Quest for Honor (20 page)

She turned back to Jim. “This operation has been personally authorized by the president,” she said. “Now, I need an answer from you.”

“I have to use the rest room,” he said, standing up. He really did, but he also needed some space. He felt his heart rate accelerating, and forced himself to calm down and breathe regularly.

In the men’s room, Jim took care of his immediate business, then looked in the mirror as he washed his hands. He tried to imagine what Allenson and Graham were seeing when they looked into the eyes he was seeing now. Did they see a guy who was skeptical, puzzled, maybe a bit frightened? That’s what Jim saw.

He had to give these people an answer. Part of him was saying he should tell them to get lost, forget it, go solve their own problems. He had a life here in Cedar Lake, a home. He had a job, although lately he’d been wondering if it was one he wanted anymore. He had Gina, or at least a shot at something with her. There was his daughter in Milwaukee, and maybe this guy she was dating would give her a ring, and he’d have grandchildren. That was certainly something to live for, wasn’t it?

If he went along with these people, he might never hold his grandchild. What if he went over there and things went to hell and he had to act? Could he do it? Practicing in the dojo or at Systema camp was one thing, coming face to face with a terrorist who wanted to kill you was quite another. Even worse than that terrible morning in the church. Not a spot for an amateur to be in. This was a job for professionals.

Like his brother.

The door opened and a man came in, snapping Jim out of his thoughts. He quickly left the rest room and walked down the short hallway back into the coffee shop. The agents were still in the booth, talking together, no doubt telling themselves that this guy didn’t have what it takes.

The flat-screen TV on the wall was showing something that caught his eye. It was the silhouette of a man, standing against a cloudy sky, holding a sword straight out. It was an ad for the Marines, one he’d first seen a few nights before.

Marines in dress blues with M-1 rifles, the Silent Drill Team, stood near a lighthouse, then in Times Square. Jim strained to hear the audio.

“There are those who dedicate themselves to a sense of honor…to a life of courage…”
Most in the coffee shop ignored the TV, but at one table, a gray-haired man was staring up at the screen, and a tear was rolling down his cheek. Next to him, his wife patted him on the hand. Had he been a Marine? Where had he been? Maybe Chosin Reservoir, or Khe Sanh.

Mark had been in a lot of places. Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, probably more, doing dangerous things, noble things. Where had Jim been, what had he done? He’d always wondered what he would do when the chips were down.

Like they were now.

He made his way back to the booth. The agents looked at him, and he could see their skepticism. He looked away and gathered himself, then back at them. “You probably know my brother’s in the Army,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” Allenson said. Graham remained silent.

“I tried to get in the Reserves,” Jim said. “They wouldn’t take me. Bad knee. The Marines wouldn’t, either. My country said sorry, you’re not good enough. But now it seems the country has changed its mind.” He paused, thinking of his father, his brother.

“Okay,” he said, looking directly at the CIA agent. “When do we leave?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Afghanistan

I
t wasn’t in
Mark’s nature to take a day off, but today he had to force himself to take it easy. Off-days weren’t that common downrange anyway, although he made sure his troops got in as much R&R in as possible. Out here it wasn’t like it had been back in Vietnam, when guys could get a couple days’ leave and head to Saigon or maybe Bangkok. From what he’d been told, those were wild times. If you were out here, the only city to speak of was Kabul, and that wasn’t exactly regarded as a playground. But the medical people were finding out a lot about PTSD and said getting rest and some measure of recreation while deployed was vital. Mark wasn’t about to disagree.

It took a lot of self-discipline. Alcohol wasn’t allowed, porn stashes were discouraged, although Mark knew better than to think those rules were universally obeyed. He told his company commanders to cut the men a little slack. Every now and then somebody pushed the envelope a little far, and there were consequences. Sometimes serious ones, especially if the offense involved civilians. Fortunately, Mark hadn’t had to deal with anything like that during his time as C.O. of Roosevelt. So far.

It was nearly twenty-four hours after the firefight at the farmhouse and his headache seemed to be a little quieter. There was an angry bruise on his left temple, but the doc said there didn’t appear to be any internal damage. He cautioned Mark to be aware of any concussion symptoms, and made sure Ruiz and the rest of the staff were keeping an eye on him. All in all, Mark could live with the headache. If the bullet had been another inch or so to the right it would’ve made sure that he’d never have headaches again.

Things appeared quiet in the valley, so Mark set out to make his usual Sunday-morning rounds of the base first thing after breakfast. It was warming up already, maybe to about seventy-five today. Hot, but not Iraq-in-the-summer hot. He’d had enough of that, and up here in the mountains there was usually enough wind to keep it from getting stifling. The air was clear, too, unlike the odor of Iraq—combustion fumes, garbage, Lord knew what else. You got used to the heat, you expected it to be hot all the time, but the stench hit you in the face as soon as you stepped off the plane and it took a while to get used to that. It was much better here, although some villages had their own special aromas, and Kabul’s pollution was legendary.

