| Subject: ...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 26b, part one |
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TxJAG_b
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Date Posted: 13:14:56 05/07/09 Thu
In reply to:
TxJAG_b
's message, "...For Meritorious Service, Chapter 25d, part two - continued" on 16:25:09 01/08/09 Thu
…For Meritorious Service, Chapter 26b
A/N: We're down to the final parts. Get ready, set, go! :)
2320 Local
Shark Two [Mac’s Unit]
Somewhere Northwest of Mirbullah
Mac’s black ops unit was making good time through the dark semi-arid countryside. In less than an hour, they would be at their Objective Rally Point and ready to neutralize al-Sahood and the rest of his unit.
Or so Mac hoped.
Kayce had, for some unknown reason, moved to the bed of the Colonel’s truck and Corporal Logan had taken her place.
Mac was on her guard. Logan had been the most resistant to believing the Colonel about her true reason for being here. Whether it was Logan’s generally suspicious nature or something else, Mac couldn’t take a chance on her jeopardizing their operation.
She had to find out where Logan stood, once and for all.
The cab of the pickup seemed unusually quiet and claustrophobic. Even Don Burges who had been fairly quiet during the whole mission so far, found the need to talk.
“Hey Logan, how come you moved up front?”
“Got tired of riding in the back, Don. Wanted to sit up here with the Colonel for a while.” She gave Mac a smile that was anything but friendly.
“Logan, Corporal Danver’s *job* when she was sitting in your seat, was to keep an eye out for possible ambushes,” Mac said tersely, hoping to erase that haughty smirk from her face. “Do you think you can do that for me?”
“Oh yes ma’am.” The words sounded sincere, but the tone wasn’t. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Silence seeped back into the cab again. The clash of gears and the whine of the truck’s engine was all that was heard for a few moments. Then Logan cleared her throat.
“Ma’am? Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
The Marine Light Colonel didn’t like this situation, and as an officer, Mac could have put her off by saying this wasn’t the time for superfluous questions, but that might backfire and endanger the tenuous vote of confidence that the unit had given her.
“Sure Corporal,” Mac was sure there was unease in her voice. “Ask away.”
“Why did you say you were friends with Colonel Livingston?”
Mac tried to give her a confident chuckle. “That should be obvious Corporal; I thought you and this whole unit were on her side….”
Logan returned the Light Colonel’s words with a dry heartless laugh. “That’s rich, ma’am; we’ve been working with –were working with—Lieutenant Ebbits to get *the goods* on her.”
Mac was genuinely intrigued by her comment. “How long had he suspected her?”
Logan gave her a knowing smile. “Since Colonel Murphy’s death. Ol’ Big Ben -- sorry ma’am -- Colonel Murphy, he had suspected something was not right about Colonel Livingston. And when he, the Colonel, was killed, all his command staff and all the officers in the unit – except for a select few – were transferred out, or had ‘accidents’….”
The story Logan was telling Mac sounded like a tale from the Stalinist era in Russia when officers who didn’t pledge their allegiance to that dictator were arrested or even killed outright.
“Were these ‘accidents’ suspicious in nature, Corporal?”
Logan was warming to the subject. “Not at first, ma’am. Then Captain Pelletier called Lieutenant Ebbits in for ‘counseling’ one day. Ma’am, the Lieutenant was the best damn officer this unit ever had – for him to be called in for counseling sent a shock wave through the whole unit. It was only after the Captain was killed that the Lieutenant revealed to us what the Captain had suspected….”
“So the ‘counseling’ was just a ruse meant to give Pelletier a chance to talk with Lieutenant Ebbits alone?” The level of intrigue in this unit was positively Machiavellian.
“In a way, ma’am; the Lieutenant had been chafing under one of Darcy’s officer picks, Captain Lutz. The guy did everything to rub the Lieutenant the wrong way; Lutz seemed to get his rocks off on doing it too, ma’am.”
“Then one day the Lieutenant almost came to blows with Lutz,” Don added, “the Cap’n stepped in, told the Lieutenant he’d have to counsel him over this latest incident.”
So either this was a cleverly crafted tale by these two, or there was an active insurgency within Darcy’s realm.
“After he came back to the unit, the Lieutenant was a different man and Lutz? Well, he got transferred….”
