WRATH OF THE EAGLE
PRÉCIS
In May 1974 an Egyptian Copt in Cairo leaves home rather than subject
herself to a brokered marriage to a Moslem. In April 1975 the cargo ship Star of
Persia explodes after striking a mine at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal.
On the Pacific island of Guam seven months later, a decorated navy officer
pesters the Pentagon for a challenging billet.
Three seemingly unrelated events, one occurring thousands of miles
from the others, soon collide to focus world attention on the Suez.
DESCRIPTION
Lieutenant Sam Wallace reports as executive officer aboard the missileequipped patrol gunboat USS Leopard at the Naval Station, Rota, Spain in January
1976. In April she sails to the Suez Canal to guard Allied ships clearing it of mines.
Leopard's ambitious captain, Lieutenant Curtis Yoder, places greater emphasis on
planning his career than commanding his ship. His work ethos includes relieving
watch officers for the slightest trespass. This mien often entangles Sam, who must
also reconcile Navy duty to son Kevin's learning disability. In Cairo, Leopard's
engineer, Ensign Harry Mahan, meets an Egyptian Christian–a Coptic woman–
Shekoofeh Nakib. The two are at once drawn to one another. Meanwhile, a fanatical
group, Hafez-el-Sayef–Keeper of the Sword–develops plans to humiliate Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat and the Allies, the American navy in particular. Hafez leader
Ahmed Yassin remains particularly incensed that Shekoo, promised to him in a
brokered marriage, ran away rather than marry a Muslim. Yoder surrenders to Sam
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increased authority so his uninvited captain may hobnob at strategy sessions
reserved for senior Allied officers. When a Hafez mob attacks Leopard's liberty party
and kidnaps a crewman, and Yoder blames Sam for embarrassing the command.
The captain cancels all liberty until "you guilty crewmembers" step forward. Morale
sinks further when Yoder, attempting to regain his wardroom's regard, makes
disparaging remarks toward "those uppity Jews that Hitler just had to control" using
riot guns that Yoder now collects.
Harry and Shekoofeh marry in a Coptic ritual witnessed by her brother
Labib, and Sam.
Yoder immediately chastises Sam publicly for witnessing a
"crossbred" marriage. At the Pyramids Hafez kidnaps Leopard's crew. At Suez City
Hafez seizes two British ships and attempts to capture Leopard.
Sam, using
Leopard’s missiles, sinks the pirated ships. A dying Hafez leader tells Sam the crews'
whereabouts. He sustains a serious injury in the ensuing search that frees all hands.
Then, with Labib guiding, Sam meets Harry and Shekoo at a student apartment
building serving as a Hafez rendezvous point. Infighting erupts; Yassin shoots all. A
stray bullet ignites the boiler; a fire breaks out and quickly the building becomes
engulfed. Flames rise as looters arise. Harry and Shekoo slip away. Sam helps
rescue an infant tossed from the apartment mere moments before it collapses. Labib
suddenly realizes that Harry and Shekoo went inside the building.
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Sam's nomination for the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions aboard
ship and ashore generates fierce opposition from Yoder who, to protect his career,
files charges against Sam and the deceased Harry. Accusations against Sam prove
unfounded, and for "command performance insufficient to qualify as substandard" an
investigating board recommends relieving Lieutenant Yoder of his post.
Sam, temporarily in command, gives a powerful pierside eulogy in front of a
grief-stricken crew, embassy officials, the Yassin and Nakib families. Leopard sails
for Rota. Off an isolated cove on Mallorca Island, Harry and Shekoofeh Mahan
approach the Wallaces as they sunbathe nude. Harry explains to an astonished
couple (1) how Labib planned their phony deaths, and (2) that Yoder resigned rather
than face a ruinous hearing certain to uncover his command ethos. Shekoo begs the
Wallaces never to visit the Mahans who have new lives in Haifa.
Over dinner Sam narrates events that lead to his nomination, and the
benefits should his nomination be approved. Karen approves Sam's idea to adopt
the orphaned Egyptian child, but only if they name her Shekoo.
An October 1976 newspaper article notes Sam's award ceremony; a
second article, dated June 1977 heralds Leopard's decommissioning amid
Congressional bickering.
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LOGLINE:
Aboard the guided missile gunboat USS Leopard, fiery executive officer
Lieutenant Sam Wallace overcomes a self-absorbed captain and deep
trepidation as to son Kevin's mental disability, all while defeating
terrorists bent on closing the Suez Canal.
