Op-Center's staff psychologist Liz Gordon told Rodgers that he was suffering from trauma survivors' syndrome, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition manifested itself as lethargy and depression resulting from escaping death that took others.
Clinically, that might be true. What Rodgers really suffered from was a crisis of faith. He had screwed up. Being a soldier was about risking your life. But Rodgers had gone into a situation without being aware of an obvious potential danger. In so doing, he had disgraced the qualities his uniform meant to him.
But Liz Gordon had told him one thing that was certainly true. If Rodgers continued to dwell on what had gone wrong, he would be no good to Op-Center or its director, Paul Hood. And both needed him now. Striker had to be rebuilt, and Hood had to deal with ongoing budget cuts.
Enough, thought the general. It was time to get out of the past.
Mike Rodgers turned from the back wall. He sat down, unfolded the newspaper, and scanned the front page. Rodgers was one of the few people at Op-Center who still read a printed newspaper. Paul Hood, intelligence chief Bob Herbert, FBI liaison Darrell McCaskey, and attorney Lowell Coffey III all got their news on-line. To Rodgers, that was like engaging in cybersex. It was a result without an interactive process. He would rather have the real thing.
Ironically, the New York Yankees were mentioned in an article below the fold. The piece described some megatrade with the Baltimore Orioles. It sounded to Rodgers as if the Birds were getting the better end of the deal. Even the Yankees were not as sharp as they used to be.
Of course, no one dies when the Yankees make a bad call, Rodgers reflected. He looked at the other headlines.
The one that caught his attention was beside the baseball article. It was about an apparent paramilitary action in Botswana. The nation rarely showed up on the morning intelligence reports. The government in Gaborone was stable, and the people were relatively content.
What was most surprising were the eyewitness accounts of the action. At least four dozen armed men entered a tourist compound. After firing a few warning shots, they abducted a Catholic priest who ministered at the adjoining church. The priest was well liked and had no known enemies. The kidnappers had not demanded a ransom.
Rodgers's immediate thought was that the priest had heard someone's confession, and the men wanted the information. But why send a small army to grab a single individual? And why attack in daylight instead of at night? To make sure the army was seen?
Rodgers would have to see if Bob Herbert had any information about the kidnapping. Even when he was down on his abilities, Mike Rodgers could not help but ruminate about military issues. The army was not just his profession but his avocation.
He read the rest of the front page while he finished his coffee. Then he refolded the newspaper and slid it protectively under his arm. Rodgers made his way through the pinball array of tables to the front door. He pulled on his hat and stepped onto the slick pavement.
The rain was heavy, but Rodgers did not mind. The gray tones of the morning suited his mood. And though the dampness did not feel comfortable, he was surprised to find that it made him feel good. The pictures reminded him of what he had dreamed. Each droplet reminded him of what he had. Something that his former teammates did not possess: life.
As long as Mike Rodgers had that, he would continue to do the one thing that had ever really mattered.
He would strive to be worthy of his uniform.
Chapter Four
The National Crisis Management Center was housed in a two-story building at Andrews Air Force Base. During the Cold War, this nondescript, ivory-colored structure was one of two staging areas for flight crews known as NuRRDsNuclear Rapid-Response Divisions. In the event of a nuclear attack on the nation's capital, their job would have been to evacuate key officials. Ranking members of Congress, the entire cabinet, and both officers and logistics experts from the Pentagon would have been flown to secret bunkers built deep in Maryland's Blue Ridge Mountains. Their task would be to keep food and supplies flowing to soldiers, police officers, and civilians, in that order. They would also have worked to keep open as many routes of communication as possible. Other leaders, including the president, vice-president, their top military advisers, and medical personnel, would have been kept aloft aboard Air Force One and Air Force Two. Both planes would have flown at least five hundred miles apart. They would have been refueled in-flight and protected by an escort of NuRRD fighter jets. This would have allowed the commander in chief and his successor to remain separate moving targets.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the downsizing of the Air Force's NuRRDs, evacuation operations were consolidated at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The newly vacated building at Andrews was given over to the newly chartered National Crisis Management Center.
The two floors of upstairs offices were for nonclassified operations such as finance, human resources, and monitoring the mainstream press for possible hot buttons. These were seemingly innocent events that could trigger potential crises. They included the failure of Third World governments to pay their troops, accidents such as a U. S. submarine ramming a foreign fishing vessel or yacht, the seizure of a large cache of drugs, and other seemingly isolated activities. But nothing was ever isolated. A disgruntled military could stage a coup. A sunken ship may have been an attack on intelligence-gathering capabilities. And the drug bust might lead to violent clashes as other dealers moved in to fill a void. All of these were events that fell within Op-Center's sphere of activity.
The basement of the former NuRRD building had been entirely refurbished. It no longer housed living quarters for flight crews. It was where the tactical decisions and intelligence crunching of Op-Center took place. The executive level was accessible by a single elevator that was guarded on top 24/7. Paul Hood, Mike Rodgers, Bob Herbert, and the rest of the executives had their offices down here. The small offices were arranged in a ring along the outer wall of the basement. Inside the circle were cubicles that housed the executive assistants as well as Op-Center's intelligence gathering and processing personnel. On the opposite side of the room from the elevator was a conference room known as the Tank. The conference room was surrounded by walls of electronic waves that generated static to anyone trying to listen in with bugs or external dishes.
Bob Herbert pushed his wheelchair down the oval corridor. His coat was damp, and his ears were cold, but he was glad to be here. This was an important day.
Herbert had nicknamed this hallway the Indy 600. According to his wheelchair odometer, it was exactly 600 yards around. There were no windows down here, and the rooms were not spacious. The facility reminded Herbert more of a submarine than the headquarters of an agency. But the building was secure. Anyway, Herbert never believed all that crap about people needing sunshine to brighten their mood. The thirtynine-year-old intelligence head only needed two things to make him happy. One was his motorized wheelchair. The balding intelligence expert had lost the use of his legs in the Beirut embassy bombing in 1983. Only the quick work of physician Dr. Alison Carter, a visiting foreign service officer, had prevented him from losing his life. The wheelchair did not just keep Herbert mobile. It had a foldaway arm, like an airplane seat, that housed his computer with a wireless Modern. Everything Herbert needed, including E-mail addresses to order pizza, were literally in his lap. Op-Center's technical expert, Matt Stoll, had even installed a jack for a satellite dish. At times, Herbert felt like the Bionic Man.