The Press Secretary came up and whispered into his ear. “Ladies and Gentlemen Mr. Waits here has just informed me I will be late for my first set of meetings on Capital Hill if I do not leave right now. He will answer more of your questions for the time being, and you have about fifteen minutes before some member of The Joint Chiefs will give you a more detailed briefing. Thank you for your time,” he quickly departed the briefing room.
AP NEWS FLASH: The President announced an increasing air campaign against our enemies in the Middle East. So far no discussion of ground troops has been made. It is expected that at some point that our ground forces will be committed. In a surprise announcement the President named the recently promoted, and now popular public figure, Major Frank Banner to the Office of Vice President of the United States.
AP ECONOMIC NEWS FLASH: Dominating the economic news is another unemployment rate increase. Currently the nationwide unemployment rate has reached 12 %. Business leaders are begging Congress for help by lowering taxes. However, with the war effort it bears the question can the government afford to not have the tax revenue and continue to spend money at the rate it is. Where would the revenue come from to pay for the war effort? With the economy continuing to decline some drastic actions may be necessary from the Federal Reserve in terms of quantitative easing. The international community does not want the US to do any kind of quantitative easing as it merely causes eventual problems on international transactions. Given the state of the global economy no country can afford to have trading partners default on loan payments as a result so there is a real conundrum for the elected leaders in DC of what to do about the economic problems given the heightened conflict overseas. A speedy end to the War is the only viable answer. As the economy continues to decline the popular support for the US to end the war quickly with a nuclear strike is growing at an international level.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Major Murphy had been on the ground for two hours. That was two hours more than he wanted to spend. He was passing through the trees on a mountainside near where he had landed, hoping to stay one step ahead of whoever was looking for him from the bad guy side of life.
He knew that people in this part of the world would be paid a large sum of money for American pilots, dead or alive. The one thing he had going for him, in his mind, was that he was worth far more alive than dead.
He didn’t want to die or be taken prisoner. In reality neither was a great option and were to be avoided he could. He kept moving. He had seen no signs of anyone close to him since he landed, which was a good thing. He knew there would soon be a large number of people after him. The only other humans he had seen were when he saw what was left of his ejection seat get picked up and carried off by some guys in a beat up old pickup truck. He watched that whole event play out through his survival binoculars from almost a mile away.
He hoped they did not have the capability of picking up his locator beacon. All pilots were equipped with GPS indicators on a secure frequency that could be read by rescue teams. He knew from his preflight briefing that those fantastic rescue teams were available, and prepositioned to come find people like him, as fast as possible. They would want to get him out of the hot zone quickly.
Due to the size of today’s battle it was known that those teams would be needed, and were moved in ahead of time. Their location, or makeup, was not given to him or his team in case a downed pilot was captured. That information in the hands of the enemy would limit their effectiveness, and ultimately, could cost American lives.
He didn’t care who or where they were. He was just glad to know they were in the region, and looking for him by now. Hopefully they operated faster than the enemy.
He stopped for a second to catch his breath, and get a good look around. He looked at a tree and realized he could get a pretty good look, at least down the mountainside, if he climbed up a bit.
Up he went. He pulled out his binoculars and looked up and down the hill. He saw nothing.
He breathed a sigh of relief hoping he had avoided the enemy search teams who would be now pouring into the area. He kept thinking about the first thing they would do to him, his imagination making it worse with each passing minute.
All the sudden the tree above him exploded in cloud of splinters. He didn’t even hear the bullet until it had passed. It could only be a supersonic round from a sniper rifle!
Shit, they had located him. He dropped from the tree, hit the ground, and broke into a run. He hoped the direction he went in was not in the direction of the sniper.
He ran east for a few hundred yards, north for a hundred, changing directions hoping it would make him harder to track through a scope.
He hid between trees, behind rocks, used the lay of the land to make sure he had disappeared from view in every direction of view more than once. He hoped he has lost them.
He stopped to catch his breath, and get his bearings. No sooner had he stopped moving than the ground in front of him exploded.
He had not lost them!
He ran up the mountain thinking, hoping, praying, that the higher ground would be the more protective area. He was having trouble moving. The thin air at these altitudes made it hard carrying all of the equipment while running for any distance.
He had his survival gear intact, but was not used to this altitude. Perhaps he should drop it?
No, the body armor alone was worth keeping. It was more than half the weight he was carrying, but he had to keep it.
He had to keep running, keep moving, not stopping until he could not move anymore.
He stopped dead in his tracks. Rocks were rolling down the hill from somewhere above him. Someone or something was up there. He started to panic, his heartbeat faster and harder in his chest thinking he had just charged straight at the sniper. He reached for his sidearm hoping that he could at least get the first shot in before he was taken down. He started running laterally to the position he thought the sniper was in.
“Major Murphy. Please stop. I have four men with me that have you covered, and we will stop you if you don’t do so voluntarily. We also have a sniper, who is at this moment taking out the guy tailing you,” a voice from up the hill said with just enough force to calm the panicked pilot.
“Are you American?” he shouted breaking his noise discipline.
“Yes, I am Warrant Officer Peter Choi. We are here to help you. Can I ask your wife’s middle name for identification purposes?” came the voice.
The question was designed as much to help him calm down as to identify him, and he knew that, thankful to hear such a thing from above.
“Elizabeth,” he called back as he saw a Special Operations soldier step out from behind some brush.
“Major, you can come up the hill without fear, we have taken care of your tail. There was only one of them, and he can’t stop you now. We found out an hour ago the Iranians hacked our locator computer system. All we can do now is terminate your tail, and destroy your locator beacon. I think in future missions we are changing our methods, but we can discuss that later. We have a helicopter about a mile to the east of here. Proceed carefully up the hill. The rocks are a bit loose. We have some water for you.”
The Major calmly came up the hill, he knew the Warrant Officer was talking to keep him calm, “Chief, you have no idea how happy I am to see you. I am so damn happy I would have your babies right now if that was possible. This thin air is a bitch.”