chosen a civilian career. As far as he was concerned, she was easily a contender for admiral. A rank still a couple of years off before she would be eligible. She had only put the eagles of a captain on her lapel six months ago, and was still going through that transition period of learning to call her fellow captains by their first names.
How does she do it? he wondered. Some were natural briefers, and she was one of them. No uhs, pauses, or rambling for explanations. He had seen her throw together a flag-level briefing in minutes without any preparation. On the negative side, she was known for inflicting death by Power Point on those in her audience. Nothing was too down in the weeds for Mary Davidson.
If he still believed she was a contender for admiral in her small community, then next year would be the real challenge. In the ever-shrinking Navy intelligence community, her next set of orders would determine the strength of that opportunity. She needed a joint billet. A billet such as on the Joint Staff or at one of the warfighting CINCs like Commander in Chief Pacific or Commander in Chief Central Command to improve her chances for admiral. Even Commander in Chief European Command could be a stepping-stone, though he couldn’t recall any intelligence officer who had made flag after serving a tour as a director at EUCOM. How much weight, he wondered,could he carry in getting her one of those jobs? Or would her community decide she had reached her pinnacle and send her to a dead-end job like that parochial Federal Information Systems Agency? Now, there was a money sump if he had ever seen one. Could save the nation and the Department of Defense millions by dissolving it . . .
He stopped his train of thought. FISA was his pet Washington peeve, and it never failed to get his blood boiling every time he thought of it. Dick turned his attention to Mary, although he had reviewed the slides before the brief and knew the material she was passing on to his staff. He caught Colonel Battersby looking at him. The Marine Corps Commander of the Amphibious Landing Force—CALF—nodded. Dick returned the silent salute and moved his attention to Captain Davidson.
“. . . from being a colony of the United States to a republic in 1820. You!” she shouted in a mocking voice, pointing her finger at the Assistant Chief of Staff for Supply. “Keep those eyes open!”
Commander Churchill Walden— Ready Freddie to his friends —grinned, winked at Mary Davidson, and grabbed his throat. “Doc! Doc! Where are you? I can’t see. I’ve been wounded by a hostile Power Point attack.” Churchill was Holman’s mustang. Navy referred to them as Limited Duty Officers—LDOs. Behind their backs, LDO was said to stand for Loud, Dumb, and Obnoxious. Churchill was not dumb, seldom obnoxious, and always loud.
A former master chief disbursing officer, the tenacious sailor had been selected for warrant officer, and then within two years promoted past the junior rank of ensign directly to lieutenant junior grade. Ten years later, this old-timer at forty-eight was a full commander. A rank most officers obtained by the time they reached forty. Although it was early afternoon, already Walden’s salt-weathered face was showing the gray tips of heavy face hair.
“I just wanted to be sure you were still awake,” Davidson said. “I know it’s afternoon and men your age need their sleep.”
“Well, my fine intelligence captain, I’ll have you know that I sneaked my geriatric nap just prior to lunch.”
The banter broke just what Dick knew was becoming a monotonous briefing. He also knew they needed to act serious about this. In the past year and a half, Amphibious Group Two had had over six of these 911 calls to evacuate American citizens. Each time the crisis had been resolved before they were halfway there, or they’d arrived to discover the situation had calmed. This was probably another one, though it was the first in Africa since
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