Fury

by Llewellin Jegels

  But when he’d told us as much, sleep represented the last thing on my mind. As timed passed I think I’d gotten my second wind because I started feeling more alert than I frankly wanted to be under the circumstances.

  We sat in a kind of surreal quietness, compounded by some news I’d just given him.

  He got up, poured himself a big Scotch, stood by the window and looked out at the city, not speaking, which by my definition meant he was processing the news.

  All okay.

  The kind of news which took me a while to process and required many more whiskeys than a large one.

  Eventually, after time stretched to the point of breaking, he turned to look at me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, the look in his eyes imploring. Not angry. More a deep kind of sadness tinged by a touch of disappointment.

  “I just did, Mel,” I replied, trying to speak gently, unsure of which way this would go. “And please believe me when I tell you I found it hard. It took me a long time to get the nerve up to tell you this. I’m truly sorry. But, my God Mel, you must understand.”

  “He was my friend too, Tom,” he said, shaking his head. “And yeah, I do understand you found it hard to tell me, in light of the circumstances. But… I don’t know… You could’ve-”

  “Could’ve what?” My guilt suddenly turning into an unreasonable kind of anger, making me more defensive than I’d ever been with Shelley, crystallizing my concerns about what I should have been feeling. “What should I have done?”

  “Just…” he shook his head. “I don’t know, Tom. You could’ve told me sooner. Christ, he was my friend too…”

  “Yeah, I realize that, Mel,” I said. “You think I didn’t think about that? It’s why I find it so tough.”

  “Just,” Mel said his voice trailing off. “I’m a bit shocked. I didn’t expect this, understand?”

  I nodded, making myself calm down through pure force of will.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  It was difficult, and as I was telling him I saw the look in his eyes as he’d seen the punch line coming. I almost didn’t carry on. But I did because Mel deserved to know the truth.

  ***

  It had been during a deployment for the SEALs. I was in charge of training certain Iraqi allies in the art of covert ops. Close quarter one-hit kills, sniper training, tactical stealth deployment like the HALO drop, a form of parachuting into enemy territory by cover of night and giving off the absolute lowest chance of being spotted. HALO stood for High Altitude Low Opening, a way of spending as little time in the sky with your chute deployed as possible, essentially diving from a dizzying height, falling like a rock, and opening your chute at the very, very last moment. A dangerous method if not done correctly, but I did the training, and it would be done correctly.

  Basically the heavy stuff you need to survive in a war zone was usually the stuff left to the specialists. While the grunts got the more basic training, the SEALs got the best training. Even the famed Rangers respected a SEAL. Because of the training, always because of the training. It makes you what you are. Or it breaks you trying.

  Anyway, one night I’d gotten a call from up the chain of command.

  Way up.

  Bradley, my second in command, and the only other SEAL on the base, took the orders down, relaying them to me. The army personnel did their own thing, which I did not mind.

  They acted just as security anyway since our own ground troops were deployed to the front lines the morning. Security for two SEALs, a handful of cooks, and some paper men with nothing better to do than write shit down.

  Bradley handed me the orders, his face grim.

  “This is totally ridiculous, Tom,” he said, his eyes not straying from the piece of paper as he spoke. “This has got to be a prank.”

  “No pranks on the front-line, Brad,” I replied, looking them over. “Or were those atheists in foxholes? Looks like we’re the only men for this particular op. We should be honored. Fuck.”

  “That’s right,” he replied. “And I’m not an atheist tonight, for sure. How the hell are we going to pull this off?”

  I looked again at the sheet on my desk and shook my head slowly.

  The orders said I had to take my little band of trainees and a fellow SEAL and take out an entrenched enemy in a village about a hundred clicks from our position; destroy the entire village.

  And we had to go soon, so no waiting for our troops to come home.

  I got on the line to Command to request further Intel, and they were tight-lipped.

  I asked how I was supposed to take out an entire village of enemy infantry with nothing more than two SEALs and twenty trainees, and they replied: “Quietly. And now.”

  I had no idea what made the village special, why Command wanted it wiped out. And why so soon.

  I could only surmise something in the village had spooked them, something requiring neutralizing faster than our own ground forces could get in. And Command saw me as the man for the job.

  Damn.

  So I’d gathered up my trainees, already battle-hardened soldiers in their own right, but green when it came to the kind of training our own people got, and told them we had a mission.

  As one, they’d saluted, resolute, ready to do what needed to be done.

  Inside, I’d wanted to cry for them. They’d left their families and loved ones behind and joined us as a testament to the love they have for their country, living proof not all of those in occupied land acted like mindless terrorists. People out there existed who in fact welcomed change. And peace above all else.

  And here I stood, leading these brave men to their deaths.

  Thanks, Command, I thought. Thanks a bunch. Give me a reason to have nightmares for the rest of my life because I don’t have reason enough already. Bastards.

