W. Griffin: Covert Warriors

“Guilty,” General McNab said.

The courier extended the clipboard for the addressee’s signature.

Captain Walsh snatched the Overnight envelope from the driver, handed it to the general, and then signed the receipt on the clipboard.

General McNab ripped open the strip at the top of the envelope and took from it an eight-by-ten-inch photograph.

“Oh, my!” he said, in a tone similar to what a grandmother would use when her cake batter slipped from her hands and splattered over her kitchen floor. “Oh, my!”

He handed the Overnight envelope to Captain Walsh.

“Hold that by its edges, Al,” he ordered. “Gloves would be better. It will probably be futile, but we will have tried.”

“Something wrong, General?” the FedEx courier asked.

“Nothing for which you could possibly be held responsible,” General McNab said. “And now, although I would rather face a thousand deaths, I must go treat with General Naylor.”

The courier looked confused.

Colonel Caruthers, who recognized the remark as a paraphrase of what Confederate general Robert E. Lee had said immediately before leaving his headquarters to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to Union general Ulysses S. Grant, failed to keep a smile off his face.

The courier started back to his delivery truck as General McNab walked toward Staff Sergeant Robert Nellis, who was standing by the open front passenger door.

“Bobby,” he said, “can you find Pope Air Force Base by yourself, or would you rather that I drive?”

“I’ll drive, General,” Sergeant Nellis said, smiling.

“It’s easy to recognize,” General McNab said as he slid onto the seat. “Just look for lots of airplanes and fat people in blue uniforms.”

Colonel Caruthers and Captain Walsh quickly got into the Suburban, and they drove down the driveway and turned right onto Reilly Road.

As the Suburban carrying General McNab pulled into one of the RESERVED FOR GENERAL OFFICERS parking spaces beside the Pope Air Force Base Operations building, the glass doors fronting on the tarmac opened and a half dozen Air Force officers, the senior among them a major general, came out and formed a three-line formation.

The major general stood in front. A major, wearing the silver cords of an aide-de-camp, took up a position two steps behind and one step to the left of him. The other four officers formed a line behind the aide-de-camp, according to rank, with a brigadier general to the left, then three full colonels. All stood with their hands folded in the small of their backs, in the position of parade rest.

“Seeing all that martial precision,” Lieutenant General McNab announced, “I am sorely tempted to go out there and give them a little close-order drill.”

His sergeant driver smiled. His aides-de-camp did not. They knew he was entirely capable of doing just that. Both were visibly relieved when McNab got out of the Suburban, walked to the corner of the building, and called, “Good morning, gentlemen. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

The major general turned toward him and saluted.

“Good morning, General,” he said, and then broke ranks to go to McNab and offer his hand.

“Would you care to bet if El Supremo will be on schedule?” McNab asked.

For an answer, the major general pointed down the runway, where a C-37A-the military version of the Gulfstream V-was about to touch down.

As the sleek twin-engine jet completed its landing roll, the Air Force major general trotted back to resume his position in front of his officers.

General McNab folded his arms on his chest.

The Gulfstream V was painted in gleaming white on top, and pale blue beneath. There was no reference to the U.S. Air Force in its markings, although it carried the star-and-bar insignia of a military aircraft on its engine nacelles. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA was lettered on the fuselage above the six windows. An American flag was painted on the vertical stabilizer.

The plane stopped on the tarmac, the whine of its engines died, and the stair door behind the cockpit windows unfolded. A tall, erect officer with four stars gleaming on the epaulets of his dress uniform nimbly came down them.

He was General Allan B. Naylor, whom-to his embarrassment-C. Harry Whelan had accurately described to Andy McClarren of Wolf News as the “most important general in the world.”

Whelan’s argument was that since the Chief of Staff of the Army no longer actually commands the Army-but rather administers it-and that since Naylor, as Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command directly commanded more Army and Marine troops, more Air Force airplanes, more Navy ships and aircraft, and more military assets in more places all around the world than any other officer, that made him the most important general in not only the Army, but the most important officer in uniform.

Even Andy McClarren, who had been the most watched news personality on television for ten years and counting-in large part because of his skill in being able to argue the opposite position of whatever position his guests took-couldn’t disagree with that.

General Naylor exchanged salutes with the Air Force major general, and then shook hands with him and all of the officers, and finally turned to General McNab, who saluted.

“Good morning, Bruce,” General Naylor said.

“Good morning, General,” McNab said. “And how are things on beautiful Tampa Bay?”

The United States Central Command headquarters was on MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida.

Generals Naylor and McNab had been classmates at the United States Military Academy at West Point. They hadn’t liked each other as cadets, and a number of encounters between them as they had risen in rank in their subsequent service had exacerbated that relationship.

General Naylor didn’t reply. Instead, with a smile, he motioned for McNab to board the Gulfstream. McNab, in turn, motioned for his aides-de-camp to get aboard. When they had done so, he followed them, and when he had done so, General Naylor followed him.

The stair door started to close as the engines started.

When the Gulfstream started to move, the Air Force general called his formation to attention and saluted. When the Gulfstream was on the taxiway, he turned to the brigadier general and softly commented, “That should be an interesting flight.”

The friction between Generals McNab and Naylor was well known to senior officers of all the armed forces, and it went beyond “Isn’t that interesting?” or “What a shame.”

The United States Special Operations Command was subordinate to the United States Central Command, and when, at about the same time, Naylor was about to be named Commander in Chief of CENTCOM and McNab to be commanding general of SPECOPSCOM, it was almost universally recognized as one of those rare situations that would see the best possible man assigned to both jobs.

It was also just about unanimously agreed that making “Scotty” McNab subordinate to Allan Naylor was going to be like throwing lighted matches into a barrel of gasoline.

General McNab took an aisle seat in the luxuriously furnished cabin. As General Naylor walked past him en route to the VIP section-two extra-large seats and a table behind the door to the cockpit, which could be curtained off from the rest of the passenger compartment-McNab held up his hand.

Naylor looked down at him.

McNab said: “General, before they start the in-flight movie, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

“You don’t need an invitation to ride in front, Bruce, and you know it,” Naylor said.

He gestured for McNab to follow him.

McNab rose, and gestured for Captain Walsh to follow him.

Reaching his seat, Naylor took it and then, when McNab had taken the opposing chair, asked, “What have you got?”