Chapter 17
Stay the Course
Marty left bright and early for flight training. He dropped Stacy and Steven off at class on his way out to the university’s private airport. Tony and the twins were going to watch Melissa while Meea and I took the early session at the obstacle course. Meea and I would then watch Melissa, so Tony and the twins could attend the second session.
When Meea and I arrived at the course, I could see that the large tarps that draped off the entire area had been moved back to cover just the back half of the field. The tarps were raised up about five stories high falling all the way to the ground. They were suspended between tall high voltage towers. But there were no electric lines running on these towers, just the tarps.
The section of the field that was now out in the open had a two-mile obstacle course set up that looked ready for action. There were rope swings, climbing walls, and mud pits with rope ladders crossing over them. There was even a pond with rolling logs on it. At the entrance were two large, and in charge Army men dressed in camouflage fatigues.
“Hello. I’m Wilson McClain and this is Meea Suntree.”
“Hello, I am Major Wellen and this is your instructor Corporal Qualen. Please come in and read through these instructions, then warm up for about five-minutes. This is a seven-minute course. Which means an army cadet after boot camp should be able to complete the course in seven minutes. You can use that open area by the start line for your warm ups. Any questions so far?”
“No sir. I believe we’ve got it. Thank you.” I said.
“We will be right with you to get you started.” The corporal said.
As Meea and I walked into the yard I heard the corporal tell the major he couldn’t believe they let girls into this program. From the look on Meea’s face she had heard the corporal as well and was not going to let this insult slide.
Meea and I had never raced or anything, but Meea looked like she was built to fly. I’m sure coming off an actual Indian reservation in Texas and having animals as your closest friends, Meea must have done a lot of open field running. Odd the corporal didn’t notice her build, or even the stealthy glide in Meea’s stride. I thought it made her stand out from everyone else and Meea never goes unnoticed anywhere she goes.
“Wilson, would you mind letting me run this course the first time by myself with the corporal?”
And here it comes…
“What ever you like, Meea.” A knowing smile slid across my face. Meea recognized and enjoyed that I knew and trusted her so well. I stretched over and kissed her on the cheek. “Best of luck my little Indian maiden.”
Meea stood back up and stepped to the starting line. “Excuse me, Corporal.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Since this is a seven minute course for a trained military cadet, would you mind racing against me on my first run through the course? I’d like to compare myself to a trained military man, like yourself, to see how much I’ll need to improve.”
The corporal fought off a smile and took a quick look over at the Major for approval, which he got with a wink.
“Don’t be upset with yourself miss, if you can’t keep up for the first few months. This is one of the most difficult course layouts that the Army puts together for training. The scaling wall alone is just over thirty feet high, and the mud jump is six feet across.”
“I’ll try and do my best, Corporal.” Meea said as she stepped back from the starting line to stand with me.
The Corporal started to stretch out while Meea and I looked on.
“Wilson, when I’m through giving this guy a lesson in manners let’s say we race for something.”
“And what do you have in mind?” I was quickly learning to never doubt anyone in my group. If Meea was so confident she had jumped over her race with the corporal, and was now thinking about racing me, I was pretty sure I was in trouble already.
“If you win, Wilson, I’ll do anything you want for the next 24 hours. But … if I win, you have to take me out on the Conner’s boat for a moon light dinner, just you and me alone for say… three hours.”
“Hmmm…that’s a long dinner.”
“I’m a very hungry girl!”
“Well that’s a win-win for me so I’m game.”
“Ready, miss?” The corporals’ chest stuck out like a prize peacock as he strutted to the starting line.
“You bet.”
The Major counted off… MARK… SET… GO….
The Major had a stopwatch in his hand that he clicked at the word GO. They were off, or I should say Meea was off. She sprinted ahead in the first twenty yards to the first fifteen-foot wall with a hanging rope. She leaped with both feet, toes pointed like a gymnast, grabbed the rope and climbed up one hand over the other as smooth as silk. She looked like a snake spiraling up the rope and sliding down the other side. As she approached the six-foot mud jump in full stride, she leaped like a gazelle clearing the pit and stuck the landing, a good foot on the other side.
The Corporal, running with his jaw hanging, was already a good fifteen yards behind her and the race had just started. He was off stride at the mud jump and only one foot cleared the thick dark mud. The other landed squarely in the mud with a sloppy splat! That boot was going to need some serious polishing tonight. Meea hit the finish line at six minutes flat.
“Nice job, young lady.” The Major, patted Meea on the back, and looked to see how far behind the Corporal would finish. “You’re in at 7:07 Corporal, not too good of a showing.” The major said staring down at the corporal who was bent over trying to catch his breath.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Very good run miss.”
