And they never mentioned the death of nearly everyone in the unit. The risk of death came with the uniform. The ultimate responsibility for those deaths came with the stripes. There was no official blame. Officially, there was no mission. There was just guilt. Though the two men had to look ahead, the loss still hurt. It hurt them every moment they were not busy. They both knew it would hurt until they could no longer feel a damn thing.
Ironically, by avoiding the subject, each man had to think about it more. He had to consider what to say, what not to say. That served to reinforce the loss and sense of failure both August and Rodgers were feeling. They each took the hit because they did not want to inflict it on the other.
Colonel August had accepted a temporary transfer to the Pentagon. He was stationed in Basement Level Two for SATKA. That was the multiservice department of Surveillance, Acquisition, Tracking, and Kill Assessment. August worked as a liaison between the Pentagon and his former coworkers at NATO. He studied data that came from potential combat regions and helped to determine the force necessary to contain the struggle or crush it. The desirability of such a response was left to his superiors. It was not an assignment Au-
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gust would have selected for himself. But he had run an unauthorized covert operation in Kashmir. Even though he prevented a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, someone had to take the fall for exceeding mission parameters. The Pentagon picked him. It could just as easily have been Rodgers.
August knew he could have turned this assignment down. He could have requested a transfer back to NATO. But implicit in the Pentagon position was a promise. If Colonel August stayed off the radar for at least half a year, there would not be a military or congressional investigation into his actions in Kashmir. Members of all the elite forces took exceptional risks in their work. They were not only the first ones into enemy territory. Sometimes they were the only ones into a region like Iran or Cuba. Groups like Striker conducted recon, sabotage, search and rescue, and ran surgical strikes. The military could not afford to undermine their morale. Away from the attention of the media, the so-called 'centurion line' looked after their own.
Being hidden in an underground data processing center was absolutely not August's favorite place to be. That was why he had called Mike Rodgers. Not to complain but to stay connected. To talk to someone in a place where things were not simply discussed. They happened. August knew that his lifelong friend would understand.
The men chatted about their work and about people they both knew. August told him that he had bumped into Colonel Anna Vasseri, who worked on the president's Intelligence Oversight Board. Years before, in Vietnam, August had gotten himself an unofficial reprimand for writing new lyrics to the old standard, 'The Anniversary Waltz.' He called his version 'The Anna Vasseri Waltz.' Then-Private Vasseri wrote for Stars and Stripes at the time. The lyrics speculated about what happened during a night she had spent just outside Saigon with another private who worked on the newspaper. A storm and flash flood had stranded them on top of a small hill. When they were rescued the next morning, all they had with them were the blankets and bottle of Jack Daniel's they^ had taken out with them.
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'Has she forgiven you?' Rodgers asked.
'No,' August replied. 'Which doesn't surprise me. From the look of her, that was probably the last time her uniform was off. What the hell was the name of that cat mummy we saw in the British Museum?'
'Bast,' Rodgers replied. He did not know where the hell in his memory the name was stored, but there it was.
'Right,' August said. 'Bast. Well, this woman is wrapped as tight as that cat mummy.'
Rodgers whistled when he heard that. It was good to look back at happier times. And at mistakes that did not cost so damn much.
Rodgers also talked a little about the team he was putting together. He did not tell August he had already put three members in the field. August would not have approved of that. Experienced lone wolves could be more dangerous to each other than inexperienced team players. But circumstances did not always give a leader the luxury of choice. With the help of the operatives themselves, Rodgers and Paul Hood had made that choice.
The conversation was interrupted by a call from the outside. Rodgers told August he would be in touch later in the week. Maybe they would get together for dinner. It was long overdue.
Rodgers punched the button to switch phone lines. 'General Rodgers,' he said.
'General, it's Maria,' the woman said. She did not use her last name because she was calling on a nonsecure phone line. 'The American bishop was just assassinated.'
'How did it happen?' Rodgers asked.
The general fought his first, involuntary reaction. The one that went back to stories his grandfather used to tell about jinxed platoons during World War I. Units where the new lieutenant or the guy about to be mustered out or the sergeant who just had a kid always died. Rodgers refused to believe that Op-Center was cursed.
'It was right after the plane landed,' she said. 'The airport guard shot the bishop in the back of the head as he entered
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the terminal. A Cessna taxied over, and the killer ran toward it. Then the pilot opened the door and shot him. The guard died on the tarmac, and the plane took off. I managed to take a few digital photos of the tail markings.'
'Can you download them?' Rodgers asked.
'As soon as I can get to a computer,' Maria told him. 'I'm in a taxi right now.'
'Was anyone else hurt?' Rodgers asked.
'No,' she said. 'Most of the people in the terminal ducked behind chairs and counters. That's how I was able to
