“Read their last transmission again, please” His gruff voice tumbled through the air before coming to a sudden halt. Stillness followed, filling the room. Nineteen people, plus the Commander, sat quietly in high-back chairs that surrounded the magnificent mahogany table, anticipating Thomas Steele’s response; even though they had all heard the words at least a dozen times that morning.
“We are all broken.” Steel read from the worn out spiral notebook.
“Nothing after that?” the Commander inquired.
“No sir.” Thomas looked at the last entry in the log; only a white blanket of empty space appeared below the words he had scrawled at 0421 that morning—We are all broken. He hoped, that by staring at the notebook instead of the people in the room, principally the old Commander and those penetrating eyes, that he would conceal the "I told you so"- look he was certain must be flashing across his face like a motel’s neon sign. Concealing this not-so-humble opinion in his voice had been easier, made that way by short, concise responses, and a self-awareness the he was the lowest ranking officer in a room where decisions that could change the world were made by men with stars on their collars. Men who never had to say nor listen to an I told you so.
But he had. He warned that they were too young, too green. Strategic planning for the mission had begun when most of the team members were still in high school chasing girls not bad guys. Steele had studied the enemy, the territory and the mission team. It was not a good fit. Too young. Too green.
“What was said before that?” It was Major Norris, Thomas Steele’s commanding officer.
Steele hesitated, remembering the words.
“The transmission was broken up badly; only two words were clear—"green" followed a moment later by "don’t." That was all, sir.” Thomas looked at the Major.
“Seven hours.” The only man standing, said to no one. He was also the only person in the room wearing a three-piece suit instead of a military uniform. A brilliant white shirt stretched across his broad chest; decorated by a green tie and dark green cuff links. Thomas Steele had never seen him before; his presence in the Command Room caused an unsettling deep inside the lieutenant; a hazard not uncommon to someone with the keen observation skills that Steele possessed. He made a mental to note to keep an eye on this stranger.
Someone asked, “Any ideas as to what that means?”
“Could the weather be a factor. Maybe it has limited communications?
“Do we have any satellite images?”
Question after question came from around the table at a rapid pace. The military’s top leaders talking over each other, not giving a chance for answers to be given. He had the answers, most of them. He had heard the message while the others in the room were sleeping soundly. He had followed the Standard Operating Procedures; verified weather conditions, satellite up-links, and down-links, cryptic authentication, and everything else the men around the table were asking about. Most of the men in the room had only heard the transcripts as read by Steele. The actual recording was in the forensics lab; there the experts would try to clean up the static filled messages.
Maybe they wouldn’t be asking these sophomoric questions if they had heard the fear in the voice of whoever was transmitting. Steele hadn’t recognized the voice. He had only met the team once, probably wouldn’t recognize any of them walking down main street, but he knew their voices. That was his job. SOP required the team to transmit, to check in, every twenty-four minutes. He knew their voices as well as he knew his own. He knew that the messenger had not said, “We are all broken.” No, he had said, “We are all… (a fifteen second pause) …broken.” The voice had struggled to find just the right word.
The room had filled with voices and questions; no one wanting answers. Thomas looked at the man sitting at the end of the long table. The stranger in the suit was now standing beside the Commander, nodding his head to whatever the general was saying. The disquieting feeling returned at the sight of this stranger standing so close to the Commander.
With the expertise of an international spy, Steele removed the camera pen from his breast pocket, snapping a picture of the stranger. With the push of another button he sent the picture to his laptop, sitting open on the table in front of him. His fingers danced over the keyboard, entering the picture into a face-recognition program. The whole thing took less than seven seconds to accomplish.
He pretended to scribble notes in the logbook and answered some simple questions as he waited for the program to return an answer. Minutes ticked away. He turned his gaze again to the man in the three-piece suit; Thomas saw the green cuff link rapidly blinking. It was a code! He recognized it immediately. The laptop’s screen flashed— “No Match Found”. Impossible! Thomas knew the depth of the data base, to find no match could only mean one thing.
The stranger was leaning in close to the Commander, the cuff link now blinking a bright red. Steele stood up, knocking his chair over. The men around him looked up in shock. Thomas Steele climbed over the table, yelling…
“Tommy!”
It was his mother’s voice. The imagery created by young Tommy Steele fell apart at the sound of his mother’s voice. The Command Room crumbled away. The Commander, the Stranger, all the men in the room suddenly vanished, replaced by the family dining room, his mother and his siblings sitting around the yellow pine-six-top dinner table.
“Tommy Steele, you need to eat your vegetables too.” She said in her best Mom’s-in-charge voice.
Tommy looked up at his Mom and then at his smirking little sister. “But Mom, they are all…broken.”
Tommy’s mom laughed, “Honey, they aren’t broken. They are French cut. French cut green beans. That’s all. Not broken at all.”
Nine-year-old Tommy Steele picked up his fork and gently poked at the French cut green beans. Knowing that they were still GREEN BEANS!
He waited. He knew she would turn her gaze back to the television soon, her favorite, “Wheel of Fortune” would be back from the commercial break any second now. And when she did.
Well everyone knows that a fork in the hands of an international spy is always much more than just a fork!
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