She scuttled over to the admissions desk. “Commander!” she called out, but she was positively beaming at the woman in the wheelchair. Quick pleasantries were exchanged between Rorke and Marte.
“This is my wife, Alicia,” he said, his pride evident. “And Alicia, this is Marte—”
“Oh, I recognize you,” said Alicia, her smile pleasant but not obsequious — and extraordinarily painful to her, though she didn’t give any indication of it.
Would they be so good as to let CNN do a “quick” interview? Marte asked. “Just a few minutes?” she lied. “I know it would mean so much to the people who—” She stopped as she saw John Rorke looking down with concern at Alicia.
Alicia knew it was her call. Talking tired her — there was so much subcutaneous healing yet to occur, and her face was still so sore that the slightest breeze at times became unbearable. “Fine,” she said. “Where would you like us to go?”
“Over here,” said Marte, and, returning with them to the camera, ever so politely edged Freeman and Brentwood out of camera range. “David, would you be willing to wait a few minutes?” Marte asked.
“Sure,” he said. He felt relaxed for the first time in over six months. He’d called Melissa, and knew he’d be home by tomorrow evening. “I don’t mind. Take your time.”
“Thank you,” said Marte, turning triumphantly to her cameraman. “You see, Stan, things happen in threes.”
Freeman watched her do the interviews, realizing again how people who don’t actually do a job, any job, from gofer to legend, ever understand how much goes into making things happen. He rose to leave, feeling exhausted and slightly woozy from the morphine, but he managed to interject a brief invitation between camera takes. “Dinner tomorrow night?” he asked Marte.
She smiled knowingly. “Last time you invited me out, General, you thought I was too hyper — needed to relax. How did you put it? Rest and recreation. Calming down. Will eight o’clock be all right?”
“Done,” the general replied, and left.
“You see,” Stan told Marte. “Things happen in fours.”
“You ready to roll?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
On the second floor, as the nurse, taking Aussie’s vital signs, finished up and closed the bed curtains, Choir and Sal sat down, and soon the three warriors were busy talking over the mission.
“Then I guess the boss would never have harmed the old lady,” said Choir.
“Guess not, eh, Aussie?” added Sal.
The usually voluble Aussie didn’t answer. He didn’t know. It was an old world but a new war, this battle with terror. Nothing quite like it. In many ways this world war was like all wars, but still it was different. But for now, the hemorrhaging in the Northwest, at least, had been stanched.
The big news of the day, however, which dominated all the networks, was that the elderly blind woman and her black lab guide dog who had been missing following the sinking of the ferry Georgia Queen had been found by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter. Though both cold, voraciously hungry and thirsty, they were together and otherwise all right, having huddled together on an ad hoc raft of Styrofoam packing that had been rapidly drifting out to sea through the choke point.
Glossary
AAM—Air-to-Air Missile
AAR—After Action Report
CAP—Combat Air Patrol
CEP—Circular Error Probable
ChiCom—Chinese Communists
CIC—Combat Information Center
CIWS—Close-In Weapons System
COMSUBPAC—Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet
COMSUBPAC-GRU 9—Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Group 9
CVBG—Carrier Battle Group
CVN—Carrier Aviation Nuclear
DA—Direct Action
DEFCON—Defense Condition (There are five levels.)
DIREC—Digital Recon Camera
ELF—Extremely Low Frequency
EPROM—Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EWO—Electronics Warfare Officer
FITCOMPRON—Fighter Composite Squadron
FLIR—Forward Looking Infrared
HARM—Homing Anti-Radar Missile
HK—Heckler & Koch
HUD—Heads Up Display
LOSFABS—Low Silhouette Fast Boats
LSO—Landing Signals Officer
OOD—Officer of the Deck
PRC—People’s Republic of China
RIB—Rigid Inflatable Boat
RIO—Radar Intercept Officer
ROC—Republic of China (Taiwan)
SALERT—Sea, Air, Land Emergency Response Team
SEAL—Sea, Air, Land Warrior
SITREP—Situation Report
SLAM—Standoff Land Attack Missile
SLAMER—Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response
SOC—Special Operations Command
SOSUS—Sound Surveillance System
TLAMS—Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles
UAV—Unmanned Aerial Vehicle