The Syrians, though, remained at almost the same strength they’d had prior to the missile launch. Repeated viewings of the footage Nicolae Carpathia’s satellites had captured revealed only a few vanishings from among their ranks. Still, the events of the day had evidently been enough to check the Syrian advance. Enemy troops—Remington felt he could safely consider the Syrians that—continued to reorganize after the disappearances. It wouldn’t be long, the Ranger captain knew, before they discovered the extent of the attrition his troops had suffered. And when they did …
“Goose,” Remington said, only then realizing that silence had stretched between his first sergeant and himself.
“I’m here, sir.” Goose’s voice sounded flat.
Remington knew the loss of men was getting to Goose. The first sergeant had never taken the deaths of men under his command well. During battle, during the fine-tuning of a tactical op, Goose never let the regret and self-recriminations touch him, but during the fallow times between, Goose struggled with those losses. Marriage and fatherhood had been good for him, binding the wounds and keeping his heart strong. But at the same time, the family that kept Goose together had also created a new weight for the first sergeant to carry into the field.
“We’re not going to be able to hold that position.”
“I know that, sir. I apologize, sir.”
“Knock off the sir, Goose. We’ve been friends a lot longer than I’ve had these bars.”
Goose hesitated. “That we have,” he acknowledged. But Remington could still hear the unstated sir in his voice.
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Remington said.
“I could have stopped that transmission,” Goose said.
“Negative, soldier.” Remington made his voice forceful. He strode with his hands clasped behind his back, taking care to step over the bundles of thick black cables that snaked across the floor to the Crays. “The responsibility of that issue does not reside with you or within your purview.” The Ranger captain made his voice crisp and clean, ringing with authority. “If the ball was dropped anywhere, it was on my end. I should have asked our alphabet agency more questions regarding the op before I sent your team in.”
“They would have lied to you.”
Remington knew Goose was offering him a way out, not wanting the captain to take the blame either. A small smile framed Remington’s lips. He had made a mistake by taking Section Chief Alexander Cody’s story on faith. However, Remington didn’t have much respect for the CIA.
“If they lied to me,” Remington said, “that again would have made it my fault. As captain, I have to be a human lie detector. That power was invested in me by the Officer Candidate School, by the grace of God, and by the board that charged me with my command. No one can lie to me.” The sheer brass of the statement was a joke he shared with Goose, but both of them knew that a commanding officer had to have that kind of view of himself to get the job done. “The agency representative withheld the truth from us, Sergeant, and there’s nothing we could have done about that.”
“No, sir.”
“In addition to that, even if you had stopped that call, you don’t know that a backup plan wasn’t in place regarding a missed check-in.”
“I know.”
“Then let’s worry about the things you do know and the operations that you have some control over.” Remington gazed at the monitors.
The display of the images on the screens still astounded him. Whatever satellites Nicolae Carpathia was using brought in imaging—even voices, when cameras were close enough for the microphone pickups to activate—on par with or better than the mil-spec satellites they’d been using for the border op.
The screens constantly shifted perspectives, from ground cameras carried by reporters working the scene to cameras mounted on soldiers’ weapons. Goose had one mounted on his helmet at present, providing Remington with a first-person view of everything the first sergeant saw.
At the moment, Goose walked the perimeter of the border the Rangers had been assigned. The first sergeant carried his M-4A1 at port arms just the way the drill instructors back in boot taught. Overturned and burnt vehicles stood out against the broken and cratered earth turned black from missile blasts and fuel-fed fires that had scoured the ground. Teams of Rangers, Marines, U.N. peacekeeping personnel, and Turkish army regulars moved through the debris searching for any that might still be left alive.
“Since we know we can’t hold that position,” Remington went on, “we need to evacuate.”
“I know.” The camera shifted as Goose climbed aboard an overturned truck. The view shifted as the camera adjusted to the shade inside the truck’s cargo area. Goose’s hands holding the assault rifle disappeared for a moment, then came back with a notepad. He sorted through the cargo spilled across the back of the truck and jotted notes about the contents. Later, he would coordinate the recovery of the materials that he deemed necessary and salvageable. “I’m rationing the fuel that we’ve been able to scavenge, and I’ve got Henderson and his motor-pool division working on vehicles that might be able to carry wounded and cargo that can be repaired quickly.”
“Sounds like you’re ahead of me.” Remington moved on, checking the screens.
“No, sir,” Goose replied. “We’ve been through situations like this before. This is SOP on a blown mission according to the parameters you’ve established.”
“Actually, Sergeant,” Remington said, “I’d be hard-pressed to remember if I came up with those parameters or you did.”
“They work,” Goose replied. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“Agreed.” An image on the screen caught Remington’s eye. The banner at the bottom of the screen read TURKISH-SYRIAN BORDER—RECORDED EARLIER.
The image showed Goose carrying a wounded Marine from the burning helicopter. The first sergeant remained frozen in midstep. Pain and desperate resolve were etched on Goose’s face. It was one of those images
