat, “There—that makes three and possibly four.”
They all turned and looked at each other wondering what it meant.
Just then, the General returned to the SUV and seeing Ted in the driver’s seat, he climbed in the back with Shay and Matt. The look on the General’s face oddly matched those of everyone in the SUV. They all looked at the General waiting for an explanation, hoping he had one.
“Well, the good news is: we are not at war—at least not with a foreign enemy. The bad news is we are kicking our own ass. At least four states are reporting very heated civil unrest with over one hundred casualties each. The official line is that the conventionalists are responding with force over the neutrality position. Which in-and-of-itself doesn’t warrant such a heated response, however the Vice President’s seeming takeover of congress does, which is what I think this is about. As usual, the Feds are using the conventionalists as the scapegoat.”
Gus began shaking his head, “That just doesn’t make sense. First of all, while the Vice President’s actions are upsetting, rarely has any civil unrest begun with the conventionalists. I mean let’s face it; they are called conventionalists for a reason—but, “flipping the coin in the spirit of equal time, I just can’t see the other side initiating such a thing either especially since the Vice President is their candidate.”
The General nodded his head in agreement as did everyone else, “By the way, the Vice President is now Mr. President.”
“What—when did that happen?” asked Matt, Ted and Shay in near unison and alarm.
“Apparently last night and it was also apparently ratified by the Senate, mysterious since none of you knew about the emergency session. I’m sure it was a secret session of only the Vice President’s supporters,” the General sighed, “Alas, should we have expected anything less?”
ddd
Two stories below the Pentagon, Jess Erdem lie on a thin mattress staring up into the darkness inside the most secret and secure holding facility in the United States, reserved for prisoners that the world could not know were prisoners. The Pentagon prison was intentionally dimly lit, and cold which effectively robed prisoners of clear reasoning and hope, much like the damp and rat-infested dungeons of a darker age.
The events of the Senate meeting where he accused the Vice President of being a traitor played over and over in his mind and he wondered what the eventual outcome of the meeting that night was and what happened to Ted and Shay? There was a chance they too were imprisoned somewhere since he couldn't imagine either of them agreeing with the Vice President. He also wondered how Gus and Matt were getting along in England and how the U.K. was reacting to the United States’ neutral positioning. Almost forgetting he also thought, and where is Veronica? He had not heard anything from or about her for several weeks now. Everywhere his thoughts took him lead to despair. He fought back the depression in his mind only long enough to wander back into an abyss of dark thoughts.
The design of his prison was working and he concluded there was zero hope of a rescue and that there was also a very good chance his friends were just as bad off as he was or worse. He rolled over on his cot resigned to his fate, depressed and let out a sigh of surrender. Rolling onto his side the cross he had worn around his neck since he was in seminary slid off his chest and hit the bed rail with a high-pitched clink, but on Jess’s depressed mind it had the effect of a cathedral bell tower ringing out in a storm. As the bells echoed into silence in his mind, Jess slid off his cot and knelt on the hard damp floor. He took a deep sigh and began praying in the suffocating silence. He may not have been the only prisoner in the block but he was the only one making a sound. His prayer started quietly and somewhat timid but the longer he prayed his confidence grew and his voice echoed off the dungeon walls and down the corridor.
“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done...” Jess paused and considered the words of the Lord’s Prayer. In his mind he repeated, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Jess felt his soul enlarging and courage filling the emptiness in his heart. Resuming his prayer, he plead for God to have mercy upon the good people of the earth that they, with His help, might overcome the evil that was hemorrhaging around the world and that truth and freedom would conquer in time. He considered his imprisonment and those of so many of the early saints in ancient Rome and like the Apostle Paul, for the first time in his life, he was grateful to be guilty of being a defender of truth and pled with God to make him a worthy martyr if it served God’s divine purpose and pleasure.
He prayed for the better part of an hour until he was interrupted by the sound of a key being inserted into his locked cell door and the dry screech of the steel hinges as it opened.
“I don’t know what’s going on up there in the Pentagon or why you were locked up to begin with but I never heard anyone pray like that and God will damn my soul if I don't do everything I can to set you free,” he said as he stood by the open door and waited for Jess to get to his feet.
Jess got up and looked around in surprise thinking it might be a trick or some kind of sick joke. “I'm the only one down here in this block,” said the guard, “they figure with concrete five feet thick and being two stories down, there wasn't any reason to have more than one guard when there is only one way out.”
