“Okay, sir,” Sherman said, handing him the camera, which had been plugged into the satellite link, and backing away.
“Here goes,” Reynolds said, taking a breath and then opening up the case with his left hand while shining the low-light camera with a very faint blue light at the case.
“HOLY SHIT!” the President shouted. “Yes! Yes! YES!”
“Oh, man,” Brandeis said, shaking his head. “We have got to get this guy a medal. Barring that, one hell of a lot of money.”
“Put me in contact with them,” Cliff said, looking over at the communications technician.
“You’re on, sir.”
“SEAL Commander.”
“SIERRA Six?” Reynolds asked.
“This is the President. I hate doing direct contacts, I don’t want to be LBJ in Vietnam. But I have to ask. That is who I think it is, right?”
“As far as I can tell, sir,” Reynolds replied, nervously. Knowing the President might be listening and actually talking to him was two different things. “We were told that Ghost wanted it to be a personal present to you.”
“How is he?” the President asked.
“Very badly hit, sir,” Reynolds said. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s probably got major internal bleeds. We don’t have blood with us, just IV’s. We’re trying to keep him stabilized but…”
“Okay,” the President said. “The girls?”
“Better than I expected, sir,” the lieutenant admitted. “Some of them are nearly catatonic, but most of them seem to be holding it together pretty well. Ghost had a few of them helping him and they’re particularly good. One of them took some hearing loss when we dropped a JDAM near the entrance, but she’s otherwise okay. She was holding the door when we got here and nearly killed my point. Shot the NODs right off his helmet. Another one was apparently chucking grenades for him. I think, maybe, fighting back was kind of good therapy.”
“I don’t know about times, but somebody’s on the way,” the President said. “You just hang tough, SEAL. Damned good job. I want to see all of your team at the White House, or maybe Camp David, as soon as you get back to the states. Camp David, that way you don’t have to dress up.”
“Yes, sir,” Reynolds said.
“And don’t lose that bag,” the President added. “And try to find the rest of him.”
“Will do, sir,” Reynolds replied.
“Cut this and clear us, I’ve done enough damage…”
“I think he’s clear,” Admiral Hayes said. “I have to add, good job. How was the drop?”
“Not something I want to do again, sir,” Reynolds admitted. “We nearly were mid-aired by an F-15, had a SAM fly by, an air-to-air, watched portions of the dogfight from the good seats, if you know what I mean. We lost two of our meats on the way down from effects from the F-15. Their chutes deployed, but I don’t know where they are or if they’re alive or dead.”
“We’ll get SAR in there, too,” the admiral said. “And dial out the Predator to look for them. Security situation?”
“The JDAM must have convinced them we were serious, sir,” Reynolds responded. “We had some contact on the way in, very light, brushed it aside, and no counterattacks. ETA on reinforcements?”
“According to the Air Force, we’ve dug a hole through their SAM belt and CAP is refueling. As soon as they’re refueled, the 101 will move to your position by helo. Say an hour or so. Egress Ghost and the wounded girl first, then the women, then your team, then the 101 will pull out.”
“Roger, sir,” Reynolds said. “Sir, be advised. The ladies are completely unclothed. Respectfully request… well…”
“The 101 is supposed to be bringing spare clothes,” the admiral said.
“Thank you, sir,” Reynolds replied. “Anything else, sir?”
“Nope,” the admiral said. “I’m looking at the take from the Predator and you’re right, nobody seems to be sticking out their head. There was an armored column headed for your position, but the Air Force savaged it and it turned back. Fingers crossed, we’re looking good.”
“I’ll go tell the ladies, sir,” Reynolds replied. “SIERRA six clear?”
“STARBASE out,” the admiral said. “And make sure you bring the bag.”
“Okay, ladies,” Reynolds said, walking back in the room. “God willing and nothing goes particularly wrong, our reinforcements should be here in about an hour. When they get here, we leave. And they are bringing clothes.”
That elicited applause from the girls and he smiled.
“I’d like to cover some details of the exit,” he said. “We’re going to put Ghost and Rachel on the first chopper. There are medics standing by. I’d like a couple of the ladies who have been with Rachel to accompany her, so figure out who they are. Then we’ll get the rest of you out of here. The stairs, in case you haven’t seen them, are covered in bodies and body parts. We’re not going to have time to clear that; you’ll have to walk on the bodies, so prepare yourselves. We’ll station someone on the landing with clothes so you don’t have to walk out in the open in your… current condition.” He looked around and cleared his throat.
“This might be the wrong time to say this and the wrong thing to say, but please don’t let what happened to you turn you into… something you don’t want to be. We went through a lot to get here and secure the position. I won’t get into the whole story except to say that we had to drop through the middle of a dogfight overhead and I lost two of my men when we were nearly hit by an F-15 fighter. We came here to rescue, Ghost fought to rescue, what you… were. Nice, decent, lovely young ladies who were just… getting on with your lives. This experience is, yeah, going to scar you. But when you get to thinking that all men are horrible assholes because of what you went through, or some friend tells you that, or some therapist tells you that, or some professor tells you that, or, hell, you run into some guy who is an asshole, think about us, too, and Ghost. If you turn your backs on the good guys… well… we’ll still come for you whenever you need us, but it will take all of the joy out of what we do, what we’ve done. This is… what we live for. In the end, you ladies are what we fight and die for. Don’t turn your backs on us, too.”
He nodded at the group and then walked out of the room.
“Sergeant Major Gunther, Third Batt, Rakasans,” the NCO said as he neared the entrance followed by a group of soldiers carrying BDU tops in their arms. “We brought clothes.”
“PO Roman,” Roman said. “My L-T wants us to hand them out as the girls come up. We’ve been around them for a couple of hours now, they’re used to us.” His jaw flexed and he shook his head. “Try to get your guys to not ogle.”
“Already covered,” the NCO said tightly. “Where do you want them?”
“Meat,” Roman said. “Grab an armful and station yourself on the landing. You’re about to be very popular.” Meat grabbed the first two armfuls and headed down the stairs.
“We’ve got enough choppers to lift all the girls and the team,” Gunther said. “Then the choppers will turn around and pull us out.”
“Have fun sitting on this patch,” Roman said. “It’s no fun. We need two stretchers.”
“Incoming,” Gunther said, looking over his shoulder. “Medics! Stretchers!”
“Okay, good stick whoever did it.” Specialist Calvin Thomas was a pretty good medic in his opinion. He was an EMT in New York on September 11, 2001 and volunteered for the U.S. Army on October 1, as soon as they were sure there wasn’t anything left to do at Ground Zero. He’d seen his share of shot-up bodies, both in New York and since. In his expert medical opinion, the guy on the floor should have already been dead. On the other hand, he’d seen people survive that should have died. And people die that should have lived. You just never knew. “Any idea what type he is?”