Twenty-Four Hours to Midnight: Sean's File, #5

By Dale Amidei

Today is built on the past. Eight hundred enemy face him. A thousand civilians shelter behind him. The conflict was personal then, and nothing has changed.
 
Daniel Sean Ritter, operating in an environment where neither InterLynk nor an uncommitted United States government can help, seeks to safeguard his wife's Iraqi family during an ISIS advance. There, he learns the enemy campaign is led by One Who Got Away during his Iraq War.
 
Haunted by memories of rare setbacks a decade ago but unwilling to again disengage from an unresolved contest, Ritter takes up arms with his stepson Gabir. With a handful of isolated local militia, a single honorable course of action remains:  to do what they can, where they are, with what they have.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Single Candle Press
• Release date: Dec 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393981381

Dale Amidei

Dale Amidei lives and writes on the wind- and snow-swept Northern Plains of South Dakota. Novels about people and the perspectives that guide their decisions are the result. They feature faith-based themes set in the real world, which is occasionally profane or violent. His characters are realistically portrayed as caught between heaven and earth, not always what they should be, nor what they used to be. In this way they are like all of us. Dale Amidei's fiction can entertain you, make you think, and touch your heart. His method is simple: have something to say, then start writing. His novels certainly reflect this philosophy.

Book preview

Chapter 1 - Monsters

McLean, Virginia

Monday, February 15, 2010

"Mom, come on." Sarah, his daughter, bounced her soccer ball on the ground then up with her foot, catching the thing to cradle it in her arms as the ten-year-old’s impatience manifested in her restless, preadolescent energy.

Let’s go, honey. Gina, his wife, beckoned to their antsy offspring while looking at him with the expression of a woman who knew she at times had the privilege of managing kids of all ages. She glanced up at the cloudless sky. Daddy’s got good flying weather.

He grinned at them both. Go. I’ll catch up.

The day was warm for February, the heavens indeed blue and clear. It was Presidents’ Day. And because his firm, DARIUS, largely concerned itself with patronage from their federal government, its various corporate holidays matched as closely as possible those decreed by Washington.

At the rear of their vehicle, Paul Kemp removed the box housing his new acquisition. It was still in the same factory packaging that had somehow survived checked baggage on the flight back from the previous month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Lifting it from the back of his Mercedes SUV, he realized everyone else was enjoying their morning already. It wasn’t really a problem, though. Hands full, he hit a button on his fob to power the hatch closed, and then another to lock the vehicle. Automation. It’s all about efficiency.

The efficiency of engineering guided his thoughts and mind—a trait having only just elevated him to the upper tier of his longtime employer, Defense Armaments Research Institute (United States). But he was here, as he reminded himself, to distract his mind from long days in the field of research and development, not carry them over into his downtime.

Lewinsville Park’s recreational greenway was situated within sight of more wooded areas, so at least he and his family could spend their morning within sight of each other. Soon, Sarah was chasing after her ball with other kids of the same inclination, and Gina was absorbed in reading a current title on her tablet device. Here, Kemp could practice emergent varieties of aerial maneuvers for airborne competition, those enabled by this new generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

Double-checking the battery levels and general condition of the four-rotor drone, Kemp launched the app on his iPhone which would direct the craft’s wireless controls. Roll, pitch, yaw and throttle. The basics of flight.

The Parrot AR lifted into the air with a distinctive, steady humming until it was at a sufficient altitude for maneuvers between the tree line and soccer fields. Mark your course, then add some challenges. This was his third outing with the device, and his skill sets grew with each practice session. Soon, we’ll see how I do against others when the pressure’s on.

It was a peaceful feeling, projecting one’s will into the Virginia sky and watching the UAV respond. Its flight became Kemp’s flight, and his thumb effortlessly massaged the controls on his phone’s touch screen to affect the turns, dips and sweeps maximizing the little vehicle’s potential.

Ah, and I’m not alone up there. In the distance, a bird of prey wheeled also, working his hunting ground in search of brunch … or a late breakfast.

Before long the raptor was closing the distance, curious, possibly, about the makeup of a strange, squat, hovering intruder in its domain. He circled high, and Kemp felt a commonality with the bird as they shared the brotherhood of flight. Suddenly, though, and without warning, the creature’s wings folded, descending on a track Kemp’s mind could barely register in time, much less counter with any effective reaction.

