State of Siege - Tom Clancy [40]
"I'm with you, Mike," Hood said. "I'm with you, and God bless." "Go back to Sharon and sit tight," Rodgers said. "I promise, we'll get Harleigh out of there."
Hood thanked him, shut the phone, and slipped it into his pocket. Mike's gesture triggered tears he'd been fighting since this whole thing started. He stood there sobbing with his cheek pressed against the cold tile. Af ter a minute, the bathroom door opened. Hood sniffed back his tears, stood, and unspooled some bathroom tissue. He wiped his eyes.
It was odd. Hood had told Sharon what she'd wanted to hear, that they'd save Harleigh, even though he didn't entirely believe it. Yet when Mike said the same thing, Hood believed him. He wondered if all faith was so easily manipulated. A need to believe given a firm push.
He blew his nose and flushed the tissue down the toilet. There was one difference, he thought as he left the stall. Faith was faith, but Mike Rodgers was Mike Rodgers. And one of them had never let him down.
Quantico, Virginia Saturday, 9:57
The Marine Corps base at Quantico is a sprawling, rustic facility that is the home to diverse military units. These range from the MarCorSysCom-Marine Corps Systems Command-to the secretive Commandant's Warfighting laboratory, a military think tank. Quantico is regarded as the intellectual crossroads of the Marine Corps, where teams of neologistic "warfighters" are able to devise and study tactics and then put them into operation in realistic combat simulations. Quantico also boasts some of the finest small-caliber weapons and grenade ranges, ground maneuver sites, light armor assault facilities, and physical challenge courses in the United States military.
Many of the base's key functions actually take place at Camp Upshur, a training encampment located twenty-five miles northwest of the base inside Training Area 17. There, Delta Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division, Op-Center's Striker division, and the Marine Reserve Support Units refine the techniques they learned when they were recruits. Comprised of twenty-one buildings that range from classrooms to Quonset but-style squad bays, Camp Upshur can billet up to 500 troops.
Colonel Brett August liked Quantico, and he really liked Upshur. He spent his time equally between drilling his Striker squad and giving classroom lectures in military history, strategy, and theory. He also liked to put his people through rigorous sports competitions. To him, those were as much a psychological as a physiological workout. It was interesting. He had set it up so that the winners pulled extra duty. Garbage, kitchen, and latrine. Yet no one had ever tried to lose a basketball or football game, or even a weekend piggyback fight in the pool with their kids. Not once. In fact, August had never seen soldiers so happy to be doing drudge work. Liz Gordon was planning to write a paper on the phenomenon, which she'd dubbed "The Masochism of Victory." Right now, though, it was August who was suffering. Upon returning from action in Spain, promotions and long-in-the-works transfers had cost him some key Strikers. In the few days following the depletion, he'd been working hard with four new warfighters. They'd been concentrating on night targeting with 105mm Howitzers when the call came from General Rodgers to put the team on yellow alert. August had wanted to give the new members more time to integrate with the old, but it didn't matter. August was satisfied that the new people were ready to see action if it became necessary. Marine Second Lieutenants John Friendly and Judy Quinn were as tough as August had ever seen, and Delta's Privates First Class Tim Lucas and Moe Longwood were their new communications expert and hand-to-hand combat specialist. There was natural competitiveness between the two branches, but that was good. Under fire, the barriers vanished, and they were all on the same team. Skillwise, the new people would