“Thank you. It was okay for a girl I guess. Your next, McClain.”
“Oh, it’s going to be like that, huh?” I was going to get killed, but would love it at the same time.
“I was just warming up on the corporal. I’m shooting for the course record now.” She laughed.
The good news was I got to watch Meea’s back side all day, as it was kicking mine. She ended up beating me bad in every race, my best time was 6:30 and Meea’s best time was 5:27.
The Corporal told Meea no one would ever beat that record. Apparently he didn’t learn anything today about underestimating other people. Hell, I know a two year old that would probably give that time a run for its money today, let alone in a few years.
“I’m not sure we should use the Conner’s boat Meea?”
“Wilson, they trust you with their daughter, so, I think they’ll trust you with their boat.” Her head nodded up and down.
“When you put it that way, I guess it would be alright. I’d love the time together with just you and me, alone on the ocean in a cozy cabin boat.”
“Speaking of alone time, have you found out what Stacy and Marty have been up to?”
“No, I don’t want to ask. If they want us to know or need help, I’m sure they’ll talk to us about it, whatever it is.” We finished writing our log times in the Majors register and headed back toward the parking lot.
“Meea, I need to go see Dr. Ishmail. Can you take my car back to the house and watch Melissa so that Tony and the twins can come kick some Army ass?”
“Sure, how will you get back? Do you want us to come and get you?”
“No, that’s alright, stay and have fun playing with Melissa. I’ll catch a ride back with Marty later.”
Dr. Ishmail was not in his office, but his office assistant said I could find him in the lecture hall at the library. I waited outside for all the students to file out after his class had ended. This must have been a normal college course since there were so many students in it.
“Come in, Wilson, have a seat” The lecture hall was empty now except for Dr. Ishmail and me. It sounded odd, as our voices echoed off the walls with no other sound in the room to curb them. The room was dimly lit, sort of ominous and spooky. It made me feel creepy, like I needed to whisper.
“I was going to call you in t
oday, Wilson. There have been some recent changes that are not good for us.” Dr. Ishmail looked as if he had not slept since the last time I spoke with him. “I’m going to put more responsibilities on you than I have a right to, and for that I am truly sorry.”
My gut was in a knot now, not for me, but for the Conners, I could only pray they weren’t in danger.” It wasn’t even the Conners as much as it was the loss that would come to Melissa if her parents were taken from her.
“I’m fine, sir, please go on.” I wanted details.
“Let me start at the beginning, because you are going to be brought in on this one hundred percent now. The CIA intercepted information four months ago about a terrorist attack. It was spotty but looked authentic. The FBI and CIA started to hit up contacts and dig for information right away. About a month later enough information was gathered to access the threat was real, and imminent. The threat that was uncovered was a plan to bring down the Golden Gate Bridge. At that time an active SA group was called in to assist the CIA and FBI.
The Golden Gate Bridge connects the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. It is now the second largest expansion bridge in the United States. At the time it was constructed in 1937 it cost thirty five million dollars to build. Now it’s estimated to have a replacement cost of one point six billion dollars. But that is just re-building cost. The cost to businesses and families, plus the amount of time to rebuild, the total losses would be closer to on hundred billion dollars. The cost of any lost lives is unthinkable.”
“We’re still in the mode of intelligence gathering to discover who, how and when, we really don’t care why at this point, and we just have to find a way to ensure this doesn’t happen. The initial SA team that was brought in has been missing for three weeks now. We think they were following up on a lead somewhere in Brazil. We called up two more SA teams for support. The first team was to work on the bridge plot, and the second team was to locate and recover the first missing team. The Conner’s were in the second team. But this morning, we lost all contact with both teams.”
I felt dizzy all of a sudden, like I just got hit with a bat in the back of the head. My stomach was tossing, ugh. I need to sit down, I was sitting down. I don’t feel too good.
“You OK, Wilson?”
“I have a head ache sir.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“I’ll put together all the details we have to date and send them over to the Conner house. I need you and your team to dig in and help us find out what’s going on. Find out where the missing SA teams are, and I still need the who, how and when on the bridge. I’m sorry about this, but you’re the leader of the best group of people we have left, and ready or not we need you.”
“We’ll get right on it, sir.” With a task at hand and having my hands untied I was already starting to feel better. Better than better, really alive again. I hated keeping things from the group. I wished to God I had better news but at least they were going to know what I knew, and we would all be in this together again.
We had no time to lose. I had to make something happen here to find Melissa’s parents. The longer they stayed missing the worse my chances would be at finding them alive.