Rachel’s barb didn’t sting Bill; it sickened him. How dare she? he thought — hating Rachel. “I can’t exempt Stephie from service!” he explained, though he desperately wanted to do exactly that. “I’m the one who ordered womeninto combat! I can’t exempt my own…!”
“I bet you haven’t even thought about the risk of Stephie getting captured!” Rachel accused.
Bill didn’t tell her, but she was wrong. The Joint Chiefs had warned of the risk in what Bill felt at the time was unnecessarily graphic detail. The Chinese had a certain history, it seemed, of using and abusing prisoners to gain leverage. Bill grew ill every time his thoughts strayed near the subject.
“You’re only worried about political damage!” she accused. “You’re going to kill your only child to avoid a black eye in the opinion polls! For a poignant story in the history books! ‘Daughter of president dies defending his country!’ Well that’s not what those books are gonna say, Bill! Not if the Chinese are the ones who write them! You’ll have the distinction of forever being known as the last president of the United States!”
She had struck a nerve, and an awful tingle washed over Bill. He felt a sudden panicked need to flee.
“Where is the 41st Infantry Division?” Rachel demanded through teeth clenched in anger. Bill said nothing. “Where is my daughter’s unit?” she built to a scream. The doors burst open. Secret Service agents appeared with guns drawn. Bill shook his head. They withdrew.
If I tell her, she would steamroll any junior army officer, Bill thought to torment himself. She would march right in and yank Stephie out of harm’s way. God, how he wanted that to be the outcome. But with all the life drained from his voice Bill said, “It would be illegal for you to go see her.” Rachel opened her mouth to shout, but Bill tried to reason. “We can’t have parents dropping by units to visit! Plus, the location of military units is a secret, Rachel.”
“You’re murdering your own daughter, you bastard!” she shouted. “You know why she volunteered for the infantry, don’t you? Because of those B-grade stinkers you made before you got into this politician schtick! I found a box of movie disks when we packed up her room. Bill Baker — Space Marine! Maybe instead of keeping you two apart I should’ve let her get to know what a shit you are! As it stands now, she thinks you’re a fucking hero because of those god-awful movies you made! Just what have you ever done in real life that’s truly heroic? Name one goddamn thing!” Bill headed past her for the door. “You pig! You won’t even do this for your own child!” He stormed out of the Oval Office with Rachel shrieking, “Heartless coward!” at him from behind.
Bill fled through security checkpoints, with aides gathering in trail, waiting for their turn to be recognized. At one metal detector, Bill caught the eye of a burly, buzz-cut brute. The bull-necked man looked out of place in a suit. His appointments secretary ran through the changes necessitated by his five-minute confrontation with Rachel. “Who’s that?” Bill asked. He nodded at the watchful man, whose crossed arms and oversized jacket concealed a large weapon underneath.
“He’s Secret Service,” his secretary replied.
“I don’t want any new faces on my security detail,” Baker ordered. “You tell the special agent in charge. Okay? Nobody that I don’t recognize or personally approve.” The elevator door opened as the secretary scribbled a note. Bill felt his heart race from the unpleasant rush of adrenaline. His panic attacks were growing worse, and more and more frequent. He turned away from the elevator and strode instead down the corridor. He wasn’t yet ready to play the role of commander in chief.
Despite the hour, the night air was unpleasant. An afternoon thunderstorm had left behind sticky humidity. U.S. Army Special Forces Captain Jim Hart climbed up the ladder to the camouflaged metal deer blind. He held the rungs of the ladder with his left hand and his H&K machine pistol with his right. His combat boots’ rubber soles made no sound. At the top, he scrutinized the darkness inside the small shelter. Rifles with long scopes leaned against the walls. Faint snoring fixed the two men’s locations. They lay side by side and head to toe in two sleeping bags that were unzipped and flung back to catch the intermittent breeze on the sultry night.
Hart slung the H&K over his shoulder and soundlessly pulled his combat knife from its scabbard. The nine-inch blade was a dull black except along its cutting edges where the sharpened metal was silvery from honing with a stone stored on the scabbard.
Moving carefully, Hart climbed inside the tight enclosure between the two oblivious men. By their greasy, gray hair and the stubble on their double chins they looked to be in their late fifties or early sixties. The enclosed blind stank of their unwashed bodies. There was some uneaten bread and cheese on a small paper plate to go along with the six-pack of beer cans littering the forest floor fifteen feet below.
Hart held the knife’s sharp edge to one man’s unshaven neck.
The man’s eyes opened wide. He looked up at Hart’s grease-blackened face and opened his mouth. Hart pressed more firmly, and the words caught with a gurgle in his throat. Hart lessened the pressure of the blade, arched his eyebrows and nodded.
“B-B-Brad,” the man whispered. “Brad!” he managed to squeak a little more loudly.
“Hm?” Brad asked from deep in his well of sleep. When he opened his eyes, he saw the muzzle of Hart’s H&K.
“Top of the morning, Brad,” Hart said.
Brad let out a sigh of relief on realizing that Hart was American.
Hart removed his knife from the man’s throat and stabbed a piece of cheese with it. The taste of the morsel was sharpened by its warmth. With his mouth full, Hart said, “You guys out here doing some hunting?”
“Well, sorta,” Brad replied. He turned to his friend. “You was s’posed to keep a lookout!”
“You two know,” Hart interrupted as he tore the loaf of French bread into mouth-sized bites and proceeded to devour it, “it’s illegal to be in the Exclusion Zone.” They said nothing. “I could arrest you, but unfortunately,” he said, holding his hands out as proof, “I don’t have any facil’ties to take pris’ners.” He shrugged and made a show of being trapped by the circumstances while he tore and chewed his way through the long loaf. “So I could either kill you, or let you go on the promise that you clear outa here before you get yourselves in a whole world of hurt.”
“You ain’t from ’round here, are ya?” Brad asked almost as if in challenge.
“No. I’m from Michigan. But you’re lucky I’m not from Harbin or Shanghai. There are Chinese pathfinders and long-range recon patrols out here,” Hart said, looking at the tall, gently swaying pines just outside. “And the Chinese don’t like partisans. Don’t like ’em at all. It offends their sensibilities or something. I guess if you’re the Chinese, you believe in playing by the rules when you field an army of sixty million regulars. So they wouldn’t exactly extend you guys good old Christian charity, if you know what I mean. As a matter of fact, they’ve adopted an old trick from the New World to discourage partisan activity. You two good ole boys ever heard of a ‘Venezuelan Necktie’?”