The Mormon Candidate - a Novel (12 page)

There were none.

“We
are
Marine
s
!
”
He held
up the
corners
of his t
zitz
it while walking up and down the line
. “We do
n’t
care
about
your
skin
color
or
y
ou
r
faith. We only care about
serving h
onorabl
y in the defense of the United States of America
and the
principles
for which it stands
!
Understood?”

Everyone yelled, “Sir! Yes, sir!”

The captain
buttoned up his shirt, tucked it in, and walked away
, unaware that
he had saved my life
.

F
rom that day on
,
I
wore
the sacred under
garments
all the time
, and no one ever uttered a
nother
Mormon joke
in my presence
.

Chapter 11

Keera
was done early. A CNN debate
between the presidential candidates
had kept many of the
Sunday
night
regulars at home, and the club manager decided to shut down at
ten thirty
p.m. rather than continue to
pay for
heat
ing and for idle
staff
that c
onsume
d
drinks
on the house. The last few customers were cordially asked to leave, and the music stopped.

Stepping out,
Keera
shuddered at the sudden cold
.
Her coat ended at the knees, which was fine for a car ride but not for standing outside in the cold night. B
ut Ben didn’t know of the early closing. For a moment, she hesitated. Should she return inside and call Ben? He was probably working, and Starbucks was around the corner, a three-minute walk, maybe less if she hurried.

W
i
th practiced caution
,
Keera
glanced up and down the pavement to make sure no one was loitering. It would not be the first time that an enamored drunkard misinterpreted her suggestive dancing as a personal
, desirous invitation
or otherwise
felt entitled to
a more
tangible
reward for his
paltry
tip
ping
.
That was the reason
Ben
insisted on
picking
her
up
every night
, but she
saw no one
tonight and liked the prospect of surprising him at Starbucks.

She
crossed the two-lane street and headed to the next corner
, her ears attuned to any sounds of danger.
It was quiet
.

E
ngine noise broke the silence.

Keera
glanced over her shoulder and saw a single headlight, stationary
,
past the club and
all the way
at the
other
end of the street
.

T
he
Wi
st
e
ria’s Secret
neon sign turned off
, and the street fell into darkness, except for the headlight.

The engine revved
up
, but the
headlight
still didn’t move.

Keera stopped walking
. She could run back to the club, which was halfway between her and the
motorcycle
, but
it
could easily take off and get there before her. As if confirming
her fear
,
the biker revved even higher, the engine practically screaming.

I
t occurred to her that it might be Ben, making a foolish joke to get back at her for urging him to give up his motorcycle for a car.
Instead of
working
at his usual Starbucks hangout, h
e must have driven her Mustang back
home and got
ten
his motorcycle.

“Ben? Is that you?” She head
ed
back in his direction
, her suspicion confirmed by the light color of the motorcycle, which in the dark seemed yellow
.

He stopped revving the engine, which declined to a steady clatter.

Keera stepped o
f
f the curb. “This is really stupid, you know?”

The headlight started moving toward her
while
she was crossing the street.
It advanced slowly, weaving from one side of the street to the other,
playfully
snaking its way toward her.

Keera
stopped. The
engine sounded different from Ben’s BMW
, which was quieter and smoother.

And as the bike accelerated toward her, it became appare
nt that it was smaller as well
.

“Shit!” Tearing off her high-heeled shoes, Keera ran away, m
aking a
bee
line to the sidewalk.

In seconds, the motorcycle was right behind her.
Not bothering to turn
, she tossed
her
shoes backward in the general direction of her pursuer.

Chapter 12

Z.H. Journal Entry # 4
:

With Ronald Reagan handing the White House
keys
to George H.W. Bush
,
the Soviet Union
began to
dismantl
e
,
and
the Cold War
, which
had dominated our training and
constant readiness
, was over. Almost overnight, the world was at peace and my service seemed destined to pass in relative tranquility.