Jess was still very surprised and looked into the guard’'s eyes to see if he was serious, “So what is your plan? We have the most secure building in the world two floors above us.” It was obvious the guard had no plan, only desire. Jess knew that desire alone was never enough; desire only got someone moving, but never to their destination. The plan was left up to him, “And God,” said the guard.
Jess thought for a minute, “How long have you been on duty?” he asked the guard.
“Three years.”
“I meant today, and who else rotates through this assignment?” Jess said somewhat humored as he walked out of his cell still testing whether or not this was some kind of self-incriminating ruse.
The guard followed Jess out of the cell and motioned him to sit in the only chair in the corridor, “I've only been here four hours and this post is manned by four soldiers, changing every six hours your grace.”
Jess shook his head, “I’m not a priest or anything religious, so please don’t call me that.” He continued to think but the situation did seem hopeless. How could a prisoner just walk out of a secure building and out the door when everyone knew who he was? Then he stopped and asked himself, does everyone know who I am? He looked up at the guard from his chair, “What do you know about me? Do you know who I am?”
The guard shrugged, “Just a prisoner who was causing a scene at the Capitol Building. I guess that makes you a demonstrator and that’s against the law you know.”
Jess got up from the chair a little more encouraged, “How about the other soldiers on this guard rotation, what do they know?”
“I am senior to all the other guards—First Class, I debriefed them on who you are and that you were to never have visitors—no one in or out. I know nothing more and neither do they I would bet,” said the guard as Jess took even greater
encouragement.
Jess considered his plan again in his mind. It was terribly risky and was based almost completely on a hunch, but it was the only thing that could work and time would not improve his circumstances. Since he was a public enemy to the Vice President, he was sure he would be made an example of. What that would entail he could only guess, probably a decade in prison or if his worst suspicion was true—that the Vice President was staging a coup—it could mean death.
Jess walked several feet in both directions in the corridor determining what other assets they had. The corridor was completely empty except for a single chair and within his cell only a cot and a commode. He was still wearing a black suit that needed a good pressing and his white shirt was no longer very white. I look like a prisoner, he thought sullenly and losing faith again, and this stupid guard thought I was a priest.
Just then—like a ray of hope within the dark corridor—he thought, Maybe I can fool everyone else upstairs as well. He looked at the guard and noticed he was wearing a navy button-up shirt with official patches on it. It wasn’t a priest’s shirt or collar but it might do in a pinch.
Jess took off his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt, “I need you to trade me shirts. Do you have a knife or a blade of any kind?”
Before the guard took off his own shirt, he handed Jess a knife with a six inch blade which was probably more for uniform decoration than for any real practical purpose. Jess took the knife and cut the bottom of his white shirt, starting a tear and then tore a two inch strip off the bottom. He then handed the guard his shirt and Jess took the guard’s in return. With the knife, Jess removed all the patches and then sliced the pointed ends of the collar off. He put on the guard’s shirt and folded the two inch strip of fabric he cut from his own shirt, and slid it under the navy collar making it appear like a priest’s collar.
“This will never pass with anyone who knows what a priest’s collar looks like but we will have to pray very hard there are no practicing Christians in the building today.”
He put his jacket back on and also prayed that no one would notice that he was wearing a navy shirt with a black suit since priests always wore black. He brushed his hair with his hands as best he could and looked at the guard, ready to go. The guard smiled, “If I may your grace, your collar is not lying flat.” He took the gum he was chewing out of his mouth, broke it in two, stuck a piece under each collar and pressed it down firmly, then took a step back to look at Jess, “That should do it I think.”
Jess then explained the plan. The guard would act as an escort only and treat him as if he were in fact a priest in the building on some official church business. Hopefully they would be able to walk right out the front door. Jess knew that all visitors to the Pentagon received an electronic badge and they were checked in and out at the security check points both inside and outside the building. Thinking of this in practical detail, he paused, “Any ideas?”
They both thought for several minutes, neither of them coming up with anything until Jess remembered a psychology class he had years ago. The human mind has great difficulty focusing on multiple things at a time especially in a time of emergency. This is best illustrated in auto accidents where bystanders are afterwards interviewed about the details. Not only are some details ignored but other facts are forgotten and distorted—sometimes greatly. He took a deep breath and couldn’t believe what he was about to suggest.
“Without a distraction I think our chances of walking out the front doors are, well—impossible. I am not dressed all that well, you are completely out of uniform, there is a chance someone might recognize me and then we have the ID badge problem. However, if we had strong distraction, like a medical emergency, I’m hoping all that will be ignored and we will be escorted out of the building in haste.”
