frustrating, as the entire war had been frustrating. As the idiocy emanating from Washington had been frustrating. As the refined idiocy coming from Kabul had been frustrating.
Seven years of war can do odd things to a man. Thinking about the fate in store for his countrymen, Stauer felt something give inside him. It might have been his sense of restraint.
Pacing, Stauer clasped his hands behind his back. Never mind that you wanted stars, Wes. If that's your most important value you don't deserve to have them, just like most of the motherfuckers wearing them. So skip that. Even if what you have to do costs you stars; you haven't lost anything you could have saved.
He looked down at the villagers, the men from Welch's team surrounding them in the village center. One man alone, Welch's medic, was watching the women and children, who were kept separate.
And what's the worst case if all this gets out? Again, forget prison. If you're afraid of that you're also not worthy of stars. What's the worst case to the war effort?
He snorted softly but with profound derision. What difference? Since Jesus Christ in his second coming occupied the White House, we've been losing anyway. About the only good news is we've kept the Pakistanis out of the country, if not officially out of the war. But every troop that can be spared is holding the passes, now, leaving not a lot to clean out the guerillas. Now it's so far gone I doubt we even can win, not without carving a chunk out of Pakistan. Silly, arrogant, slick-talking bastards have micromanaged us all the way to defeat.
Stauer considered some of the stars sitting in Kabul and thought, Not that they didn't have some help, silliness and arrogance-wise.
Okay, forget all that, too, for now. What about the rights and wrong of the thing? Again he snorted. Wrong to lose a war, terrible, morally execrable, in fact. And wrong to let your men be led off and butchered.
'Captain Welch!'
'Sir!' answered the bright-eyed-team commander. Terry Welch was not so tall as Stauer, nor so broad in the shoulders as Biggus Dickus Thornton. He was, however, an intensely strong West Pointer, and former captain of their weight lifting team.
'Back me up in this. You and your men aren't going to like it.'
'Whatever you call, sir, however you call it.'
'Major Mosuma?'
'Sah?' the Afghan commander replied. He, too, knew the war was being lost, that he'd backed the wrong side, and that his life, in the medium term, was forfeit. He spent every cent he made supporting his extended family, now in India.
Stauer handed the Afghan his rifle. 'These people your tribe? The tribe of any of your men?'
'No, sir. None of us.'
'Stand by to translate, then.'
Without another word, Stauer glanced around at the three score or so adult male villagers assembled. One, in particular, caught his eye for the arrogance and confidence the Afghan showed under what should have been very frightening conditions.
Stauer drew his .45. Special Forces, never liking the Italian 9mm forced on the rest of an unwilling army, had had its own order of .45s specially made by Heckler and Koch. He walked to the arrogant looking Afghan and crouched down in front of him. The Afghan sneered until, in a single, smooth motion Stauer placed the pistol almost on the bridge of the Afghan's nose and pulled the trigger. Just before that moment the sneer had disappeared as the eyes widened in shock.
Of late, Special Forces also tended to ignore the rule against frangible ammunition. Given the size of the bullet and the fact that just about all of its energy was suddenly dumped inside the Afghan's brain, his head exploded like a melon, the wide eyes popping out, breaking their optic nerves, and bouncing off Stauer's chest.
Welch's Special Forces people stirred. The Afghan commandos took it in stride. Better than Americans, they understood that sometimes the medium is the message.
'Major Mosuma?'
'Sir?'
'Translate now please. Tell these people that I have seventy-one rounds in my ammunition pouches and in my pistol. Inform them that one of two things is going to happen. Either we get my people back, alive and well, or every male in this village old enough to sprout a beard will be killed and the women and children will be sent to market in Kabul and sold as slaves.'
Stauer had to change magazines, just once, before the information was forthcoming.
D-814, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
What the mixed team of SEALS, SF, and Commandos brought in the next day didn't resemble anything too very human. After they were cornered in a small complex of caves, and when it was obvious there was no escape, the guerillas had soaked their bound captives down with gasoline and applied a match. After that, whatever they'd done to the captive SEALs beforehand was impossible to tell.
And, of course, there were no guerilla prisoners taken so they weren't going to say anything about it.
Stauer walked over to the first of the stretchers and pulled back the poncho that had concealed the remains. These were curled into a fetal position, and charred beyond all recognition, except for blackened metal dog tags and chains with bits of burnt flesh stuck to them. Stauer said nothing, but walked to the next stretcher and did the same. He didn't want to even think about what these men had suffered. When he'd finished inspecting he called, 'Major Mosuma?'
'Sir!'
'I'm a man of my word. Kill all the men. The women and children belong to you and yours.'
Then Stauer boarded a helicopter and winged back to Kabul to turn himself in. He wept the entire way back.
Seven years of war will do odd things to a man.
D-803, Kabul, Afghanistan
An air conditioner whined in the office window. The office was outfitted with the kind of furniture that looked good but didn't last. It was expensive, though, and still more expensive for having been shipped by air, at government expense. Nobody much cared about expense to the government, but everyone who wore or aspired to stars cared about image. And, it had to be admitted, while it would last the furniture gave the right image.
'Why won't the son of a bitch just resign and go away?' whined the commander of all special operations forces in Afghanistan, Major General Jeff McPherson, a tall, confident-looking redhead, careful touch of distinguished gray at his temples, who harbored a deep suspicion that unauthorized persons had been test driving his young and lovely wife. The not-entirely-unfounded suspicion tended to cloud his judgment, especially his moral judgment. Still, to be fair, for ordinary purposes, when he wasn't doing stupid things like having his subordinates, though tasked to blend in with bearded locals, shave, or salute in the field, or any number of other things that set his troops' heads to shaking, he could be competent. And no one had ever questioned his physical courage.
The problem, from the general's point of view, was that while one could court-martial lower ranking officers, noncoms, and junior enlisted, court-martialing a senior officer indicated a flaw in the system. From the Army's point of view, this was highly suboptimal. People, as individuals, could be flawed but to admit to a systemic problem? No, no; that was just unthinkable unless the blame could be pinned on some outside, malevolent, foreign agency. The KGB had once been good for that.
And since colonels had been promoted five times, and gone through numerous other checks, to include what amounted to a Department of the Army Inspector General witch hunt, court-martialing one indicated a systemic problem, indeed. Why, the Army had been known to promote a colonel to brigadier general, after discovering that the man was guilty as sin of forcing a subordinate to commit an act of forgery and fraud, to get him to resign. Anything but publically admit to a systemic problem. And a general officer who let a systemic problem out into
