“You still there, Bastian?”
“Yes, sir,” said the colonel.
“Good. We’re going to take a hell of a lot of shit on this, I guarantee. But I’m behind you. You bet your ass. I read the whole damn report. Ms O’Day made sure I got a copy. And a friend of hers. Brad Elliott. I didn’t think you and Brad were pals.”
“We’re not.”
“Oh? He talks about you like you’re his son. Says you’re right on the mark.”
“Well, uh, I’m flattered. To be candid, General, I thought you were a supporter of the JSF.”
“What? Did you read that in the Washington Post?”
“No, sir.”
“I expect you’re taking a lot of shit,” said Magnus.
“That’s an understatement,” said Dog, not entirely convinced that Magnus was on the level.
“Well, hold tight. And keep your nose clean. Some of these pricks will use anything they can against you. The Congressmen are the worst.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dog. “Thank you, sir.” But his line had already gone dead.
Somalia
23 October, 0100 local
Mack woke to find the Imam staring at him. Sergeant Melfi and Jackson were gone; perhaps he’d only dreamed they were here with him alive.
“Major, very good,” said the Iranian. “Come now. We must meet our fate.”
The Imam straightened, then gestured at him to rise. Though still groggy, Smith felt almost powerless to resist.
“What’s going on?” Mack asked.
“You are going to stand trial,” said the Imam. “Justice will be swift.”
He turned and walked back to the steps. Someone behind Mack pushed him; he stumbled over his chains, but managed to keep his balance.
Goddamn. Mack Smith. The hottest stick on the patch. Damn Iranians were going to make him the star of ‘don’t let this happen to you’ lectures for the next hundred years.
The man behind him pushed again. Knife’s anger leaped inside him; he spun and grabbed the startled soldier by the throat, pushing him to the floor with surprising ease. He smashed the bastard’s head against the concrete. The chain of his handcuff’s clanked against the man’s chest as he grabbed the guard’s ears, pulling them upward to smash him again, then again, feeling the thud of the floor reverberating across the Somalian’s skull.
He knew he was being foolish. The best thing to do was go along, resist, yes, but not so overtly, not so crazily. Doing this was like committing suicide, or worse.
And yet he couldn’t stop himself. Blood spread out behind the man’s face as Mack pounded again and again, screaming, shrieking his anger.
Then a sharp light erupted from behind his ears. Then his head seemed to collapse. He blanked out.
“You screwed up their plans, Major,” Gunny was saying. “You really threw them for a loop. I don’t know what you did, but it messed they up. Kept us here for hours. And they didn’t want that, I can tell you.”
Mack waited for the hunched shadow to come into focus. They were moving, in a train – no, a bus, an old school bus with half of its seats removed. Gunny, the Marine Corps sergeant, was kneeling next to him in the back aisle. There were scratches on the wall of the bus next to him, empty.
“What do you think, Sarge?” said another Marine.
Jackson. He was leaning over a seat a few feet away.
“I don’t know, I’d say he took a slam to the noggin. You with us, Major?”
“Yeah,” groaned Knife.
“You have blood on your flight suit,” said Gunny. “Don’t look like yours.”
“No?”
Mack struggled to sit up. He was still chained at the hands and feet. “I hit somebody,” he told them.
“No shit?” said Gunny. “Way to go, Major. Dumb, but way to go.”
“Yeah, it was dumb,” agreed Mack.
“You messed them up,” added the sergeant. “Put them on notice that we’re no pushovers.”
The bus lurched off the side of the road, coming to a stop.
“City,” said Jackson, looking gout the window. “By their standards anyway.”
“Where are we?” Mack asked.
“Damned if I know,” said Gunny. He went to the window and looked outside. “Pretty damn dark.”
“Think it’s Mogadishu, Sarge?” asked Jackson. A few years before, several U.S. soldiers had died there in an ill-fated relief operation.
