Save One Love

Leslie wore a suit. His parents, paying their own way, were with them. Laeesha wore a rather elegant dress which did not reveal but certainly emphasized her slim lines and winter discretion, with a contrasting shawl and her brown hair about her shoulders. Leslie was struck by the classiness of her appearance, as if she were commonly seen attending expensive fundraisers. Hattie wore a long sleeve, dark blue winter dress that set off her eyes and highlighted her dark hair. Her grandmother pronounced her gorgeous and gave her a small pearl necklace to set off the blue.

They were to sit at a round table in the front of the room to the left of the podium-actually a stage-on top of which was a lectern with a microphone. Everyone was at round tables, with seating for perhaps six at each. The other two finalists were to their right, distinguished by their youth. Not many people paid $600 for a plate for a 15-year-old kid; finalists and families were free.

Hattie was not smiling. Jack held her hand as they entered, towering over her by more than a foot. Looking about the room he objectively adjudged her the most beautiful woman present-and realized he'd just considered her a woman instead of an adolescent. A whole new set of problems filled his imagination. They were joined at the table by a woman in the dress uniform of a foreign armed service-a woman Leslie recognized but could not place for a moment... He stood when he did.

"General, I am shocked."

"Captain," she said with her accent heavy, "it has been a long time." Jack shook her hand and turned to his daughter, Laeesha, and parents.

"This is General Naftali Meier of the Israeli Defense Forces. I knew her when I was training in the Israeli SEAL school." He then introduced Laeesha, his parents, and "...my daughter, Hattie."

There were handshakes all around and finally everyone sat.

"Miss Leslie," General Naftali Meier said, "you are called Hattie?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

They went on talking quite a bit as the noise about prevented others hearing, but sometimes Hattie smiled and even laughed, holding onto her papers in case she were named the winner. Laeesha, sitting next to the general, seemed to enjoy a long conversation with her also. Jack had never spoken socially to the General (a lieutenant colonel when he knew her), and he appreciated her gesture of assignment to his table and the effort she was making with Hattie. Hattie said later that she talked about how the Semites needed to stick together at this affair.

There were speeches about the fundraising and different officials spoke about the work of the institute. As dinner was served, a master of ceremonies stepped behind the lectern.

"Tonight we honor our essayists. Copies of the three finalists' essays will be distributed, one to each table..." She went on for some time, first introducing Mischa Bretanski of California, asking the young girl to come up. "Ms. Bretanski wrote of her family's difficulties immigrating and the help they received from government agencies from INS to Homeland Security and finally Health and Human Services. It is an extraordinary story, and we are honored to award her this plaque." She presented her with a plaque and pictures were taken. Her family stood and received a nice round of applause. Then the master recognized Jorge Villanos, whose family was aided by a state program in New Mexico when his father lost his job. She asked Jorge to come up, and presented him with a small plaque also. Again, the family stood and was applauded.

By this time the dishes were cleared and there would be a few minutes before dessert was served.

The master of ceremonies looked at Hattie from the lectern on the podium. "Miss Leslie, if you and your family would come up."

Hattie looked at Jack, who was smiling. General Meier said, "You won, Dear." Hattie looked down at the papers in her hands, and then forced her eyes up to her dad, who smiled, nodded, and stood. Her grandparents were up, smiling, moving around the table. Laeesha, as they'd agreed, went also, and Leslie noticed that Hattie's left hand was in Laeesha's right. They walked to the steps up the podium. Leslie stood behind Laeesha, his parents stood beside him, and the little girl who was slightly taller than the lectern stood just in front of her grandparents. A large box was nearby for her to stand on when it was time.

The master of ceremonies was not finished.

"Rarely is government influence on the family the military, at least in the essays submitted to us. Rarely does it involve military missions and wounded men, and Sarah's essay hit us like a thunderbolt. Oh, I'm sorry, she goes by Hattie, not Sarah. Usually our presenter is the head of a welfare agency, or Health and Human Services, or a state agency. This marks the first time a military department head will present an award for its positive influence on family. Sarah, HATTIE, if you would read your essay, please."

The master of ceremonies moved away, the box was placed behind the lectern, and Hattie released Laesha's hand and climbed up to look out at the crowd.