W ORKING
TITLE:
WRATH OF THE EAGLE
APPROXIMATE
SIZE:
TIME:
SOURCES
USED
AUTHOR'S
VITA
Approximately 106,000 words in 414 pages
WRATH OF THE EAGLE requires approximately two months to complete
should you accept its proposal.
Include, but not necessarily limited, to the writer's research about, and
personal knowledge of, the patrol gunboat (PG)-class of naval vessel;
considerable research into the closing of the Suez Canal in 1967 and its
1975 reopening upon completion of Operation Nimbus Star in which the
U.S. Navy played a significant role; public information regarding the
history of the United States Naval Station at Rota, Spain; and a
boundless yet focused imagination.
Author Stephen Brown teaches computer courses at the College of San
Mateo. His background includes a BA in Literature, an MBA in Finance,
thirty-plus hours postgraduate work, and international banking. As a
Navy lieutenant he served five years active duty, during which he was
assigned duty twice in Vietnam as operations officer aboard ship. The
first included anti-infiltration patrols 300 yards off the beach using night
scopes and special equipment. The second included duty during
"Operation End Sweep" clearing North Vietnamese ports of
sophisticated mines; in exchange, Hanoi released American prisoners of
war. Over an eight month period his ship cleared seven ports including
Haiphong, Hon Gai and Cam Pha–places few Westerners rarely see–to
help bring home 591 POWs.
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The author’s first book, SWEEPS–released in February 2003–relied on
this experience for plot, setting, characters and theme. In his second,
TRACK OF THE TREASURE, Lieutenant Wallace, operating under top-secret
presidential orders, searches hostile waters for looted treasure buried
since World War II, treasure which government officials allege his
deceased father stole.
AUTHOR'S
VITA (cont'd)
Stephen proposes a twelve-book series portraying Sam Wallace's Navy
pursuits from Persian Gulf to Philippine jungle. Exploits investigating
breakthrough scientific and national security affairs at the Naval
Academy comprise the middle books, while the latter third embrace a
widowed Sam's adventures from the Bahamas to the Middle East
aboard his 104-foot luxury-for-charter catamaran Chardonnay as
platform.
A member of the California Writers Club, in 2001 Stephen won its
Bulwyr-Litton writing contest, and established its chapter's first critique
group. He co-chaired the Club’s annual Jack London Writers
Conference in March 2004.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
USS LEOPARD
Commanding Officer
Executive Officer
Operations Officer
Deck & Supply Officer
Engineer
Chief Missile Technician
Bosn’s Mate First Class
Electrician's Mate First Class
Lieutenant Curtis Yoder
Lieutenant Samuel Wallace
Lieutenant (junior grade) Thomas Barrister
Lieutenant (junior grade) Dennis Westlake
Ensign Harry Mahan
Rubin Templeton
Franklin McKormick
Mario Cavalli
Missile Technician First Class
Duane Soliman
Hospital Corpsman First Class
Howard Gates
Bosn’s Mate Second Class
Quartermaster Second Class
Ralph Gillespie
Clayton Wyvern
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THE WALLACE FAMILY
Karen, Sam’s wife
Twins Heather Nicloe and Kevin Allen
UNITED STATES CONSULATE–SUEZ CITY, EGYPT
Albert Karr
Militaryl Attaché
Consul
Captain Donald McSweeny, USN
UNITED STATES EMBASSY–CAIRO
Ambassador
Policy Chief
Policy Chief’s Wife
Wilson Timmons
Henrí Reed
Marina Reed
EGYPTIANS
Bahour Nakib
Shekoofeh Nakib
Labib Nakib
Abuna Sigres
Ahmed Yassin
Mohammed Kaldar
Dhakla Rhouston
Head of house
Bahour’s eldest daughter
Shekoofeh’s youngest brother
Nakib family priest
Shekoofeh’s rejected suitor; leader of Hafez-es-Sayef
Ahmed’s lieutenant
Top Egyptian model and Hefez member
WRATH OF THE EAGLE
SYNOPSIS
In May 1974 an Egyptian Copt in Cairo leaves home rather than subject
herself to a brokered marriage to a Moslem. In April 1975 the cargo ship Star of
Persia explodes after striking a mine at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal. On
the Pacific island of Guam seven months later, a decorated Navy officer pesters the
Pentagon for a challenging billet.
