Sea Stories by William H. Mcraven

Author:William H. Mcraven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

I pushed the phone closer to my ear. Our office in the Old Executive Office Building was a Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility (SCIF), which meant acoustics were terrible.

“The triple canopy jungle in Basilan is difficult to penetrate. We catch glimpses of them in the pictures, but there isn’t enough time to process the intelligence and get it to the Filipinos,” CIA Tom said.

“What about your sources?” I asked. “Are they telling us anything?”

“We think Martin has malaria. Some of the Filipino hostages who were released last month say he has lost a lot of weight and is very weak. Candidly, Bill, I don’t know how long either he or Gracia can survive in the jungle. They are moving every day. The AFP is chasing them. They eat maybe once a day.” He paused. “They’re missionaries, for God’s sake, not Navy SEALs.”

“They may not be SEALs, but what I do know is that their faith is strong.”

“I got it,” Tom said angrily. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but this is taking it to the extreme.”

There was a rap on my cubicle window. It was Nick Rasmussen, my closest friend in the White House and the smartest guy on our staff.

“Bill, the SITROOM called. They need you immediately.”

“Is this about the Burnhams?”

“Don’t know. But they seemed pretty anxious.”

I finished the conversation with Tom and headed over to the White House Situation Room.

The Situation Room, or SITROOM as it was commonly referred to, was underwhelming. You entered the space through a door across from the White House Dining Room. Once inside, there was a bank of telephones answered by six or seven young officers from the military, State Department, or CIA. An Air Force colonel and a senior civil servant supervised the SITROOM, ensuring all telephone and facsimile message traffic coming in were properly handled. All crisis management for the U.S. government began in the SITROOM. Off to one side was a small conference room. The only thing that distinguished it from a thousand other small conference rooms around Washington, D.C., was the chair at the head of the table. Embossed on the back side of the leather were the words President of the United States.

I waved my badge and entered the room.

“Hey sir. Glad you’re here. We’ve got a problem!” The Army major, dressed in his class “A” uniform with full ribbons, held out a piece of paper. “I just got a call from the FAA ops center and then they faxed this over.”

I looked over the WASHFAX as the major continued.

“They are reporting that some nutcase aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami just tried to blow up the plane by setting off a bomb in his shoe.”

“In his shoe?”

“Yes sir. The guy’s name is Richard Reid. We are running the traps on him right now. I guess he had a fuse sticking out from some sort of plastic explosive in his shoe and when he tried to light it the passengers jumped him.”

“Yeah, I don’t know that you could put enough plastic explosive in your shoe to make much of a bomb.

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