Red-tailed hawk. Big one. The Buteo jamaicensis flared his limbs and hit the rotocopter just off-center, where the jolt shattered one of the four whirring sets of propellers. Recovering with a powerful flapping of its wings, the bird watched with Kemp as the Parrot AR, the clear loser of the shortest air battle in history, inverted and plummeted toward the ground. All the while the vehicle’s operator attempted to determine what could right the thing before … ah, dammit.

His expensive toy hit the turf with an impact that virtually guaranteed he was done flying for the day. Conversely, Paul Kemp saw as he again lifted his eyes, the hawk seemed to relish the dominance he again enjoyed here, over what undeniably and demonstrably was his territory.

My God, that was brilliant. Paul was an innovator and a developer, his mind cultivated in a career that rewarded new ideas. It’s all about efficiency.

Lowering his phone, Kemp then crossed his arms, standing still to watch the hawk hunting above … as the creature would until he again descended in an attack that would have only one outcome. See it. Own it. Take it.

Yes, this was his downtime, but the ideas never really stopped flowing. Paul returned to his phone and opened another app, one he often used to preserve a new line of thought whenever and wherever it chose to arrive. Turning the device sideways to access the more efficient virtual keyboard, he lost himself in yet another sort of distraction. This one, however, was more focused and productive.

Geneva, Switzerland

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

An evening nearly four years later

Though some said one could not, Daniel Sean Ritter remembered intimately the feeling of pain. It had never been bodily pains that hurt him the most. That category was manageable:  it involved only the sensation of weakness being beaten out of him, or at worst was an indicator of having pushed things too fast and far. Even in the days he called his best, it had been necessary once in awhile to back off and let his physiology heal.

I remember pain. Why is it that I don’t feel anything now? The calm inside him became a mystery, and while he absentmindedly dwelled on his level horizon, it transitioned into a curious sense of alarm. A mere tingle in his arms broke the still waters of his emotions, and the sensation forced him to consider with concern his mental state for the first time in many years.

Farrah had left Sky News on in the living room, intending, no doubt, to return after her shower. The story on the state of affairs in one of his former theaters of service caught his ear, then his eye, and finally his attention. Usually, he consciously avoided such coverage. Peace at home was a respite from his constant immersion in current events when on the clock for a global enterprise. But this time he sat down and watched. Mistakes happen.

Hard-line, Salafist fundamentalism making up the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was nothing new. Defeating their predecessors time and again had intermittently dominated the darker portions of his resume since the latter years of the nineties. Now, the harshest expression of his wife’s gentler faith was experiencing its most significant resurgence to date.

Responsibility for the resultant deterioration of peace in the Near East, he knew, largely settled on the shoulders of the nation Sean Ritter had served well for more than twenty years in the uniform of the United States Air Force. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—ISIS—got its start with a series of bad decisions made two Washington administrations ago. Designed to undermine Libyan leader Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, those unwise initiatives were justified on the basis of mitigating the strongman’s propensity toward inflicting atrocities on his political opposition.

Unfortunately, the Islamocentric orientation of Ritter’s commander in chief at the time led to the arming of Libyan extremists. Islamists, after overthrowing their own dictator, then repaid their patrons by using the covertly transferred ordnance to burn out two U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi and kill four of its people while American civilian leadership dithered and afterward formulated a cover story.

Their territorial successes in northern Africa then spurred predictable ambitions of like-minded fundamentalists elsewhere; those appeared in Syria, opposing the Russian-backed figurehead Bashar Hafez al-Assad. Finally, what could be considered the melanoma of political ideologies metastasized into neighboring Iraq.

Though the former American President who had helmed the foreign policy disaster was dead, problems incubated in the man’s twisted, un-American perspective remained. Those troubles now manifested themselves in the current humanitarian crisis:  one of widespread and worsening acts of sectarian genocide being presented in the news story it had been his misfortune to encounter.

Eventually those of us who get called to set things right when everything is threatening to tip over will get the same call again. And that’s because too damned few politicians realize something:  peace isn’t a goal that only needs to be achieved. Someone has to maintain it afterward.

Retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, Ritter was unlikely to be recalled to service. Regardless, he now felt a pull back to duty in support of the military fraternity of professional warriors. They comprised a family he had chosen for himself and consisted largely of people he never personally met. He saw their faces, their formations, their salutes, and remembered with admiration their many sacrifices he had witnessed over a long career in uniform.