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Three seemingly unrelated events, once occurring thousands of miles away,
soon collide to focus world attention on the Suez.
***
Navy Lieutenant Sam Wallace wakes from a recurring nightmare–the ship
on which he patroled off the Vietnamese coast cannot rescue drowning shipmates,
and he blames himself. The next morning Sam and wife Karen scuba-dive nude in a
crystalline lagoon. On a sandbar during lunch Karen asks Sam to contact the
Pentagon for a next assignment, and to seek local support for post-traumatic stress
caused by two exhaustive tours in North Vietnam. Sam reacts defensively–"Don't
need no god-damn psychological help!"–but Karen soothes with calm assurances.
His trans-Pacific call to Washington results in orders as executive officer aboard USS
Leopard, a patrol gunboat recently modernized as a surface-to-surface missile test
platform, homeported at Rota, Spain in January, 1976.
Sam and Karen research Leopard and the Andalusia region of Spain,
saddened at leaving friends but grateful to leave Guam where they've lived for three
years. Especially Karen, whose only off-island trips occurred when Sam helicoptered
them to a distant island or atoll to walk seldom-seen beaches and reefs, often
exploring them in the nude.
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As the Wallaces pack two-year-old twins Heather and Kevin, and three cats,
a terrorist attack in Cairo, Egypt goes hideously awry. Members of Keeper of the
Sword–Hafez-es-Sayef in Arabic–attached cheap detonators to improvised bombs.
The devices explode prematurely in downtown Cairo, killing office workers instead of
American tourists ogling the Pyramids. Members watch as statues of Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat crumble. Instead of rejoicing over the destruction, though,
the group's financial backer, Ahmed Yassin, expresses ongoing anger that
Shekoofeh Nakib, the Copt once promised him in a family-brokered marriage,
remains at large. Yassin directs Hafez lieutenant Mohammed Kaldar to double the
reward for his lost betrothed, then laments Egypt's demise since Nasser’s resignation
in June, 1967. Hafez escapes a room-by-room Central Security Force search of
surrounding apartments.
In Rota, Sam and Karen haven't finished unpacking when he bicycles to the
shipyard for a first glimpse of Leopard. He finds an unkempt ship and a cynical crew,
foremost of who is the snide son of a senior Washington bureaucrat. When Sam
reports aboard the next morning his tenor turns even more unsettling; Leopard’s
captain, Lieutenant Curtis Yoder, fired the previous executive officer when the ship
failed a readiness inspection. Yoder creates unnecessary command predicaments
by having the crew issue shipboard orders and responses in Latin. Worse, his uncle,
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Rear Admiral Maxwell Davis, is assigned backwater navy duty in nearby offices
where the two spend extraordinary time drinking and planning Yoder's career one,
two and three postings ahead rather than attending to his command responsibilities.
Yoder's work ethos includes relieving watch officers for the slightest trespass. This
mien often entangles Sam, who must accommodate the snobbish Lieutenant Yoder
bent on running Leopard exactly the way Marines treated Lance Corporal Curtis
Yoder in Thailand in 1962.
A consultation at the Clinico Medico y Psicológico in nearby Cadiz confirms
Sam's worst fear.
Son Kevin has a learning disability, the news and timing
particularly distressing because Leopard received sailing orders. She leaves in April
on Operation Spectrum, an Allied effort to clear the Suez Canal of mines closed since
1967. Yoder anticipates hobnobbing with senior British, Egyptian and French officers
as means to benefit his career, and assigns Sam authorities which regulations
reserve exclusively for ship's captains.
Yoder's flippant comment, "Cairo is incapable of defending its Canal,"
angers both American Consul Albert Karr and military attaché Captain Donald
McSweeny, USN, upon arrival in Suez City which is the southern Canal port of entry.
Later Yoder chides Sam for not defending his captain's "unbiased, highly accurate
opinions."
