“Can we help you, sir?”
A pair of Navy MPs stood at the security gate, an iron turnstile in between them and Chase. There was a pair of US Marines about fifty feet further down, one with an M-60 on a tripod.
Chase took out his wallet and held up a US Department of State identification card. CIA protocol did not allow him to bring his US Navy-issued Department of Defense card.
“Good morning. My name is Chase Manning. Would you be able to call the Truman’s duty officer and let them know that I’m here? I believe that they’ll be expecting me.” It was easier to leave out the fact that he was an officer than explain why a Navy reservist had a State Department ID card. Well, you see boys, I’m kind of a super-secret agent…
The MP looked over at his companion, who nodded. Then they waited in the sweltering heat. The gate guards were chugging water every few minutes.
Chase thought about what he had learned in the past day. Could David really be giving secrets to the Iranians? Or to whoever was on Abu Musa? And just who was this group on Abu Musa that the Iranians were too scared of to get rid of themselves?
Chase was partly ashamed of himself that he hadn’t called his brother. He felt wracked with guilt for not warning David, but his duty came first. Even so, it didn’t make any sense that David would be involved in something like that. Chase needed to think about what to do before taking any action that could be irreversible. He told himself that this would all get cleared up.
Chase’s brother David was a family man. He lived in the suburbs of Northern VA. He had a mechanical engineering degree from the Naval Academy and worked as an analyst for new information technology and systems. That sounded boring to an operator like Chase, but the subject of David’s analysis was often anything but. He worked for In-Q-Tel, a firm that invested in technology that the defense and intelligence community was interested in developing for their use. It was essentially the CIA’s venture capital firm.
Chase missed David and wished that he could see more of him. He also needed to see his two nieces more often. Hell — not to mention visiting his sister and father. Life always seemed to get in the way. But unlike David, Chase’s sister and father were more like him. They were deeply invested in their careers of service to their country. Careers that often took them overseas.
Their older sister, Victoria, was a Navy helicopter pilot stationed in Jacksonville, Florida. Chase thought he remembered that she would be going on deployment soon. He wasn’t completely sure, but he thought that she had picked up some good-deal Eastern Pacific cruise, although it might not seem like a good deal to her. She would want to be where the action was. She would want to be here, in the Middle East. Providing air cover for aircraft carriers as they transited through the Straits of Hormuz. He should send her an email to check in.
Staying up to date on his family’s status had been easier when their mother was alive. She had been the hub of the wheel. The one that kept everyone else in the know, and smiling.
Her passing had brought the siblings closer for a while. The emails were a bit more frequent. The phone calls to his brother and sister, while still seldom in number, were much more meaningful in content. But that wore off. Once again, it was getting harder to stay in touch. Especially for Chase.
He could never really say what he was doing. His siblings didn’t really even know that he now worked for the CIA. They thought that he was with a Department of State security team. His story to them was that he protected VIPs. His father pretended he didn’t know about the job, but Admiral Manning was an old friend of Elliot Jackson’s, the Dubai Station chief, so he probably knew. Elliot had been the one that recruited Chase from the SEALs, and subsequently got him stationed in the Dubai area of operations.
The last time Chase really spent time with his family was on leave for their mother’s funeral. That leave coincided with Chase’s completion of his training at the CIA’s various schools for its Special Operations Group assets. Chase spent that time in the D.C. area — mostly with his brother David and his family.
Athletics and working out always came naturally to Chase and Victoria. But David had been more of the bookworm. After their mother’s passing, however, David was struggling pretty hard. Chase had always used running as a way to meditate and de-stress. He hoped that encouraging the habit would help his brother, and by all accounts it had. Chase had helped train David for his first road race, and took pride in his brother’s increasing interest and success with triathlons.
Chase had fond memories of that month with David and his family. He was a good brother and a loyal patriot. He had also gone to the Naval Academy, although he was honorably discharged from the Navy for medical reasons. Chase found it inconceivable that David would betray his country. There had to be more to the story.
Chase was stirred out of his reminiscing by an approaching US Navy commander. The man, who wore the digital blue camouflage uniform with a silver oak leaf on the front of his cover, walked up to the gate. He had a Surface Warfare insignia pin on his chest and looked to be about as happy as one would expect after pulling duty on a day when his ship had just pulled in to port near Dubai.
“Are you Chase Manning?”
“I am.”
“Petty Officer, please log him in as my guest and get him a pass. I’ll escort him.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he and the Commander walked, Chase looked up at the carrier. He had been on board an aircraft carrier several times during his days as a SEAL. They were floating cities. Five thousand people, living on top of each other for nine months at a time. The galleys had to cook food almost around the clock. One whole deck of the ship was reserved for cooking and eating. Grown men and women in triple bunks, with only a few inches of space between each other where they slept. A small locker for all one’s belongings. Almost zero privacy. Waiting in line to use the bathroom or a treadmill. The deafening sound of jets launching and recovering all day and night. That was life on a carrier.
He could see the three 20mm Phalanx Close-In Weapons System mounts. They looked like R2-D2 with an enormous Gatling gun protruding out. They were used as a last resort for shooting down inbound missiles. Deep in the hull, there were two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors on board, and the ship could steam more than three million miles before refueling.
They walked up the gangway stairs, climbing thirty feet or so just to get high enough to walk across. The Commander looked back at him and said, “So when did you get in to Dubai?”
Chase said, “Just recently.” No need to elaborate. The Commander likely thought that he was a civilian.
“Well, it sure was nice of you to make it out,” he said. “Given the circumstances.”
Chase didn’t reply.
They climbed up aluminum stairs to reach the gangway. Just before crossing the gangway to the hangar deck, the Commander halted, turned, and saluted the flag. He then returned the salute of the armed enlisted man waiting to check both of their IDs as they came aboard. The petty officer gave the Commander a funny look when he saw Chase’s ID, but the Commander told him that it was okay.
Chase continued following the Commander as they went through throngs of men and women who were waiting in line to leave the ship on their much-deserved liberty. They came to a large grey steel hatch and twisted open a two-foot steel bar to unlatch it. They entered through it, closed and locked it, then climbed into a vertical shaft with ladders up going all the way up and down the ship. Chase was already several steps behind. Carriers were a maze if you didn’t know where you were going. The Commander was half-walking, half-climbing up the ladder well.