His intense and heartfelt valuation of that service, of the long effort and multitude of lives spent and then squandered in the Iraqi theater, was what had made him grow cold inside, and then still, he realized. Anger has its time and place, and we’re not there just yet, Danny Sean.

Closing his eyes, he turned and dipped his head, just a bit as he cringed. The regression of his internal dialogue had slipped past his usual emotional safeguards to spark one of his oldest memories.

 In the Little Germany neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it had been the dream of a boy, one who was just beginning school. Undergoing those associated stresses helped turn his dream into a nightmare, and the barely remembered terror afterward carried over into his sudden awakening. It was one loud enough to draw his parents’ attention, and father to his bedside.

"Daddy, there are monsters!" the boy cried.

"It was a dream, Danny. The elder Sean Ritter had offered his usual calm, strong assurance accompanied by a comforting touch from his massive hand on the boy’s back. It was just a dream. Monsters aren’t real."

Monsters aren’t real? For just a moment, Ritter’s bitterness broke through the memory before he opened his eyes and reengaged his usual guarded control. Not real? Sorry, Pop. You were wrong.

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

White House West Wing

Thursday, December 19, 2013

My President. Lawrence Sobar’s stint as the nation’s chief executive began with the unexpected resignation of his immediate predecessor, the third such occurrence of three in her country’s history. The latter two had taken place within seven months of each other, and it was obvious to her the town was still recovering.

White House Press Secretary Sandra Helwig was part of his hastily assembled core team. They were the people currently dedicating every waking effort toward stabilizing the Executive Branch:  the command center of what she remained proud to consider the greatest nation ever to mark its boundaries on the friggin’ planet.

It’s about time we had a man worthy of the office take the helm again. And here The Man was, making his entrance into his first presidential press conference, a bit over four weeks into his term. Yet too late to placate his most vocal critics.

He passed her as she stood nearby in support, close enough for an aside out the range of waiting microphones. "Go get ‘em, sir."

The President’s grin broke his usually somber expression. Thanks, Sandy.

Then, only a step later, Helwig could see he was back on task in an office, she was certain, her boss had never expected to hold. God, I love that guy.

This was Week Five, with a Friday document dump on its way from the State Department. The next day’s scheduled release was considered irresponsible by those whose political interests would be hurt by the sunlight spilled onto the nefarious dealings of a dead President. At the same time, it was seen as heroic by those who held closest the founding ideals of the nation. Larry Sobar knew his constituency was polarized nearly past the point of reconciliation. Yet, I’m the President. Of all the people, whether they claim me as such or not.

Most of the individuals waiting in the James Brady Press Room were definitely in the not category. In response to his declassification of records documenting a long series of schemes ranging through underhanded, constitutionally questionable, and blatantly despotic actions, a news media virtually considering itself a fourth branch of government was in the process of closing ranks around their departed figurehead. Their golden child—man-child, really—had embodied their hopes in his campaigns and the following five years, all the while consistently substituting platitudes in place of substance, and hubris in the poor stead of leadership.

It was Larry Sobar’s place as Chair of the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to uncover what could be determined of those dangerously irresponsible days. Then came a surprising call to serve as Vice President of the United States. That had happened in the wake of an administration whose own actions left no refuge except the prospect of presidential pardons in exchange for stepping down from their ambitions.

Afterward, violence in and around the nation’s capital, amounting to nothing less than an attempted coup, had led an elderly President to reassess his abilities to achieve America’s healing. A commendable love of country then drove Sobar’s predecessor to hand over the reins of the Executive Branch in one last and selfless effort to restore citizens’ trust in their political leadership.

Thank you. His greeting merely served as the signal for them to sit and clear the line of sight for the array of cameras waiting to send the presser out in live coverage and preserve it for augmentation with commentary in their evening news broadcasts. Larry Sobar lifted the cover on his prepared statement:  a summary of the state of an administration in flux, activities of the previous four weeks, and his hopes for however many more waited in the future.

These people don’t share my outlook. But they’re not the President. I am.

Thirty-five minutes later, a hand her boss chose at random got the first question. Sandra Helwig, who remained on the sidelines throughout her President’s soliloquy, doubted the inquiry would reference any of the information or initiatives he had just finished presenting in an admirably effective manner.

