Landings
Copyright© 2015 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 5: Venerunt, Viderunt, Mortui Sunt
When I awoke, the sun was shining brightly in the windows. I grimaced. I was pretty sure I was in an east-facing room. Which meant I’d pretty much slept the clock around. I gingerly explored sitting up, then I walked to the john and took a much-needed piss. When I got back to the bed, there was a full-bird colonel waiting for me, not one that I recognized.
“I’m Colonel Hamilton, Major, the hospital commander.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Son, when did you eat last?”
“I had a big chicken pot pie Friday evening.” It came back to me then, all of it. “We were scheduled to be back to Lewis by noon Saturday or thereabouts. I was picked up at O-Dark-Thirty for the mission.”
“So, your helo crashed, you walked out in heavy snow, fought a gun battle, survived a storm where the credible reports were that they don’t know how cold it was because the equipment only reliably measures to 80 below, spent overnight in that environment, were evaced by noon yesterday. Then you faced the piranha in the press pool before you passed out.”
“I imagine you could eat a horse,” the hospital commander finished.
I shook my head. “I’ll settle for half a cow.”
“If you can wait a few more minutes, I ordered you a thick steak, a couple of eggs, some hash browns, and OJ.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I have taken the liberty of doing you a favor. This is Tuesday morning. I’m sorry to say, Child Protective Services has been chomping on the bit since yesterday to get young Miss Story under their control. Colonel Mendoza said I should check with you about that first.
“I’m not sure of the logic of the decision, but I agreed, for the time being.”
“Sir, growing up I had the merest, briefest contact with what they call ‘the System.’ If there is something worse than seeing your parents and brother murdered — that’s it. I haven’t talked to Miss Story about it yet, but I’d like to be appointed her guardian until someone else from her family can come.”
He looked at me steadily for a time. “I’ve talked to the young woman. She is uncommonly mature and poised for her age. She has asked about you several times; I’ve promised her that she can see once you are rested, fed, showered, and changed.
“Honestly, the woman who is here from CPS sets my teeth on edge. I haven’t permitted any interviews as yet with any of the significant numbers of investigators already on Lewis. The only interview I granted was to Colonel Mendoza, and he limited himself to two minor questions only tangentially related to the young woman’s ordeal.”
I sighed. “And how is Captain O’Malley?”
“In spite of the fact that he was just three miles away from you, the main storm missed him. He said you’d given him a quick course in storm survival; when he neared the end of his wood supply, he literally stumbled over three fir rounds a few feet away from his shelter. One was half rotted, but the rest kept a fire going until after he was rescued.
“His worst injury is to his feet; he has lost some toes, but I doubt that will affect his flight status. He’ll need cosmetic work on his nose; he stayed hunched over and kept his jacket ruff over his ears as much as possible, and that worked.”
“I thought he was a goner, I really did. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was to walk away from him.”
“The locator beacon failed at 0330 Sunday morning. If that storm had passed over his location, he’d have died. He’d have been a serious casualty in another few hours. In spite of the GPS tracking, it was only possible to locate Captain O’Malley because he was out and waving.”
“If you hadn’t been there, Claire Story would have died; untold more people might have as well. Sure, you were only in time to save one person, but you were in time to do that!”
I shrugged, and then the food arrived, and it was a righteous meal, unlike most hospital food I’d experienced. Later, Brian Masterman brought me a set of my uniforms, shook my hand with more enthusiasm than usual, and left almost at once.
I had a few minutes to myself after I’d cleaned up. I turned on the TV and finally found that there was a significant flap underway. More nearly two hundred people were dead, the largest mass shooting in US history.
Those reporters that I’d faced yesterday afternoon were only the few reporters who’d been available on short notice. Now, there was wall-to-wall coverage, although as usual, the coverage was light on actual details and long on talking head speculation.
There was a dearth of coverage from the scene at the lodge — it was clear and sunny, but even so, the temperature was only “up” to minus thirty in the afternoons and fifty below zero at night.
