Never Say Never
Chapter 10
Monday, July 30, 2001
1000 Hours Local Time
White House Situation Room
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC
Harm was busy monitoring the different worldwide activities, as he coordinated with the various intelligence services incident report submissions to the President's Office. Right now, he had his attention focused on the capture of an Al-Qaeda operative instrumental in coordinating the US Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya & Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998. They were taking the individual to the carrier Patrick Henry for interrogation before he was to be brought to the US to stand trial for terrorism. He thought that he would find out the results of the interrogation through the usual channels soon enough. At least he thought that before his desk phone rang and he picked it up.
"Commander Rabb?"
His attitude immediately soured when he heard Admiral Chegwidden.
"Commander, we need you to go out to the carrier to oversee the interrogation of the detainee. I worked it out with the SECNAV, and he worked it out with the President. Your flight leaves from Andrews at 1500. Make your arrangements."
"Sir we have experienced interrogators already out there. What do they need me for?"
"Are you disobeying a direct order, Mr. Rabb?"
"No sir I am not. I would just like to know what I'm going into."
"What you're going into is the process of ensuring a terrorist detainee is properly handled so that we can prosecute him to the fullest and proper extent of the law."
"Yes sir, I understand."
"Good. That is all have a good trip." He hung up before Harm could reply.
As he clicked to end Chegwidden's call to call his wife to let her know he wouldn't be home for dinner, Harm mused, "What the hell is his problem with me? He's been giving me a problem since he became the JAG. Even now when I'm not even under his command anymore he still wants to mess with me."
As Harm called his wife, he was still wondering about the source of Chegwidden's animus toward him.
Albert Jethro Chegwidden and his twin sister Adele Teresa were born in 1944 at Austin General Hospital, Austin TX. They grew up on a ranch in Clarendon in the Texas panhandle near Amarillo. They attended Clarendon High School. While they were there AJ excelled in baseball as a star pitcher. After his senior year, he was drafted in the second round by the Cleveland Indians. He passed on a career in baseball to attend the Naval Academy in the Autumn of 1962. After graduating in 1966 as an ensign, he went immediately into the SEALS and was sent to Vietnam.
In 1971, as a Lt-jg. during a time between tours in Vietnam, AJ was on leave in Naples, Italy. He met and fell in love with Marcella, the daughter of Naples's mayor. They marry in Autumn. Nine months later in 1972, their daughter Francesca was born.
In 1973 AJ was made full lieutenant. AJ rose rapidly through the ranks. However, having a successful Naval career was detrimental to his marriage to Marcella. In 1978 she asked for a divorce citing that he was never home from "his navy" to be a good husband or father. AJ continues his life alone. In 1978 he is devastated when he finds out that Marcella married Vittorio Paretti. Vittorio was a businessman whose dealings were on the edge of the line of being illegal as he dealt with both the Mafia and other legitimate businesses.
In 1974 AJ left the SEALs because of a knee injury and transferred to Surface Warfare. His first billet after completing the required coursework in Surface Warfare College is aboard the Farragut.
AJ was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1976. He served with distinction in that MOS, given command of a destroyer. Destroyer captains are generally lieutenant commanders.
In 1987 AJ gave up his destroyer command, transferred out of Surface Warfare, and went to law school. He graduated from Duke Law School in 1990. In July of 1992, AJ defended Corporal Farmer on murder charges. Corporal Farmer was found guilty and sentenced to death. Mac would later handle Farmer's appeal.
In 1993 AJ was promoted to Captain and appointed as Force Judge Advocate COM Pacific in Pearl Harbor. In 1997 AJ was promoted to Rear Admiral Upper Half as he became the Navy's Judge Advocate General.
AJ's sister Adele and Jack Austin were high school sweethearts. Jack attended the Naval Academy with AJ. He married Adele the day after he and AJ graduated from the academy in 1966. They went on a two-week honeymoon to Miami, FL. Nine months later in February 1967, Adele gave birth to Margaret Meghan Austin. Jack & Adele ask AJ to be godfather and Jack's sister Margaret as godmother. To give her own name, the family called Margaret Meghan, Meg.
Jack was in the SEALS with AJ. In 1972 Jack was killed in Vietnam during a search-and-destroy operation looking for Viet Cong Sappers near Da Nang. AJ brought his body back for a full honors burial in Arlington.
As Meg grew up without her father, AJ practically doted on her as a surrogate father. AJ practically shepherded Meg through to her admission to the Naval Academy.
AJ knows Harm from his time before Harm joined JAG. In 1991 during the Gulf War, Harm was 24 and a Lieutenant JG on the carrier Patrick Henry. Harm has the ramp strike in which his RIO dies. During the incident review process of that event, Harm is represented by Commander Chegwidden.
AJ is hostile toward Harm because while he represented Harm, AJ took him under his wing. He urged Harm to go to law school and become a JAG. Harm betrayed his trust after Meg was shot by Hemlock. Meg was stuck at the office because Harm finagled his way out of a task AJ assigned him to do. As a result, Meg is where she shouldn't have been when Hemlock came looking for the list mistakenly faxed to Meg's office fax.
So even though Harm is out of his command, AJ still goes to great lengths to make Harm's life miserable. He even enlisted Clayton Webb in his schemes.
AJ is professionally close to Webb because he knew Webb's father Neville in Vietnam. Neville was the CIA's Station Chief in Vietnam. AJ worked closely with Neville to obtain information on the Viet Cong and NVA activities. AJ did not like how Neville was transferred out of Nam in disgrace. Neville ran the CIA program Project Phoenix which set up a counter-guerilla war against North Vietnam. Neville Webb allowed the heroin dealers in the Golden Triangle of Cambodia, Laos & Vietnam to operate without American interference as long as they supplied the CIA with information on the Viet Cong and NVA activities. AJ took Neville Webb's ouster very personally.
He had no idea that Mac's uncle Matthew O'Hara was the one to expose Operation Phoenix's dealings with the Golden Triangle. O'Hara won his Medal of Honor when he flew into a firefight between a company of Marines and a Golden Triangle caravan. The caravan had come down from their mountain poppy fields and had just crossed the Vietnamese border from Laos with their harvest of heroin when they encountered the Marines on a patrol of the border looking for Viet Cong infiltrators. During the firefight and evacuation, the Marine company CO, Captain Cahill obtained records from the killed caravan leader indicating their dealing with the CIA. He and O'Hara brought the information to the ICORPS Command in Nam. After that, the word got around that Neville Webb was persona non grata in Vietnam. So, the CIA asked him to leave.
In revenge for his father's disgrace, Clayton Webb had entrapped Matthew O'Hara to steal the Declaration of Independence, or at least a copy. Mac and Harm were able to prove the entrapment. As a result, the judge dismissed the case against O'Hara and his Defenders' cohorts with prejudice.
Webb had coerced AJ to pull Sarah Mackenzie onto the case to apprehend her uncle in hopes of having her and her uncle arrested as coconspirators. Harm had been the wrench in that endeavor as he and Mac worked together on the trial to show the entrapment.
So, AJ and Webb were working hard to make life miserable for the Rabbs.