Mister President, may we have your reaction to yesterday’s beheadings in al-Maabadah?

Sandy, she thought to herself in disgust. You’re psychic.

The question was a deliberate curveball thrown by his political opponents disguised as journalists, Helwig knew. Her President recovered quickly.

"We—that is, all of us in the Executive Branch and State Department working to stabilize the situation—are disgusted and repulsed by the ongoing crimes being committed in the guise of religion, of course, Sobar replied. The situation in Syria is particularly disturbing. Its emergent spread into Iraq is even more so."

Not surprisingly, the follow-up was ready before the President got his words out. Can you share any strategy that your administration plans in response to the ongoing situation? the reporter asked

Nice try, honey. His press secretary smirked.

Straightening, Sobar replied, We intend to work with every one of our allies involved to formulate a solution. America’s commitment to its friends is held dear, and those who would threaten the peace in a strategic region would do well to avoid any sort of provocative action as was the case in Syria this week. The President paused. I hope I answered your question.

Goddammit, sir, don’t leave them an opening like that.

The correspondent from National Public Radio took the opportunity for a three-peat. May we consider the current state of withdrawal from the region to be merely an operational pause, then, sir?

Helwig frowned. Troops were at the same steady state of deployment as The Man had inherited. The question was a trap. Now he will be made to commit to what The Narrative will present either as reneging on his most previous statement or a return to an aggressive foreign policy. She longed for an alternate reality in which the question had come to her rather than her boss. The premise. Question the premise!

I’m sorry, Alyshya. There is no current state of withdrawal in the region.

Yes! A Texas-sized pump of Sandra Helwig’s arm, however, would have been inappropriate.

Troop levels remain as a constant from last year. For the time being, there is no intention to alter those … particularly, we will not without consulting Congressional leadership. Next question. POTUS pointed at another upraised hand, and the presser continued after having avoided a gaffe. Meanwhile, his Press Secretary’s relief was amplified by her approval in his debut performance facing these people.

Day to day, question to question, and one little victory at a time. Sandra Helwig was a team player, and now she had the growing inclination to believe it would be a winning team.

Chapter 2 - That Was Then

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Qadisiya Dam

North of Haditha, Iraq

Saturday, April 5, 2003

If war was a job, then Ritter had no doubts about earning his pay. Though not to the extent these guys have. The lightning-quick thoughts were only momentary departures from focus on his duty, a predictable effect of fatigue he often urged his trainees to guard against. Until this fighting subsided at least, he was again the medic and Pararescue Jumper his inductive training in Air Force Special Operations had produced. The usual privileges of his Captain’s rank were put aside for the time being in favor of greater considerations:  keeping other fighting men alive.

Army Rangers, writhing wounded on their stretchers, were whipped with the rest of them by the rotor wash of responding Army Blackhawks and attended by his Pararescuemen. They indeed were, Ritter having trained some of them at Hurlburt Field not so long ago, it seemed. For these, Operation Iraqi Freedom was their first war. He remembered his own.

Elevate that man’s feet, Airman. Get another bag on him. Ritter’s order was meant to carry urgency, not anger, and was taken as such by a younger PJ also doing his job. The Ranger, suffering from blood loss, was triaged First On for the next trip to Camp Anaconda, an installation until quite recently known as Saddam’s Al-Bakr Airbase. The place was situated less than a two-hundred-and-fifty-kilometer flight to their east-southeast and now operated under new management.

The rotors hardly slowed as the Army’s Medevac birds touched down, and the screaming turbines made Ritter glad for the electronic hearing protection built into his jump helmet. Slinging his weapon, he without ceremony grabbed the near end of the stretcher when the chopper’s side door opened to receive its transport. Lifting and running with the junior airman, Ritter transferred the Army’s operator to those assuming the responsibility of his medical care and evacuation.

Hand signals passed between him and another of his Pararescue Jumpers inside, indicating in a few gestures the condition and urgency for the soldier’s care. Next.

Getting out of the way of the second litter, Ritter swiveled his rifle back into its ready position as he knelt to provide perimeter control. Firing, detectable by its dust signature rather than any report, was ongoing there as the Iraqi holdouts, yet unconvinced the Haditha Dam was no longer theirs, contested the inevitable outcome. It was a losing battle Saddam’s troops began fighting on the first day of April. Hard lessons of life on a two-way rifle range.