The guard looked at Jess confused, “What do you suggest?”
Jess swallowed hard, “I want you to stick me with your knife—not deep but enough to cause a lot of bleeding. Then we run up stairs and hopefully—hopefully we will be attended too and taken to the nearest emergency room.”
“OK,” said the guard a little too eagerly in Jess’s mind, “but we’d better go up the west elevators since the other way we’d run into military medical personnel and they might just want to attend to you right then and there.”
Jess nodded, “Good thinking.”
He took a deep sigh and closed his eyes. Then after a few minutes when he didn’t feel any stabbing going on he opened his eyes to find the guard biting his lip.
“I think we should first walk over to the southern elevators, it’s over one 100 yards and—I’m not a surgeon. I could very well just kill you. I’d rather have a shorter distance to run—if that’s OK,” he said nervously.
Jess smiled in gratitude that the guard was actually not planning on killing him. They walked the one 100 yards to the southern elevators and without warning, the guard grabbed Jess from behind with an arm around his neck and with his other hand holding the blade one inch above the point, he stabbed Jess in the gut three times not penetrating more than an inch, hoping that would cause the necessary blood show without any real harm. Jess moaned in pain and held his gut, doubled over and then nodded gratefully that the guard had done what he did by surprise. The anticipation of being stabbed would probably be greater than the wound itself, he thought.
So far the plan was working, blood was greatly flowing from Jess’s abdomen covering both of his hands and making a small pool on the floor of the elevator. The pain was getting worse and they slowly rose up from the basement to the ground floor. At least I don’t have to fake the pain, thought Jess as the elevator doors opened.
The guard held Jess close to him to try and hide the fact he was out of uniform and yelled, “I need an ambulance here—someone call an ambulance!”
The foyer quickly filled with Pentagon personnel, most watching in horror at seeing a priest losing so much blood. Jess and the guard staggered out into the foyer and toward the exterior doors as they heard someone on a phone calling for emergency help. Jess was shocked that it took so little time to feel lightheaded and he motioned to the guard that he needed to sit down. The guard leaned him up against the wall as he sat in front of him, holding him upright, “Stay with me your grace, we need men like you here more than God does right now—stay awake your grace, stay with me.”
Jess was losing consciousness quickly and he now wondered about his plan. He didn’t think about losing consciousness and leaving his fate in the hands of a stranger. The guard, seeing Jess fading leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You are a man of God and I would take a bullet for you grateful for the honor your grace.” Jess’s hands went limp and fell to his side as the blood began to flow even faster. The guard placed his hands on Jess’s abdomen and applied pressure to try and slow the bleeding and save Jess’s life.
The last thing Jess heard before blacking out was someone on a phone say, “No, I need a civilian emergency crew, the victim is a civilian, a damn priest, hurry!”
ddd
Just then, the General’s security app on his phone came alive as everyone in the SUV looked at him wondering what it was. The General pull out his phone and read the code alert, “Hmm, it’s nothing,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket and tried to return to what they were discussing.
Gus had a feeling that the alert was important and pressed the General to divulge what the emergency was at the Pentagon. The General took out his phone again and looked at the message, “Let’s see,” he skimmed through the standard alert messaging then stopped when he got to the details, “Hmm, it appears there was an incident involving a priest, seems he was wounded, maybe mortally and there is a manhunt in the basement looking for the assailant.”
Gus thought there were just too many coincidences for this to not have something to do with Jess. An incident occurring in the basement—prison block—with a priest, “It’s Jess!” said Gus in alarm as everyone turned to him in surprise.
&n
bsp; The priestly deception was working like a miracle as the EMT’s entered the building and placed Jess on a stretcher giving the guard strict instructions not to move his hands and instructed the guard to climb on top of the stretcher and straddle Jess so he could keep pressure on his abdomen. The emergency crew wheeled them both out of the building and into the ambulance. Once the ambulance was moving and the EMT’s were ready to deal with the wound, they directed the guard to remove his hands. He climbed off the stretcher and sat looking at Jess with grave concern worrying that he had just killed a priest.
The ambulance left the secure confines of the Pentagon and headed toward Highway 395 in the direction of the George Washington University Hospital.
“How do you know it’s Jess?” wondered the General.
“I don’t but we should at least intercept the ambulance or something. If it is Jess, he will not be safe for long in a hospital bed.”
Gus looked at everyone in the SUV who looked back at him like deer caught in headlights not knowing what to do, “Come on, Ted—drive!”
