Hellfire (Sisters In Law Book 2)

by John Ellsworth

  "Would that mean you would go out with me again since I would no longer be just an employee?"

  She realized her cheeks had flushed. Momentarily she had forgotten why she'd hired Ed in the first place. Perspicuity and all that as a given, the guy was also a mind reader.

  "Maybe we could do that. If you were on an equal footing with me, then there wouldn't be the employer-employee thing."

  He smiled wanly. "You're afraid I might get in a tiff and sue you for sexual harassment?"

  "Something like that," she said with a laugh that wasn't all laugh. There was some small modicum of truth in what he was saying.

  "No need to worry. I've never sued a date. At least not yet."

  She laughed again. She had to admit, she had missed the guy and his outrageous sense of humor. What the hell, she thought. Let's do it.

  "I'd like to invite you for dinner at my house Friday night. Seven-ish. I'll have the equity paperwork with me and we'll celebrate with gourmet food and expensive wine. The gourmet food will be prepared by me. Something like spaghetti with meatballs."

  "Would you please put black olives in the sauce? I love it with the olives."

  "My, we're getting presumptuous already, aren't we?"

  He laughed. "Yes, I'm feeling the wind beneath my wings."

  "Good on you. It's your turn, I'd say. Hey, it's time to hit the conference room and bury these mothers. You good to go?"

  "Ready, Sarge. Lead the way."

  "Up and at them, then. On me."

  They gathered pads and files and headed down the hall to Conference Room A, the well-lighted, glassed-in room directly across from the receptionists' counter. They went inside, closed the vertical blinds, and greeted the court reporter. Several others were already there and seated; Christine and Ed began shaking hands.

  "You are?" said Christine to a Hispanic man in his mid-forties. He was fit and capable and his thin black hair was combed straight back from the widow's peak low on his forehead. His teeth sparkled as he smiled and held out his hand and said his name.

  "Colonel Joachim Martinez," he said, ignoring the attorney who had come to her feet when Christine entered the room.

  "Martha J. Mattingly," said the female attorney in her familiar husky voice. "Representing DOJ and the military branches you've sued. These three gentlemen to my right, and the lady at my far right, are all attorneys in my office. They'll be sitting in and may occasionally need to go on the record too. You won't have a problem with more than one of us going on record today with the same witness, will you?"

  Christine shook the woman's hand. "Just as long as you don't all try to talk at once, I'm cool with it. I'd only ask that you ID yourselves for the court reporter before each speaks up. It'll help her out."

  "Will do," said Mattingly, with a look and a nod at her retinue. They all expressed understanding of the ground rule and would ID themselves when speaking on the record.

  "The second deponent--is that him in the reception room?" asked Ed of Mattingly.

  "It is. That's the lieutenant. You wanted the colonel first, am I right?"

  "Right," said Christine. She then addressed the second group across the table, and recognized Boris Adizkov, Blackguard's first chair. His hair was clipped close to the skull and his shoulders bulged beneath his pinstripes, giving him the look of a boxer, with his flat nose and strong chin.

  "Did you ever box?" Christine asked him out of the blue.

  The man smiled and leaned across the table, extending his right hand. They shook, Christine and Adizkov and Ed.

  "Not a boxer. I was a wrestler in college. NCAA second place nationally my junior year. Then I tore a rotator cuff and my career was over. Does that qualify?"

  "Does in my book," said Christine.

  "How about you, any sports?"

  "If you call shooting terrorists a sport, yes. I did my athlete years in the Middle East with the army. Demanding stuff."

  "So the depositions today of military people will present no mystery to you."

  "Actually," she said, ignoring him, "Ed here is ex-military too. But he still drills on weekends."

  Ed was arranging his files and folders and looked up. "Captain in the reserves."

  "So, two ex-army folks. Well, thanks for your service, both of you."

  At those moments, Christine always wanted to say, "You're welcome," but held her tongue instead. No need to start off on the wrong foot. That would come of its own accord anyway, soon enough.

  "So is Colonel Martinez ready to be deposed?" Christine asked Mattingly.

  Mattingly nodded and placed a hand on the colonel's shoulder. The colonel ever so slightly shrugged away. Military doesn't like its uniform touched, Christine remembered, and smiled to herself. Mattingly's attempt at familiarity and rejection by Martinez was duly noted. Maybe we have someone who will give us the truth here today, thought Christine. That would be huge.

  Everyone took a seat, arranging themselves around the table as Christine requested. The court reporter fed a new spool of paper into her machine and nodded her readiness to Christine. Christine asked the reporter to swear in the colonel, which she did.

  "Would you state your name?" Christine began.

  "Joachim Jonathan Martinez."

  "What is your occupation?"

  "Colonel, United States Air Force."

  "Tell us about your military career thus far, beginning with your promotion to colonel."

  "You don't want the earlier ranks?"

  "Nossir. From Major on."

  "I was promoted to the rank I now hold twenty-two months ago. At that time I was serving at Creech."

  "Explain Creech, for the record."

