“That is something we don’t dare get into. That could tear this country apart.”
“But, sir,” Trace said, “we need to get into it. We need to understand what we are up against here.”
“It does not matter what we are up against,” Senator Jordan said. He leaned back in his chair and gazed out the window at the bright sun coming up over Diamond Head.
“There’s a big picture here that no one seems to be considering, but we have to consider it. What if this”—he pointed at the diary—’ ‘is true? Do we release it to the media?
Tell everyone that the past fifty or sixty years our country has been unduly influenced by a military junta?
That we fought wars, and American citizens died and were maimed and wounded, because some generals sitting in a room somewhere decided we needed to test weapon systems and keep our forces in fighting trim? We can not let that information out!
“This is an abomination that has festered and grown in the shadows. And it is weak now—” He shook his head as General Maxwell tried to protest.
“No, general, it is weak. Weaker than it has ever been. The world is changing, and many don’t want it to change, but it is. The Wall did come down. We won the greatest war in history without a shot being fired. People are not going to stand for going back to the old ways, with nuclear missiles pointed at each other.”
Jordan stood.
“I’ll brief the President. He will have to make the decision.” He tucked the diary under his arm and left the room.
General Maxwell stood and wheeled Trace out of the room, the door shutting behind them.
“Do you know a Sergeant Major Skibicki?” Maxwell asked.
“Yes.” Trace looked over her shoulder at the general.
“Why, sir?”
“He called a little while back and asked me to look after you.”
Trace smiled, but it quickly disappeared.
“Do you think the President will believe Senator Jordan?”
Maxwell’s lined face was worried.
“I think the President is an excellent politician, but he’d make a crappy second lieutenant in the Infantry. Let’s hope Jordan’s right and The Line can be dealt with politically.”
CHAPTER 25
The Antietam turned broadside to the Arizona Memorial, its crew on deck saluting in unison as the bosun’s whistle signaled. The only difference between their actions in this rehearsal and what they would be doing tomorrow was that today they were dressed in work blues; tomorrow it would be dress whites.
Overhead, a thundering that had been approaching from the north reached a crescendo as a flight of Navy F-16s roared by, one plane on the wing missing. Mike Stewart stepped up to podium where the President would speak in the morning and stood there, taking the place of the Commander-in-Chief for this practice. He looked around at the harbor, watching the guided missile cruiser slipping by, the jets overhead, and the Navy security police cruising about in launches, and it all looked so much different than it had forty-eight hours ago.
Stewart watched it all with very different feelings. Everything that had looked comforting before now seemed threatening.
Who could he trust here? Was Major Watson’s story true? If it was, why had he disappeared? And why was the Secret Service doing nothing as far as Stewart could tell.
There was no additional security being laid on, and there was still time to fly agents in from LA. Staring at the large gray bulk of the Antietam though, Stewart wasn’t sure fifty more agents would do much good if the Joint Chiefs were in on this plot.
“Time for the wreath laying,” the Navy protocol officer said, looking at her stopwatch. Stewart obediently stepped away from the podium and walked over to the naval honor guard standing at the railing. He simulated taking a wreath from them and throwing it over the edge. As he did so he looked down at the water. The rusting ring that had once held one of the large guns on the Arizona lay just below the surface. A small bead of oil, still leaking from the hull after all these years drifted to the surface and broke into a rainbow of colors. Stewart shivered, thinking of all the bodies just below, then he thought of what he could be facing in the morning at the President’s side and the chill deepened.
From the hillside Boomer could clearly see the rehearsal taking place on the memorial. He lowered the binoculars as the participants broke apart, boarding launches to take them back to the mainland.
Boomer frowned. There was too much going on at once.
He wished he could sit down with Trace and talk. And Skibicki certainly didn’t seem too pleased to have him here.
Ski seemed sure that The Line was going to infiltrate Pearl and destroy the memorial with the President on it.
He had seen Stewart in the rehearsal. Who was who?
Who could he trust? Skibicki wasn’t being totally honest with him any more. Boomer knew. And Trace’s warning on the manuscript pages. What did that mean? And the most important question for Boomer was where was she and who had the diary?
“What’s going on, sir?” Trace asked General Maxwell.
They were seated in a room on the floor below the President’s.
They had not heard from Senator Jordan since he’d left with the diary.
Maxwell shook his head.
“I don’t know. According to Army records there have been no Delta Force operations in the Ukraine in the past twelve months. The Sam Houston is under the command of Navy Special Warfare Group One and is currently conducting training missions off the coast of California on radio listening silence, and this Colonel Decker does not exist.”
Maxwell had come by the room she was “staying” a little while ago and told her about last seeing Boomer and his attempts to find out where he was being held. In the short time she’d been here, she’d begun to like the old general. She could tell he was very uncomfortable with everything that was going on.
“The Joint Chiefs are at Pearl Harbor,” Maxwell said.
“If one-tenth of what you said Hooker wrote in his diary is true, it is the most shocking document ever to surface in this country.” They both looked over as the door to the room opened and Senator Jordan stood there.
“Major Trace,” Jordan said, “there are some pages in the diary missing.”
“Yes, sir. In 1963.”
Jordan nodded.
“Yes, I noticed that. But it also looks like someone tore out pages from an earlier time. I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”
“I did that after the crash when I was afraid the diary might be taken from me. I gave them to a friend.”
“A friend?” Jordan asked.
“The man who rescued me,” Trace replied.
“I gave them to him just in case things didn’t work out here.”
“So those missing pages are here on the island?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“Harry Franks,” Trace said.
“He worked with Colonel Rison.”
“Where is he now? How come he didn’t land with you?”
“I believe he’s with Sergeant Major Skibicki,” Trace answered.
“Who no one can find either,” Jordan said.
“All right.
Thank you.” Jordan shut the door before Maxwell or she could ask any questions.
“Well, at least it sounds like he’s doing something,” Maxwell said.
“I hope it’s enough,” Trace said.