True Faith and Allegiance

37

Tampa could be brutally hot in the summer, even in the morning, though heat wasn’t unfamiliar to the fifty-eight-year-old man running past the softball field in the predawn light. He’d lived in a lot of hot climates in his life, and he was certain he’d find his way back to someplace even sultrier than South Florida soon enough, so he didn’t let it faze him.

Still, while he was accustomed to warm weather and bright sun, he knew enough to avoid exercising in the latter if he didn’t have to, so even though it was only six a.m. now, he was taking advantage of the last bit of darkness before the sunrise, using the relative cool to push himself harder than he had in weeks.

And just as he was accustomed to warm climates, so was he used to pushing his mind and body.

General Wendell Caldwell was the head of United States Central Command, one of the U.S. military’s theater-level Unified Combatant Commands. A West Point graduate and a thirty-four-year military veteran, Caldwell had recently returned from a monthlong trip to Iraq to meet with his battlefield commanders there, and now he was back in Tampa, working just as hard as he had overseas.

But no matter where he was in the world, Caldwell made himself start his day with a little PT.

Gadsden Park was just north of MacDill Air Force Base, home of USCENTCOM, and Caldwell enjoyed leaving the confines of the base for forty minutes or so to do a couple circuits of this park before heading around the base’s fence to the southwest. There he would run south for a few minutes with Tampa Bay on his right shoulder, all the way down Picnic Island Boulevard to the park at the tip of the little peninsula that jutted out into the bay.

He would circle the parking lot, then put the exterior fence of MacDill AFB on his right shoulder and head back to the north, passing back through the front gates of MacDill approximately forty minutes after leaving it.

Caldwell lived on base, he worked on base, and during times of high operational activity like the present, he would go days without leaving the wire of MacDill except for his run through the adjoining neighborhoods.

The big news in the past day was, of course, the ISIS attacks here in the United States, but as far as Caldwell was concerned, the bombings just off the Navy base at Sigonella were even more important. He would be meeting today with base security experts here in Tampa who had a plan to bolster defenses at European bases, because Sigonella had a lot of his people moving through it, so he made this one of his many responsibilities.

Though he was furious about the recent spate of attacks here in America, he wasn’t worried personally for a couple important reasons. One, he never, ever, saw anyone who looked remotely suspicious on his runs, and the thought that an ISIS member would be out here without Caldwell noticing him from 250 yards away was highly unlikely. Plus, Caldwell didn’t run with headphones on and he remained vigilant at all times, and now even more vigilant due to recent events. If he did happen to come across someone along his route who looked in any way out of the ordinary, he’d know it immediately.

And that would initiate the second reason he wasn’t concerned. In a Velcro band around his waist, under his U.S. Army T-shirt but within easy reach, was a chrome-plated Walther PPK/S, a .380-caliber pistol.

The gun had been a gift from the German Bundeswehr after Caldwell’s two-year stint running U.S. Army forces in Stuttgart.

If he saw trouble, he told himself, he’d be ready.

Caldwell wasn’t discounting the threat. He expected he’d need to have some meetings with base security officials here at MacDill to make sure all the forces here were awake and aware of this new danger here in the United States to military personnel. Of course it was possible that some soldier or airman living off base might be attacked, depending, of course, on the still unknown strength of the Islamic State operational cell in America. But Caldwell himself had met danger in Panama, in Iraq, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq again. A couple of poorly trained ISIS shitheads trying to head him off on his morning run wouldn’t stand a chance.

He finished two circuits of Gadsden Park, jogged the long, straight westerly route of North Boundary Boulevard, then made his way through a few neighborhood backstreets that finally dumped him out on Picnic Island Boulevard.

As he ran south toward the park that jutted out into Tampa Bay, he watched a pair of F-16s coming in on final on runway 04 out in front of him. The sunrise had just broken, and the light glinted off the canopies of the fighters as they passed by.

There were several other runners out this morning, and as he passed them he would get looks of recognition from some of his subordinates, whether he recognized them or not. These were always followed by a quick “Good day, sir” as the junior man or woman jogged by, and Caldwell would respond with a “Good day” or even a “Hoo-ah,” if he was feeling it.

