Marcus pressed the clutch with his booted foot, slid the shifter to reverse, and backed the jeep in a wide arc in his front yard. Once it faced toward the road, he pushed the shifter into first gear and shot out onto Johnson Road. He glanced down at the fuel gauge as he pulled out. The needle pointed to the first white dash above empty.
“Damn!” he exclaimed.
Marcus rushed over to the Salt Jacket General Store and pulled up to the gas pump. He jumped from the driver’s seat and slid his bank debit card into the slot on the front of the pump, then stuffed the nozzle into the tank opening. He squeezed the lever all the way and filled his thirsty jeep as fast as the pump would pour the fuel.
As he finished, Linus peeked out through the window by the cash register, then walked out of the store. “Hey, man, what are you doing here? I thought you were out in the woods.”
“I was,” Marcus replied as he replaced the gas nozzle. He turned back, screwed the gas cap back into its place, and spoke to Linus as he jumped into the driver’s seat. “Something really important came up at the base. I’ll fill you in later, but gotta go for now.”
Before his friend could say anything more, Marcus shot out of the parking lot and bolted up the highway toward Eielson Air Force Base.
Marcus arrived at the entrance to the Air Force Base fifteen minutes later, having averaged about eighty miles per hour on the way. He pulled the jeep up to the gatehouse and flashed his red-fringed retired military ID card to the guard.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but there is an alert exercise on and we are closed to all persons except for active duty personnel with a base sticker.”
“What? Look, I need to see your base security commander to report an emergency.”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot let you on until they lift the closure.” The guard looked up and pointed to the main guardhouse fifty feet away. “You can go in there and see if the desk sergeant can help you, but I cannot let you on.”
Marcus turned his vehicle into the parking area next to the red brick building. Two windows were set high in the wall facing out from the base. Light was visible from those windows, but they were too high to see how many, if any, people were inside. Marcus went in.
Just inside the door, a counter stretched the length of the drab room. Every solid surface was painted an eggshell white color. The only exceptions were a single brown wooden office chair and four brown wooden picture frames on the wall in back. The picture frames contained plain white sheets of paper with typed writing too small to read from in front. A bored-looking Air Force Security Police Staff Sergeant in camouflage BDU’s with his back to Marcus stood hunched over stuffing a large wad of Copenhagen tobacco into his lip.
Marcus caught a strong whiff of Jack Daniels whiskey as the staff sergeant closed the round cap on the alcohol-marinated tobacco.
“Good evening, sir,” the security policeman said with a slow southern drawl. The bulge of tobacco, combined with his drawl, made him sound like he had a speech impediment, or as it was called in a previous generation, he seemed slow. “ID card, please.”
Marcus showed his card, and the staff sergeant glanced at it and said, “I’m sorry. The gate is closed to all but active duty personnel. You’ll have to hit the commissary another day.”
“I’m not going grocery shopping. I need to talk to the OD for base security.”
“What for?”
“To report a security incident. Now get me the OD.”
“Sir, the officer of the day is busy, and unless I can justify disturbing him, I am not going to. Tell me your incident. I may be able to help you right here.”
Marcus was frustrated at being retired. His standing in the Corps as an E-8 Master Sergeant, Force Recon Marine had allowed him the luxury of direct access to people who could act swiftly. That luxury was gone the day he walked off the grounds of Camp Pendleton for the last time. Marcus was no longer a link in the chain of command.
“All right, Staff Sergeant.” Marcus made an effort to calm himself and explained, “I was running a friend’s trap line on the back of the base when I came across a group of what appear to be North Korean Special Forces attempting to dig into an underground bunker. There are about a dozen of them, maybe more. They are armed and have several snipers posted, guarding whatever it is they are doing. Based on what I heard them say to each other, they are nearly halfway done with their job and expect to be out of there by early tomorrow. I rushed back here as fast as I could and recommend that you get a security team out there ASAP.”
The security police staff sergeant stood frozen with his eyes wide open in an expression of unconcealed disbelief. His mouth hung stupidly open. A dribble of tobacco juice overflowed the edge of his lips and ran in a brown line to his chin. He blinked rapidly as he processed the information, then wiped the brown tobacco drool with the back of his sleeve. “Uh huh. North Korean Special Forces on the back of the base, digging into an underground bunker.”
“You heard me, Sergeant,” Marcus said. “Now, get someone on the horn who can do something about it.”
“Right.” The staff sergeant picked up the receiver of the phone behind