  So we’d geared up, and piled into the Hercules helicopter a few hours after midnight, and headed off to whatever awaited us. I possessed no Intel on the lay of the land, besides what my own men furnished me with, and no satellite coverage thanks to Command’s Intel blackout.

  The orders were straight to the point.

  Don’t ask questions. You don’t need Intel for this one.

  You need a gun and the will to use it.

  Now get the hell to it and get it the hell done.

  Not for me to reason why but for me to do and die…

  Being provided with zero Intel before an op was virtually unheard of. One always needed to do some kind of planning and Command always made sure to furnish us with whatever information we could require to get the job done and get the hell out in one piece.

  But not this time.

  Everything about this op worried me, but I trusted they knew what they were doing. Command Structures exist for a reason and following orders formed a vital component of that structure.

  So we’d boarded the bird and headed up and above the village in the black night. I remember my friend and fellow SEAL, Bradley, standing beside me and looking out into the darkness and saying to me, yelling to be heard over the roar of the helicopter, “What the hell are Command up to? There could be a few hundred men down there, Tom.”

  I nodded, and replied, “Correct. They said they would’ve sent in a full strike if they could, but for some reason they couldn’t call in the jets, and the strike force is too far away to assist. Word for word. Personally, I think they want this done covertly for other reasons.”

  “Well that’s a bit bloody worrying, isn’t it?” Bradley said, his eyebrows knitted.

  “You’re a SEAL, Brad,” I said, trying to boost his morale a bit. “This should be a walk in the park for you.”

  “Not if the numbers turn out to be against us,” he replied. “I mean even more than they probably already are.”

  We were quite possibly outnumbered and outgunned, in which case we only had the element of surprise on our side.

  Surprise as our main choice of weapon?

  How absurd.

  We
performed the HALO drop perfectly, going down without a hitch, which surprised me. I trained them to the best of my abilities, but even I wasn’t ready to send them out on a combat deployment.

  So we touched down silently and made our way to the outskirts of a small village, the target. I instructed our ‘main force’ to hold back while Bradley and I did a recon of the village, avoiding the village entrance, knowing full well we could only gain entrance there.

  As I suspected, the place could have been Fort bloody Knox.

  I remember feeling a peculiar sense of unease.

  Why would such a small, common village be guarded to this degree? The place had a perimeter fence, with barbed wire on top, and an inner wall which surrounded the place and which they patrolled 24/7.

  And spot lights swung across the landscape surrounding the place as if daring anyone to try anything. As if expecting it. It quickly became clear this village was a compound.

  Serving what purpose, we didn’t know.

  Something seemed off.

  When Brad and I returned to our troops, all hunkered down on the other side of a low hill and ready to engage the enemy, I pulled out the field laptop.

  “What are you doing?” Brad asked, a note of incredulity in his hushed voice. “Using communication lines this close to our target is risky, don’t you think? I mean, why don’t I just go over to them and ask if I can use the phone?”

  “Yeah, I understand. But we need the Intel,” I replied. “We can’t go in blind, Brad. We still have to get in, which rates as our biggest problem. This is going to be a bloodbath. Ours.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  I shook my head, “You saw the fences, the guards, the flood lights.”

  “Yeah,” Brad replied in hushed tones.

  “That’s no village,” I continued. “They’re protecting something, and they’re ready for an assault.”

  “Okay, you’re right, Tom,” Brad said. “But even if the enemy doesn’t pick up on our signal, Command will.”

  “But we need the Intel, Brad.”

  He shifted on his feet, uncertain of what to say next. “We weren’t cleared for whatever you’re looking for, Tom. This is not going to look good when Command finds out. And they will.”

  “They will,” I replied. Deep in thought. “But there’s nothing we can do about that.”

  “I’m not sure this is a good call, Tom,” Brad said, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

  “I’m not leading you and them,” I gestured to our little army, “into a fiery hell until I comprehend the nature of said fiery hell.”

  Brad nodded.

  So I called in a favor, contacting a friend in the SEALs through a secure channel. He could access satellite imaging of our area, someone who I’d spoken with a lot in the last few months.

  At first he seemed hesitant, but when I made it clear we needed the Intel that Command had placed a blackout on, he did what I asked.

  The satellite image I watched later as a video shown in real-time, made my blood run cold.

  The compound contained a number of small buildings spread around a main one, and in the glow of a doorway to the main building stood a doctor, casually smoking a cigarette.

  We intended wiping out a field hospital.

  A civilian field hospital, judging from the World Health Organization vehicles parked all around it. They ordered us to destroy a civilian field hospital.

  “Orders are orders, Tom,” Brad said, staring at the video feed. “No matter how distasteful they are or how we feel personally about them. This is our job, it’s what we get paid to do.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’m not sure if they’re paying us enough for this though.”

  “Command must have their reasons for this operation.” But he sounded unsure of himself now.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they do, Brad, I’m sure they have some good reasons,” I replied, realizing why we’d gotten an Intel blackout on this one. They were targeting a civilian outpost and wanted no one, certainly not us, to have the Intel.