Dealing with the weather was easy, but the culture shock was something else entirely. Mark had been all over the country and sometimes it seemed like he was on another planet, maybe a cross between the moon and Mars, except it was warmer and you could breathe the air, sort of. For that matter, the people were like aliens in many respects. The way they talked, dressed, ate, how sometimes the men wiped their ass with a bare hand, how they treated their women. Mark had wondered many times, during his first tour, just what the hell they were doing here, why they bothered with these people. Clean out the bad guys and move on, that’s what should’ve been done.

Gradually, though, his perceptions changed. Yes, they were a different people, but people were different all over, just more so here, and a lot of it had to do with geography. Landlocked, scarce in resources, the Afghans for centuries had been forced to scratch a living out of hardscrabble conditions that made cotton sharecroppers back in the American Deep South look like aristocrats. When you got right down to it, as tough as his life was, the average Afghan wanted what the average American wanted, the average Brit, Russian, Chinese, whatever. He wanted to make a living and raise his family and live in peace.

Over here, sometimes, it appeared that was too much to ask. Since Alexander’s day, foreign armies had moved through these valleys and plains, seeking out not plunder but strategic advantage. Whoever held Afghanistan in those days could dominate the trade routes of southern Asia. These days, it wasn’t much different. If America could leave this place in friendly hands, that would not only cut al-Qaida off from its once-secure sanctuaries, but it would give America and the West strategic access to this part of the world for decades to come. Mark looked to the north. Up there, the Caspian Sea basin was one of the world’s biggest reserves of oil and gas. The Russians had once controlled that, but not now. It was up for grabs. Mark wondered sometimes if that was the real reason he and his fellow soldiers were here.

Whatever the reason, it was tough, demanding duty. One of the biggest challenges for Mark and his fellow officers was keeping their men, and themselves, focused and healthy. Perhaps more than any other conflict in American history, this war was taking a psychological toll on the men and women who fought it, and their families back home. The isolation over here was a serious problem, but in a curious way, Mark believed it was also a strength. With few distractions, maintaining focus was easier than it might’ve been in earlier wars. The camaraderie among the men here was stronger than anything Mark had experienced before. From the day you arrived here you looked forward to going home, and you knew that the only way to survive lay with your comrades. If you had your buddy’s back, he had yours, and you just might make it home alive. And downrange, you needed to trust your buddies because you sure as hell couldn’t trust anyone else you would encounter, not even the men of this land you helped train and mentor.

That was the real tragedy, Mark knew now, after spending so much time here. It baffled the Americans, sometimes enraging them to the point where they did things they would not normally think of doing. No matter how much you interacted with the people here, they never fully accepted you. Not like the Germans and Japanese had done. How many Americans came home from those conquered nations with native-born brides? More than a few, but Mark had not heard of a single American marrying an Afghan woman.

They were here because this job, as hard as it was, as distasteful as it felt, had to be done. The enemy who had come to his country to slaughter his people had come from places like this, using them as sanctuaries for training, breeding grounds for hate. Mark was proud of the work his country had done in Afghanistan, and in Iraq too, toppling brutal dictatorships and giving millions a fighting chance to live in peace, but he wondered where it would all end, if it would ever end.

Mark’s headache wasn’t being improved by this kind of thinking, so he shoved it aside and moved on, out into the main area of the base. Focus on the little things, he reminded himself. There were people way above his pay grade to take care of the big things.

Camp Roosevelt covered about fifty acres on a plateau near the north end of the valley, offering a commanding view. The Russians had realized its strategic importance when they built the first base here back around 1980. Many of their buildings were standing when the Americans arrived, and the engineers had whipped things into pretty decent shape in the years since. It was still on the primitive side compared to Army posts in Europe or back in the States, or even the big one in Kandahar, but it would do.

There were troops out jogging around the perimeter, and Mark supposed that somebody would rustle up enough guys for touch football later in the day. There would probably be some action around the spider pit; sometimes men on patrol would capture camel spiders, non-poisonous arachnids as big as a man’s hand, bring them back to the base and match them up in combat with heavy bets riding on the outcomes. Several men waved at him as they ran by, and a few asked how he was doing. Word had gotten around quickly about the firefight.

He came to one of the lookout posts on the perimeter. Nearby, a group of soldiers was working on the wire fencing. Getting the fence squared away in the beginning had been a bitch, but it had to be done. It was in sad shape when he got here, but Mark knew the history of this base in the Soviet days. They’d been lax about the wire and paid for it one night when the
muj
attacked, rocketing the poorly-secured guard posts and breaching the perimeter. Learning from that lesson, he’d ordered the fencing reinforced and HESCO barriers erected at the four corner guard posts. Mark was glad to see that the four men on duty here this morning weren’t sleeping or otherwise screwing around. “Good morning,” he said.

One of the privates, a new man, stood up and was raising his hand in salute when the corporal pulled him back down. “Goddamn it, Carson, get down,” he said. “You don’t salute out here at the wire! You want to show every friggin’ raghead sniper on that mountain that we got an officer here?” He turned casually toward Mark. “Good morning, sir,” he said, nodding.

“As you were,” Mark said, kneeling down in the sandbagged dugout. “How’s it going, Mandli?”

