by Bob Mayer
Fadeyushka wasn't listening. He was praying, preparing to meet his God.
"You thought I told the truth when I said some had made it. That was necessary," the man continued. "Hope is fuel and you needed it to make it here. But none have ever escaped me. There would be no point to that."
The man heard the whispered prayer and strangely, given his actions so far today, waited until Fadeyushka had finished.
"Are you ready?" the man asked.
Fadeyushka nodded, his eyes still closed.
The man studied Fadeyushka's torn fatigues, looking for any marking. "Muslim or Christian?"
Fadeyushka opened his eyes, hope flickering. "Does it matter?"
The man smiled. "It might."
Fadeyushka figured he had a fifty-fifty chance, but that brief flicker of hope went out with the pain from his wounds. The man had already shot him several times. He had lost too much blood. It would not matter now if the man let him go. "Christian."
The man nodded. "Muslim would have been better, but Christian will work."
"For what?"
The flame from the tip of the suppressor singed the entry wound the bullet made as it went into Fadeyushka's skull. The back of the head made quite a mess on the tracks as the bullet exited.
The man pulled a small SATPhone out of his pocket, a most sophisticated and expensive device, and punched in memory 1. It was answered immediately and he could hear the whine of a turbine engine in the background and the stutter of helicopter blades.
"I am ready," he said in French, one of half a dozen languages he spoke. There was a very slight chance the satellite communication might get intercepted, and French would confuse anyone listening.
After getting an acknowledgment, he put the phone back in his pocket. He pulled two harnesses out of his backpack. One he buckled around the body, making sure it was secure. The second he buckled around himself. Then he squatted, rifle across his thighs, and waited, motionless. He stared at the body, looking into the lifeless eyes. Soon the sound of the helicopter echoed across the countryside.
He looked up as a Bell Jet Ranger, painted with IFOR markings, came in low over the rails. He put his hand over his eyes as the chopper came to a hover overhead. He reached up, grabbing the rope that was hooked to the lift on the left skid. There was a plastic case attached to the end of the rope, along with a large snap link. He pushed the snap link through the snap on the front of his harness, then the one on the front of the harness on the body. Making sure both were secure, he grabbed the small controller attached to the rope just above the snap link. He pressed a button, notifying the pilot he was ready.
The helicopter lifted, the rope unreeling from the lift until fifty feet were played out, then the man hit the stop. He was jerked off the ground, the body of Fadeyushka slamming against him. They went straight up for thirty feet, then the chopper pulled them to the east.
The man didn't flinch as Fadeyushka's body pressed up against his. He stared into the dead eyes with mild interest, feeling the other man's blood soak into his own clothes. There was the smell of feces and urine that even the wind rushing by couldn't completely get rid of. The man had killed enough to know that the body voided itself upon death, the autonomic nervous system no longer functioning. The man not only had killed often, he had made a study of death, so that he knew about it not only from the practical side, but also the theoretical.
The helicopter came to a hover over the small hillock where the bodies tied to the tree were. Slowly the pilot descended until the man's feet touched the ground. He quickly unhooked himself, the plastic case and Fadeyushka's body from the rig, hitting the wind button. The rope quickly wound up onto the lift. The chopper moved to the east and landed in a small clearing, blades turning, waiting.
The man threw Fadeyushka over his shoulder. With his free hand he picked up the plastic case. He carried the body to the center of the clearing. Then he threw the body down, dead eyes staring up to the clear sky. He opened the plastic case and pulled out the sniper rifle inside. It was the one he had used on the bodies tied to the trees about the clearing, a twin to the one he had carried. He laid the rifle across Fadeyushka's chest.
The man stood there for several seconds, loath to leave the gun. It was a standard Soviet Bloc SVD sniper rifle, one of many thousands circulating around the area, but this one he had worked on for a long time, fine-tuning.
With one last glance, he walked away toward the sound of the waiting chopper.
Chapter Four
Despite the downsizing of the army, it appeared to Thorpe that Fort Bragg was growing as he drove onto post. There were sprawling new compounds for the Third and Seventh Special Forces Groups among the pine trees off Yadkin Road.
Located to the west of Interstate 95 and the town of Fayetteville in the south-central part of North Carolina, Fort Bragg was home to the army's Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne Division. Covering over 148,000 acres of North Carolina pine forest, the post was the tip of the spear for the army's rapid deployment forces. Nearby Pope Air Force Base was the point from which that tip was launched.
The post was founded in 1918 as the army geared up for World War I. Before the days of political correctness, it was named after the Confederate General Braxton Bragg. The first military parachute jump was made at Fort Bragg in 1923 from an artillery observation balloon, and ever since it had been the home of the Airborne.
As he drove onto the post using Bragg Boulevard, Thorpe was hit with an assortment of memories, some good, some bad. He'd been many places in his time in the army, but in many ways Bragg had been the start point.
It was where he and Lisa had first been together after getting married. Tommy had been born in the post hospital. Thorpe forced his mind away from those memories.
Thorpe knew that Delta Force had moved from its old green-fenced compound near the ROTC summer camp area to a highly secure, modern facility specifically built for them a few miles out in the range area. He'd heard that they had various weapons ranges inside the fence that surrounded the compound, along with full-size aircraft fuselages, trains, buses and other training aids.