  Even an enemy one.

  “We have our orders, Tom,” Brad said softly. “I don’t like this. And I know you don’t either. But we have our orders. We need to trust Command knows what they’re doing.”

  “Yeah,” I repeated. “Sure they do.”

  Brad obviously hadn’t picked up on the sarcasm in my voice.

  “Okay, let’s do this then,” he signalled to our men, and they moved into position on the ridge, moving quietly, taking crablike steps, keeping a low profile.

  “Stand down,” I said quietly, gesturing to the men with my arm in case a few of them didn’t hear.

  “What?” Brad said, his surprise making his voice almost loud enough to be overheard by our friends at the compound. “What are you-”

  “You heard me, Brad,” I shot back. “And keep your voice down. You ever heard of being shot in the head?”

  “From time to time,” he replied, dropping his voice, but looking at me warily just the same.

  “Good,” I continued. “Because it’s a true story.”

  “But the orders…”

  “We’re not assaulting a civilian field hospital,” I replied. “No way.”

  “I get you, man. I do. But this is big,” he replied, shaking his head. “We disobey orders on this one, something tells me we’ll take some serious heat for it, Tom.”

  “No,” I shook my head. “I will. I’m the commanding officer, it’s my call. I’ll log your grievances quite clearly. You’ll be fine, Brad.”

  “I should take command,” Brad said, not looking at me. “I should relieve you of your duties before you screw this up big time, man.”

  I glared at him. “This is the right call,” I replied.

  Brad said nothing, just kept his eyes on the glowing screen. The doctor killed his smoke and evidently went back into the building, having no idea of the danger surrounding the village.

  “Besides,” I added. “You can always tell them I knocked you out.”

  “Yeah? You and what army?”

  The tension evaporated.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s disobey some orders then, shall we?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I smiled.

  So we aborted the mission, and returned to base after a few days and nights of trekking through the Iraqi desert, where some very grim-looking military police promptly and unceremoniously took me into custody.

  I’d been expecting just such a reception as there was plenty of time between the mission and our return to base for Command to establish that their precious mission had in fact not failed. It never got off the ground.

  A few days later while sitting in my cell and thinking about nothing much, they informed me of the chemical attack on one of our major forward command posts, the chemicals having been constructed and deployed from beneath the facade of a certain field hospital I’d spared.

  Bradley only arrived there a few hours before the attack, and he and about fifty others suffered an incendiary death.

  They put me in front of a military tribunal, and thanks to the grace of God they did not send me to jail for my disobedience, the Intel blackout being a big influence in their decision, and the fact the compound doubled as a working field hospital. The World Health Organization had a lot to say about that, and their representative vowed news of this operation would hit every TV broadcaster in the world if they brought charges against me.

  God bless them.

  The tribunal then asked how I acquired the image which showed the compound to be a civilian hospital, and I’d told them, because they would have found out sooner or later.

  They discharged me dishonorably, and I guess that’s all she wrote.

  ***

  Mel just sipped his Scotch, looking out into the night as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  The quietness stretched out a while longer, then he said, “I would’ve done the same thing.”

  I didn’t r
espond. I knew he would’ve done the same thing. Hell, he would’ve topped it off by telling the tribunal to jump off the nearest building.

  “Yeah, well,” I replied, taking a deep sip of my own Scotch. “I lived, Brad died. Not to mention fifty others.”

  “Wasn’t your fault, Tom.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I disagree, Mel.”

  “Nobody would’ve attacked a civilian hospital,” Mel continued. “Especially with an intentional Intel blackout and a bunch of Iraqi greens who would’ve been good for nothing but target practice.”

  He was right.

  I’d played it through a thousand times in my head.

  And it still didn’t make me feel better.

  Mel raised his glass, “To the fallen.”

  “To the fallen.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Shelley woke us at the crack of dawn. And as I opened my eyes I realized with a kind of vague horror I had once again given myself an almighty hangover without realizing it at the time.

  Awesome, I thought. What a fantastic way to start the day.

  I got up from the bed without turning on the light, and noticed no light streaming in from the giant windows in my room, just the darkness and the distant twinkling lights of the city, clearer now the rain finally stopped.

  Great. Still dark out.

  How many hours sleep did I get?

  No idea, but I got the sinking feeling that I’d need much more sleep for the day ahead.

  I made my way through the darkened room and opened the door which led directly onto the lounge. I groaned, and shielded my eyes from the light which entered through my irises like a flaming dagger as I entered the open plan lounge area, seeing Shelley at the window staring out at the still dark city, Mel busily at work in the kitchen, his head just visible above the counter top, bobbing a bit. Sort of like an incredibly well-groomed jack-in-the-box.

  “Do you realize what bloody time it is?” I asked, trying for a conversational tone and failing completely. “Er, just asking,” I added lamely.

  “Yeah, it’s just after five in the morning,” Mel replied, appearing to be suffering no adverse effects from the previous night’s intake of alcohol.