Mac briefly wondered where Lutz might have been transferred to. But before she could ask the question, Logan continued.
“Then one night shortly after we arrived here, Ebbits took us out on a mission to find an insurgent hideout in the area. Turned out to be the only way, the Lieutenant said, he could get us ‘alone’ and reveal what the Cap’n had told him.”
“And what had he told the Lieutenant, Logan?”
“That Colonel Livingston was building a unit within a unit. There would be a shell of officers and enlisted who would report per the normal tables of organization and equipment, but the inner core would report only to her or one of her designated officers for ‘special missions’. She told him the Global War on Terror was wrong and that she was going to put a stop to this modern day Crusade.”
The words ‘modern day crusade’ struck the Light Colonel as sounding as if they’d come from a reporter on ZNN. But there could have been another reason for Darcy’s comments.
“She’s a conscientious objector?” In reality, Mac would have never guessed that with the way Darcy acted. Still, she could be one. Logan’s answer surprised and chilled her.
“No ma’am; she believes that Osama bin Laden is right and that the time has come to strike back at the West.” Logan paused for a moment to let this sink in. “She said 9/11 was a call to arms.”
Before Mac had a chance to digest this, Logan dropped another bombshell.
“The people she transfers out of her unit are loyal only to her and believe as she does. She’s had people transferred to every unit in the Corps, ma’am.”
Mac could scarcely believe what she was hearing. It was worse than she and Harm had thought--this was not just one dirty recon unit – Darcy was like an Ebola virus – rapidly infecting the entire Corps. Harm had been right about her all along….
But the Corporal couldn’t hear Mac’s internal thoughts. “…and those who didn’t measure up to Darcy’s standards, well, they aren’t around to discuss it.”
Mac thought back to all the deaths that had occurred since they’d arrived. Now they were beginning to make sense; in a medieval sort of way.
“Then you and the rest of your team arrived to prosecute those Cobra jockeys. It sent the Colonel and her cabal into overdrive, ma’am. When it looked like you and ‘Roger Ramjet’
--”
Mac was struck by this odd, and seemingly derogatory, nickname for Harm. “Roger Ramjet?”
“Begging your pardon ma’am; but to be fair, we gave all of you nicknames so we could better relay to Lieutenant Ebbits what was taking place at the court martial….”
Mac idly wondered for a moment just what her nickname was, but then thought better of it. “I’m sorry, I interrupted; you were about to say…”
“…when you and Roger-I mean, Commander Rabb--had your big falling out, it looked to Darcy and her bunch like they could co-opt you. Darcy had thought about bringing the Commander into her fold… She stopped for a long moment. Mac noticed that she seemed to taking note of the Light Colonel’s features. Then she nodded as if satisfied with what she found. “He does have a thing for pretty women, doesn’t he?”
It was rude, insubordinate but most importantly, to the point. For once Mac didn’t slip into officer mode, though she couldn’t help but look defensive and a little angry at her implication.
“He used to, for blonds,” she blurted out. She noticed that Don’s eyebrows were raised and that Corporal Logan looked momentarily shocked. She couldn’t stop the next word from coming out of her mouth either. “Why?”
“Um, well, that’s, er, that’s fairly academic, ma’am. She was going to bring him to her side. The Commander is actually lucky he’s up there and not down here with you. Because if he was, by now he’d either be all hers or like all the others – dead. That’s why we call her Witchy Woman.”
Mac remembered Logan’s first words to her just before the standoff. ‘You know the words to Witchy Woman, don’t you ma’am?’
She did. Mac had never thought such innocent sounding lyrics could take on so sinister an overtone.
*~*
Jenny Shepard had her service pistol out and on safety as she ran down the darkened street. As the senior NCIS liaison to Mossad in Lebanon, Jen been detailed to find out what they could about Samir al-Sahood’s Lebanese connections. When she had heard that JAG Corps Headquarters had been attacked, she knew that Leroy Jethro Gibbs would be right in the thick of it. That’s just the kind of person Gibbs was. He didn’t wait around for official orders. Kind of like her.
It had been Ziva David, her Mossad contact, who had suggested they talk to a Colonel in the Lebanese Army who had certain connections. They found the Colonel beheaded, sitting at his desk. Ziva had spotted someone leaving the building in a hurry, so they took off in pursuit.