The SUV pulled out onto Long Bridge Drive toward the Pentagon when they saw the flashing lights of the ambulance heading toward them. Ted pulled over across the median a few hundred yards in front of the on-coming ambulance, wincing in pain at having to use his sore foot to slam on the breaks. Matt jumped out of the SUV with a marine M27 and pointed it at the driver.
The ambulance slowed down, honking the horn in addition to the siren. When the ambulance driver saw that the black SUV was not going to move and that Matt was in earnest, he stopped. Matt ran around to the back doors and flung them open as the General joined him, both with weapons drawn. The EMTs immediately threw their hands in the air and the guard, seeing his commanding officer—General Clancy—took his hand off the pistol he had concealed at his side.
The General looked at Matt for positive identification of Jess as Matt nodded in response, “What has happened here soldier?” said the General to the guard.
The bleeding had stopped for the most part due to the EMTs quick work and the guard quickly told his General that a fellow prisoner stabbed him and he was about to launch into why he was dressed as a priest but then just stopped mid-sentence as he realized he was about to incriminate himself. The General turned to the EMTs and asked how badly he was hurt.
“It appears superficial according to the ultrasound I just completed only an inch deep or so. He has lost a lot of blood, that is our main concern at the moment,” said one of the EMTs with a shaking voice.
Without being told, Matt ran round to the driver and commanded that he get out and with a loaded rifle in his hand the driver didn’t question Matt’s authority. The General commanded the EMTs to get out and motioned to the guard he could choose if he wanted to stay or go, “We are on the right side of this if you care about right or wrong soldier, but know this, if you get out I may shoot you some day.”
The guard only needed a second to decide, “I’m with you. This is a holy man and I vowed to God that I would protect him.” The General smiled, grateful for at least one other good man in the military besides himself. The General and the guard each got up to grab a door when they saw a military vehicle racing toward them. The General pounded on the side of the ambulance signaling Matt to drive, which he did, throwing the two men in the back down on the floor as they sped away.
Matt drove onto the freeway ramp while the military vehicle pulled within 50 feet of the ambulance as the General and guard tried to shut the back doors. The General successfully got his door shut just as they heard a gunshot. Both men jumped back as Matt tried to swerve through the traffic in an attempt to keep the military personnel from having a clear shot.
The General sat back behind the single closed door and loaded his berretta as he slid up behind the back door looking for the right shot. Not being able to see clearly he was about to lean out around the door when the guard yelled so he could be heard over the sound of the wind, road and traffic, “Sir! Let me take the shot, I’m a nobody and I’m out of uniform. If they see me it won’t matter much to anyone. But if they see you, all hell might break loose!”
The General knew he was right, but it bothered him greatly since he always lead his men instead of ordered them. He reluctantly motioned the no name soldier to move to the rear and take the shot. The guard slid over behind the single closed door and slowly peered around, waiting for the perfect shot, knowing he might only get one. Through the twisting traffic and traveling at over one 100 miles per hour, the guard didn’t have a clear enough view to aim accurately and he deplored the thought of hitting a civilian. He took a deep breath of courage at the same time the General yelled, “Soldier wait for your shot, that’s an order!” The guard turned and looked at the General and nodded, then disobeying a direct order, he slid out in the frame of the open door and pointed his piece at the military vehicle and braced himself in the doorway. He aimed between the driver’s eyes and waited until he was steady enough to pull the trigger.
While he was struggling for the shot, the General heard three military shots but the guard was still bracing himself in the doorway and he heard one of the shots go wide and hit the closed door, he couldn’t tell where the other two shots hit. The General yelled out again, “Soldier!” just as the guard fired and the General got up on his knees to see if his shot was true. The military vehicle swerved to the right and he could see that the driver was dead as the vehicle slammed into the embankment and cart-wheeled several times before it came to a flaming stop upside down.
“Hellofa shot soldier,” yelled the General, turning to look at the guard.
The guard was lying on his back just inside the door when the General saw he’d been hit twice. He absorbed the two unaccounted for bullets, and yet he stood his ground and waited for the shot and took it while he was bleeding out. The General pulled his lifeless body further inside the ambulance and took his pulse—nothing. He leaned back against the side of the ambulance with the guard’s blood all over his hands and pooling on the floor, “I didn’t even know your name soldier.” He pulled the guard’s dog tags out from his shirt and read, “Kendall Isaac.”
He dropped the tags on his chest and sighed, “First Class Isaac, you lived true to your name—a pure sacrifice.”
