Chapter 19

Langely, Virginia

All seven members of The Project were cloistered over numerous monitors. Some had the visual feed from the drone, others had the computer-generated textual transcription of the radio traffic of the French commandos and of the American Marines, while a few monitors flickered with streams of raw data.

“Where is that second UAV!? Any AGMs?”

“Someone in SAD diverted it. We have no other ordinance on that MQ-9.”

Few of the agency analysts has witnessed such a spectacle, freezing them in place, rendering them useless for their assigned tasks. Cameron had expected this, which was the very reason he had called in all shifts to monitor the joint rescue operation. He wanted his team exposed to the grotesque ragged edges and to the grit of combat. He wanted them conditioned for what may come. Mark Cameron feared that nothing may be coming after this. He could not see many of these young men surviving this, yet another fuck-up by The Company.

“Where is that ranger team?”

“Maybe twenty to forty minutes out. They had trouble finding the tanker and re-fueling.”

“Damn! We will lose some of them. If we lose our principals, the project is done. David, immediately call me if something changes. I am going upstairs to see the assistant director.”

Tibesti Mountain Region, Northwest Chad

Density altitude made MH-53’s hover difficult as the ranger team fast-roped, under an unstable configuration at the edge of ground effect, while over the lava ridge. The soldiers fanned out until held in an emotive paralysis, for but a second, momentarily held by the incredulity of the carnage spread across the slope. The body of the sole American was found less than 25 meters down the slope, in a relaxed repose in a nest of rocks, his face to the sky. As nine soldiers formed a protective arc, two ranger medics starting cutting the blood-soaked trousers from the Marine while the ranger squad leader ripped away the molle and attached equipment.

“Beardsly, get these weapons secured. Ignore the other shit. We have to get this guy back ASAP.”

A medic replied without looking up from his task at hand.

“He’s not going anywhere, sarge.”

“You do not understand, doc. That man is our primary.”

“He would not make it. Not a chance in hell. He’s going down fast.”

The ranger medic paused his statement, moving away from working on the big Marine’s lower body, quickly slicing open the front of his utility shirt, to access the dying man’s tags.

“Hell, yeah. The man is ‘A’ positive. Any ‘O’ or ‘A’ types are compatible. Get me two with A or O blood, sarge. We have to do this now. We may be out of time.”

The rangers turned their attention to the air above at the sound of mini-gun fire. The large bird was sharply turning to its port as both the door and tail gunners saturated an area occupied by an advancing group of tribals with multiple shrouds of 7.62mm bullets. When the hajis responded with the launch of an RPG round, the bird banked hard to the starboard while moving up and away from the squad-sized group of hajis. The RPG round arched, missing the bird by a significant margin.

“Harv! Ben! Keep them off of this hill!”

Two M240 machine gunners returned to the top of the ridge to set up their guns, quickly providing a suppressive blanket onto the hajis as six rangers advanced down the slope. The effectiveness of the machine gun fire became evident when at least a third of the hajis were wounded. The tribal Islamists hunkered down and could only fire randomly and blindly up the ridge. The assaulting rangers separated into two groups, flanking, then eliminating the remaining hajis in a few deadly minutes of cross-fire.

The army medics did not know if they could successfully perform an ad-hoc, direct transfusion in the field. Neither attending soldier bothered to consider the many risks of the procedure, as the medics knew that, otherwise, the Marine was not long for this world.

With the last remaining threats eliminated, and two circling birds providing cover, all of the rangers volunteered their blood, hoping to transfuse some common sense into a Marine.

East-central Pacific Ocean

He had no recognizable memories; the young man did not understand his surroundings, did not know where he had been, did not know where he was going; his brain had been oxygen-deprived too long. He simply could not know anything in his brain’s current state of disorder and disrepair. The man only knew about not knowing of anything of his current situation. More disturbing to the young man was that he could not recall his name or his past.

The man attempted observation of his environs through the thin slot of vision, obscured by his inability to fully open his eyes. The noise, strange lights, and the array of electronic equipment allowed him to slowly form an internal schematic of his immediate juxtaposition among the machinery, and the basis for his horizontal position. Partially under a blanket, he noted the tubes and wires attached to his body.

“Nancy, your guy looks conscious. Put him back under?”

“Holy cow! He’s awake!?”

The nurse grabbed the pad computer out of the corpsman’s hand to look at the patient’s chart. Dragging through a few screens of tabulated numbers and plotted data, the navy lieutenant cocked her head at an angle that reflected her disbelief.

“Our boy should have been out for at least another three or four hours. His numbers are good, though; so let’s keep him awake. Let’s see if he can handle the ride; it will be better for him, at least for the long-term.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“One more thing, Cindy. Keep him quiet. If he talks, let me know.”

The man, ridden and bereft of any memory, attempted to lift his head to enable a scan of the immediate area. He did not know why he was driven to be aware of the surroundings, but the need was urgent and seemed to be an absolute requirement for his continued existence. Ignoring the nausea and vertigo induced by raising his head, the Marine saw at least five other patients on stanchion-mounted litters, plus about a dozen other people, that were also patients, seated along the bulkhead, and a dozen or so medical personnel in tan and green flight suits, swarming around the prone patients. His final revelation was that he was in the belly of a large and noise-infested airplane. The man attempted to raise his body.

“Hold up there, big guy.”

The corpsman gently pushed the patient’s head back onto the litter pillow as the Marine’s raspy voice was barely heard above the aircraft din.

“Where ... is this?”