A little before eleven that morning, Major Stubbins brought in Claire. She stood looking at me, and I looked at her for a long minute. “Want to check out of this dump?” I asked abruptly.
“Yes,” she said mildly.
“That’s not going to be easy, Major,” Curt said.
“I recall a briefing that said field grade officers were automatically eligible to be foster parents.”
“I meant getting you both released from the hospital,” he replied. “Getting custody of a teenage girl will be on a par with the Labors of Hercules — all of them at once.”
He stared at me steadily. “Tom — don’t try this without dotting i’s and crossing the t’s. You wanted a future in the Army — it’s within your grasp. You nearly threw that career away once before. Be careful!” he admonished.
“Major Stubbins, as you may recall, one of those clowns at the press conference asked if I really had to kill those men. I didn’t get questions like that on a deployment, because the reporters either had a brain or had listened during their briefings.”
“I thought you explained yourself adequately,” he said.
“I assume you know that that reporter didn’t believe me — I saw her shaking her head as I spoke. I saw a lot of shaking heads out there.”
“And what has this got to do with leaving the hospital?”
I grinned. “You’re the shrink! Tell me what would be your diagnosis of someone who can’t handle reality? Who prefers to deny it?”
“Major,” he said drily, “you are trying to change the subject.”
“Major, you just don’t understand. I used to joust with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, some of the craftiest fighters we have ever fought. I regularly beat them. What do you think I’m going to do with those who stand in my way?”
“Nothing good,” Major Stubbins said.
“I am aware that I’m back home, where soldiers and dogs should stay off the grass. Well, I’m going to try to avoid anyone’s turf — as much as I can.”
I was wheeled back to my room, and the hospital commander and an overweight black woman were waiting for me. “Major, this is Ms. Kanya Willets, from the Department of Children’s Services. I told her that you had offered to take Miss Story as your ward. She has a specialty in military foster placements.”
I smiled at the woman, who looked back at me with intelligent and kindly eyes. “Major, I understand that you are a decorated serving officer. What I need from you is to fill out some paperwork, three home inspections, two that are made by appointment, and one unannounced. Miss Story would be interviewed after a week, a month, ninety days, and at one year.
“And I need three references, not in the military.”
“The only thing I have a problem with is those three references,” I told her. “I have no living family, and I don’t have many friends outside the army. Brian Masterman is the only one who comes to mind.”
“And how long have you known Mr. Masterman?”
“Close to two years. A couple of newsmen were embedded with us in Afghanistan. I’ve known Freddie Cardoza for eight years, Emily Hatcher for half that. We were friends, and I spent a lot of off-duty time with them.”
She looked me right in the eye. “Mr. Cardoza was also a friend of my late husband. My husband was killed in Iraq in 2007.”
“My fiancée was killed in Afghanistan in the same attack I was wounded in.”
“There is still discussion in Pentagon circles,” the colonel added, “about a Distinguished Flying Cross for that attack.”
“You are a pilot, Major?” she asked.
“This is news to me. I think it is someone’s idea of a joke. I was blown off a cliff and should have been killed. I got lucky, if you want to call ‘lucky’ surviving when four others didn’t.”
“Major Cross landed a mile and a half from where he started — having traveled a mile laterally and a mile down the mountain,” the colonel explained.
“It is known that people have fallen from aircraft and survived. It’s rather rare,” the woman said.
I liked to have choked. “Singular, in my experience,” I told them.
The DCS woman smiled and turned to the hospital commander. “Major Cross may visit as he wishes with Miss Story unless or until she asks for such visits to cease.”
The colonel laughed. “Claire Story wants to stay with the major because he kept her alive and as safe as circumstances permitted.”
That afternoon, I visited with Claire, and I told her my life story.
“Patty must have been nice, Major Tom.”
“I thought so. If I had married her, my army career would have been over. Maybe not officially, but I was really good at operations, and that would have ended.”
“The first woman wanted to know if I cried for my parents,” Claire said sadly. “Dad and Mom loved the snow and cold. More than once, Dad said, ‘This is living!’ when the temperature was below zero.