  "Creech Air Force Base is a United States Air Force command and control facility used to engage in daily Overseas Contingency Operations of remotely piloted aircraft systems which fly missions across the globe. In addition to an airport, the military installation has the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab, associated aerial warfare ground equipment, and unmanned aerial vehicles of the type used in Afghanistan and Iraq."

  "And Syria?"

  "There have been times when a drone crossed into Syria, yes."

  "Such as Deir ez-Zor, in Eastern Syria?" She was referring to the town where Sevi's family was murdered.

  "That would be classified."

  "Colonel, what preparations have you made for today's deposition?"

  "Reviewed the logs from the day in question, met with my attorney--"

  "Ms. Mattingly?"

  "Martha Mattingly, correct. Reviewed my own calendar from the date in question."

  "Hold it. You keep your own calendar?"

  "I do. Unofficial, of course."

  "Did you bring it with you today? There was a subpoena duces tecum seeking documents of that sort."

  "I did. My lawyer has it."

  "Counsel," said Mattingly, reaching and passing out a stack of one-sheet calendar entries. "The day of, day before, and day after entries of Colonel Martinez are included on the sheet I'm passing to you."

  "Madam court reporter," said Christine, "please take one of the pages, mark it Plaintiff's Exhibit A, and attach it to the deposition booklet."

  The court reporter nodded. She would comply.

  "Now, Colonel, directing your attention to what's been marked as Exhibit A. Tell us what that is, please."

  "It's a copy of my calendar for three days. The day before the drone attack, the day of, and the day after."

  "Why three days?"

  "Just trying to comply, I guess," he said, with a look at his attorney. She didn't acknowledge his look.

  "Please read the calendar entry for October twentieth of last year. No, first tell us what you recall about October twentieth of last year."

  "Nothing specific. We launch drones every day, under my command. Twenty October last year would have been unremarkable. So I would have to refer to my calendar for what actually happened that day."

  "Because you have no independent recollection?"r />
  "Exactly."

  "Then please read your calendar entry."

  "Twenty October, 2014. Attacks in Islamabad and Syria. Casualties. Deir ez-Zor."

  "Do those calendar entries jog your memory?"

  "The one in Syria does. Rarely were we hitting Syria back in mid-2014. Now we are, of course, since the President decided to pursue ISIS. But back then it would have been rare. Unheard of by me, in fact."

  "You're saying you can think of no prior occasion where a drone was launched against a target in Syria?"

  "None that I can recall. I didn't search my calendar specifically for that."

  "So it might have happened, you just don't have an independent recollection."

  "Correct."

  "What's it like, firing Hellfire missiles at human beings from an armchair in Reno?"

  The colonel pulled away from the table. His look said, "This one has sharp teeth!"

  "War time is never fun. Whether I'm on the battlefield or in Reno, the feelings are the same."

  "Describe those feelings."

  "Sorrow that people have to die. But when they're clearly terrorists, as this al-Assad gentleman we hit, no sorrow. Only relief that we killed another bad guy."

  "What about when you kill a houseful of innocents, as you did here?"

  "Objection!" cried Mattingly. "No foundation. He hasn't said whether he knew who was in the house or not."

  "Did you know who was there?"

  "No idea."

  "Isn't that something you would want to know?"

  "Not necessarily."

  "Seriously? You just fire missiles into residences without having the full skinny on who's inside?"

  "Pretty much, yes. When we have a high-value target, the issue of collateral damage becomes less weighted."

  "Less weighted?"

  "It lessens in importance. Sometimes in war, innocents suffer and die. It's always been that way."

  "Is that official government policy? That innocents have to die?"

  "I don't know about government policy. I only know about doing my job."

  "Which is to kill bad guys, as you put it."

  "Yes, ma'am. Killing bad guys is my job."

  "You understand that your order to fire the Hellfire was directly responsible for the deaths of about forty innocent civilians?"

  "I understand now that you're suing for something like that. You're claiming we killed many civilians. But we didn't."

  "How do you know you didn't?"

  "Our visuals indicated the house was empty."

  "What?" Christine cried. "What visuals?"

  "I would have to check that. I think there might have been a second predator in the area."

  "Okay, hold on. We'll take a five minute break here."

  Christine motioned for Ed to follow her into the hallway, where they quickly ducked back into her office and closed the door.

  "A second Predator? Did you know this?"

  "Hell no," said Ed. "No mention of it in any of the paperwork we've received. We've combed it with a fine tooth, too. No second drone."

  "What the hell?"

  "I know. How convenient we now have a second drone that saw no one enter the house."

  "Are they just making this up?"

  Ed shrugged. "Knowing Blackguard, I would guess they might be. But the military, that's a lot of people you'd need to get to lie. I don't think they could pull that off."

  "Neither do I. Besides, there're too many patriots serving who wouldn't lie for anybody."

  "Agreed. There must be something to it, then."

  "So we need to find out what proof they have of a second drone."

  "Seems like it. Astounding, Chris. I'm frankly shocked."

  "Then that makes two of us."

  "All right, let's rejoin."

  They made the trip back down the hall to Conference Room A, where they went back on the record.

  "Colonel," Christine began, "we're back on the record. You were saying there was a second drone in the area, correct?"