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While touring the Pyramids and later attending a social function at the
American embassy in Cairo, Leopard's engineer, Ensign Harry Mahan, meets
Shekoofeh–Shekoo–Nakib. Far from being the typical embassy escort, she makes
her living performing meager tasks at the Egyptian National Museum. Escorting
Americans whom the embassy wants to show counterfeit deference earns the Copt–
Christian–lady additional money. Underneath her incurious courtesy Shekoo is an
attractive, intelligent woman with one goal in life: Emigrate to America. She explains
to Harry why she left a wealthy Cairo home; she would not consent to the marriage
her father, Bahour Nakib, arranged solely for business purposes with a rival–and
Moslem–family. Except for youngest brother Labib and family priest Abuna–Father–
Siegres, she has had no contact with family which considers her dead for disgracing
Cairo's most prominent Coptic name. Harry's growing up was just the opposite, he
says; an unemployed father ran from home,only to die in Vietnam while building
roads in the earliest days of the war. Harry’s been on his own since his grandparents
passed away.
Their mutual attraction is obvious, Sam observes, who later meets embassy
chief policy officer Henri Reed and Marina, his wife. A stunning Egyptian woman,
Dakhla Rhouston, joins the reception; her arrival interrupts Yoder's smoozing Henri
into endorsing Yoder’s partaking in Paragon’s strategy sessions, such meetings
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attended by only the most senior officers. Senior Egyptian officers congregate
around the vivacious woman. Yoder criticizes her attire–"A pants suit? At an
American reception?"–but turns humble upon learning she is the Canadian
ambassador's escort. Yoder remains overnight at the embassy to cement his
admission to high-level Paragon meetings. Sam flies Marina and Henri to Suez City
using the embassy's JetRanger helicopter. Yoder shocks Sam's when he learns the
captain, with the aid of Admiral Davis’ influence, finagled admission to the strategy
sessions. Yoder’s attending meetings will solidify his career, he tells Sam over the
telephone, even if doing so means being in Cairo when Leopard is underway.
A Hafez lookout sights Shekoo and reports to Moustafa Kaldar. In the
meantime Ahmed Yassin develops a plan to humiliate the foreign navies, the
American in particular, thereby forcing Sadat to deal with Hafez' demands including
Egypt rejecting all Western influence and embracing a theocratic state.
With Yoder spending even more time in Cairo, conditions aboard Leopard
improve; the crew, light in number but heavy in experience, resolves shipboard issues
her captain once considered insuperable. But problems remain. Wallace notes his
captain’s deteriorating facial complexion–pronounced broken cheek capillaries–first
observed at Rota and deteriorating by suspected heavy drinking ashore. Sam
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convinces an increasingly antagonistic Captain Yoder the advantages of being more
trusting of his officers, especially in matters regarding seamanship.
Following heated words Wallace and Yoder strike a deal. Curtis, ever
focused on his career, will continue attending high-level meetings. Sam becomes de
facto captain.
Sam designates Harry as Leopard's embassy liaison, and whenever in
Cairo he spends considerable time with Shekoo, often spending weekends in town
with Shekoo acting as personal tour guide.
In a waterfront bar packed with Leopard sailors, and disguised Hafez
members, Dakhla Rhouston performs a deliberately erotic belly dance so arousing
that a crewman, at the urging of another, storms the stage with visions of removing
her sheer harem skirt. Yassin’s plot unfolds; Hafez intercedes by kidnapping the
sailor at gunpoint. Kaldar then kills the lookout who first spotted Shekoo and who
helped execute the kidnapping. Mohammed Kaldar then vows to protect Dakhla from
Ahmed Yassin who considers her actions brazen despite her many successes as a
Hafez member.
Captain Yoder turns rabid now that Leopard is at the focus of several
investigations, any one of which could uncover his time ashore when the ship is
underway. During a dockside muster he blames the crew for embarrassing his
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command. He demands "all you guilty ones" who perpetrated the incident step
forward. In a show of solidarity which includes all officers, all hands save one do so.
Yoder, beyond furious at Sam, cancels liberty for all hands save the one crewman
who did not step forward, he being the son of the Washington senior official.
With a thoroughly disgusted crew Leopard patrols the Suez Gulf to protect
British minesweepers, plus American helicopters towing minehunting equipment,
through the Canal’s entrance twenty-four hours a day. To ease wardroom tensions,
at supper Sam recollects days sweeping mines in North Vietnam in 1973. Thinking to
impress the wardroom as to his own accomplishments, Yoder boasts of owning an
authentic German Mauser C-96 Schnellfeuer "broomhandle" pistole, a shoulder-fired
semiautomatic issued to Hitler's Waffen-SS as a riot gun, Yoder contends, "to keep
them uppity Jews in line." Instantly the atmosphere turns sour as operations officer
Tom Westlake mentions his Jewish fiancé’s mother’s brother was killed during World
War II as target practice by Waffen-SS using C-96s. Yoder then chides Sam "for
once again embarrassing my command," to which Sam says Curtis is himself an
embarrassment for spending time in Cairo.
