The House of War: Book One Of : THE OMEGA CRUSADE (16 page)

Through the decades, Earl found his job becoming more difficult as more oversight was piled on, bureaucratic layer atop bean-counting, bureaucratic layer. It became increasingly hard to fulfill missions without committing lies of omission and he slowly grew to resent hiding the ugly but necessary truths of the work from his new, sanctimonious bosses. Recommendations from boots on the ground were summarily dismissed as extreme or politically risky by desk-jock analysts with inordinate regard for world opinion.

It did not matter what party was running things. Clinton and his Democrats passed up more than one opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden long before his fateful attack on the homeland. In the tragedy of Bush’s War on Terror that followed September 11, American treasure and blood was squandered tip-toeing around mosques that the enemy would later destroy. Men like Zarquarwi, Muqtada Al Sadr and others who were cornered in arms-stacked mosques during the early days of the war were allowed to escape with their arsenals in an effort to win political appeasement from those who would never grant it.

Al Sadr and the others would then return to the field and bite coalition forces in the ass.

The last straw for Earl Forrester was the government’s refusal to allow an attack on a gathering of some eighty Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. It was the summer of 2006. An unmanned, aerial drone confirmed reports that the group of leaders and their lieutenants were gathered to bury one of their own. The pictures the drone sent back was of a target as rich as any the war ever presented them with. As protocol demanded, they requested permission to drop
the drone’s Hellfire missile on the group. Earl could not believe his ears when the response came back.

“Permission denied.”

It was insanity. Pure insanity, Forrester thought. Washington was concerned the attack would upset surrounding tribal leaders, complicating the job of Afghanistan’s new president. It was crazy and no way to fight a war. It certainly wasn’t Forrester’s way.

Earl handed in his resignation the very next day.

He returned home to Nevada and for a while he was glad to have left that life behind. He was grateful that he got to spend the last three years of his wife’s life with her. After she died however, the restlessness that had driven him all his life stirred anew. He wanted back into the life but couldn’t imagine being able to stomach the political climate evolving in Washington. The politicians, like the talking heads on the news, argued about the best way to end the war. No one was talking about winning it. It was Vietnam all over again. The shame and anger he felt during the evacuation of Saigon revisited him as bitterness and resentment as he watched the mayhem and massacre brought on by the failed partitioning of Iraq. The newly formed Department of Peace and the war crime trials they held made him all but lose hope in his country.

And then he was introduced to Colonel Miguel Pereira.

It was in Chicago. Earl went every year to meet with his old comrades from the Green Berets. They first gathered there to bury their company leader in 2000. Over the years they returned to catch a Cubs game and eat and drink into the night. They would use the short visits to the windy city to fill each other in on their lives. They would boast about their wives and children, gripe about their jobs; and, while they rarely talked about the war that brought them all together, they would always reminisce over those whose lives had been lost to it. As the years passed, their numbers dwindled. In 2014 when their old corpsman, Lester Dolby brought Colonel Pereira along to their gathering, there were only eleven members left of the original twenty four of their ‘survivors club.’

They were all taken aback by his visit. It was the unspoken rule of the group that no outsider was ever invited. They all knew of the man, they knew his reputation and his record. They had all seen his fiery confrontation with the Senate in 2010 and followed the headlines and investigations until the end of the shameless trial. To a man, though only Dolby knew him personally, they
had nothing but admiration for the Colonel. He did not serve with them in Vietnam, but he was immediately welcomed at their table.

For the next three days Colonel Pereira confided in them. He detailed his plans to them, all that had been done so far and all that was yet to be done. Earl Forrester was fascinated. They all were. The Colonel was advocating nothing less than what Earl himself would wish for the country to which he had given so much of his life. Others of course would not see it that way, particularly those in power.

It was Dolby himself who voiced what they were all thinking.

“They will call it treason, you know?”

“Of course they will,” Pereira responded. “And it doesn’t matter. We will no longer let them define us. Let them call it treason. We will call it revolution.”