  "Correct."

  "Were you in command of that second drone?"

  "Negative."

  "Who was?"

  "Unknown."

  "What do you mean, unknown? Are there other drone bases that would have controlled it?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Well, what are their names?"

  "Ma'am, I don't know their names."

  "Explain that answer, please."

  "The United States presently has over fifty drone bases."

  "Fifty!"

  "Yes, ma'am. There's a facility outside Las Vegas where the troops work in climate-controlled trailers. More and more of these are springing up around the world."

  "Where else that you know of?"

  "Some camp in Africa that was once used by the French Foreign Legion. There's a third in Afghanistan. I'm guessing that's where the second one was controlled, but it's only a guess. There's another in the United Arab Emirates. Location top-secret, almost no one talks about it. We're not allowed to."

  "And it's the Air Force that runs all these?"

  "No, ma'am. Some are run by the military. The CIA runs many. It's the new way the United States is projecting power abroad."

  "All right, let's back up a minute. If I wanted to find out who controlled this second drone so that I could get its video, who would I ask?"

  "Objection! Foundation."

  "Let me re-phrase. Do you know who I would ask?"

  "No, ma'am."

  "But you're sure this second drone had surveilled the Deir ez-Zor residence for twenty-four hours prior to your drone launching its Hellfire?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "How did you know that?"

  "My headset told me."

  "Your headset?"

  "Some of the time we have no idea who's feeding us info through the headsets. We just know they're on the Net, so we believe them."

  "So an unknown voice told you the house was empty?"

  "No, ma'am. It told me no one had been seen coming or going for twenty-four hours."

  "So you assumed that meant no people inside?"

  "Wouldn't you? I mean twenty-four hours with no one seen?"

  “Why would a second drone be watching this particular house if no one knew al-Assad would be going there?”

  “I believe it was high-level, not necessarily focused on this particular house but the area in general.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “I can only tell you what I know.”

  "Would it surprise you to know that Syrian wedding festivities can last a week? And no one may come or go during that time?

  "I don't know about that."

  "When you ordered the missile strike were you relying on the headset information?"

  "That no one had been seen? Yes, I was. We would never fire a missile into a house without knowing who was there."

  "I don't doubt you mean that. But why is that so? Is there a rule book or something?"

  "Just the rules of engagement. We always try to spare civilian lives."

  "Can I get a copy of the Rules Of Engagement?"

  "The ROE? Yes, ma'am."

  "What about civilians? What are those rules?"

  "A civilian under the laws of war is a person who is not a member of the military and is not taking a direct part of hostilities in a situation of armed conflict."

  "How are you to treat civilians?"

  "Don't engage them."

  "What else?"

  "That's my understanding--don't engage. The trouble is, from the air, where we live, it's often hard to tell who's doing what down on the ground. Are those figures running along a wall one street over from American troops engaged in direct hostilities? That's where the rubber meets the road."

  "Now, coming back to the specific day. Twenty October. Describe what your day was like."

  "Typical. Got up, shit, shower and shave--pardon my French. Drive out to the base, report in, get the day's briefing, assume my post, do
my job. At the end of my shift we would debrief and go home. Some would stop off for a drink. Not me, I don't drink."

  "Do you have a memory of twenty October?"

  "No, ma'am. Not specifically."

  "When did you first become aware that you had ordered the deaths of dozens of civilians that day?"

  "Objection! Form of question!"

  "Please answer."

  "I never did become aware. Not until we got sued."

  "So you don't get reports on casualties inflicted or who you took out--none of that?"

  "No, ma'am. Much of that information is classified. I'm too low in the food chain to know those things."

  "Seriously? You might not even know whose death you ordered?"

  "That's correct. Oftentimes we have no names. It's rare that we have a name."

  "But if anyone would have a name, it would be you?"

  "Correct. The troops flying the planes wouldn't know."

  "Because it's non-essential information to them?"

  "Correct."

  Christine paused and poured a glass of water from the pitcher separating her from the colonel. She tilted her head, asking him if he would like a drink. He nodded and she filled a second glass and passed it over.

  "Thank you."

  "Back on the record. Colonel, when you gave permission to fire the missile on fifteen July, did you stop and think there might be civilian casualties inflicted?"

  "No, I didn't."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, because drone two reported no movement in twenty-four hours. They reviewed its video data and focused on the house. I don't know how I can make that any clearer."

  "What if drone two was wrong?"

  "Well...that's war, I guess."

  "Who were you attacking that day?"

  "Arum al-Assad."

  "Who was he?"

  "An ISIS operative. A high-level bureaucrat in the oil ministry."

  "Why was he a target?"

  "Unknown."

  "The reason for killing him was unknown to you?"

  "The reason that I had was that he represented a high value target. Why he would be a high value target, I couldn't possibly know."

  "Not necessary."

  "My job is to review targets, to make sure they're who we think they are. Not by name, but whether it's the guy we've been tracking. I help keep them sorted. A 'did he go into building one or building two' sort of thing."

  "You surely must do more than that."

  "That's on the detail end. On the strategic end, I evaluate what our civilian cohorts say."