Bahour Nakib takes control of Mohammed Yassin's business through bribes
to change the terms of a contract Yassin sought long to secure. The new contract
owner is perfectly aware Mohammed expended considerable sums on the contract
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on which he still owes others. Mohammed dies of a heart attack upon hearing the
news straight from Bahour that Nakib Trading International owns the contract. The
Yassin family loses its fortune. Ahmed seethes; his status is reduced to mere
employee of a Coptic-owned company.
One week later Yoder openly censures Harry and Sam for a crewman's
unauthorized liberty when Leopard was last in port. Sam, noting once again Yoder’s
pronounced capillaries at both cheeks, explains he authorized the crewman ashore to
purchase ingredients for Yoder’s birthday cake at a surprise party. "Act like you didn’t
know when the crew presents it," Sam advises, and again cautions his captain not be
ashore when Leopard goes on next patrol.
Hafez plans complete, Moustafa Kaldar offers Ahmed a blueprint:

Invite sailors to a feast at the Pyramids once Spectrum concludes;

Overcome skeleton crews aboard HMS Cormorant, HMS Pelican, and
USS Leopard; and then

Sink Allied warships by ramming them using Cormorant and Pelican,
and by launching Leopard’s missiles.
Ahmed, mindful he can restore his family’s fortune selling salvaged
cryptographic equipment to interested third parties–Russians pay well–agrees, but
only if Hafez returns Shekoo to him as part of the plot. Blame the Americans for her
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kidnap, he says, and then collect a substantial ransom from Bahour Nakib for her
return.
At the American embassy Yassin proposes the feast and volunteers as
master of ceremonies, all as signs of good will. Officials provide Ahmed with crew
lists.
Launching Leopard's surface-to-surface missiles becomes paramount, and
Hafez’ final plan targets Yoder and the missile launch key reportedly worn around his
neck. Hafez relishes the thought of a disgraced, humiliated United States. Timing is
perfect, Ahmed muses; only weeks prior America celebrated its bicentennial.
Operation Spectrum concludes. Leopard moors at Suez City before sailing
home following the feast and Canal reopening ceremonies in one week. Shekoo
introduces Harry to her brother Labib and family priest Abuna–Father–Siegres.
To Yoder's dismay Ambassador Wilson Timmons mandates the feast as
required attendance for all hands. The wardroom attends an embassy briefing, and
that evening Harry and Shekoo marry in a Coptic ritual officiated by Abuna Siegres
and attended by Sam and Labib.
News one of his officers "married some damn fucking foreigner" turns Yoder
livid, who contends the marriage could jeopardize his chances for a more rapid
advancement, especially since learning a French admiral has a thirty-something
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daughter he’d like to see married. Yoder, a mid-thirties bachelor, is "in the market"
for a wife, he tells Sam, and an admiral’s daughter would certainly raise Yoder's
status with the socially-conscience.
Wallace learns from Henri Reed that Sam and Labib's presence validated
the legality of the marriage. Labib cautions Harry about serious threats rumored
against Navy foreigners. The feast is in two days.
At the feast Hafez captures British and American crews, including Captain
Yoder, Consul Karr and naval attaché McSweeny with minimal resistance. Hafez
commences beating several in the crew when, to its horror, it learns that no launch
key exists for Leopard's missiles.
Leopard's security watch raises alarms when harbor and streetlights
extinguish, one at a time, near where the American vessel is moored. Sam, relieved
of his office and restricted to the ship by Yoder because Sam's attending Harry's
wedding gave credence to a "blended marriage" thoroughly offensive to Yoder, has
Chief Missile Technician Ruben Templeton put the ship on full alert. In the darkened
harbor they hear engines start aboard Cormorant and Pelican, then watch both cast
off mooring lines but with neither bridges nor decks manned. There’s gunfire from
both ships, then splashing sounds. Sam surmizes the British crews have been killed;
the sounds of splashes were bodies hitting the water.
