“But that fuck Asher is just using all this to try to get at me!” Bill snapped. “He’s going to… to ruin her.” Bill rose and paced behind his chair. “He’ll leak it to the press.”
“No,” Fielding remarked, “he won’t. It’s been filed under seal with the DC Court of Appeals in support of his National Secrecy Act subpoena granting him surveillance rights inside the White House. It’ll probably end up at the Supreme Court.”
Bill sank back into his chair. Asher finally had his suspect. A way to stick his big nose under the tent. “That son of a bitch,” Bill said, looking up at Fielding. “So how did you hear about Asher’s report if it’s under seal?”
“I never reveal sources who have demanded anonymity, Mr. President. They cease being sources. Besides, the more important question is not who my source is. It’s who Hamilton Asher’s source was for ten-year-old surveillance photos taken in Beijing.”
Bill narrowed his eyes in focused thought, then looked up at his most trusted security advisor. His meaning was clear. The source was Chinese.
Fielding rose and stood facing Bill. “And remember what I said about you not telling anybody any of this?” Fielding asked. “That means Dr. Leffler, in particular. Do not tell Dr. Leffler that she’s under suspicion of treason during time of war.”
“What? And why the hell not?” Bill demanded.
Fielding frowned but didn’t shrink from Bill’s glare. “Because, sir, I will turn us both in for having violated the National Secrecy Act,” he replied. Both men’s jaws were firmly set. “I learned long ago never to trust anyone. Anyone. You should get some rest, Mr. President. Good night.” He turned and left Bill alone.
Bill returned to his residential quarters and crawled into bed next to Clarissa. She was sleeping on her side facing him. He lay there studying her face, her lips, her soft eyes… which opened suddenly, then closed quickly, jarring Bill. It hadn’t been the bleary, semiwakeful gaze of a person roused from sleep. She had been awake all along, and after a moment she covered too quickly by pretending to awaken, yawning, seeing him awake, then quickly kissing him passionately — aggressively — soon pinning him to the bed with her body.
The morning was cold, Stephie thought, but not so cold that it froze men to inaction. Plus, after five miles of march, most had unzipped their gear and removed woolen caps. She worked her way back down the ditch from the point man, inspecting each soldier along the way. All lay prone beside a county road with weapons shouldered at pavement level. The veterans seemed ready, but resigned and fatalistic. The cherries, in stark contrast, were petrified.
Three weeks after the mass influx of replacements and a dozen field training exercises on company, battalion and even brigade levels, the commander of the 41st Infantry Division had reported to the Pentagon that his unit was combat ready. Staff Sergeant Stephanie Roberts disagreed.
“You know what to do if we get ambushed?” Stephie asked a frightened female replacement.
She had to lick her chapped lips twice and swallow hard before she could answer. “Go to ground?” she tentatively replied.
“Okay, but where?” Stephie asked in a steady, quiet voice. “In the middle of the road?” The cherry shook her head, and her helmet flopped from side to side. “On the side?” Stephie coached her. The replacement nodded, and her helmet flopped back and forth. “That’s right, but which side?” Stephie asked as she took the woman’s helmet off to tighten its liner.
The cherry didn’t know the answer to the platoon sergeant’s question and grew so upset that her eyes watered. She finally shrugged pathetically.
“We’re gonna advance in column,” Stephie explained in a quiet voice. “If they open fire right on you, go to the side of the road away from the enemy. If they open up on any other part of the platoon, go toward the side that the fire’s coming from, move off the road, and try to flank the ambushers. Same thing if they fire defilade straight down the road, only try to follow the others to one side or the other. After you clear the road, you’ve gotta get up and maneuver, understand? There may not be anybody there to organize the attack. You’ve gotta do it on your own initiative in an ambush. Somebody’s pinned down, and it’s your job to counterattack the ambushers. Every second counts, so don’t freeze up. Your buddies’ lives depend on you, just like yours depends on them. Understand?”
The bareheaded cherry nodded, self-consciously placing wayward strands of matted hair behind her ears. “What if the ambushers are on both sides of the road?” she asked. “Should I just follow everybody else?”
There probably won’t be anybody to follow, Stephie thought, but she said, “Just get off the road and return fire.” Stephie replaced the helmet on her head, put her hands on the private’s thick, Kevlar-padded shoulders, and gave an approving nod like a mother sending her child off to school. “You’ll do fine. Just don’t freeze up. You’re gonna be scared. That’s natural. Everybody’s scared. But the thing is you’ve still gotta maneuver and fire your weapon. Understand? You may feel so sick with fear that you’ve gotta throw up. That’s okay. Go ahead. But you’ve got to fight. You’ve got to fire your weapon at the enemy. Understand?”
The woman nodded again. The short, jerking motions didn’t shake her helmet loose. Stephie moved on to the next guy. The large African-American machine gunner lay on his side holding a cross made from leather shoelaces to his lips and muttered a prayer with his eyes jammed shut.
A crackle overhead sent Stephie flat to her stomach at the bottom of the roadside ditch. The machine gunner’s eyes shot open when the first shell exploded two hundred meters behind the last man in their platoon. The blast wasn’t the stunning body blow of heavy 155 or 175 mm guns, but part of the steady rain of light artillery that began bracketing the road behind them. They could, however, still kill a standing man at that range. Stephie raised her head to ensure that everyone was down and saw only one helmet up. It was their platoon leader, Lieutenant John Burns, who nodded at Stephie. She nodded back.
Telephone wires alongside the road behind them danced and fell. Roadside mailboxes in the rural outskirts of the small town were blown into the expansive front lawns of houses set well back from the road. Tree branches on the wooded lots were clipped from trunks and crashed to the ground. All the windows along the front of one ranch-style, one-story house imploded from the concussive force of a near miss.
When the barrage was not adjusted up the road toward their platoon’s position, Stephie knew that they hadn’t been spotted. The blind, indirect fire was either random “H&I”—harassment and interdiction — or it was blocking the road ahead to screen the flanks of some maneuvering and therefore vulnerable Chinese unit.
A fireball lit the sky behind them as a shell exploded high in a tall pine. One of the prone soldiers at the rear of the platoon’s column began to curse in shouts. “Oh, shit! Goddamn! Aw! God! Ah! Ah!” John rose. Stephie cringed as she watched him sprint down the ditch. Shrapnel skipped at high speed along the road at Stephie’s eye level. The metal pole from a basketball goal directly across the street rang like a bell. John dropped safely beside the wounded man, who clenched his left calf like a cramping runner.
John pulled his combat knife, and the cherry’s screams grew to howls. “No-o-o! No! No! No!” A veteran pinned the wounded man to the ground and grabbed his flailing hands while John split his trouser leg from boot to knee. John began to probe the wound with the sharp tip of his black knife. He was hurrying, Stephie knew, to get the white-hot shrapnel out of the guy’s leg before it burned deep into the soldier’s muscle and bone. The remainder of the brief barrage consisted of steady shrieking by the wounded soldier punctuated by thundering, body-clapping booms.