The memory of that meeting is still charged with emotion for Earl. They were in Smith & Wollensky plotting a coup d’etat over porterhouses and baked potatoes, their conspirators’ conniving lost in the cacophony of a Chicago Cubs post-game dinner rush.

“The country is rightfully ours, gentlemen,” Pereira continued. “It’s purchased for us by our sacrifice and the blood of our fallen comrades. We are the first to fight and die for it. We are also the first to be betrayed and reviled by our leaders. They give us missions and then tie our hands. When the missions fail, it is we who are blamed and we who are defamed.”

Miguel Pereira paused to look from one Vietnam veteran to the other.

“You all know full well what they call us,” the Colonel said. “You all know very well how they treat returning soldiers. And I say, to hell with them. I say, let’s take our country back.”

He raised a glass to them.

Eleven glasses rose in toast with the Colonel’s.

Shortly after that, at Pereira’s prompting, Earl Forrester returned to government. The Colonel assured him that he would arrange his appointment as Chief of Homeland Security. While it was a job that he was more than qualified for, it was not one he would have sought out himself. There was entirely too much politics in it for his taste. Once the Senate confirmed him, Earl delegated as many of the public duties as he could to an assistant and threw himself into the fight against the rising wave of terrorism in America.

It was not easy. President Pelosi lost the country years of vital intelligence gathering when she scrapped a whole slew of surveillance programs. Civil
libertarians and pandering politicians further complicated the job, obstructing his every effort while, through the benefit of a suicidal double-standard, jihadist imams and Wahabist madrassas freely preached their nihilism under the protection of free speech.

Still, it was a means to an end, an end that was quickly coming to pass.

“We’re almost there sir,” Forrester’s driver announces softly.

Earl opens his eyes and snaps back to the present. We’re almost there, indeed, he thinks. He looks out the window. Langley’s CIA headquarters is out there, round the next bend in the road. Carlton Quinn is being held within its walls.

Forrester’s first job for the new administration will be an extraction.

22:00:00

“What now?” Major Kettering asks, knowing he will not like the answer.

“Sir, we’ve lost contact with our planes.”

“How?”

“I… I don’t know… We’ve just lost everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“The airwaves are being jammed… All of them… there’s nothing but static… nothing but static on every frequency.”

“Where’s the jamming coming from?”

“It’s coming from space, Major,” Levine answers. “They’re using our own satellites against us.”

21:58:21

Joseph Corelli is certain they will wreck and he will die in a crush of glass and twisted metal. He digs his nails into the leather headrest of the driver’s side back seat with one hand and grips the handle over the window with the other. It is all he can do to keep from being tossed around the back of Lamar’s Mercedes as the congressman snakes through traffic after the presidential chopper. The light, Christmas Eve traffic offers little comfort against Reed’s driving. No one in the car is talking. They are all trying to get their heads around what is happening. Joe doesn’t know why the congressman suddenly decided to chase after Marine One instead of driving to the NSA, but Joe isn’t about to bother him with questions.

The helicopter descends for a landing ahead of them. Joe can see the presidential limo stopped before it. Two tank-like Hummer Mark VII’s flank the limousine. Their machine gun turrets turn slowly, one clockwise, the other counter-clockwise, looking for threats. Marine One touches down on the median. Its door opens and the short, boarding ladder folds out. Two marines jump out with automatic weapons drawn. Secret Servicemen pour out of the Hummers and take defensive positions around the limo and the chopper. The door of the limousine opens and more agents step out onto the median. The President is the last one out.

Lamar hits the brakes and brings the car to a stop on the shoulder, some thirty yards from the site. He steps out and Annie follows him as he runs to the scene. Joe is squeezing himself out of the back seat when one of the agents on the perimeter fires off a volley of gunfire over their heads. The burst frightens Joe. He loses his balance and falls to the ground. Lamar and Annie stop cold. The congressman raises his hands and continues forward at a walk. Annie stays put as the Secret Serviceman steps forward to intercept Lamar.

