All Necessary Force

circuiting the very safety valve they had created.

He absently flipped through the pictures he’d been given just before he left his office. Six frames from his father’s camera, digitally restored by the best in the business. Two were of his father’s team just prior to launch, which, while grainy, had come out fairly well. One was of an open bay porch — type structure with the shadows of several men inside, looking like vague ghosts. Three were of a man standing at the front of the porch. He appeared Caucasian, but that was the extent of what could be made out.

Kurt stopped at the first one and stared hard, trying to see something that would give him a clue as to why his father had risked his life for the picture. Nothing stood out. Even the face was a no-go, with a black blotch from where the negative had been scratched on the left side of his features. He scanned the next one, then the third. None were any better. The film negative had been scratched so badly that the digital reconstruction had had nothing to work with.

He was about to put the pictures back into their folder, when he noticed that the scratches on the negatives were in the exact same spot on the face within each frame. Which was impossible. It’s not a scratch. It’s a part of the man.

He held the picture up to the light, then saw the president standing at the door of his office. He shoved everything into his bag and stood.

“Hey, Kurt. Sorry for the wait. Come on in.”

Kurt followed and got right to business, wanting to get his information out and steer clear of any discussions about operational use of the Taskforce.

“The jump went fine. Infil’s complete with all equipment on the ground. Pike’s got three men now, so he’s just one short of a full team.”

“I thought we jumped in three men. For a total of five with Jennifer.”

Shit. Shouldn’t have brought up numbers. Kurt didn’t want to get into Pike’s actions and Jennifer’s reactions, unsure of how the president would react. Kurt knew Pike as well as he knew himself, and believed him when he said he was good. Pike would pull himself out of action if he thought he was endangering the mission, but Kurt wasn’t sure the president would see it the same way.

Disgusted, he realized that by keeping Pike’s operational fiasco a secret, he was committing the same mistake he feared in the president. One man controlling the information and thus the outcome.

“Sir, Jennifer’s come down with a bug. She’s got it coming out of both ends. If she’s not better by tomorrow, she’s coming home.”

He internally cursed himself for the lie, and resolved to never do it again. This is how it starts. This is how the Taskforce becomes a threat. Who’s lying to me? He knew that the team wasn’t, because trust was a cornerstone of Taskforce faith. And felt disgusted again at his lying.

The president said, “Sorry to hear that. She’s proving to be an asset. The team’s enough, though?”

“Yeah. It’s enough. It had better be. Doing another infil is pushing more luck than we have.”

“What do you think we should do if nothing’s in Egypt? What’s the next thread?”

Kurt inwardly cringed. “Sir, that’s a question that we should pose to the council.”

The president leaned back, staring hard at Kurt. “We both know something’s coming. I’m not sure the council does. They’re all worried about the focus on my reelection, and I won’t tolerate American deaths because of that.”

“Sir, I know. But we need to trust what we created. The checks and balances were right then, and they’re right now, even with the imminent threat. Especially with the imminent threat. We need to stand by what we promised. Please.”

The president sat for a second, then nodded and changed the subject. “Anything come out of those pictures?”

Kurt breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Not really.”

He tossed the folder on the president’s desk. “Those are the only ones that came out, and they’re not that big of a help. If there was a connection to the terrorist hit in Alexandria, it died with my father.”

The president flipped through the photos once, then went back. Eventually, he laid out the three of the Caucasian man, staring intently.

“Jesus Christ.”

Kurt said, “What?”

“This guy’s got something on his face. A birthmark.”

The president looked up at him, his complexion a little pale. “I think I know who this is.”

30

Early the next morning, I knocked on Jennifer’s door, not sure of what I was going to say. She had a flight in a couple of hours, but I hoped the jump operation last night might have changed her mind. I saw a shadow on the peephole, but the door didn’t budge.

Shit. She’s not even going to let me say good-bye.

I knocked again. “Jennifer. Please. Open the door.”

After a second, it cracked a few inches. Jennifer looked terrible, like she hadn’t slept. Her eyes, once gray and piercing, were now raw and red. Her hair hung limp against her scalp like a houseplant that hadn’t been watered. Knowing I was the cause of her pain sent a wave of guilt through me.

“Pike, please don’t do this. I’m going home.”

“I just want to say good-bye. Come on.”

She opened the door and walked away. She stopped at her suitcase and continued packing, not even bothering to turn around.

“Jennifer. Come on, at least look at me.”

She stopped what she was doing. “You just won’t get it. I’m going home. And you’re not changing my mind. It’s not going to happen and I don’t want to fight.”

“Why? Jennifer, I made a mistake, but that guy was bad. I’m not proud of it, but there’s no doubt in my mind. He had blood on his hands.”

She stopped what she was doing and eyed me. “Pike, that’s not the point. Or maybe it’s precisely the point. I can’t make calls like that. I don’t want to decide who gets to live and who gets to die. I’m not like you or the other operators. I can’t be that violent. I just don’t have it in me. I don’t want it in me.”

She was wrong, but she’d never believe me.

“Everyone has it in them,” I said. “When push comes to shove, every human will do whatever it takes to live. It’s what we are. You read about people who died on their knees and it’s because they’d convinced themselves that the worst wouldn’t happen. Given the chance to do it over, you bet your ass they’d fight with anything they had and kill whoever it took.”

“I don’t believe that.” She started softly crying. “I’m sorry, Pike. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t do this. I thought I wanted to, but not if I end up like you.”

“What’s that mean? End up how?”

She held up her hands in surrender. “Nothing. I have to go. I’m going to miss my flight.”

“Jennifer, wait! I’ll quit the Taskforce. I won’t do this anymore. We can go back to Charleston together. After this is over.”

The words surprised me as much as her. She said nothing for a moment, the silence hanging in the air. Then she crushed me.

“Pike… that’s not what I want. I’m sorry.”

Jennifer managed to hold her composure for the drive to the airport, only breaking down as she entered the first layer of security, silently crying while the listless guards waved her through.

She had lied to Pike, and she knew it. She did want to return to Charleston, but only with the Pike she had known before, not the Pike inside the warehouse. That man, wherever he had come from, had scared her to her marrow and caused her to question the very essence of the organization she had worked so hard to join. Pike’s only remorse seemed to be that he’d been caught.