The corporal, who’d been here a few months longer than Mark, took off his helmet and wiped a sleeve across his high forehead. The kid couldn’t be more than twenty-five but he was already losing his hair. “Pretty quiet, sir. Some movement out there, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

“That’s good. Maybe it’ll be a quiet day. We could use one of those, couldn’t we?”

“Could use more than one, you ask me, sir.”

“Can’t argue with that. Let’s see what we got.” The dugout was shielded by HESCOs, wire mesh containers lined with fabric, then filled with dirt. Some of the smaller FOBs had HESCOs around the entire perimeter, but here Mark had just installed them at the four corners, in the center of the north side, and flanking the entrance gate on the south. Mark hauled himself up onto the ledge of the dugout, looking out over the valley. The view was breathtaking. On the mountainside directly ahead, about two miles away, he could see a small herd of goats, with three upright figures guiding them along. Mark took the binoculars offered by Mandli and zeroed in on them. Looked like one adult man and two boys, picking their way effortlessly along a trail that was probably older than all of them put together.

Mark chatted with his men for a few minutes, then stood up and stretched, enjoying the growing warmth of the sun. An inner voice told him to stay low, beware of snipers, but he figured he’d had his close call for the week yesterday. “Say, Colonel,” Mandli said, “could I have a word with you, sir?”

“Sure.” They walked a few paces away. “What’s on your mind, soldier?”

“Well, sir, we got a new guy in our company, Asian kid, Korean, I think he is…” Mandli stopped, then looked away for a second, biting his lower lip.

Mark had a feeling he knew what was coming. Mandli had a rep for being a stand-up guy, definitely sergeant material. “Speak your mind, Corporal. This is just between us.”

The slender young man sighed. “Well, sir, there’s some guys in the company, they’ve been giving Hong a lotta shi—I mean, they’ve been giving him a hard time.”

“Why? Because he’s Asian?”

Mandli nodded. “Yes, sir. He’s the only Asian in the company. Aren’t too many on the whole base, I don’t think. Anyway, there’s only a few characters doing this, and the lieutenant’s been on their ass about it, but last night, well, it kinda got worse, some name-calling, things like that. Nobody deserves that kind of treatment, you ask me. I’m afraid one of these times, somebody’s gonna get popped and it’ll be real trouble. Besides, Hong’s a nice guy, pretty quiet, keeps to himself. Can’t say that about everybody in the company, sir, to be honest with you.”

“All right. What’s your company?”

“Company C, sir. I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, sir. The lieutenant’s a good guy. I don’t want to say he’s not doing his job.”

Mark checked his watch. Divine services were starting in about fifteen minutes at the base chapel, and he knew Winkler would be there. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll have a word with the lieutenant, and I’ll keep your name out of it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Around 1500, Mark was finishing up an e-mail to Eddie, wondering how long it would take his son to respond this time. Sometimes it was the next day, usually longer. He owed one to Jim, too. It had been a little awkward last night, talking to his big brother on the phone. Dammit, why should that be? They were brothers, for God’s sake. Yeah, Mark had acted like a horse’s ass a few times around him, but that was twenty-some years ago. Wasn’t it time for them both to get past that? Jim was the older brother, he should take the initiative on that, shouldn’t he? Well, what the hell, there was no law that said the younger brother couldn’t reach out first. What would his dad have said? Mark knew that almost without thinking of it. He sighed, clicked on the SEND button, and brought up a fresh screen. He’d do it, and when he rotated back home, he’d make a point of visiting Jim, and they’d have a talk.

There was a knock on the flimsy door of Mark’s office. “Yeah,” he said.

It was Lieutenant Reeves, one of the staff on duty today. “Sir, got a message here from Lieutenant Winkler, Company C.” He handed Mark a folded piece of paper.

“Very well, thank you,” Mark said. The door closed shut behind Reeves as Mark unfolded the message.
Re that issue you brought up after chapel, the men asked to resolve their differences in the ring. Your presence requested, 1600. Winkler, Co C commanding.

One of the larger buildings on the base had been converted into a gym, and one of the few thing’s Mark’s predecessor did right was to keep it in first-rate shape. A fitness nut himself, the guy insisted that all the men have regular PT, to the detriment of their regular training and personal down time. Mark was as much a believer in physical training as anyone else, but he had dialed that back a bit and increased emphasis on doing what they were really here to do. But he appreciated the gym and came over two or three times a week himself.

They had some free weights and a half dozen Total Gym machines Chuck Norris had donated during his last visit downrange. As always, it was a busy place, but most of the crowd now seemed to be gathering around the boxing ring that had been built on the other half of the floor. Two men were in the ring, in opposite corners. One of them was a white guy, solidly built, close-cropped red hair, wearing black twelve-ounce gloves, a tank-top shirt with a biker logo on it, knee-length shorts, and no shoes or socks. The other was shorter, Asian, also barefoot, wearing loose-fitting pants, red MMA-style gloves and no shirt. The kid probably didn’t weigh more than a buck-fifty but he was ripped. Mark hadn’t seen a physique like that in a while.