Sometimes he wondered how far he could really run if he didn’t have to huff out a greeting twenty or thirty times every time he laced up his running shoes and went for a jog.

Today he had PERSEC on his mind, checking out each jogger from a little more distance, focusing on them a little longer, thinking about how he would deal with them if they became a threat.

But he saw no one who looked like they could be a jihadi tango, and he couldn’t help finding laughable the prospect that a jihadi tango would pop up here, just outside the wire of MacDill AFB.

Picnic Island Park was a cluster of succulent trees and manicured lawn around a parking lot with several covered pavilions and picnic tables that afforded good views of the bay. It was filled with MacDill AFB personnel on the weekends, and often personnel brought their lunch here during the weekdays, but this morning at six-twenty it was abandoned except for a small white four-door Honda parked nose-in in a space facing Tampa Bay. Caldwell paid little attention to the car; he’d round the tip of the peninsula and pass back right next to it in a minute and he’d check it out more closely then.

The general passed a copse of trees lining the pavement at the tip of the parking lot, and when he made the turn he was startled by a jogger coming his way, just twenty feet or so off his nose. He quickly sized the other runner up; saw the small, slight frame, the shoulder-length dirty-blond hair, and the typical South Florida running gear of shorts and a T-shirt. He determined this smallish white person was no threat, even though he or she would be passing close by.

He looked away past the jogger, as the Honda fired its engine.

It was only when the jogger suddenly altered his direction, moving in front of Caldwell’s route, that the general looked back quickly, and staggered a step to avoid a collision, angry to be pulled out of his stride by this young fool who was probably drunk or high or—

A knife blade glinted with the pink sunrise as it appeared in the jogger’s right hand. General Caldwell snatched his T-shirt with his left hand, got his right hand around the grip of his pistol, and quickly tried to stop fully and leap backward, clear of the blade.

The young white man was on him before he pulled the weapon free. The knife blade stabbed into General Wendell Caldwell’s ribs, sank hilt-deep, and only then did the general pull back and away to put a foot of space between himself and his attacker.

The general pulled the trigger of the Walther as soon as it came out from under his shirt, and the round screamed out of the 3.3-inch barrel, struck his attacker in the upper thigh, traveling down. The flash of the shot burned the young man in the crotch, the bullet tore through his leg, and blood splattered onto the parking lot between his feet.

The general fired again as both men fell to the ground. This round took the young man in the lower abdomen, just two inches below his belly button.

Both men ended up on their backs, just feet apart.

General Caldwell lay there with his attacker, lifted his head, and looked down at the hilt of the knife, still sticking out of his chest.

He was a tough man, but he felt weaker by the second.

A glance beyond the knife’s hilt showed him the man who stabbed him was also still alive, also on his back, facing up. He was a young man, early to middle twenties, and with his blond hair and light eyes, he looked to be as American as apple pie.

His chest heaving, Caldwell asked, “Why, boy? Why?”

The blond-haired kid’s face seemed to grow whiter with each short breath. He made eye contact with Caldwell, though his eyes were misting over quickly. “Allahu Akbar,” was all he said before his head lowered to the pavement and his eyes rolled back slowly.

Caldwell looked away and up to the sky. He shouted in frustration, “You gotta be shittin’ me!”

The two men, one a general in the U.S. Army, the other an American-born foot soldier of ISIS, died seconds apart on the warm asphalt.

Seconds after the two bodies stilled on the pavement, the white Honda Accord rolled out of its parking space and turned to the north, the two occupants inside never looking back.

Angela Watson, leader of the Atlanta cell, and Mustafa, one of her cell members, left Alabama native Richie Grayson there in Picnic Island Park with his victim. Richie had fought for a short time in Somalia, so despite his blond hair and small frame they knew he was a warrior. Both of them also knew Richie would have wanted to die this way, and they praised his conversion to Islam, because his last act on earth would grant him martyrdom.