Chapter 17

Camp Schwab, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

December 26, local time

Commander James Hollerith, Jr. woke up, put on a shirt, and sat down at his laptop. Neither his wife nor their children would be able to see that he was naked from the waist down. It was Christmas Day in California, where his home was. He fired up Skype and waited for an answer. They must have been waiting, because the response was almost immediate.

"Hey!" said Carol Hollerith, his wife of nearly fifteen years. "Where are you, hon?"

It was their usual greeting. She'd ask and he'd answer as he always did. "I'm not home, that's for sure." She knew he couldn't say. But if he ever answered in any other way, she'd know that he was in trouble, somewhere.

The relief on her face was clear. "Well, Merry Christmas, again, you crusty old Navy dog," she laughed. "Here's the kids."

He talked with Jamie, Christy, and Lana – aged 10, 7, and 5 respectively – all girls. He chuckled a bit at the thought of what was waiting for him when he retired in a few years. They'd all be teenagers, all going to college at about the same time, all getting boyfriends – but he'd manage. His wife had done an amazing job raising them and was making noises about having one more. 'One more shot at James Hollerith, III.' was what she'd said. He'd tried to be home as much as possible, and it had even cost him a promotion to Captain last time around, but being the leader of a SEAL team meant he simply couldn't arrange a stateside job. Yet.

The girls were fine, and Cmdr. Hollerith knew that Carol could figure out that he was close to Japan from the kinds of gifts he'd sent. Japan was somewhere safe. Afghanistan was not. He spent a good part of an hour talking with his family and signed off.

The fact was that his entire team was on R&R at the moment, having been relieved by an Army Ranger / SpecOps Team at a location in the northern mountains of Afghanistan. There was a lot of trash talk between the SEALs and the Rangers, of course, but the handoff was easy and professionally done. His team was nicked up in a lot of ways. Some were on 'Special R&R' – that meant in the hospital or recovering from something especially bad. Right now, the remainder of the entire team was in Camp Schwab: a Marine base in Okinawa that had an airfield attached to it. His team was rotating through some real R&R in Japanese cities that were just a helicopter ride away, one squad away at a time.

He left his laptop on while he was getting dressed, and the incoming email beeped at him while he was tying his boots.

Commander Hollerith punched up the email. It was encoded, and he entered in the password for his decoding program. He was somewhat surprised at what he read there:

To: Commander James Hollerith From: Arthur Chesterfield

RE: Special Operations

Hollowpoint,

I am not in your chain of command, direct or indirect. I have been authorized to contact you, however, about a special operation. Please check my name with the highest superior you can reach, to get authorization. Then email me back with the results, and we'll talk again.

--A.C.

Hollowpoint? That was a nickname of his, from before he was an officer – almost twenty years back. Only people in his squad knew that name. Now someone from outside the unit was using it? Someone who thought he would get authorization to speak to him outside regular channels?

He didn't even have to think about it. He wrote and encoded an email to Admiral Buskirk, an assistant to the Naval Chief of Staff, a member of the Joint Chiefs. He knew Buskirk personally.

To: Adm. Buskirk From: Cmdr. Hollerith

RE: Clarification needed

Adm Buskirk:

I have been contacted outside of normal channels by someone named Arthur Chesterfield. He suggested I contact someone high up in my chain of command. Does he have authority to do so, and what are my orders regarding him, sir?

Respectfully, Cmdr. James Hollerith SEAL Team 9

The reply came back within an hour. It again surprised him. It was a reply to his message and contained all the forwarding information: his message was forwarded from Buskirk, to Admiral Mosrecki, CNO, to the National Security Advisor, to the President. The message was not encoded in any way.