far more subdued when his boss was present. “All right. A-Shift, get some rack time. B-Shift, back to work.” He looked at an officer who’d been sitting quietly against the wall. “Major Kim, if you still need to talk to me, hang back. But no epic poetry tonight.”
The younger officer nodded. Val Danczuk regarded him as the brightest analyst and reconnaissance officer on his staff. Even if he wasn’t a Steelers fan.
When the room had cleared, the G-2 said, “Watcha got?”
“Mind if I shut the door, sir?”
“Shut it.”
The major closed the door. It was ill-set and had to be forced. Like everything else in this rathole, Danczuk thought.
Major Kim spread a half-dozen imagery culls on the table in front of the G-2. “Sir, I’d like you to take a look at these.”
Danczuk glanced at them. Same target in each one, although the angles and shadows were different: a tented complex in a grove. Some hardstand. The main facilities bore the Red Crescent signature.
“Okay, Jim. Help me out. I’m too tired to play Twenty Questions.”
The major leaned in close enough for the G-2 to smell the last rations the younger man had eaten. “Sir, this site’s in the Upper Galilee. Way up, almost to the old Lebanese border. And if it’s really a field hospital, I’ve got three questions.”
“Which are?”
“The Jihadis have been taking serious casualties. But look at the imagery. We’ve got drone shots and two angles from the DSI-40 satellite. We got those this afternoon, when the downlink punched through for a couple of hours. The other shots are from this morning or yesterday — and there’s an infrared from less than three hours ago.” The major backed off slightly. “Where’s the ambulance traffic? Except for the shadows and the angles, the shots are virtually identical. Hardly any movement. Look at this one: exactly two ground personnel visible. But they’ve got fully manned guardposts down this road.” He pointed with a pen. “There. And over here. And here.”
“Second question?”
“If it’s a field hospital, why isn’t it closer to a main road? Why tuck it off a single-lane side road in the boonies?”
“Third question?”
“If it’s a hospital, why is part of the site camouflaged?” He pointed again. “What looks like trees over here is ghost netting.”
“Chinese?”
“Made in India, sir. Tech transfer from Dassault. If we’re reading the wavelengths right.”
Danczuk nodded. “And?”
“Sir, the J’s are short of ghost netting. It’s a prime commodity. Why use it on a hospital? Which you shouldn’t be trying to hide at all? And by the way, there’s no sign of air-evac activity in any shot. No sign of any patients at all.”
“And Major Jim Kim’s analysis would be?” Danczuk asked. Afraid he knew damned well what the answer was.
“Sir, I believe this is a nuke field-storage site. I believe they’re prepping nuclear munitions in that main tent complex, although I can’t say how many. Just look at those generators. Those aren’t for a hospital. And we don’t know what’s under the ghost netting. Could even be launchers, it could be—”
The G-2 held up his hand. But he didn’t speak immediately after cutting off his subordinate. He gave him a pay-attention stare first.
“Jim… You’re a first-rate officer. Best analyst I’ve got. You read that on your efficiency report. Your pre- landing estimates could be used as models at Ft. Leavenworth. But I need you to listen to me now. Unless you have proof—
“But, sir… General Harris—”
“You’re not listening. I want you to go on receive now. And this is strictly between us. You’ve got a great career ahead of you in MI.
Exhausted, Danczuk sat back, looking at his subordinate again but not quite seeing him this time. Thinking. About the boss he’d served since he’d been a brigade S-2. Best commander he’d ever seen. Normally.
“General Harris is under a lot of pressure,” the G-2 said. “Not because he’s been wrong about anything, but because he’s been right about so many things. And it’s not just the MOBIC crowd we have to protect him against. Even in the Army, there’s plenty of jealousy toward Flintlock Harris, the general everybody laughed at because he made his lieutenants read maps without the benefit of GPS. Plenty of folks wouldn’t mind seeing him make a fool out of himself now, after he was so damned right.” Danczuk scratched a sudden itch on his scalp. “Even if that meant Sim Montfort becoming the hero of the day.”
“Yes, sir. But couldn’t we just hit the site? It’s obvious that it isn’t a field hospital.”
“Tempting,” the G-2 said. “It’s tempting. Have you considered that it might be their forward command post, by the way?”
Stubborn, Major Kim shook his head. “Not enough vehicular traffic, sir. It’s not a command post.”
“Well, find out what it is, then. I don’t want you on a nuke trea — sure hunt, but if we can confirm that it’s not a field hospital — and I mean ‘confirm’—we can go after it. But I know Flintlock Harris well enough to be as certain as bedbugs in Baghdad that he won’t green-light attacking a Red Crescent site unless we have confirmation from multiple sources that it isn’t what it claims to be.”
“But… If it
“But… If it
“It’s not. “It’s not. Didn’t you hear one goddamned word I said?”
“Sir,” Garcia whispered to the new lieutenant, “we’re on the wrong side of the ridge.”
Garcia could barely see the other man’s eyes in the darkness. But he registered their flash.
“You telling me I can’t read a map, Sergeant?”
“Lieutenant… All I said is that we’re on the wrong side of the ridge. Please keep your voice down, sir. The men don’t need to hear this. Or the J’s.”
“Sergeant Garcia, I’ve been appointed platoon commander. Because somebody at battalion happens to believe this platoon needs one. You don’t have to like it. But I expect you to obey orders. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be. This draw leads straight down to our objective. The only reason you can’t see the village is that it’s blacked out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get the men ready to move out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Garcia scuttled back along the trail. He would’ve preferred bushwhacking to the objective, but the lieutenant said he’d had a complete briefing from the S-2 and the trails were clean in the entire southern sector. The Jihadis had been surprised and hadn’t had time to lay mines or booby traps before they pulled back.
Second Lieutenant DeWayne Jefferson. East Coast. Probably D.C. or Philly, Garcia calculated. Whatever the Marines may have taught him at Quantico, they hadn’t taught him how to read a map.
Garcia couldn’t say why, but maps had always seemed clear to him. They just made sense. Like math. The counselor at Monte-bello had pushed him to apply for a scholarship, but Garcia wasn’t having any of that shit. Enough to get through high school and not be jerking off for a GED when you were thirty. He just wanted to be a Marine. Later, the Anglos at the community college he’d dipped into had given him a similar line: Get an education