Corelli can’t make out their conversation over the distance and the sounds of traffic and of Marine One’s rotors. After conferring with his superiors over his mike, the agent waves Lamar forward. Annie follows and Joe gets to his feet and runs to catch up to them. The President is already climbing aboard. After a quick frisking which parts Annie from her gun, the three are hurried inside the chopper.

Marine One lifts off immediately. Joe makes his way to the back of the cabin. His movements are slow and awkward fighting the downward drag of g-forces created by the helicopter’s rapid climb through the atmosphere. He has never been in such close proximity to the President. He certainly never expected to ride with him in Marine One. Under different circumstances he would have enjoyed the experience. There is no time for that now. Before he is settled in his seat, an explosion, far to the north, lights up the night sky.

“What the!?!” he cries.

Looking out one of the starboard windows of the helicopter, Joe can briefly make out three large chunks of what appear to be a commuter jet plummeting through the sky like burning meteors. He has no time to wonder how many lives might have been instantly incinerated over the waters of Chesapeake Bay. None of them do. The air in the cabin seems to thin suddenly. They look at
each other and Joe sees the same mix of panic and dizziness in everyone’s eyes. Corelli feels himself reeling towards unconsciousness. He tastes tin on the back of his throat. The realization hits them all at the same time.

They are being gassed.

With his breath held, Joe takes off his jacket and covers up his mouth and nose. Up front, Lamar and Gallagher begin pounding on the door between cabin and cockpit. The two female agents seated across the aisle from Joe are the first to fall unconscious. Their heads knock together as they collapse into each other. The agent sitting by the President pulls down an oxygen mask and puts it over O’Neill’s face with some effort. The President takes a deep breath through the mask. His eyes cross and then shut. His seat belt keeps him from folding over and falling. The agent attending him drops next, collapsing at the President’s feet. Annie follows, folding sideways over her seat’s armrest. Lamar and Gallagher kick at the door, their strength quickly waning with each effort. Congressman Reed drops first. Morton gets in one more futile kick before he too falls against the door, slides to the floor, and lands with his head on the congressman’s lap.

The lights of DC dwindle in the distance outside of Joe Corelli’s window as his own body finally succumbs to sleep.

2

The Church Militant

“What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms!”

--- Thomas Jefferson

Joe Corelli wakes up with a start. It takes a moment to realize that he is in his Harlem apartment and not still in the replica of Marine One. The kidnapping and hell ride aboard the mock Presidential copter was twelve years ago. He was only dreaming. And that meant that he fell asleep. He looks up to see that the night has deepened outside his living room’s bow windows. The laptop’s chronometer reads 10:09 p.m.

Nearly four hours have slipped passed.

Damn it, he thinks. And yet, he is not entirely sorry that he fell asleep. He needed the rest. He rubs what soreness he can out of his neck while he listens to light footfalls from the street beneath his apartment. Joe rises from his seat and walks to his windows, careful to approach them from the side.

He peers through the slit in the curtains and looks down on old Mr. Crowley, his landlord and occasional dominoes partner. The dark, bald crown of his head reflects the street lamps milky light. Crowley is climbing the stoop to the
brownstone across the street, a pair of grocery bags in each hand. At his door, Crowley shifts the bags in his right hand to the left one and fishes a set of keys out of his pants’ pocket. Corelli wants to call out to him, maybe invite himself over. The old man would be agreeable, he knows. Crowley is a widower who complains of being visited too infrequently by his own kids. Joe knows the old man would prefer his company over the television he falls to sleep with every night. Tonight, however is not a night for playing dominoes. Joe and the old man would have to talk about the destruction of Santa Fe, the death of Miguel Pereira and the standoff between the two factions of the military. It is, no doubt, what everyone is talking about tonight, holed up in their homes. The country and the world are holding their collective breath as America teeters, once more, on the precipice of civil war.