the flight to plan for his future in Op-Center and not an imagined future in court.
Rodgers took the news quietly. He asked Hood to thank Herbert and Martha for their efforts. But as he spoke, Hood had an even stronger sense that there was something else taking place, something unspoken that had come between them. It wasn't bitterness or rancor. It was something almost melancholy, as if he'd been doomed rather than saved.
It was almost like he was saying good-bye.
After hanging up with Rodgers, Hood called Colonel August. Rodgers and the Striker commander had grown up together in Hartford, Connecticut. Hood asked him to use whatever stories or jokes or reminiscences it took to keep Rodgers diverted and amused. August promised that he would.
Hood and Bicking bid a warm farewell to Professor Nasr at Heathrow, and promised to come and hear his wife play Liszt and Chopin. However, Bicking did ask him to have the pianist consider replacing the
The State Department flight from London had been relaxed and filled with uncustomarily sincere compliments for Hood. They were nothing like the surface-deep congratulations which he sometimes received at meetings and receptions in Washington. Officials on the plane seemed delighted with rumors that Striker had broken a slew of secular laws in the Bekaa Valley. They were almost as happy with that as they were that the Ataturk terrorists had been found and neutralized and that Turkish and Syrian troops had withdrawn from their common border. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Tom Andrea put it, 'You get tired of playing by the rules when everyone else isn't.'
Andrea also pressed for details on who had helped Hood, Bicking, and Nasr escape the palace assault in Damascus. But Hood only sipped the Tab Clear he'd picked up in London and said nothing.
The plane landed at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday. An honor guard was waiting for the fallen DSA operatives, and Hood stayed with them on the tarmac until the coffins had been unloaded and driven away. Then he got in the limousine which was waiting to take him and Warner Bicking home. The car had been sent by Stephanie Klaw at the White House, who had also sent along a note.
'Paul,' it read, 'welcome home. I was afraid you might take a cab.'
The car took Hood home first. He held Bicking's hand between his before climbing out.
'How does it feel to have been the pawn of two Presidents?' Hood asked.
The young Bicking smiled and replied, 'Invigorating, Paul.'
Hood spent an hour lying in bed with his kids. After that, he spent two hours making love to his wife.
And after that, with his wife curled beside him, her hand in his, he lay awake wondering if he'd made the mistake of his life telling Mike Rodgers about the pardon.
SIXTY-FOUR
When Mike Rodgers had first enlisted in the Army, he had a drill sergeant named Messy Boyd. He never found out what Messy was short for, but it had to be short for something. Because Messy Boyd was the neatest, most punctilious, most disciplined man that Rodgers had ever met.
Unfailingly, Sergeant Boyd drilled two things into his men. One was that bravery was the most important quality a soldier could have. And the other, that honor was even more important than bravery. 'The honorable man,' he had said, paraphrasing Woodrow Wilson, 'is one who has squared his conduct by ideals of duty.'
Rodgers took that to heart. He also borrowed the copy of Bartlett's
Maybe too much, he told himself.
Rodgers sat on the wooden bench in the bumpy fuselage of the C-141B. He was absently listening to Colonel August tell Lowell Coffey and Phil Katzen about their Little League home-run rivalry with each other.
Rodgers knew that he had never acted in a cowardly way, nor had he ever behaved with dishonor. Yet Rodgers also knew that because of what had happened in the Middle East, his career as a soldier was over. He had thought it ended when he failed to retake the ROC from the Kurds at the Syrian border. That had been clumsy and stupid, the kind of mistake a man in his position could not afford to make. But with the death of the PKK leader he had found new life. Not as a soldier in the field, but as a soldier in the fight against terrorism. What would have begun in the courtroom would have become a brave and honorable battle against a terrible scourge.
Now, he thought, there's nothing.
'General,' August asked, 'what was the name of that catcher who ended up beating us both out in fifth grade?'
'Laurette,' Rodgers replied. 'I forget her last name.'
'Right,' said August. 'Laurette. The kind of girl you wanted to sop up with a biscuit. She was that lovely, even behind her catcher's mask, glove, and a wad of Bazooka bubble gum.'
Rodgers smiled. She
The winner there had been Striker. Their performance had been exemplary. The losers? The Kurds, who had been crushed. Turkey and Syria, which still had millions of restless citizens within their borders. And Mike Rodgers, who had bungled security, escape, judging the character of a loyal coworker, and handling a prisoner of war.
America had lost too. It had lost by tucking Mike Rodgers back in his Op-Center cubicle instead of supporting him in the war against terrorism.
As he'd lain there in the infirmary, Rodgers had sharpened his thinking about that. He'd planned to use the podium of his court-martial to declare that any nation which attacked our people anywhere, in any way, had effectively, declared war on us. He'd further planned to urge the President to declare war on any nation which kidnapped our citizens or blew up our aircraft or bombed our buildings. Declaring war did not necessarily mean we'd attack the people and soldiers of those nations. But it would leave us free to blockade their ports and sink any ships that tried to get in or out. To shut down their airports and roadways with missiles. To halt commerce, destroy their economy, and topple the regime which had backed terrorists.
When the terrorism ended, the war would end.
That was what Rodgers had planned. If executing the Kurd could have been the first shot across the prow of terrorism, he would have regained his honor. As it was, having killed the unarmed man who had tortured him was just revenge. There was no honor or bravery in that. As Charlotte Bronte had once written, vengeance was 'as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy; its after-flavour, metallic and corroding.'
Rodgers looked down. He didn't wish he could take the bullet back. Killing the Kurdish leader had spared the nation the agonies of the trial, of Op-Ed justice and handwringing. It had also given the Kurds a martyr instead of a loser. But God, how he wished the bullet had taken them both. He had been trained to serve his country and to protect its integrity and its flag at all costs. The pardon was a blot on both. By showing him charity, his nation had lost sight of a more important quality: Justice.
The error was made by well-meaning people. But for the sake of his country's honor, it was an error which had to be undone.
Rodgers stood stiffly, constricted by the bandages around his arms and torso. He steadied himself on the rope which ran shoulder-high along the fuselage.
August looked up. 'You okay?'
'Yes.' He smiled. 'Just going to the bathroom.'
He looked down at the uncharacteristically effervescent Colonel August. He was proud of him and glad he'd won the race. Rodgers turned and headed to the back.
The bathroom was a cold room with a hanging lightbulb and a toilet. There was no door, one of those small touches designed to keep the weight of the aircraft down.
