“This isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, Dad. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve had a microphone jammed in my face since lunchtime.”
“Most of the people in this town would kill to get the exposure you’re getting today.”
Jeffrey made a sour face. “They don’t need to kill. They can have it. Right now. Take it.”
“Jeffrey,” his mother tried to soothe. She touched him on the shoulder. “Your father and I both learned to enjoy meeting so many new people all the time. It’s a big game. Don’t take everything so seriously.”
“I don’t have entirely good memories from when I was stationed in Washington,” Jeffrey said. At the Pentagon, a few years before the war.
“Huh?” Michael said. He’d been distracted, giving an obviously phony smile as someone important-looking went by. The woman, whoever she was, gave him a pleasant but equally phony smile, then nodded at Jeffrey before she disappeared on the way to the bar, trailed by a retinue of followers of her own.
Jeffrey wanted to change the subject, but his father wouldn’t let him.
The man grew stern. “I think, in all honesty, you’ve taken enough of a break. Lord knows when you’ll have a chance to be with so many important people again. I want to see you out there, making contacts, not hiding in a corner like a scared little kid when the grown-ups have company.”
That made Jeffrey angry.
Michael Fuller chuckled. “See, son? I know how to push all your buttons. I sit in my office and push people’s buttons all day. You need to master the trade yourself if you expect your career to move up much further.” He pointed at Jeffrey’s Medal. “That thing might get you as far as full captain by pure momentum, but that could be as far as you ever go. If this war ends and we win it, and you don’t get killed or maimed, you’ll never make admiral once you get tagged as a wallflower.”
“Ouch,” Jeffrey said. Of course, his father was spot on. Jeffrey could see telling signs of why Michael had been chosen for Washington — and promoted again once he got here — amid major personnel shake-ups since the outbreak of the war.
“Listen to your father,” Jeffrey’s mother coaxed, but there was a hint of steel in her voice too, and this surprised Jeffrey.
“Speaking of which,” Michael said, “I need to get back to the fray myself. There are people I want to talk to, and people who want to see me…. There’s the deputy secretary of defense.” He pointed. “You only get the Medal of Honor once, presumably. Use it. I want to see you go up to the DepSec and make conversation.”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Anything. Nothing. Two or three minutes is plenty. He knows who you are, believe me, but Washington people have very short memories. Make sure he remembers who you are.”
“Good-bye, dear.” Jeffrey’s mother gave Jeffrey an encouraging pat on the cheek, then walked away holding her husband’s arm — gliding across the ballroom floor, the perfect undersecretary’s spouse.
Jeffrey felt pretty small. He tried to build up the nerve to go talk to someone important.
It’s weird, how I’d rather be commanding my ship, out-thinking an enemy submarine captain in mortal combat, than attending a party.
Jeffrey was standing near a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, covered by plush maroon-and-white curtains drawn closed. Idly, he pulled back the edge of a curtain and peeked outside.
The panes of glass were crisscrossed with strips of tape to keep them from shattering in a blast. Right outside the windows, Jeffrey was confronted by a solid wall of sandbags.
Somebody isn’t taking any chances.
Jeffrey put his face closer to the window and peered as far as he could to the left. There was a sliver of a view, looking down into the wide ravine of scenic Rock Creek Park. He could barely make out part of the big stone archway bridge that carried Connecticut Avenue across the ravine. The sky was clear, not yet growing dark. Looking directly up, Jeffrey saw the high, fast-moving contrails of a pair of fighter jets, on combat air patrol over the capital.
Jeffrey pulled himself away from the window and pulled himself together. He stood up straighter and took a deep breath. He saw someone he’d been introduced to briefly before, the four-star admiral who was commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Jeffrey decided to follow his father’s advice now. He’d go chat the admiral up.
Before he got there, a murmur of surprise and interest rippled through the crowd. Heads all turned in unison to the entry doors to the ballroom. Even the TV floodlights focused that way.
Over the loudspeakers, someone announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.”
CHAPTER 2
In absolute and enveloping darkness, Felix Estabo quietly went through the final stages of forming the nighttime defensive position. He lay flat in the stinking mud, embracing it, concealed under a fern bush festooned with big and very sharp leaves. His floppy-brimmed jungle hat and the insect net draped over his face and neck kept the hungry mosquitoes at bay. Arranged in a circle with him — each man facing outward so that their feet all met in the center — were the others in the eight-man team.
Silent hand-touch signals went around the group from man to man, status reports. All was well. Felix allowed himself a sense of proprietary satisfaction — times like this he felt like a mother hen, though he’d never in a million years say so out loud. Felix’s boots picked up a few of his teammates shifting an inch or two to get a little more comfortable. The four men who weren’t on watch tried to sleep.
Another bead of sweat formed on the tip of Felix’s nose as he lay there. It itched, but to move and scratch would violate noise and motion security; even if they were lucky and the slightest movement didn’t get everyone killed, Felix needed to set an example. Although the one thing they knew for sure was that no tribal Indians came near here, other humans might be hunting Felix and his men right now.
More sweat dripped and itched. The temperature was over ninety Fahrenheit — even at night — and the humidity topped 95 percent. The air was almost smotheringly thick.
Felix tried not to fight the relentless weight of his rucksack pressing down on his back. In this tactical situation, you always slept in full gear. He cradled his weapon in his arms, a specially modified Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun. The weapon fired nine millimeter bullets, semi-or full automatic, from detachable magazines that each held thirty rounds. Felix had a dozen magazines with him. But if he was forced to fire just one round, even with his weapon’s silencer, the entire mission would almost certainly fail. If it did fail, those dozen magazines would run out fast.
Felix was one of the men off watch, so it was his turn to sleep. He tried to cradle his head in his arms on the uneven ground, with his face cushioned next to the reassuring heft of his weapon. In the Amazon rain forest, roots from towering trees grew right along or over the uneven ground, forming bumps and ridges and tangles everywhere. The team wasn’t far above the mighty Amazon River’s maximum annual floodplain level. Usable natural cushioning was scarce — very few trees shed leaves or nettles in the tropics. The ground cover consisted mostly of huge fallen branches, or fungus and rotting organic goo, so Felix couldn’t fashion a bed as he’d have done on a camping trip. It was hard to find much comfort at all. The men didn’t carry ground cloths or sleeping bags or similar luxuries — they were overloaded with other, much more vital equipment.