She smiled, looked down, and read.

"We were at a church picnic..." and she read on. Reaching the end of the introduction, she said, "...WAS running away... and I was in his arms."

She took a deep breath. She looked behind her at Jack and mouthed the words, I love you. He nodded back and smiled. Laeesha saw and squeezed his hand.

Hattie's voice and words took Leslie back to that time-to the last day and night he walked without a limp, to first meeting his little girl, to the end of his military career, and to the start of his family.

*

Chapter 9: October, 2001 Finding Hattie

"Captain Leslie, CIC. Captain Leslie, report to CIC."

In his quarters, Leslie realized how exhausted he was. He had written his report, checked on the wounded, and finally showered. Commander Ormond was already transported from the Bataan for treatment. But Leslie had put off sleep for his chores, and now he had another. He hoped his team was asleep. He dressed and headed to the Combat Information Center. He was actually stopped short when the Captain of the Bataan, a black captain (all ship commanders are called captain, but Bataan's was also a ranking captain) named Miller, called him into the conference room hard by. The old man they had extracted just hours before was seated at the table, drinking coffee. There was a map on the table, with corresponding satellite photos, and an X was marked on a tiny building in the middle of nowhere. The man stood when Leslie arrived.

"I want to thank you, Captain," the old man said with an accent. He spoke impeccable English, which the commander had remarked on during the first contact.

"You're welcome, Sir," Leslie replied, shaking the man's hand.

Captain Miller spoke. "Please, everyone sit. Mr. Aglai has notified us that an American woman and her children are in some danger. She is married to a Syrian engineer. A local, radical extremist group has threatened and indeed murdered most Christians and all Americans that we know of in their areas."

Leslie looked up at that. Was that what all this was about? He'd assumed the old guy was a spy or informant, or nuclear scientist or maybe someone important like Asad's personal trainer. Leslie saw where this was leading.

Captain Miller signalled his messman, who poured Leslie a cup of coffee. Leslie signalled no cream or sugar and drank it black this time.

"A mission to extract them is scheduled for tomorrow night. There was too much today to risk another daylight mission just five miles away. We are gathering intelligence, photos. A drone has actually been sent to the gps coordinates and should arrive within the next few minutes. Another will go in daylight."

"Sir," said Leslie, "my team needs sleep tonight. I am down to six enlisted and myself."

Captain Miller was quiet, drumming on the side of his coffee cup with his fingers. His fingers were long and lighter skinned, his nails clean. The cup was full, but he didn't sip it much.

Leslie knew he was tired: only when tired did he focus on personal details like those.

Captain Miller sounded sincere as he said, "And I want you asleep in a few minutes, Mr. Leslie. But I wanted you notified as soon as we knew the mission was approved."

"I'll see you here tomorrow at 10 hundred hours, Sir?"

"I expect around 1600 tomorrow afternoon, Jack. We'll have more for you then. Have your guys ready for anytime after that. You need the sleep tonight, check your men, check your equipment; tomorrow night might be very long, and we need you at your best. Probably a helo insert in a field fifty yards from the target house, rappelling, helo pickup, pull everyone out alive. If they are. Back on the birds asap, then out. Four kids, two adults. If we're not too late."

Leslie stood. "I'm going to notify Ortiz and get to sleep."

Ten minutes later, he was asleep in his rack. Ortiz was pissed as hell that they'd have another mission so soon, but he was always pissed as hell that every mission did not have ten days' preparation time.

*

The next afternoon the drone identified a car approaching the house, but then the platform developed flight difficulties and crashed as the remote pilot attempted to retrieve it.

"We doubt anyone's alive, Jack," Captain Miller said. "As soon as it's dark, we'll send you in. Any sign of anyone but the family on site, and the mission is off."

The pilot found the house using gps. This one was far from the nearest village-it was not their home but where the Haddads had hoped to hide from the radicals. It was two rooms, with an outhouse up a short path. There was a well. A quick sweep was made using heat detection, but there was no sign of a watchman or any person.

Mr. Aglai said that they had hoped to hide there, but some people had chanced by a few days before and then there had been a man watching them from some distance away. They thought they were being watched even at night.