Several shots fired in their general direction assured them that this person wasn’t just late for a meeting. He or she had panicked and was now trying desperately to get away from Ziva and Jenny.
Ziva’s lithe athletic strides had her slightly ahead of Jenny. Two more shots rang out, sending Officer David diving for the cover of a parked Toyota sedan. Jenny quickly joined her squatting behind the car.
Ziva’s eyes were shining with excitement. “It’s as you Americans say, ‘black as blight’, yes?”
Jenny gave her a wry grin. “That’s ‘black as night’, Ziva, and I can’t see him…or them…either, for that matter. Should we try to take them?”
That was a silly question to ask Mossad Agent Ziva David.
“Yes. I think we should use these parked cars as cover so we can get closer to where they are….”
Before Ziva could finish her sentence, Jenny Shepard leapt from their hiding place and headed toward the last position of their killer.
There was an idling panel van sitting several car lengths ahead of them. Jenny listened as hurried footsteps made their way to the van. The door opened, and someone got in.
Ziva was right behind Jenny as they stealthily made their way down the side of the parked cars toward the source of the gunfire. No other shots rang out in response to their movement.
In the back of Jenny’s mind she couldn’t help but recite Gibbs’ rules. Something about all this, as Gibbs would say, was ‘hinky’. Why was the van still idling – why hadn’t it moved away?
Jenny also missed the feel of her heavier Beretta 92F, but this Glock allowed her more carrying options. Plus, it had the same punch of her old pistol. If she ever got the chance, she’d have to tell Director Morrow that all agents should be using a Glock.
“You go left, I’ll go right…” whispered Jenny.
The NCIS Agent started to move, but just as she did the Israeli Special Agent grabbed her and shoved her down hard. Jenny was about to say something to her when the night turned into momentary daylight as the van blew apart.
As parts of the van continued to rain down all around them, Ziva hastily examined her partner. “Are you all right, Jenny!?”
“I’m fine,” grumbled Jennifer Shepard, urging Ziva to get off her. But she was irritated that their only lead in this case was now in pieces scattered up and down the street.
*~*
Using their Night Vision Goggles (NVGs) to navigate their vehicles, Commander May’s SEAL Team kept a considerable distance back from Colonel Livingston’s Black Ops unit.
“Don’t get too close, Petty Officer.” warned the Commander.
The goggles may have hidden Petty Officer Vickers’ eyes but not his wry smirk.
“Not a chance, sir. I’m like their night shadow.”
MCPO Coskill’s snort could be heard from the back seat. “Just make sure *the shadow* doesn’t accidentally bump into them, Vickers.”
“Aye sir.”
*~*
Ashton Briggs put the finishing touches on his ‘pep talk’ to his Marines. By now his attached LAV unit would be scouting the enemy positions and his unit would soon get underway for the assault on the insurgent positions (…in Mirbullah…no…no, north of there. C’mon Briggs, what’s wrong with you?)
The 36th MEU CO grabbed the bottle of pills Darcy had given him. (Maybe I’ll take a few more of these…)
The knock at his door was not unexpected. Probably it was the junior officers on his staff with some last minute concern.
Briggs stood. “Come.”
The door opened and a woman in a Polish army uniform came into the room.
“Sorry to bother you this late in your operation, Colonel.”
Briggs didn’t have the foggiest notion who this woman was, but he was a good bluffer. “You’re too late for that; you’re already in the door. What do you need, Colonel?”
Luisa Baranova was mildly surprised that Ashton Briggs didn’t seem to recognize who she was. True, they had only met in passing when she first came to Iraq shortly after the collapse of Saddam’s government, but she didn’t think she had made that little of an impression.
“I’ll come right to the point, Colonel,” she said briskly. “My GROM commandos can rendezvous with your Force Recon units and help them locate the insurgents. They are trained to deal with any contingency that might arise.”
Ashton sighed heavily. The last thing he needed was some allied officer with a chip on his/her shoulder trying to muscle in on his operation. “Look…Colonel…I…the United States Marine Corps appreciates Poland’s generous offer, but we have this situation under control….”
Luisa fought hard not to blow apart at the seams. This empty political posturing would get them nowhere. Lieutenant Colonel Baxter had been more appreciative of her offer. She exhaled and silently counted to ten before continuing to press her argument.