During
the
three months of
communications
training
at
Fort Mead
near Baltimore, I
attended
services at
a
Silver Spring
Ward
. The local bishop,
Maynard Higdon,
a lawyer in the
US
Attorney General’s
O
ffice, took m
e
under his wing.
He was knowledgeable in
our
scriptures and history, and we had long discussions about Prophet Joseph Sm
ith’s
accomplishments in raising a military force
to defend our Mormon brothers and sisters in the early days of the True Church. T
he
Nauvoo
Militia
, for example,
at
one
time had numbered 4,500 soldiers while the US Army barely reached 8,000. Bishop Higdon helped me understand that it
was my religious duty to
excel as a Marine and
be
prepared
to
kill the
enemy
, whoever he was
.
Also
during that time
,
Bishop Higdon
allowed me to date his daughter, Palmyra, who was 17 and
gorgeous
.

We married on a humid summer day in a solemn ceremony
at the Washington DC
Mormon
T
emple
. A day later
, Sad
dam Husse
in invaded Kuwait. Soon President Bush declared an ultimatum
,
and we
shipped to the Middle East aboard the
aircraft carrier
USS
Dwight
D. Eisenhower
.
For a Marine, getting into real action
wa
s the goal, and I was
no exception, especially as I was eager to prove
myself capable of shooting the enemy.

Jump forward
eight months
, and I was an old hand at combat, crusty and confident as any of my mates.
Victory was sweet, but
I missed Palmyra, who was heavily pregnant with our first child
.
During my rare calls
from Kuwait on a field telephone, I could hear the underlying pain in her voice despite her upbeat tone
.
It
was comforting to know that she was surrounded by her large family while I was
on the other side of the world,
serving our nation
. In her letters she described ho
w everyone was
praying for my safe return
.

The thought
that I might die
in battle
had
occurred to me, but as the Iraqi army was mostly back
behind the border
, shamed and defeated, we were engaged i
n
relatively safe
cleanup operations in Kuwait.
The liberated country was practically in ruins, and
armed gangs
roamed the
broken
highways and
bombed-out
cities.

On a hot day
on February 28, 1991
,
everyone gathered around the TV set outside the command tent to watch
President Bush declare a cease
-
fire and congratulate us—the armed forces of the United States and 33 other nations—on our success in liberating Kuwait.

The end of combat operations meant that most Marine Corps units would leave Kuwait soon.
There were rounds of high-fives and jokes about lusty girlfriends waiting stateside. For
me it was the answer to private prayers for
a chance
to
make it home i
n time for the baby’s
arrival
.

After a short briefing, a
group of us was sent on
a routine task—escorting
a Red Cross team to a small village near
by,
where a local doctor claimed to have diagnosed a breakout of
cholera
.
Turned out
to be
a
lie, intended to lure us into a trap
, but we didn’t realize it until
it was
too late
.

Our destination was a
local health clinic.
On
ly eight of us we
nt
on this supposedly peaceful errand.
We travelled in a small convoy, with the Red Cross truck between two Humve
e
s
.

The
clinic
was
a one-story building marked with a spray-painted red crescent. It was
located on a dead-end street
, blocked by a
round
about in front of a school
. We stopped
at the curb by the clinic. On the opposite side of the street
was a gas station, which at the moment was being supplied—or so we assumed—by a
fuel truck
. The driver was busy with
pipes and
spigots
, and we didn’t pay
much
attention to him. What
did
attract our attention was the sight of
many
women in head-to-toe
black
burka
h
s
,
sitting on the doorstep at the entrance
and
on all the windowsills, practically blocking every opening that faced the street.
A few held infants in their laps.

This odd reception must have seemed normal to the Red Cross team
. They
proceeded to
get out of
the
ir
truck and unload
the
medical
supplies.

Our
commander, a young second
lieutenant from Nebraska,
took
their cue and ordered
us out of the armored Humve
e
s.