Jack Coughlin - Running the Maze

Swanson ran closer and called, “Twenty meters straight ahead. Into that ditch.” He watched as she jumped into the depression feet first; then he did the same and immediately rolled back over to see if anyone was chasing them. At least, they were no longer alone. The F-35’s two passes, plus the Cobra that was now nibbling around the LZ, had been more than enough to warn off the attackers, but he would not take that chance. Whoever had been smart enough to penetrate deep into a Marine base might still be lurking around up there, or worse, still following them.

There was a roaring growl behind him, and a Humvee came bursting up a nearby dirt road. Kyle ducked down again. Good guys or bad? Probably good, but maybe not. The powerful vehicle continued charging toward the LZ.

He clicked his radio and raised the tower again, which acknowledged the call and transferred it to the commander of the Quick Reaction Force. The QRF was only a minute out, and Kyle could hear the rotors of their helicopter. Beth Ledford raised her head, and he shoved her back. “Stay put,” he ordered.

After receiving the new coordinates, the helo changed course and slowed until it was directly overhead. Then it came to a hover and Marines were coming out of the bird, sliding down thick ropes, landing on the narrow road. Weapons ready, they automatically formed a perimeter, and a sergeant major was barking orders. A captain in full battle gear walked over to the ditch in which Kyle and Beth had taken shelter, his pistol drawn.

“You Gunny Swanson?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, panting and out of breath. “This is Petty Officer Ledford.”

“Sir,” she said. Beth struggled upright. Her face and hands were bleeding from scratches from the dash through the pine forest.

“What the hell is going on?” asked the captain.

“Don’t know, sir. It’s a complicated national security matter that I’ll explain later, but we need to get Petty Officer Ledford to a secure location ASAP. Alert your people that this is no drill. A helicopter has been blown out of the sky by a SAM, there is a terrorist shooter running loose around here, and she’s the target.”

“OK. Both of you stay in that ditch until we get a medevac chopper in here and a gunship to fly cover.” The captain sent ten men up to comb the LZ and pulled the rest of his force into a tight circle around Swanson and Ledford. He looked over at Swanson. “Terrorists? At Quantico? They’ll never make it off the base alive.”

Kyle said, “They made it in okay. They have some plan for egress, and a Humvee just went tearing past us, heading up the road. My guess is it was their ride. Your QRF is dealing with professionals.”

THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN-ISLAMIC Affairs was less than two years old, a new bureaucracy within the U.S. Department of State, with the onerous portfolio of trying to chart a stable diplomatic course in the fractious Muslim world. Career workers who were specialists in the field had been culled from other sections to take up duties in a heavily guarded and secure office complex outside of the Washington Beltway, but the heartbeat of the bureau was a remodeled three-story Victorian building at Thirty-fourth Street and Massachusetts Avenue NW, on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory. In that ornate building, Arab princes and Persian potentates and the bewildering array of leaders in the volatile Muslim world were welcomed and entertained almost on a daily basis. In its short existence, the mansion had become an important back door to power.

From his lavish office on the third floor, Undersecretary William Lloyd Curtis could look over the treetops and see the groomed front of One Observatory Circle, the stately official home of the vice president of the United States. While the White House was the most visible point of government in Washington, hardly anyone even knew where the vice president lived. It was therefore easy to arrange private sessions between Muslim leaders and U.S. government officials without drawing undue attention. The American representatives would say they were visiting the home of the vice president; the Muslim representatives would declare they were in private meetings with Undersecretary Curtis. In reality, they could all be in a secure conference room on the second floor of the BAIA.

Curtis was a tall and broad-chested man who wore tailored suits that were obviously cut from cloth rich enough to denote private wealth, as did the patrician Massachusetts accent. Deep gray eyes matched the thick brows and carefully barbered hair that was thinning but was still full for a sixty-year-old. A closer look at the calm face would show hard lines that had been etched at the corners of his eyes from staring into the desert sun too much. His scarred hands also gave away his true past, for although the nails were manicured, the fingers were gnarled and the palms hardened from decades of working in oil patches and construction projects all over the world. His nose had been broken several times, leaving it with a curious bent shape that added to his look of experience. Bill Curtis had grown from being a mining engineer to becoming a one-man equipment hauler and eventually to creating Curtis Construction, a multinational corporation.

By the time Bill Curtis decided to retire from the business, he had contacts all over the globe and was friends with most of the powerful men in the Middle East. Those contacts, and his easy ability to juggle business, political, and personal favors, had led to him becoming the American ambassador to Kuwait, and then he was given the plum prize of Egypt.

Curtis was there to steer U.S. interests when Egypt fell apart under the tidal wave of revolutionary upheaval that was beginning to sweep through the Muslim world, and the old regimes toppled and fell so rapidly that it was often difficult to determine which side the American government should support. There were no good options in some of the uprisings.

The overwhelmed State Department decided to bring the entire troubled region beneath one tent, so it created the BAIA, and Big Bill Curtis was deemed uniquely qualified to be its leader. The paint was hardly dry on the walls of the new offices when the American SEALs staged the assault in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden and created a leadership vacuum in the terrorist world. The charming and tough Curtis was the man who would have to ride the tiger of Arab revolution, and he was more than happy to do so, for he had spent several years pushing the idea that bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization had become obsolete.

For more than a decade, since the attacks of 9/11, there had been the feeling that bin Laden and al Qaeda were in charge of the entire Muslim revolution, for he had struck the biggest blow ever against the Great Satan. The Saudi was revered for that, but almost before American sailors wrapped his body in a white sheet and dumped him overboard from an aircraft carrier, internal bickering erupted within the terrorist community over who would carry that violent legacy forward. Bin Laden’s old friend Mullah Omar was too worried about being the next on the list for Seal Team Six to step forward. The egocentric Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq spoke loudly, but no one listened to him. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri from Egypt inherited the official role as head of al Qaeda but could not control it. Even an American Muslim cleric in Yemen derisively known as the “big-headed little man” due to his likeness to the cartoon character Charlie Brown made a pathetic attempt to be seen as the ultimate leader. The Palestinians were never even in the game.

Curtis felt that Osama bin Laden’s death marked the passing of the flag. Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the inevitable lone wolf terrorists were scrambling for wider pieces of the pie and their own agendas, but none was succeeding, and he blocked them all whenever possible. Iran bankrolled revolution but cared only for itself. The only real success was being shown by the New Muslim Order and its leader, Commander Kahn. Bill Curtis had long ago decided that Kahn was to be the one and used his position as undersecretary to nudge things in the proper direction. He had a dog in the fight. The Commander was no stupid outlaw but a friend and ally from years gone by.