Aglai had become their contact with the world, visiting once a week and bringing them things they needed. The infant was born in that house a month ago, delivered by her father, a month after they arrived. When Adnan notified him two days ago that they were being watched, he'd contacted the American embassy in Amman using his satellite phone-he'd been looking for a way to move the Haddads across the border. The embassy researched him and discovered he had taught at several US universities-and that his former student was indeed married to the former Sarah Gillespie of Dearborn, Michigan.

Sarah Haddad was a graduate of Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor's degree in American history, and her husband had a master's degree in hydraulic engineering from the nearby University of Michigan. He built water supply and removal systems in the desert countryside of his home country. Sarah raised her kids, who were Christian and practiced until the local radicals squelched the practicing part. Now Mr. Aglai feared for their lives. Indeed, he thought it was probably too late.

Leslie had asked him why he was so involved with this family. He said, "I convinced Adnan Haddad to move back here to work, and to bring his family. I convinced him he should respect his homeland, help to make it better. He worked here a few years and then this..." He was furious at the assault on moderate Islam. Radical Islam's violent intransigence had a way of drowning the moderate beliefs of the majority.

The team helicoptered to the little field where the Haddads intended to grow vegetables, across the dirt road from the tiny house. It was dark. They rappelled in after hovering over several other fields first, and the chopper then hovered over another two miles away after the team was gone. Four of the team including Ortiz kept watch at various points about the house, especially for the suspected watchman, as Leslie and Ranger entered the home. They knocked, but there was no answer. Leslie pushed the door open, which it did without hindrance. Unlocked?

"Sarah? Sarah Haddad? US Navy!" He peeked in, saw nothing, looked around behind the door and found nothing. It was the cooking/eating/living room of the small house. The other room was to the rear, through a doorway with no door. He saw feet, unmoving, sticking out the doorway, and feared the worst.

His fears were quickly confirmed. He noted the situation on the comm.

"Found Sarah. Dead. Bullet to the temple. Husband beside her. Also dead, one shot temple."

"Stay in your general areas and look for the kids," Leslie said calmly.

He heard no comments, but he knew what they would be anyway. The three boys were found elsewhere, all shot. One, a seven- or eight-year old, was shot in the back farthest from the house on the far side of a small hill above the outhouse. The four-year-old and three-year-old were found in the outhouse, shot in the forehead once each.

"Anyone see the infant?"

"No, Six," he heard over and over.

"Maybe they took her," said Ortiz.

"Could be, Two," Leslie said. "But I am NOT going to leave an American kid out here to die, if we can find her. I'm going to go through that house. I'm calling to delay the choppers. A few minutes, anyway."

"Roger," he heard from several.

"Keep your eyes open for bad guys. Or a baby. Listen for her."

Leslie pulled up flooring, flipped the mattress, searched the floor of the closet, the walls, the ceiling. He found some wooden toys, a flat soccer ball, some books, clothes, and utensils. There was no child in that house alive. He ran around the house, climbed to the roof; he went to the outhouse, past the two little ones placed outside by Varmint, put a beam into the pit-no child. He ran over the top of the hill to the spot the last boy had died, the oldest. His night vision goggles showed no one.

He could hear the chopper coming.

"Leave the bodies, Six?" asked Ortiz.

"No, we're not in contact. Four of these are Americans... And I think he should be buried with his family. Load them up. I want to think." He followed the others with the bodies heading to the north field.

Leslie imagined the couple, realizing someone had come for them, to kill them as Christian or American or just infidel. Sarah would have realized there was little hope, their hideout found, her children in danger. She sent the two youngest to the hide, perhaps straight to the outhouse which may have been a rash mistake, hoping no one would look, or she put them out the back window saying, "Run, hide, don't let them get you. Run." And the two youngest boys naively hid in the outhouse. But the older boy, eight, what if... The chopper landed.

SEAL Squad Unnumbered, officially SEAL Squad Detached, loaded five bodies on that Chinook. Ortiz counted all on board when the Six arrived, shaking his head and wondering at the loss of an infant girl. As Leslie stepped to enter, a thought occurred to him, about that eight-year-old dying on the other side of the hill...

But all hell broke loose and SEAL Squad Unnumbered, secured in a Chinook, bolted-without its Marine.