Ritter’s thought proved prescient as he felt rather than heard the round come in. The passage of the Iraqi rifle bullet through the thin, aluminum skin of the Army aircraft was unmistakable in both the impact and the reaction of those inside the cabin. Shit!

Whipping his head to the right, the AFSOC officer’s mind gauged the entry and exit holes and determined the angle, a moment later calculating the azimuth and elevation from the round’s likely origin. Where is he? Where would I be?

More than conscious of the deadly game he now played with a man at the other end of their long-distance relationship, Ritter scoped the terrain above the landing zone with his own optics, the top-quality glass etched with the range-finding references of a sniper’s scope. He’s correcting his windage. You don’t have much time, Ritter.

Radio traffic screamed in his earbud. Incoming fire! Shot on the LZ!

Where is the sonavabitch?

High! Scan high!

Not so high. There. The glint from the enemy marksman’s scope reflected in the sun as the Iraqi shifted position. Probably a Dragunov PSO-1—which apparently was not outfitted with the perforated grid of the kill-flash screen his own front lens wore. Lining up another shot. Maybe on me. Ritter’s weaponized math kicked in with his range estimate, followed by a computation of the mils he would hold over the target and into what he remembered of the wind before the Blackhawk had arrived. I make it a seven-hundred-yard shot.

Though it was only a moment, he felt his right index finger on the surface of the trigger, the take-up, and the wall. Send it. Only then, he felt the release to a clean follow-through as his shot broke. Back on target! Track the hit!

Ranger spotters were screaming on the radio again. There! On the slope! Six-five-zero Mike! Another moment passed. Shit, never mind, Air Force. You got him.

The cheers from the chopper crew behind Ritter barely registered as a wave of cold, prickly relief washed over him, bringing with it the same rush from an adrenal dump he had felt before. One more. One less. He turned his head, launching his order in an officer’s voice to the armed and armored PJs crouching in protective cover over the patients secured on their own litters. "Next in! Move it!"

Logistics Support Area (LSA) Anaconda, Iraq

One hour and twenty minutes later

Per protocol on the base, Ritter remembered he should clear the 7.62mm NATO round from his weapon’s chamber as he stood down. The tall, superbly athletic AFSOC Captain watched as the Blackhawk’s load of wounded transferred onto gurneys for their second triage, one he knew would validate his first. Popping his weapon’s Armalite-pattern magazine loose, he absentmindedly extracted the chambered round. Thumbing Lake City’s long-range load back through the aluminum feed lips, its partially depleted, twenty-round aluminum housing again clicked upward to seat in the well just forward of his trigger guard.

Back in camp. For how long?

His boss had known their country’s military would be returning to Iraq well before the President’s formal announcement, one which fulfilled sentiment established well before the apocalypse of September 11, 2001. The man had saved his career following the ill-fated mission to the United Arab Emirates on behalf of the CIA during the previous administration. Daniel Sean Ritter, Captain, Air Force Special Operations Command, remained attached to the U.S. Army Theater Intelligence Coordinator, General Peter McAllen, under the operational nom de guerre of Captain Sean Dawson.

Designated by the General, Sean’s cover name was maintained through joint operations authority of the United States Special Operations Command. Ritter’s savior from the political ramifications of a brief relationship with the Company four years past, McAllen had directed not only Sean’s alternate identity but also his personal development and deployments in the Gulf region since then. Neither of them would ever be permitted to discuss much of their shared history, and that was just fine with the AFSOC asset.

Airman to officer to spook … to spook in uniform. Not exactly the career path I imagined when I signed up. McAllen, though, continued to garner his respect. I’ve had chances at other billets since then. No other commanding officer, however, compared to the energetic Army General, wired into virtually everything of interest in the region. No one could match what McAllen offered him. In terms of what Ritter recognized now as his vital need for professional fulfillment, this was the place to be; the General’s handling kept Ritter’s mind busy and his talents honed. He was McAllen’s operator and held seniority as such. The three-star had picked up others like him along the way. None of those, however, enjoyed as close a personal relationship to the Old Man, as the TIC was known among them when safely out of earshot.

Returned here to Anaconda, and far enough removed from the landing area, one could actually hear conversation. Such was the obvious intent of the communications tech Ritter