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The watch reports sounds coming from the fantail where Wallace and
Templeton then repel Hafez boarders but not before the watch is killed. Sam extracts
information on the attack and the seized crews from a captured Hafez terrorist by
shooting him in both kneecaps and an elbow. As the crew makes emergency
preparations for getting Leopard underway, Sam and Ruben enter the missile control
compartment and launches three missiles, sinking both Cormorant and Pelican
before they can ram any Allied warships.
Templeton gets Leopard underway. Sam expropriates the consulate's
helicopter and flies below Egyptian radar to the Menkaure Pyramid. He sustains a
serious skin abrasion in action that frees those kidnapped but in so doing learns that
Hafez killed the crewman son of the Washington official. All are overjoyed with relief
to see Sam except Captain Yoder.
Labib Nakib arrives at Menkaure with news; Red Crescent medical staff are
en route to attend the wounded; Hafez has fled Menkaure, and Harry and Shekoo
Mahan are keeping eyes on Hafez at their hideout.
In their boiler room command post inside a student apartment building
basement Ahmed Yassin blames Hafez for the night’s failures. Tempers flair;
accusations and allegations commence. Mohammed Kaldar blames Ahmed who
blames Dakhla Rhouston. Yassin shoots Kaldar. A stray bullet penetrates a feeder
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pipe and causes oil to erupt. More shooting; spewing oil ignites. Yassin shoots those
Hafez trying to escape, then holds Dakhla to the flames as fire spreads. The feeder
pipe falls and pins Yassin under it.
Sam and Labib arrive at the apartment to find Harry and Shekoo. Smoke
from the basement captures the attention of passers-by and soccer players. Alarmed
tenants open doors and windows, and with oxygen added flames erupt. In the
pandemonium Sam observes great heroism offset by looters who, after ransacking
belongings thrown from second-story windows, attack arriving firefighters. Harry and
Shekoo disappear in the commotion.
Now more sirens approach. Central Security Forces arrive to restore order
and protect firemen.
Marina and Henri Reed, accompanied by Ambassador
Timmons, arrive to find the building engulfed. Sam and Henri catch a terrified infant
in their arms mere moments before interior floors collapse and the child’s mother is
engulfed. As dawn breaks over smoldering ruins, police find an incinerated couple by
the basement boiler. Labib recognizes jewelry and identifies the remains as Harry
and Shekoo.
Though rescued and grateful, both Consul Karr and attaché McSweeny
have serious issues with Sam. Karr must deal with an Egyptian government bent on
beheading Sam for violating civil aviation and domestic security laws. McSweeny is
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ready to deliver Yoder's charges against Sam for violating Navy regulations too many
to count.
Sam answers Karr by showing him a scarred warrant seemingly issued by a
branch of the Egyptian government calling for death to all Western influences,
American in particular. But instead of him apologizing, Sam says, it is the Egyptians
who must apologize for issuing the warrants. "Tell ‘em, ‘Go to hell' if they don’t," is
Sam’s response.
Answering McSweeny’s charges, Sam cites the attaché’s own record in
Vietnam when McSweeny, in defiance of orders, carried out a highly successful
mission for which Congress awarded him its Medal of Honor. “Guess I was expecting
something other than typical Navy bilge from you,” Sam answers McSweeny, who
then announces that, for actions aboard Leopard, at Menkaure and at the burning
apartment, Sam’s nomination for the Congressional Medal of Honor
Based on Yoder’s charges the Navy convenes an Article-34 hearing.at the
Cairo embassy The hearing’s goal, much like a preliminary hearing to criminal trials,
is to determine if sufficient evidence exists against Sam to warrant court-martial.
Yoder’s list of multiple charges against Sam include ordering Leopard get underway
without permission the night Hafez boarded her, and unlawful expropriation of military
property for launching missiles. Yoder also adds charges against Harry Mahan for
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gross dereliction of duty, and for failure to abide by regulations regarding his marrying
a foreign national.
A combination of ship’s logs, testimony from Sam and the executive officer
whom Yoder relieved of office just before Wallace arrived aboard, and Yoder’s own
words reveal how detached he was from command responsibilities. The hearing
officer drops all charges against Sam as having no merit, and those against Harry
because Mahan is dead. And Yoder? The hearing officer concludes Yoder's
attention to command as "not even sufficient to be considered substandard," and
orders complete medical and psychological examinations to determine his fitness to
command, with diagnoses and a transcript of the hearing to be forwarded to Sixth
Fleet headquarters "for appropriate determination."
