“What in the hell is Mike Nance doing here?” asked O’Rourke. “I have no idea,” said
Coleman as he peered back toward the cliff to see what the guard and dog were doing.
“Are you sure it’s him?”
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“Yes.” O’Rourke continued to stare at the two men standing on the veranda. “Augie told me that Stansfield ordered Arthur to cease all dealings with his contacts from the intelligence community.”
“Well, he’s obviously ignoring the order.”
Coleman pulled his mike back down in front of his mouth. “All right, everybody, this is Zeus, listen up. We are going to wait until these two finish their cigars, and then, hopefully, they’ll go back inside and the guard by the cliff will head back up to the main house. Then we will finish our recon and head back to the boat. Until then, we sit tight. I
don’t want them to have any idea we were here, over.” Irene Kennedy was having a difficult time staying awake. The human body needs more than two hours of sleep in a day. Kennedy had only slept two hours in the last three days, and her body was about to shut down.
She was sitting in the midst of stacks of green personnel dossiers.
Ninety-four to be exact. Kennedy was methodically picking through each file, reading every boring line of black print. Military personnel dossiers were not intriguing reading.
Kennedy had already read fifty-two of the files and was coming to the realization that she would not finish tonight. It was almost 11 P.M and her ability to analyze the tedious information was diminishing. She decided to read two more files and call it a night, leaving herself an even forty to finish in the morning. She was impressed with the job that Naval Intelligence had done in keeping tabs on their former SEALS. Even the CIA
was interested. Kennedy had found five SEALS who were now on the CIA payroll. The files didn’t say they worked for the CIA. Kennedy recognized their employers as companies that were either fronts for the Agency or companies that did a lot of work for the Agency. Kennedy opened the next file and looked down at a picture of Scott
Coleman.
Beneath the photo was his date of discharge. A little over a year ago.
She continued reading the file, noticing nothing unusual. Any one of the ninety-four files alone would be impressive, but after reading fifty of them they all kind of blended together, and the superhuman feats these men performed started to seem normal.
Kennedy noticed that Coleman’s IQ was near the genius level. Flipping to the last several pages, Kennedy read a list of covert missions that Coleman had participated in. It was long and impressive, starting in the early eighties and finishing about a year and a half ago. The missions were all listed by code names. Because of Kennedy’s security clearance and her background in terrorism, she recognized almost half of the missions.
She got to the last mission Coleman had participated in, and an empty feeling crept into her stomach. The code name for the mission was Operation Snatch Back. Snatch
Back was something few people knew about, and something that no one wanted to talk about. The only thing listed after Operation Snatch Back was Coleman’s date of discharge.
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Next to the date, in parenthesis, was the comment “Early discharge granted.”
“I haven’t seen one of those yet,” Kennedy commented to herself. As her curiosity grew, Kennedy felt less tired. She flipped to the last page and found that Coleman was living in Adams Morgan and had started a company called SEAL Demolition and
Salvage Corporation. Kennedy immediately wondered who the other employees of the
SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation might be. Grabbing the file, Kennedy stood and walked briskly down the hall toward General Heaney’s office. A young ensign was the only person left in the main office area. “Is the general still in?” asked Kennedy. “Dr.
Kennedy, he said good-bye to you almost three hours ago …. Remember, he said he’d be back at zero six hundred.” Kennedy frowned. “Damn it.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use some sleep.”
Kennedy shook her head and looked down at the file. She stood there for a moment trying to figure out what to do next. “Is there anything I could help you with, ma’am?”
Kennedy looked at the young officer and was about to ask him what his security clearance was and then thought better. At his age and rank there was no way he was cleared to discuss this information. “No… thank you for offering though.” The paper-thin
Kennedy turned to walk away and then stopped.
“Ensign, how unusual is it to get an early discharge when you’re in the Special
Forces?”
“It’s not that unusual. We have guys blowing out knees every other week.
We get at least one broken back a year, and a whole lot of other injuries. A lot of these knee injuries take a year to rehab, so if a guy is due to get out in a year and he blows his knee, we let him go early.”
Kennedy accepted the explanation and said, “Thank you.” Again, she turned to walk away and again stopped. Turning back to the ensign, she said, “If that was the case, wouldn’t their file say medical discharge?”
“Yes, that is correct.” Kennedy opened Coleman’s file and found the page where it said early discharge granted. She pointed at the last line and showed it to the ensign.
