“But I need to talk to the President right away,” Pruett persisted. “You know as much as I do of the urgency of the situation.”
“I repeat,” Carlton Stice responded. “The President is tied up with the Middle East situation at the moment and cannot be reached. He left me in charge of the operation and I’m telling you to stay put. The target has been destroyed and we’re currently evaluating the situation to decide on the proper course of action.”
“Who is evaluating the situation, sir? Who are the analysts? How are they evaluating the problem? How can they know more than the pilot from the rescue helicopter? How? We sent those men out there, sir. We have a moral duty to—”
“I’m telling you to stay put until a decision is made! Is that understood?”
Pruett vigorously rubbed the palm of his right hand against his burning chest. He felt like strangling the little bastard with his bare hands. He was about to say something but the professional in him slammed his jaw shut. Telling Stice what was on his mind would be the fastest way to terminate his career, and it wouldn’t do those men out there any good. He breathed in and out several times, forcing his body to relax.
“Are you there, Tom?”
“Yes, sir,” he managed to respond by merely moving his lips.
“Well? You with me?”
“I’m always with the President and his decisions, sir.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
“Sir? If you don’t mind me asking. What is your time frame to respond on this issue?”
“You’ll hear from us in due time. In the meantime, stay put. Do not do anything!”
The line went dead. Pruett calmly hung up and reached into his right pocket for the antacid tablets. He popped two in his mouth, thought about it, and popped one more. He crushed them hard and fast as he walked outside the communications room, where Cameron and Marie waited.
“You okay?” asked Cameron.
“No, Cameron. I’m pretty fucking far from okay.” Pruett couldn’t believe the bad luck that always seemed to haunt him. No matter which Administration was in charge of the White House, he had always been able to explain his point of view to the President and most of his staff. But there were always some high-ranking persons who never saw it his way and seemed to enjoy messing up his plans. And now as too often before, it was one of those bureaucrats whom the President had left in charge. A moron who was obviously more concerned about saving face than about the lives of American soldiers in enemy territory.
“Why?” Marie asked. “What happened?”
“Stice put a hold on the operation.”
“What?” snapped Cameron.
“You heard me.”
“But — but there must be something you can do,” Marie said. “That place is nothing but swamps. No human can survive in there for long.”
Pruett pinched his upper lip with his teeth. There has to be a way.
Marie looked at Cameron. “There has to be a way. We can’t simply turn our backs on them, can we?”
Pruett did a double take on Marie, then said, “You two follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Cameron asked.
“To have a word with General Olson.”
Suffering from an overwhelming headache, Ortiz took the lead through the swamp. He waited patiently for the two additional extra-strength Tylenol he’d taken a half hour earlier to kick in. Zimmer followed close behind, Colt Commando up and ready. Nobody was going to mess with them, and if the enemy did, Ortiz was committed to take out as many of them as he could before he went down. Yes, the enemy might have more men and arms, but they lacked the skill. And they lacked the element of surprise. The enemy would have to come looking for Mambo, and when they did, they would pay dearly.
Thick, hardened mud covered his face and neck, cooling the multiple cuts and scrapes left after the removal of the annoying leeches. They didn’t hurt anymore. He had overcome the pain as he had overcome the deep burning in his legs from the non-stop retreat. Ortiz pushed on, glancing back briefly at Zimmer, also naturally camouflaged by thick, smelly mud. Neither wore night goggles any longer. Ortiz and Zimmer had opted to bury them in the swamp when their batteries died, along with all the other gear — and bodies — they could find. They’d selected specific landmarks as references, and decided that the possibility of bodies shifting was minimal based on the thickness of the swamp. Theirs was a covert mission, and they were to leave no sign of their country of origin. No traceable evidence that the enemy could use to embarrass their nation.
Ortiz looked up at the sky and contemplated the stars. He used them to move northwest, back toward the easily defendable clearing, surrounded with thick jungle, at the edge of the swamp. The jungle would give them the mobility and protection they so desperately needed to survive what he expected would be an overpowering attack. In the jungle they would be safe, but they had to reach it before dawn. Their chances of survival during daytime in the swamp were negligible. In the large clearings between clusters of trees they would be openly exposed to the enemy.
No, Ortiz decided. They had to push themselves. There was no other choice, no other way. He kicked even harder with renewed determination, closing the gap between themselves and the safety of the jungle.
“You mean to tell me he called you already?” Pruett asked in sheer disbelief. Stice had not only stopped the rescue, but had already contacted Olson and had the entire operation cancelled. Cancelled? Is Stice out of his fucking mind? And why would Stice deliberately lie to him about “calling him back later”? Was that just a ploy to keep Pruett quiet until it was too late to do anything about it?
“He called less than twenty minutes ago, Mr. Pruett,” responded a very sleepy Olson as he rubbed his eyes. “He called the operation a success and asked me to write personal letters to the families involved. He said that Mambo had shown what heroes were made of.”
“And you buy that crap, General?”
Olson grunted. “Not for a second.”
“You know as well as I do that there are a few of Mambo’s men out there right now, if not more than a few. Obviously without means of directly communicating with us, but they’re out there. Probably waiting and wondering where in the hell we are. Are you going to tell me that you’re just gonna sit there and do nothing?”
Olson’s face hardened. Pruett knew Olson’s reputation as a fair officer. The rumor was that he’d single-handedly dragged two wounded soldiers out of an ambush and into a rescue helicopter during the Korean conflict, a heroic act that had made him popular among the troops and dramatically boosted his career. Pruett knew Olson had to care about his people, but he was still a soldier, and as such he was compelled to obey his superiors, even during times when he probably strongly disagreed with them. Pruett was banking on the chance this was one such time, that Olson disagreed with the order but had no choice since it had come directly from the Defense Secretary.
“Have you any — any fucking idea what it feels like to lose a soldier? Have you?”
Pruett stared him in the eye for a few moments. “I was never in the military, General, but I have lost many good field agents. I think the feeling is similar. It eats you up from inside. You feel that you have failed them. That if somehow you had planned things better, they would still be alive. Yes, General. I’ve been there many times, and it stinks. But in this case it doesn’t have to stink all the way. There’s still time to do something about it. Do something about those men stranded in Guiana… stranded in that hell.”
Olson studied him at length. Pruett knew the old general was weighing the odds. He had obviously dedicated his entire life to the Armed Forces, and was not about to throw it all away on an impulsive move, a spur-of-the-moment decision arrived at from an emotional instead of logical perspective.