"Honey," he said, rubbing his chin and looking at the ceiling, "generals don't recall you from civilian status, personally, to go run around in the boonies." He dropped his eyes to meet hers and shook his head.
"Whatever it is, they'll want me for my know-how, not my biceps. And sometimes, yeah, I wonder if being, maybe, by now, a company commander in the Eighty-Deuce wouldn't be a little more . . . important, useful, I don't know, something more than building a really boss web page for the country's fourth largest bank!" He garnished the generous helping of fettuccine with a chicken breast in garlic and herbs and extended it to her.
She shook her head, understanding the argument intellectually, but still not happy. "Do you have to leave this evening?"
She took the plate and looked at it with the same suspicion as the wine. A little alcohol and complex carbohydrates to calm the hysterical wifey. Unfortunately she knew that was exactly how she was acting. He knew all about her knee-jerk reaction to the military and was trying to compensate. Trying hard.
"No, I have to be at McPherson on Monday morning. And that's the other thing, I'm just going to McPherson. It's not like it's the back side of the moon." He picked up a rag and wiped away an imaginary smear on the gray countertop. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel, but with Sharon on the warpath it could just as well be a train.
"No, but if you think I'm taking the kids to south Atlanta you're out of your mind," she retorted, losing ground and knowing it. She sensed that this was a critical argument and wondered what would happen if she said it was her or the Army. She had thought about it a few times before, but it had never come up. Now she was afraid to ask. What really made her mad was that she understood her emotions and knew she was in the wrong. Her own experiences had poisoned her against the military as a career, but not against the basic call to duty. And it made her wonder what would happen if she faced the same question.
"Hey, I may be commuting. And it may not be for long," Mike said with a purely Gallic shrug and rubbed his chin. His dark, coarse hair had raised a respectable five-o'clock shadow.
"But you don't think so," she countered.
"No, I don't think so," he agreed, somberly.
"Why?" She sat down at the kitchen table and cut a bite of the chicken. It was perfectly done; delicious as usual. It tasted like sand in her mouth.
"Well . . . just say it's a gut call." Mike began to fill his own plate. He suspected poulet avec herb was going to be lacking in his diet in the near future.
"But we have the weekend?" she asked taking a sip of the oaky Chardonnay to wash down the wonderful meal in a mouth gone quite dry.
"Yes."
"Well, let's see what we can think of to do." The smile was weak, but at least it was a smile.
* * *
"Can I see some ID, sir? Driver's license?"
I got up pretty damn early for this crap. Three hours driving separated his home in the Georgia Piedmont from Fort McPherson, Georgia, home of the Army's Forces Command. Perched just off of Interstate 75-85, the green lawns and numerous brick structures hid a mass of secure buildings. Since it commanded all the combat forces in the Army its secure meeting facilities were top-notch but the press hardly noticed it. If a large number of military and civilian personnel suddenly congregated in Fort Myers, Virginia or Nellis AFB it would be noticed; places like that were carefully watched but not Fort McPherson. Serviced by Hartsfield Airport, the largest in the United States, and covered by Atlanta's notorious traffic, the only people who noticed the gathering were the carefully selected soldiers acting as military police. But, while the soldiers had been carefully selected, they had not been selected from the ranks of MPs.
"Thank you, sir," said the somber gate guard after a thorough study of Mike's driver's license and face. "Take the main road to a `T' intersection. Turn right. Follow that road to Forces Command; it is a gray concrete building with a sign. Go past the main building to the guard shack on the left. Turn in there and follow the MP's direction."
"Thank you," said Mike, dropping the Beetle into gear and taking the proffered ID.
"Not at all," the guard said to the already moving Beetle. "Have a nice day." The Delta Force commando in an MP uniform picked up a recently installed secure phone. "O'Neal, Michael A., 216-29-1145, 0657. Special attention Lieutenant General John Horner." For a moment the sergeant first class wondered what all the fuss was about, why he was wearing rank three grades inferior to his real one. Then he stopped wondering. The ability to quell curiosity was a desirable trait in a long-term Delta. Damn, he thought, that guy looked just like a fireplug, then dismissed him from memory as the next civilian car pulled up.
"I'd forgotten how much he looks like a fireplug." Lieutenant General John J. (Jumpin' Jack) Horner murmured to himself, standing at a comfortable parade rest as the Volkswagen puttered into a parking place. Over six feet tall and almost painfully handsome, the general's appearance was the epitome of a senior military officer.
Slim and hard looking, stern of mien, the only time he smiled was just before he pulled the rug out from under an incompetent junior officer. Erect of carriage, his Battle Dress Uniform fit as if, contrary to regulation, it was tailored. With closely cropped, silver hair and glacial blue eyes he appeared to be exactly what he was: an iron-clad modern scion of the Prussian warrior class. Were he wearing a greatcoat and jackboots he would slip unnoticed into the WWII Wehrmacht Oberkommando.
His twenty-seven-year career had been spent exclusively in airborne infantry and special operations. Despite having never attained a keystone desire, command of the Ranger regiment, he was undoubtedly the world class expert in infantry tactics and doctrine. Furthermore, besides being an excellent theoretician and staff officer, he was considered a superlative commander, a leader of men in the old mold. In his career he had come across many characters, but few matched the squat juggernaut rolling across the emerald grass towards him. Horner laughed internally, remembering the first time he met the former NCO.
* * *
December 1989. The weather conformed to official standards for a North Carolina winter and Fort Bragg, Home of the Airborne, had been under sullen rain and sleet-swollen clouds for a week. With the exception of the weather, and it had its good points, Lieutenant Colonel Horner was pleased with his first ARTEP as a battalion commander. The units he and his sergeant major had grilled mercilessly for three long months had just performed flawlessly despite the environment, whereas the year before, under the previous commander, they brutally flunked the same Armed Readiness Testing and Evaluation Program test. Even with the rain it appeared that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world right up until his jeep suffered a sudden and spectacular blowout.
Even this was no obstacle. Jeeps come with a spare tire; the driver's rucksack was hanging from it, containing tools to handle just such an eventuality. But when his driver confessed that he had neglected to pack those self-same tools, Lieutenant Colonel Horner instantly smiled. It was a very Russian smile; it did not reach the eyes.
"No tools?" asked the colonel tightly.
"No, sir." The specialist swallowed, his prominent Adam's-apple bobbing up and down.
"No jack."
"No, sir."
"Sarn't Major?" snapped the colonel.
The sergeant major, not having anywhere he was supposed to be and snug in his camouflage Gortex rain-suit, was deriving some humor from the situation. "Shall I draw and quarter him, sir?" he asked, tucking his hands into his armpits and preparing for a long wait in the sleet. He hoped like hell it would start to snow; there would be less of a chance of hypothermia.