Until he came to Op-Center, that was all Rodgers needed to know.
Inevitably, after the talks had broken down or bought only a temporary respite, it took spilled blood to grease the wheels of civilization.
Hood knocked on the open door as Rodgers was taking citations and photographs from the wall.
'I would like to change the date when I'm officially relieved of all responsibilities to Op-Center,' Rodgers said. He did not look at Hood.
'When do you want to leave?'
'Today,' Rodgers said. 'Now.' He put the framed pictures and documents on the desk then went and got two shoulder bags from a small closet in back. He stood behind the desk and carefully placed the mementos inside. He did it without sentiment or nostalgia about leaving. A soldier's life should be portable. The only item from his tenure here was a photograph of himself with Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Squires and Striker. It was taken after the team had been assembled, about two months before they went to North Korea.
'Is this how you want it to end, Mike?' Hood asked.
'You mean, without a parade or a twenty-one-gun salute?'
'I mean with this barrier between us,' Hood said. 'I want to give you that salute, Mike. Not just because you deserve to be honored but because Charlie once told me why it was created. Weapons were discharged to show that the military was granting safe passage to a trusted visitor.'
'I told him that,' Rodgers said wistfully. He could still see himself and the strapping officer sitting by the pool near the Striker quad when he asked about that. They had just come back from drilling and had heard a volley in the distance. 'Twenty-one guns for the number of states in the union when the navy began the tradition. An old military tradition, just like something you reminded me of yesterday. Something I had overlooked for years.'
'What was that?'
'We called it 'the faith and bullet rule' in Vietnam,' Rodgers told him. 'When you meet a politician, only put one of those in him.'
'You know, Mike, tactics are easier when the objectives are clear, when you know what hill or town you have to take and what resources are available to do it. Politics is a war without rules of engagement or the immediacy of gunfire. Sometimes you don't realize you've been hit until days later or until you read it in the newspaper.'
'I guess I should be grateful my executioner looked me in the eyes when he pulled the trigger,' Rodgers replied.
'I did not say that,' Hood insisted.
'Then I'm confused,' Rodgers told him. 'Are we talking specifically about us or are we having a philosophical discussion about what my grandfather used to call 'folly-tics'?'
'I'm trying to apologize,' Hood said.
'For what? Firing me? Placing my new boss under a magnifying glass?'
'Neither. We've been over those. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do about any of it.'
Rodgers buckled the first bag. Before he loaded the second, he regarded Hood. 'That's another difference between soldiers and politicians,' he said. 'Wo can do is not in our vocabulary. Neither is surrender.'
'That may be,' Hood said. Now there was a bit of steel in his voice.
'I'll tell you this, though, Mike. If I had made a stand on these points that obviously offend your sense of honor, the battlefield would be hip deep with corpses. And I still would have lost the battle.'
Hood extended his hand. 'I won't be offended if you don't shake it.
I'll only be sad.'
Rodgers had not yet started loading the second bag. He began putting the keepsakes inside.
'I can't,' he said.
'You mean you won't,' Hood said.