“I feel sad about them, but crying messes you up in the cold.”
I sighed. “Claire — my mom died sitting next to me. I just didn’t understand, and my father gently explained to me that Mom was never, ever going to come back. That was the only time I cried growing up.
“When my dad died, it took a couple of days before it seemed real. I was standing in a line at the courthouse, and it hit me. I cried like a baby.
“Don’t be surprised if it doesn’t hit you right away. Don’t be embarrassed at how you feel when it does. It’s different for everyone. You should talk to someone afterwards ... it doesn’t matter who, and it doesn’t matter what you or they say. It’s you that has to process things.”
“You sound like a shrink,” Claire told me.
I laughed. “The sermon is courtesy of Major Curt Stubbins, my shrink. But I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter who says the things; it helps.”
We talked until a nurse came in, more insistent than those who had come before, demanding that Claire get some sleep.
The next morning, Colonel Mendoza was in just after breakfast — and he had a surprise guest — Freddie Cardoza. The colonel was apologetic, “Freddie has imposed on me — we’ve shared some very good Napoleon VSOP a few times — he says he doesn’t want to interview you.”
“Tom, I have to talk to you,” Freddie said, drawing a glare from the colonel.
“Talk, Freddie,” I said.
“You’ve heard of the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, the Levant, and other places,” he started.
“Yes.”
“Last night, AP got a communiqué with authenticators, reputedly from a group we’ve never heard of before. The Islamic State in America. They claimed responsibility for the attacks over the weekend.”
He stopped to catch his breath, and I blithely said, “Nutcases are always stepping up to claim credit.”
“You didn’t let me finish. They gave the names of the men you killed; those names have not been on the news. They say their brothers tried and failed to kill you and the girl, but they won’t fail.
“The Feds, FBI, DHS, and their ilk say it’s not a credible threat. But there are those authenticators and those names of their soldiers. I know them; you know them. I disagree.”
“Poop!” I said mildly.
“Yeah, get this. They gave the address of Brian Masterman’s cabin in the message. Two hours ago, the cabin burned to the ground. I think the Feds are back to smoking ganjaweed.”
“You say they had Claire’s name?” I asked.
“Name and address, Tom,” the newsman said.
“Thank you, Freddie. I’m going to get you a magnum of Courvoisier for this. Now you have to excuse me; I need to talk to Colonel Mendoza.”
The discussion with Colonel Mendoza was brief. He was in a towering rage. “This is more of the reluctance of the government not to call a muj a muj. The Islamic State doesn’t operate in the States, no sirree! More workplace violence!”
He settled down. “As soon as I heard, I put the base on alert. The gates are closed. There are armed MPs, even now, deploying around the base hospital. The base commander, General Sherman, is close to apoplectic and was screaming over the KY to the Pentagon. The Air Force is putting McChord on alert as well, again in spite of orders not to.
“We’ll be damned if those clowns are going to be permitted to attack this base! And if they do, we will show them the same sort of response we give to their brothers in the ‘Stan!”
“Thank you, sir. About Miss Story...”
“I’ve talked to the sheriff. He will be here this afternoon and will conduct an interview with you and the young lady. I’ve told Miss Story the US Army has guaranteed her safety.”
“Thank you again, sir.”
“Major Cross, you have done good work for me, taking a scut job without complaint.”
I laughed at that. “Sir, working two days a week wasn’t hard, and the docs at Seattle Grace told me to be careful not to overdo it. Except for this weekend, I’ve been able to do that.”
He laughed as well and left. I spent the rest of the morning talking to Claire, with only a short digression to talk to Brian.
“Forget it, Tom. Your four-wheel was lost. My cabin was lost. Of course, my insurance agent told me that the cabin wasn’t covered for an act of war. I expect you’ll have the same problem.”
I smiled an evil grin. “Washington is claiming it was workplace violence.”
“The governor of the great state of Washington has had words with them. This was the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. Our senators and representatives have screamed as well. Anyway, I have some good friends in the construction business, and they will give me a price. I can get you a similar deal for your car — actually, you can probably score a freebie.