Chapter Twenty-One
Sandy hadn’t taken a day off since the attack. She had not even considered it, until today. She had wanted to spend the day with Frank, but he had been called away and was impossible to reach at the moment.
He had said that he would come back to Dallas so they could spend time together, and from their conversations he seemed like the kind of person for whom that wasn’t a big problem. For some people being mobile enough to get halfway across the country for a weekend would be a problem, not for Frank.
She had to admit that she was looking forward to seeing to him again. She had even considered traveling to see him. She would prefer him to come here, to her home turf. That way she could feel a little more comfortable with the whole thing. It was impulsive either way it went, and she was rarely that. For once, she figured that given the current events in the world, it was okay to live a little.
Things at the hospital had started to slow down, so she thought she could now safely take some time off. She had loads of vacation time stored up before the attack. Now, on top of the vacation time, she had been on so much overtime the hospital administration had hoped she would take some time off.
After a few days of silence from Frank she finally got an email from him last night that said he was back from wherever he went, and would be able to call her this afternoon as soon as he finished up a few things. He went on to say that she was the only person he really wanted to talk to right now. She found that very sweet.
At least that was something to look forward to. It wasn’t as good as seeing him, but for the moment it would have to do. She was hoping to arrange their first official date, even if it wasn’t this week. It had been a while since she met any man she wanted to spend time with in that way, and it was oddly more exciting than she remembered. She was asked out from time to time, and even on occasion said yes, but it had been a while since a man had pre-occupied her in a good way.
She had decided to eat her simple yogurt breakfast with coffee in front of the morning news. It was a large change from her normal breakfast routine. With all of her focus on work she hadn’t really thought about all the other things that were going on in the world very much. She was so close to the center of some of it that watching the news had seemed redundant.
She had overheard people talk about things and had managed to pick some information up that way. She even briefly spoken to Frank about the bombing in Iran that had taken out some of their tanks and other military assets, and she didn’t really understand much about it but Frank was happy to explain as much as he could. But she hadn’t really watched any news for herself and taken it in first hand until now.
She had heard about a potential hazard warning, and her apartment was only about two miles away from the radiation quarantine zone that had been established, but this warning had come from an unofficial non-governmental source so she wasn’t sure what to think. But, it was so close to where everything had happened that she was considering moving anyway, just in case.
This morning, like most, the talking heads were all trying to speak at the same time. The result, as usual, was that no one could possibly understand anything being said.
Finally the anchor, a middle aged man who hadn’t aged outwardly in the many years she had been watching this channel, cut everyone off mid-sentence and yelled, “GENTLEMEN, speak one a time or I am shutting off your microphones. Now let’s replay the tape and discuss this situation one person at a time, rationally.”
She had no idea what they were talking about.
The screen split in two with the main anchor, Sam something or other, she could never remember his last name, was on one side, and the video they had just been yelling about on the other.
He was describing the footage as it was shown, “I want to warn viewers that this footage is graphic and to please look away if that bothers you. Here is the official release from Iranian television. We see here the remains of an armored vehicle, along with a few of what were once presumably police cars. Scattered around the area there are the human remains of fifty to sixty people. Most of these were children along with a few women, at least that is the Iranian claim. The bodies are horribly disfigured, if not dismembered as we can clearly see.
“Again, I reiterate viewer discretion is strongly advised in this case. Most of them are riddled with bullets. In some cases they are just blown to pieces. It is difficult, in most cases, to even identify the gender. We can tell some of these were children just from the physical size of the limbs.
“The official word from the Iranian government is that we sent an assassination team into their country, and that they were purposefully targeting civilians. They also claim that when the Iranian military appeared in defense of their citizens we ran, leaving as much destruction in our wake as possible.
“The US Government’s official word is that we don’t use assassination teams in any fashion, and that we would never intentionally target civilians as part of a military engagement. The Pentagon has also put out a direct response to these claims calling them ‘ludicrous’ and ‘completely fabricated.’”
He uncharacteristically paused in speaking, allowing the footage to pan around the blast zone.
“Here we see the crater. The closer to the crater center we look, the more charred, disfigured, and dismembered the human remains are.”
The television screen left the footage from the Iranians in a small portion of the upper left and divided the remainder of the screen into three portions. The center sections showed the host, to his left and right were Republican and Democrat Congressman.
“So, Mr. Hecht, what are people on your side of the aisle saying?” asked Sam.
“Sam, this is obviously propaganda. We are at war with Iran. We have to expect these kinds of things. We don’t employ these kinds of tactics, that isn’t the American way. The Iranians would do anything at this point to sway other countries to their cause. It is obvious after the success of our bombing that they will need allies on their side in this conflict to have any hope of matching us in a conventional military conflict. That is why they chose use of nuclear weapons in the first place. They used their entire nuclear arsenal at once, and now it looks like now they will even stage a little scene, complete with dead kids, if they believe it will convince the world community to shift their support to them. It is preposterous to think any United States soldier would follow an order to do this kind of thing, even if one were given.”
“Ok now for the view from the other side of the political spectrum, Mr. Davidson?” the anchor said shifting the focus to the other guest.
“This is clearly a test run by what has to be some sort of rogue unit within our military industrial complex. They are trying to ramp up this conflict. Those people want to move faster. They are war hungry and have no desire to wait for any sort of diplomacy to work. They are running either an unsanctioned mission, or maybe acting on some kind of implied sanctioning from war hungry officers at the Pentagon seeking revenge for the attack on our homeland. Let’s not forget that it was an attack they should have seen coming and are now trying to cover their failure. It was an attack that we the people of the United States brought upon ourselves by allowing arrogant foreign policies to dominate our actions in the Middle East. They are hoping that Iran will retaliate and we will be forced to do a full-on invasion of the entire region. That will allow their buddies at the weapons manufacturers to make a fortune. For years, Mr. Hecht has pushed our foreign policy one direction and now these innocent people have paid the price.”