“Respectfully, sir; my country lent invaluable assistance to the Americans during the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom and we are very willing to continue to do so now. We will not, in any way, interfere with your operation. We want to help.”
It was very diplomatic and an overture that could hardly be turned down. But Ashton Briggs had made up his mind – this was going to be a Marine only operation. With some Navy help.
No ‘Coalition of the Willing’ would be involved in what he believed to be a private matter between his Marines and the insurgents.
“Colonel, I really appreciate your willingness to offer your special operation troops, but I assure you, my Force Recon people can take care of this. Even as we speak, they are infiltrating Samir al-Sahood’s stronghold north of here.”
Luisa had heard of Lieutenant Colonel Darcy Livingston. She was well known in the international Special Operations community for her daring exploits and her unit’s elan. But there were also rumors…disturbing rumors about her actions and her motivation. The current rumor was that United States Navy’s Wojskiowe Biuro Ledcze…JAG Corps for short, was clandestinely investigating her with regards to her involvement in the terrorist attack on the JAG CO’s Headquarters in Washington, DC. As fantastic as the accusation sounded, more and more indicators were pointing to her possible participation. Was Colonel Briggs just turning a blind eye to what was going on?
Maybe he still trusted her.
Maybe it was pride.
Or maybe it was something else.
The Polish contingent commander decided whatever the reason was it was best not to be so overt in her offer to help, she’d try a different tack.
“We’ll have al-Sahood in custody before sundown tonight,” Briggs said confidently and with a hint of a swagger.
She smiled. Luisa had always liked an officer who was proud of his unit and regarded it as family. “Well, there must be something we can do to help…I heard that your gunship unit is grounded pending a formal review. I could offer my gunship sect--”
Ashton Briggs gave her a slight smile, but shook his head. “Our aviation combat element is more than capable of handling whatever we run into. But, again, thank you for the offer.”
Luisa was not done yet. “We could temporarily take over policing duties here in Mirbullah, leaving the full force of your Expeditionary Unit free to participate--”
Again Briggs cut her off, but this time it was done more forcefully. “We don’t need our entire unit to be involved. Our reserve company can maintain security operations here--”
This time, Luisa cut him off. “At least let us provide some support to your units. I talked to your Colonel Baxter about--”
This time Briggs exploded. “This is a simple insurgent clearing operation, Colonel, similar to ones going on all across Iraq as we speak! I don’t want to go in there and start World War Three!”
Luisa was shocked into silence. They both stood there silently regarding each other for a few long, tense moments. Then Ashton seemed to realize that he had over-reacted.
“Look Colonel, I appreciate your wanting to help, but I simply can’t have you along, there are too many risks,” he said evasively. “Politically and militarily, it’s just not a good idea.”
Luisa Baranova gazed at the 36th MEU’s CO as if he had lost his mind. Then she smiled and nodded. “Okay, Colonel, I understand. But please do keep this in mind; if al-Sahood’s men are as deeply entrenched as I think they are, you’ll need more than us to help you dig them out!” The last bit almost came out as a snarl.
Ashton Briggs was done talking with Colonel Baranova. “As I said, Colonel, I believe we can handle this. I’m sure you can find your way out.”
And with that cold dismissal, Ashton sat down, put on his reading glasses and began going through the papers that were stacked neatly on his blotter.
“Thank you for your time, Colonel Briggs,” she turned smartly and exited his office, fighting the urge to shut his door with a resounding bang.
Sergeant Jenkins and Capitan Chirdorz stopped their conversation as the Polish officer got to his feet.
Despite her anger, Luisa managed a smile, and motioned to her aide that there wasn’t a need for him to come to attention. Jenkins though, still came to attention and saluted.
“Did the meeting go well ma’am?”
Colonel Baranova gave Briggs’ aide a weak half smile. “I’m afraid your Colonel is concerned our involvement might start a third world war.”
Sergeant Jenkins didn’t know what to say.
Stanislaus Chidorz tried to hide his shock at her statement.
As they started to leave the Polish Colonel muttered loud enough for Sergeant Jenkins to overhear her. “Who says World War Three hasn’t already started?”
(To be continued this evening...)
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