The corpsman continued to be surprised and alarmed that the previously sedated Marine was able to talk after over a week of unconscious existence.

“You are on a medevac flight; we will be at Miramar in a few...”

“Water? What is miramar?”

“Not yet. Wait for the doctor ... Uh, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, then on to Balboa.”

Navy Medical Center San Diego, Ca

The medical personnel of the Balboa navy hospital had been frustrated by the constant inflow and outflow of NCIS agents, flag officers, senior field-grade officers, and the numerous representatives of various three-letter agencies. There had been the constant presence of two or three NCIS agents in the Marine patient’s corner of the critical-care unit.

An unknown four-star admiral, bearing the trident of a SEAL on his chest, formed the lead for the flag officer’s entourage of aides, along with a security team gaggle. The patient noted that the lead officer’s aides listened to and recorded every thing that was said to the patient and every guttural syllable uttered by the memory-stricken, confused, and physically-hobbled Marine.

The afternoon of the patient’s eleventh day in ICU saw the penetration of the mental fog that had permeated and ruled the patient’s thoughts.

“Do you know me, Marine?”

“Aye, H&S 1/5 first sergeant.”

The realization vividly burst, igniting his brain, that his identity was Sergeant Sean O’Brien, USMC, of 1st battalion 5th Marines. O’Brien suddenly leaped off the hospital bed and onto the deck, facing his first sergeant. That he was able to stand and maintain a modicum of balance was, in itself, a minor medical marvel to the two senior corpsmen in the ICU.

“Holy fuckin shit! Shit, first sergeant! Holy shit! I know why I’m thinking this weird shit. I can remember shit!”

The first sergeant was amused at O’Brien’s reaction to his sudden revelations, and was relieved that his Marine would not become a walking vegetable.

The CPO, a corpsmen supervisor, with speed and purpose, departed the ICU to retrieve his boss.

“Tell me, O’Brien. What do you remember before you got your stupid ass shot to shit?”

O’Brien slumped, stepping back to lean against his rack.

“I dunno, first sergeant ... Uh, Staff Sergeant Warren was out cold. Some of our guys were wounded. And we were tryin to get the fuck outa Dodge.”

“Do you remember anything after that?”

“Not much, first sergeant. Just that there was too fuckin many to shoot at ... How are the guys in the platoon?”

“Warren and Carlton are at back at Pendleton. Warren is riding a desk in the two shop and doing re-hab out of the base hospital. I’m told that White had to get another surgery. Pistochini is running the platoon, and your boys are generally okay, and...”

The NCIS security team, standing at the passageway into the ICU, were thrust aside when the adjacent hatch was flung open to allow a medical gaggle of two physicians and three nurses to funnel into the ICU, all making a direct line for O’Brien.

A two-star admiral stood in front of his patient as O’Brien braced at attention.

“Get back into that bed, Marine!”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Sergeant O’Brien, sir.”

“Who is your commanding officer?”

“Uh, don’t know, sir. It was Major Tisdale. I don’t know who I belong to now, sir.”

“You belong to me, Marine.”

The admiral turned to the navy commander, “Jorge, an excellent development, and not expected. He’s yours. Let me know as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll start as soon as we do another scan and more blood work.”

The navy commander demanded silence while he made phone calls and filled out forms.

The next flurry of activity was the removal of O’Brien from the ICU floor and into a smaller, single-occupancy cube without the severely distracted decor of electronic monitoring instruments. The NCIS ‘security’ team remained.

“Son, I am not lying when I say that you should not be standing here. We pumped nine units of blood into you, carved out five chunks of lead, and held a sewing bee - over 60 stitches.”

O’Brien had developed a minimal level of fondness for the hospital’s director of psychiatry. He was a no-nonsense physician that said what he meant and meant what he said; very much in contrast to the flurry of three and four-lettered law enforcement and intel hordes that had descended like locusts on the navy medical center. O’Brien had no idea what intel he could provide that could not be had by interviewing other members of the platoon or Major Tisdale. But they persisted. In the meantime, O’Brien insisted on improving his condition by always standing and walking, albeit with a walker or with crutches, and when no medical personnel were present, he surreptitiously exercised.

O’Brien knew that freedom day would come only when he could walk unaided, and when he could recall most of the events prior to his lapse into a semi-conscious state, then to a comatose state, from his wounds and the resultant blood loss. The navy commander had semi-joked that whatever brain cells and higher-level functioning that was lost were probably not required for a Marine grunt. O’Brien heartily agreed that the loss of the ‘excess’ brain cells would be an aid to his infantry vocation.

“Staff Sergeant, you have had untreated PTSD for at least five years. While your last foray into the mix did little to improve your lot in life, it did seem increase your introspection.”

O’Brien’s attention drifted in and out whenever the navy shrink gave O’Brien more than a six or seven minute dose of his wisdom.

“Bottom line, sir. Am I never gonna get orders back to my unit? Or are you sayin I’m too crazy?”

“Negative on the latter, Marine. I did not say that you are insane. And your body will need another four, may five or six, months to recover before you can return to duty status. I do not see you running a PFT for that same period. How about we send you home, to Texas, for a few months? I looked at your RED. You would be near the joint base facilities in San Antonio. They could monitor your re-hab and maybe have someone talk to you as your physical condition improves.”

“I would rather return to Fifth Marines, sir. What about Pendleton, sir. They could do my re-hab and counseling.”

“Why not go home? It will not show on your LES. Free leave, Marine.”