Matt drove the ambulance off the freeway and disappeared into a Virginia suburb heading toward Clinton, looking for a wooded area where they could regroup and plan their next move with the group. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw Shay driving the General’s SUV close behind. He pulled off the road into a secluded wood just as the sun was setting.
Parking the ambulance, Matt walked around and opened the doors to find the General attending Jess and the guard’s bloody body in the back. Matt didn’t say anything for a few minutes, being saddened over the loss of the guard then slowly asked, “How is he? How is Jess, I can see our friend here didn’t fair too well.”
Jess was holding his own, still unconscious but no longer bleeding and his breathing was close to normal. The General sat down on a stool and looked down at the guard, “His name was Kendall Isaac, First Class. He saved our bacon.”
Matt shook his head, “Damn shame. He didn’t even know what he died for I’m betting.”
“He seemed to know Jess. Said he vowed to God to protect him. He kept his vow—sacred that is,” said the General as he reached and placed a blanket over the guard’s head.
Just then Shay pulled up in the SUV. Everyone got out and stepped into the silence of the wood that was more like a cathedral. The guard was the first casualty fighting on their side and it hit all of them hard. It seemed to be even more poignant that they hadn’t even known his name, an unknown soldier, laying down his life for the cause of freedom. No one spoke for quite some time mostly because silence in that moment became sacred and none dared disturb it.
At length, Gus walked over to the guard, removed the blanket and straightened the body and placed the guard’s hands on his chest in a prayerful and dign
ified manner like the ancient burial rites of warriors. He then knelt in reverence with his hand to his forehead. As he got up, everyone else did the same and afterwards the General addressed the sullen group, “I know it seems strangely sacrilegious at the moment to think of other things but we must get out of Virginia tonight and erase our tracks.”
Matt and Shay got Jess out of the ambulance and comfortably situated in the back of the SUV while Gus, Ted and the General prepared to burn the ambulance, with the guard’s body inside. “It was the greatest honor and respect in ancient times to burn a fallen warrior’s body. He has saved us all, there is no greater honor due to such a man,” said the General continuing, “besides, we can’t leave a trace that any of us were here, no fingerprints, no blood trail, no DNA.”
The General cut the fuel line and by filling a container he drenched the interior of the ambulance and lit it. The ambulance was immediately consumed in flames without an explosion, just as the General had planned since he didn’t want to draw attention to their location. The group watched the ambulance burn as if it were an alter and for some time they were lost in the trance of watching the dancing flames when the General spoke, walking back toward the group from being at some distance away on his phone.
“We have an open window for the next 30 minutes to get out of dodge. We have a plane waiting at Andrews for us that is heading west. I pulled a few favors with the Navy to get us on that plane but not on the manifest, we must hurry.”
They all got back into the SUV and headed toward Andrews Naval Air Base that was only a few minutes away. They parked at the southern end of the air strip and there was a cargo plane just as the General was promised fueling for a transcontinental flight to the west coast. In the darkness, they cut through the chain link fence and ran toward the plane just as a naval officer walked out of a hanger and upon seeing them turned the other way, obviously following orders to the letter, “Heaven be praised for obedient soldiers,” said the General quietly.
They climbed aboard the plane and secured themselves as discretely as they could and Matt, who had Jess over his shoulder laid him down near the back and the General checked his wounds, adjusting his bandages and checking his pulse and breathing. Amid the noise of the engines firing up he gave a thumbs up sign to Matt signaling all was well with Jess.
The flight was a long six hours since the plane was not an atmoscraft and it flew the old conventional air routes. Gus welcomed the long flight since it was the first time in many days he felt like he had a solid rest. The others also seemed to be better for the rest as they touched down at the Naval Air Station in Everett, Washington where they were allowed to exit the plan unobserved, again as soldiers and officers followed the orders of the high command—the General’s friend—to the letter. There was also a non-official vehicle waiting for them just outside the base with medical supplies, food and a full tank of gas.
Matt was starving and began eating the moment Jess was comfortable, still unconscious but stable. After the General injected him with a round of antibiotics and started a drip of fluids, he jumped in the driver’s seat and headed east toward Montana, Matt’s home State and also the State where the General owned a very remote and private ranch. The vehicle was mostly quiet, only a few comments about the northwest rain and the endless evergreen forests on either side of the road. Gus was riding shotgun and turned to his long-time friend General Clancy, “I’m curious, what did you ever tell your contact in the Navy that prompted such a response of cooperation?”
General Clancy smiled, “I told him I needed to get the man who just killed the British ambassador out of Washington. My contact was also aware of what a Toprak slug the ambassador was so he was only too eager to help.”