It had been hot as shit when he had landed at Danang. They had ridden off in trucks beneath the smelly canvas. It had been two weeks before they first went into the field. Two days into their first battalion operation, Chuck Reed, Sr., had been left on the north bank of the Vinh Phuoc River. Three months later, he’d been killed and Nate grievously wounded.
‘Sir?’ Clark heard — nearly jumping as Chuck Reed, Jr., tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, sir,’ the major said quietly. Clark realized that a Humvee had pulled up. He climbed into the heated armored car for the drive to his new command.
Nate walked into the crowded, windowless conference room. Senior officers from half a dozen allied armies rose. ‘I’d like to introduce,’ Major Reed said in a loud voice, ‘Lieutenant General Nate Clark, United States Army, Commanding General United Nations Russian Forces.’ Nate made his rounds — meeting his staff. Instead of the ‘J’ designations of USARPAC, the officers he met had been given jobs beginning with ‘G’, which were reserved for higher-level army groups.
‘I am your G-3 — Operations — sir,’ the British general said before saluting. Nate returned the salute and shook hands.
The staff was entirely mixed European and American, but the senior officers under Nate were all European. The British got the real plum — Operations. The G-l — Personnel/Administration — went to a Dutch officer whom Clark knew well from his tour at NATO Headquarters. The impressive man was fluent in all major European languages. The G-2 — Intelligence — was French. Clark had never met the General before. And the G-4 — Logistics — was German. It was the G4 who provided Clark’s amusement for the morning.
The German general pulled Clark aside. He spoke thickly accented English. ‘Excuse me, General Clark,’ he said — pronouncing the ‘G’ in ‘General’ as in the word ‘gun.’ ‘I wanted to discuss something, please.’ Clark nodded. ‘We might have a small misunderstanding. I was told that I would be responsible for theater logistics, but I overheard a member of your staff saying that you would run the railroad. I have substantial experience in the area of rail maintenance. Many of my reservists work on German rail lines in their civilian jobs. It seems to me that…’
Clark was already laughing. He explained to the confused officer what the expression ‘run the railroad’ meant and sent him away with assurances that he was indeed in charge of rail logistics.
Major Reed had waited at a distance, but from the twinkle in his eye he’d clearly heard the exchange. The officer’s smile disappeared, however, when Nate spoke to him in deadly earnest.
‘We’re going to have to learn how to fight in coalition,’ Nate said. ‘Amusing ambiguities in language like that can turn into rows of bags filled with dead men and women. Our allies are providing to us not only highly competent officers. They’re sending men who are almost totally fluent in our language. Almost. The official language of this coalition is English, but I want every American soldier from private to general to understand that if an order is garbled in communication, it’s their fault. I want them sensitized to the nuances of idiomatic speech. I want them to be patient, but not patronizing. To define, to repeat, to speak slowly and use common words with precise meanings, not slang or jargon or colloquial expressions. It’s a matter of life and death, Major Reed. You draft the memo. I’ll sign it.’
Daryl got into the limousine and looked around. ‘Hey!’ he said to Gordon. ‘Not only do I get to ride at the front of the bus, I get you alone for the first time in two days.’
Gordon felt awful. He’d been dreading this moment since Fein first cleared the time on his schedule with the advance men the night before last.
‘I made some notes on the draft of your speech to the workers at the hospital emergency room,’ Daryl said as he rummaged through the shiny new leather briefcase his wife had just bought him. He handed a sheaf of papers over. ‘I apologize that I didn’t have time to type ’em up.’ He laughed. ‘I guess you can read my handwriting after all these years, though.’ Daryl stared back at Gordon. His smile slowly grew stale.
‘The speech was canceled,’ Gordon said.
Daryl’s face betrayed momentary embarrassment before turning to the inevitable anger. ‘Now when the hell did they do that? That was going to be a major address on the health-care crisis! What was it? Too many sick people for the nightly news’s taste?’
‘It was security,’ Gordon said. ‘The FBI arrested some terrorists in Chicago. They had hospital scrubs in their bags.’ Gordon looked out the window and ran his hand over his face. His skin felt different. He still wasn’t used to the base make-up they applied in the hotel every morning.
‘Something’s the matter,’ Daryl said — almost whispering.
‘We’ve gotta talk.’ From the change that passed over Daryl’s face, he clearly understood just then what was happening. Gordon could tell from Daryl’s eyes just before he looked away. Daryl was stunned — reeling. Gordon felt his eyes water. ‘I’m sorry.’ Daryl was looking out the window now at the passing landscape. It was a blur of empty roadside. The motorcade was traveling at high speed, and their route had been unannounced.
Gordon took a deep breath. ‘It isn’t working out,’ he heard himself say.
Daryl looked at Gordon. He appeared so deeply, so profoundly hurt that he eyed Gordon not in anger, but warily. On guard. As if he didn’t know what it was Gordon would do or say to him next to hurt him more. Or at least that was what Gordon thought.
‘I need you back on the Hill to handle things for me there,’ Gordon said. ‘To take care of my office.’ Daryl’s eyes sagged shut — a wince of pain at Gordon’s words. ‘You will stay on, won’t you?’ Daryl was staring down at the three black television screens in the console opposite his seat. His eyes were unfocused. ‘Daryl, if we make it — if we get elected — I want you on my staff.’
‘Stop the car,’ Daryl said. He didn’t bother to look at Gordon. ‘You can do that without asking Fein, can’t you? You can stop the fucking car?’
‘Daryl…’
‘Stop the fucking car!’
‘Daryl, you’ve got to be reasonable. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.’ Gordon gestured out the window. The first low buildings — abandoned and boarded up — flew by on the way into the city. ‘I can’t just stop this whole motorcade and let you out.’
‘Gordon, if you have a single shred of humanity left in you — if you have one last ounce of friendship for me — you won’t make me get out of this car at a crowded campaign stop. You won’t make me see Fein or any of his people again. Jesus Christ, Gordon! Don’t you realize that I see now? That I realize they all knew? How long? How long ago did you decide to can me? I know what all those looks meant now. All those conversations that were stopped when I walked in. Why it was that I didn’t seem to know what was going on any more. Why I couldn’t get anybody to… to help me…’ He was losing it. ‘I stayed up till two a.m. last night making copies of the campaign budget figures. But when I put them in your chair before going to sleep on the sofa in my fucking office, I saw another folder there! It had this real pretty plastic cover. And when I looked inside, I find this new, revised budget that I hadn’t ever seen before!’