“What can I say, Commander,” the Doctor said. He was a full commander and the top ophthalmologist on the carrier. “There is no lasting damage to the eyes. If I had to guess, I’d say the blindness was about half shock from the sudden light and the rest from psychological damage of seeing his buddy’s blown-off arm almost in his lap. The physical damage is slight, if any, and he’s fit for duty. Just keep him away from land mines for a while.”
Murdock thanked the doctor, picked up DeWitt, and they walked the deck.
“Not a chance Adams can stay in SEALs,” DeWitt said. “That arm will never be strong enough again to do the rope climb or go up a rope ladder into a chopper. He’ll be lucky if he can tie his shoelaces.”
“Probably, but let’s keep his hopes up until he’s farther along in his recovery. Can’t hurt a thing. You’ll be one man short in your squad again.”
“Getting to be a habit, Skip.”
“True, been wanting to talk to you about taking better care of your men.”
They both laughed and kept walking. It was good to be out in the fresh air again and to watch the training exercises as the F-18s and the Tomcats surged off the deck from the catapults. It was the fastest drag race in the books. They went from a dead stop to 150 miles an hour or so in five seconds.
“How is Senior Chief Dobler working out?” DeWitt asked.
“So far, he’s been a help. Another couple of missions, and he’s going to be wound in tightly with the men. That’s the important element. If they won’t work for him, then we would have to get a new man. I think he’s melding into the platoon well. Any problems with him from your end?”
“No. I’d say he’s working well and has been a help in handling the men. He should be taking some of the administration load off your shoulders. That’s good. Then we can have more barbecues and have more chess games.”
When they returned to the SEALs assembly room. Dobler had the men cleaning and oiling their assigned weapons.
Don Stroh was there, pacing up and down. When he saw the two officers come in, he headed for them.
“Need to talk,” he said. They went to their usual conference area at the far end of the compartment where three chairs had been left.
“What’n hell now?” Murdock asked.
“Nothing, that’s the problem,” Stroh said. “Here the whole place is going to hell in a shitbasket, and the boss hasn’t a thing for you guys to do.”
“We can’t help out on the no-fly zone,” DeWitt said.
“No way we can do anything about Saddam’s rejection of the U.N. embargoes,” Murdock said. “What do you suggest that we should be doing? Want us to declare war on the old boy ourselves and do a suicide run against him?”
“You’re a pair of jokers. I could get more sympathy from the back blast of a jet up on deck. We’re a whore’s breath from an open war with Saddam, and we just sit here doing nothing? Like he says no more no-fly zone. So what do we do, send three hundred planes in there and swamp anybody he puts up? No, we actually cut back on our overfly. Now, why the hell did we do that?”
“You’re a lot closer to them than anybody on board,” Murdock said. “Call them up and ask them.”
Stroh shook his head and managed a small chuckle. “You really want to get rid of me, don’t you? I do that, and I’d be pushing paper at some weird desk in Langley like the Antarctica Overview desk.”
“So relax, Stroh,” Murdock said. “Work out in the gym; must be a pool table on board somewhere. Have a game of nine ball.”
“Hey, Stroh is getting up there, you know the older man’s disease,” DeWitt said. “He should be on Proscar, I’m sure. Maybe some BPH pills like Hytrin would bring down his nocturia a little.”
“Huh, JG? What the hell you talking about?”
“Your prostate and your urinary life. Older guys like you get the runs at night.”
“Ridiculous. I just wish the office would tell me something. We just sit and wait.”
“Oh, hell yes,” DeWitt said. “We haven’t fired a shot in over thirty-six hours. Must be something wrong somewhere. Got to keep them SEALs swimming, or they forget how.”
Murdock laughed. “Yeah, Stroh. What you need is something to relax you. Take your mind off the bad stuff. You said you play chess. Ever taken on the JG here? He’s the platoon champ. He swears he can beat anybody in the platoon in under ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes? Hell, I can stall that long. Where’s your set, JG? You’re on.”
The two played twelve games of chess in a row. Lieutenant (j.g.) DeWitt won the first four in under ten minutes. The next two took him almost fifteen minutes, and the man from the CIA at last won the tenth game. Then the JG got serious and beat Stroh the last two games in under eight minutes.
“Give,” Stroh said. He stood up and stretched. “Murdock’s right; I’m not mad at Langley anymore. Now I’m pissed at DeWitt.”
20
Colonel Jarash Hamdoon worked the rest of the afternoon and until nearly midnight in his motor home office just outside of his regular office. He had his lieutenant and sergeant working telephones as well, and at midnight called in the lieutenant to take over while he had three hours of sleep.
Lieutenant Salman was just over twenty-five, eager, a hard worker, and he knew precisely how the colonel would handle things.
“Answer any questions they ask except the one about this being a drill. Tell them as on any such maneuver, they will have to wait until the final time in the field to find out. It is the same as with any mobilization like this.”
The colonel was pleased with his work so far. The army was rolling. Already he had more than two divisions on the road. They were self-contained fighting units with their own tanks and artillery and some of his best fighting men. They would give an excellent account of themselves under fire.
Other units were gathering and would be moving soon. All must be on the way before noon tomorrow. His spotter aircraft had reported that the Syrian border where they would attack was nearly free of any units in strength. A company of infantry and two tanks were in one location, and ten miles away, another company of infantry and one tank had been spotted.
The plan called for a five-mile-wide offensive, driving the attack forward with tanks and airpower. They would send 200 planes on a preemptive strike against the three major Syrian airfields, with the hope of knocking down more than half of the Syrian airpower on the first day. That attack also would come at dawn on A day, or Attack day.
Colonel Hamdoon couldn’t sleep. After a half hour of trying in the soft bed of the motor home, he got up, put on his boots, and had his driver take him home. He lived on the outskirts of the town in a reserved section for military officers only. The sergeant driver parked in front of the house and Hamdoon went in, woke up his wife, and told her just enough to make her anxious.
He had often compared Arab women with those from the West. Some aspects of Western women he liked, but they were too loud, too demanding, and too disrespectful of their husbands. Not so an Arab woman. She knew her place and was content to live under those ancient traditions.
“You will be gone many weeks?” his wife asked.
“We do not know. It is a secret, and you must not tell anyone. It is a big maneuver on the desert to the west.”
“Then I must please you.” She took off her nightdress the way he liked, which drove him wild with desire. Four times they made love, and he went into the small kitchen naked and cooked a big breakfast, then returned to her once more and left her panting on the bed, naked, and beckoning to him for one more lovemaking.