*

An RPG missed the rear rotor of the Chinook by perhaps a foot-but that foot turned into a lot of yards before it exploded. Small arms fire opened up from across the field north of the house.

Leslie yelled, "GO GO GO!" realizing he was relinquishing his seat on board-he was still a step from entering. He spoke quickly on comm. "Ortiz, I have the sat phone. I think I know where the girl is, I think I know. I'll contact by phone."

Ortiz was beside himself. "We can't leave you, not gonna leave you," he yelled, and screamed at the pilot to put it back on the deck but the helicopter's machine guns had opened up as the chopper translated and there was all sorts of incoming-the rule of thumb is get the damn plane away, so the pilot did. In seconds the helicopter was relatively safe, but the pilot was then beside himself that he had left the SEAL Squad commander on the ground. Some standby Cobra gunships were flying in Jordan and would be there in seconds, but there was no telling what Leslie was facing.

Ortiz remembered Leslie's last statement: He was going for that child.

"Keep all fire north of the house. The bad guys are there. We have a friendly on the ground and lost to the south. I hope," Ortiz said, thinking first of the loneliness of the abandoned castaway and then of the loneliness of a lost child. Unlike Commander Ormond, Ortiz had no family to speak of. His mother was somewhere, but they had not talked in years. Yet he knew the hold the idea of a lost child had on men and women, especially good men and women, and he understood the Captain's instinctive action. Perhaps, he thought, it was a thoughtful act.

The Cobra was mincing the ground north of the house, and rifle fire ended. It was 1 am local, and Ortiz would have an angry ship's captain to confront in a few minutes.

Good luck, Jack. Find her, he thought.

*

"What the hell do you mean, Chief? You left him behind? I'm listening in to chatter and he DIDN'T BOARD???"

Ortiz, at attention in front of the captain, away from the helicopter and the five bodies on the deck, knew a rhetorical question when he heard it. He had a college degree in English, picked up over the years at different naval stations. But he'd known before that, having been in the navy and not stupid. He said nothing.

"Why?" the captain, a NAVY captain, said. That was not rhetorical. Ortiz knew navy captains wanted to be navy admirals and were so close they could taste it. And this navy captain had made it clear over the months that the Marine captain was one jarhead he liked. Probably the only one.

"Sir, as he was getting near, Captain Leslie said that he thought he knew where they would have hidden the child. Then an RPG went by and we took off. He has the sat phone, so he should be able to contact us. When he's safe." Ortiz realized that sounded ineffectual.

If he's ever safe, Ortiz thought.

"If he's ever safe," the captain said.

"Sir, the mission continues. I'd like to get the team ready for another extract-tomorrow night? The area seems saturated for a day extract."

Captain Miller said, "So ordered. I'll let 'em know we left him behind and we want to go back." He meant he'd report to his boss, who'd report to his boss, and she to hers, and he to a man in the White House.

*

Leslie assumed the jihadi fighters did not realize that one American had been left behind. He ran to the brush and crawled up the hill behind the house as a Cobra occupied the survival wishes of the enemy. After ten minutes all was silent, helicopters gone, fighters dead or withdrawn or waiting, hiding, wondering if they were safe.

He knew there was a drone above, probably following his heat signature, but that would end soon.

He passed the outhouse, followed the contours of the hill, hiding in a depression that led farther up the hill, up the hill, and he crested it. He went along it and down to the spot the eight-year-old boy had died, shot in the back and heading directly away from the house.

He searched in the dark, careful to disturb nothing. He used his night vision goggles but there was nothing. The heat detection should have picked up a living child...unless she was covered by rock. He searched, looked, but it was mainly by feel, reaching into depressions, pulling bushes apart, but finding nothing. He stopped and thought. The boy probably had played hide-and-seek on this hill and knew the place he would put his sister. Jack was there for an hour, becoming frantic in searching every nook and cranny-when he heard her.

His first thought was not that she was found but that they were found. She would give away their position to any fighters on this side of the house. But he stood, risking his full height, and followed the weak cry to a depression between two rocks-a place a small boy could hide from anyone until hard by. Leslie saw the depression as a shadow, saw a movement among shadow, and risking his hand touched a small child.