The Navy has a problem, Karr and McSweeny explain to Sam back at the
consulate in Suez City: Yoder’s not around, and Leopard sails for home that night.
A grief-stricken crew, somber Egyptian dignitaries from sundry government
offices, and the Yassin and Nakib families attend a pierside ceremony to mark
Leopard’s departure. Sam's homage is a mixture of fulsome praise and ready
censure of Egypt for the deaths of British sailors, three crewmembers aboard
Leopard, and an Egyptian Copt, and is reminiscent of Prince Escalus' eulogy which
concludes Romeo & Juliet.
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Leopard sails for Rota via Palma de Mallorca, a historic Balearic Island port
and tourist destination off Spain's Mediterranean coast where Karen Wallace will
meet the ship. Upon getting underway Sam messages her asking for thoughts on
adopting the rescued Egyptian child. Later he takes from a beaming wardroom his
first command report as "Cap'n Sam."
The reunited couple spends four days on Mallorca. Sam finds an isolated
beach off which he and Karen snorkel nude. On the beach Harry and Shekoo Mahan
approach. To an astonished Sam Wallace, Harry explains how Labib planned the
phony deaths–the bodies found were Kaldar and Rhouston. Both Lieutenant Yoder
and Admiral Davis resigned their commissions rather than face Article-34 hearings
which would have found Yoder guilty of failure to command, and Davis for excessive
and undue influence . Harry and Shekoo have new lives in Haifa, "but please never
visit us, Sam and Karen. The world believes us dead. And no one is certain Hafez
won’t rise again."
Over dinner Sam relays the benefits should Congress accept his nomination
for the Medal of Honor. Karen approves Sam's idea to adopt an Egyptian child, but
only if they name her Shekoo.
Two newspaper articles follow. The first, dated October 1976, describes
Rose Garden ceremonies at the White House at which President Ford awards Sam
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the Medal of Honor.
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The second, dated June 1977, announces Leopard’s
decommissioning. Attempts by Congress to have her homeported on Lake Michigan
for Naval Reserve training were squelched by outspoken critic Congresswoman
Madeline Saunders (D-CA), who, since coming to office in 1974, has remained
vehement "against polishing rusting military metal when there are so many social ills
to cure."
Egypt never found peace, WRATH OF THE EAGLE concludes. 1980 and
1981 saw tensions between Muslims and Copts explode into gruesome violence
in overcrowded Cairo with Muslims and Christians blaming one another using
inflammatory press accounts. In September, 1980 President Anwar al-Sadat
cracked down on both sides with mass arrests and banned Islamic student
associations. The spiritual leader of the Coptic Church was banished to a desert
monastery after a civil court charged him with fomenting strife against the Moslem
majority.
On October 6, 1981 an assassination team killed President Sadat along
with twenty others; four American diplomats were injured. The trial revealed that
conspirators had obtained a religious legal opinion permitting killing Christians and
stealing gold from Christian jewelry shops to finance jihad. Egypt's security
service then jailed thousands of suspected terrorists including Sheik al-Rahman
Book Proposal
WRATH OF THE EAGLE
23
Stephen Haywood Brown
who, in 1993, was convicted of conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks
and is now serving a life sentence in Colorado.
Also arrested but subsequently released was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who,
despite a $25 million reward for his capture, remains one of Osama bin Laden's
top lieutenants.
24
Book Proposal
WRATH OF THE EAGLE
Stephen Haywood Brown
CHAPTER TITLES
The Nile is Our
Home
Citizens Against
Tan Lines
Chapter 12
Plan of the Day
Chapter 13
Crowd Control
Chapter 3
Inshallah
Chapter 14
Many Faces, Many Masks
Chapter 4
Non Libet
Chapter 15
Chapter 5
Dictum Factum
Chapter 16
New and Unfinished
Business
Extenuating Circumstances
Chapter 6
Sailing Orders
Chapter 17
But Not too Far From Sin
Chapter 7
Watchful Eyes
Everywhere
Happenstance
Chapter 18
For the Very Last Time
Chapter 19
Issues at Stake
Why Must Such
Things Be!
Serpent Heads &
Scorpion Tails
See How Much I
Love You
Chapter 20
Damage Control
Chapter 21
Where Be These Enemies?
Epilog
Her Name Will Be Shekoo
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11