Of course, his staff was impressed at his foresight. Colonel Flint normally would have been mildly pleased at his staff’s opinion of his brilliance, but now he was too worried to notice. Every time he thought of the strife on Timor his memories of Beirut would burn through. He picked up his phone and jabbed the buttons with large, powerful fingers, “Colonel Burl, I need to see you.”
Within a moment, Lieutenant Colonel Hank Burl was in his office, “Yes sir?” Burl’s eyes traveled to a small plaque on the wall behind Colonel Flint’s desk. It was below the large framed poster of John Wayne in a set of USMC dungarees with the inscription: Life’s tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid! The plaque read: Hair on a woman is her crowning glory. Hair on a Marine is an abomination. Lieutenant Colonel Burl had advised Colonel Flint to remove the plaque. It might be construed as sexist and contributing to a hostile work environment for women. The Colonel had said at the time, “I’ll take that under advisement.” Which was mil-speak for go to hell. The plaque stayed.
“Have a seat Hank,” Colonel Flint’s voice was detached, his dark brown eyes fixed on a distant, unseen problem. “I need you to write up a request for Third MEF (III Marine Expeditionary Force) with a ‘cc’ to MARFORPAC (Marine Forces, Pacific) to clarify our rules of engagement for our little trip to Timor. I don’t want to be sent in with beanbags and rubber bullets. Those bastards mean business down there.”
The XO looked up, his blond eyebrows arching above his bright blue eyes. He wasn’t a bad officer, Flint thought, he’s just too pretty to be a Marine. He could see Burl as a naval aviator or a submariner, but a Marine… The officer was young for his rank and very mindful of perks, power and position. Hell, he’ll probably be Chairman of the JCS in ten years!
Burl spoke, “We’ve already received our rules of engagement from CINCPAC (Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command).”
“Yes, and they stink! You know that. You want our Marines killed?”
“No sir.”
“Then write the fricken letter and help me get these ROE changed! I began my career with a goat rope excuse of an ROE, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to end it with one.”
“Yes sir.”
“Have the completed draft on my desk in two hours. Oh, and I already told Lieutenant General Hill of my intent, so I’m sure we have the support of our MEF commander across the street, we just need to follow channels to make the request official. That is all.” Burl stood and wheeled out of Flint’s office. Flint rubbed his left hand against the back of his neck, feeling the prickly short nubs of his meager allotment of light brown hair. Time for another haircut, he thought, my hair is almost visible again.
Colonel Flint rarely locked up his officers in private, or in public for that matter. Burl just had a way about him that grated against Flint. Old Marines versus the New Marines, he guessed. So much had changed in the last few years. Political correctness. The loss of the fighting spirit. More sexual harassment and sensitivity training, less combat training. Burl epitomized the new Marine officer. He’ll go far, Flint thought—unless he gets fragged by his men in combat, he grunted to himself.
5
The Pentagon
Donna arose at 5 AM. She worked out lightly on her exercise bike while watching two cable news channels, clicking back and forth with her remote to catch as much international news as possible.
The news about the first American casualties among the handful of U.S. military personnel in East Timor caught her attention. She was wondering what her counterparts in the Indonesian section would say when she saw the sound bite from the President’s impromptu news conference the night before. She unconsciously frowned—so now we’re going to save East Timor.
After working out, she showered and ate a light breakfast. She always ate in front of her PC, scrolling through various news sites, seeing what the open source world had to say. She was often amazed at how rapidly the full-time news networks reported world events. Of course, reporting after the fact was much different than anticipating events before they occur. Her morning routine was always the same. She liked to keep a familiar pattern, especially when things got crazy at work.
At 7 AM, she left her modest apartment and drove to the nearest Metro parking lot. Her stomach had a few small butterflies. She hoped the exercise would be enjoyable. She found a parking spot and walked to the Metro station. The air was brisk with a faint breeze. She could smell the damp, slowly decaying leaves of fall.
As an analyst, she didn’t suspiciously survey her surroundings as a field agent might. As a woman in the D.C. area, however, she took the normal precautions. She saw no one but commuters, not even a panhandler (one advantage of living in Virginia, rather than in D.C. proper).
She fed a $5 bill into the Metro ticket vending machine. The machine took her money and spit out a business card-sized piece of paper with a magnetic strip down its length. She entered the station and waited six minutes for the train.
On the train she read both the Washington Post and the Washington Times. The stories that caught her eye were usually buried deeply behind the front page. If it makes it to the front page without my knowing about it first, she thought, I’ve failed. There was nothing in the papers that she already hadn’t seen on the cable news or on the Internet earlier that morning. She wondered, as she always did after reading a paper, when newspapers were going to go the way of the buggy whip.
About 15 minutes later she got out of the train at Pentagon Station. It was the first time she actually left the train at the Pentagon Station. Most of the D.C. Metro’s escalators are impressive, coming from deep within the earth to deposit their passengers, blinking in the light, upon the surface. The Pentagon Station was no exception. Its four banks of escalators must have had a vertical climb of at least 15 stories—very impressive.
She got to the top of the escalator and realized, amidst the pressing crowds, that the Pentagon was indeed a small city. Ahead were the metal detectors and guards, processing thousands of morning workers through this, the most popular Pentagon entrance. To her left was a gift shop and shoe shine stand, with three out of four seats occupied by an Air Force general, an Army sergeant, and one civilian in a gray suit.
She veered towards the visitor entrance desk and presented her ID. A young Army sergeant stood quietly behind the guards who took information from the visitors. He heard Donna’s inquiry and passed her a badge on a silvery chain and said, “Good morning Ms. Klein, Here’s your ID for the simulation. Please step through the metal detector and follow me to the simulation room for your in-briefing.” Donna was already impressed with the Pentagon.
She went through the metal detector, looked to the right and noticed what must be the safest bank in the world: The Pentagon Federal Credit Union. The sergeant said in an urgent tone, “We’re running a couple of minutes late, mind if we take the stairs instead of the elevator?”
“Not at all.” Donna blushed a bit at the thought of being late. It was 7:50 am, she had ten minutes to spare, but she supposed the sergeant was personally on the hook for her on-time arrival at wherever she was going. She followed the sergeant through the wide Pentagon halls to a stairwell. They briskly stepped down two flights of stairs to the basement. The sergeant led her to room B205 and dropped her off at the check-in desk where another sergeant, this one from the Air Force, welcomed her and examined her ID.