During his active duty time in Special Forces, Thorpe had served a tour of duty in the new ACFAC, Academic Facility for Special Forces, that had been built across the street from the old Puzzle Palace, the former headquarters for army Special Operations that now held the headquarters for the JFK School for Special Warfare.
Thorpe's destination was the army Special Operations Headquarters, a new addition since his last trip here. It was set on what used to be a virgin acre of North Carolina pine forest. Several stories high, it was all glass and brick, very modern. It was a long way from the beat-up World War II era "temporary" buildings Thorpe had received his Special Forces classroom training in years ago.
There were no parking spaces available in the lot immediately outside, so Thorpe was forced to park a quarter mile away, near the Third Group area. Third Special Forces Group (Airborne) had not even existed when Thorpe first joined Special Forces. Its area of operations was Africa and it had been brought to life several years ago—despite the rest of the army getting smaller, Special Forces was actually getting larger due to the strong demand for those units. For the first time since its peak strength during the Vietnam War, Special Forces had a group devoted to each populated part of the world: Third to Africa, Fifth to the Middle East, Seventh to Central and South America, First to the Pacific and Orient, and Tenth to Europe.
The command he was going to, SOCOM, was the headquarters for all those groups and the other elements assigned to army Special Operations: the Ranger Regiment, which consisted of three highly trained Ranger infantry battalions; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) that flew all the army Special Operations helicopters; Civil Affair and PSYOPS—Psychological Operations—units; and the various units dedicated to supporting the special operations team.
As Thorpe stepped out of the car, he pulled his battered green beret out of his left car
go pocket and settled it on his head, a move that over a decade and a half wearing the beret had made a very practiced maneuver.
His spit-shined jungle boots silently padded over pavement as he walked toward the front of the SOCOM building. He noted that Bronze Bruce, the limp-wristed, eighteen-foot-high bronze statue of a Vietnam-era Special Forces soldier, had been moved to the plaza in front of the building from its original place next to the Special Forces museum. He'd heard about the uproar the move had caused among the old guard in Special Forces.
Thorpe detoured over to the statue and walked around. On bronze plaques bolted to the low concrete wall around the statue were listed the names of those Special Operations men who had died since Vietnam. It was a long list for a country that considered itself to have been primarily at peace since the end of that conflict.
The names only served to reinforce what Thorpe had learned by bitter lesson: Special Operations was always on the cutting edge and facing danger all the time, regardless of whether there was a declared war going on or not. Thorpe noted the names of the two Delta Force operators who'd been killed in Mogadishu trying to rescue a downed helicopter crew from Task Force 160. He wondered how many civilians even remembered that failed peacekeeping effort or the videos of the bodies being dragged through the streets. Thorpe remembered, most often when he wished he wouldn't.
He scanned the names, looking for those of other men he had known. Men who had died on missions with him. He spotted a few, the places and occasions of their deaths as listed in the bronze letters a blatant lie in some cases. At least the names were there, though, which was more than could be said about some of the men who had disappeared or died on classified missions during the Vietnam conflict. But there were other names, names Thorpe knew, that weren't on the list. Men who had died in places where the U.S. Government would never acknowledge they sent American fighting men. Men whose families had been told they had died during training accidents. A surprising number of Special Operations helicopters had "crashed at sea," the bodies never recovered.
Thorpe ran a finger inside the collar of his starched battle dress uniform shirt, uncomfortable in uniform after wearing civilian garb for the past year and a half. He felt awkward, out of place. It was a strange feeling for a person who had spent his entire adult life in the military. He had not expected this feeling, but standing in front of the names of the dead, he knew he no longer fit. He'd lost something and he wasn't quite sure what it was. He knew he'd lost it before the Omega Missile incident, even before the Lebanon affair, but he wasn't quite sure when or why he had changed.
Thorpe checked his watch. After 1000. The NCO at the reserve in-processing center had not exactly seemed in a rush to do Thorpe's or the other incoming reservists' paperwork and it had taken over an hour to process onto active duty for the next sixty days. Then he had received instructions to report to the SOCOM G-l section for work.
The military staff was broken down into four major sections, numbers 1 through 4: 1 was personnel; 2, intelligence; 3, operations; 4, logistics. At brigade or lower level, the letter designator was an S, so that a battalion or brigade personnel officer, the adjutant, was the S-l. At higher than brigade level, the designator was a G.
Thorpe strode up the walk, snapping a salute at a colonel who was coming the other way. He pushed open the door to the building and stepped into the lobby. Two turnstiles filled up the way to the left of the guard desk. An elderly black man in a contract security company uniform looked at Thorpe, noted that he didn't have a badge clipped to his pocket as everyone else in sight did, and motioned for him to come over.
"Are you on the access roster, sir?"
"I doubt it," Thorpe said, giving the man his ID card.
Noting that it was the red color indicating reservist, the guard flipped open a particular computer printout and checked Thorpe's name against the list.
"You're not on here," the guard said. "Who are you here to see?"
"I'm supposed to check in with the SOCOM G-l for further assignment."
"We'll have to get someone down from there to escort you."
Thorpe waited while the guard called, then longer while someone from the office came down. Finally a master sergeant appeared, quickly walking up to the other side of the turnstiles. "Sign in the visitor's roster, Major," the sergeant instructed.
Thorpe did as he was told, the guard keeping his ID card to be returned when he left. Thorpe pinned a numbered pink visitor badge on his pocket. The bottom of the badge warned in large letters that he must be escorted at all times.
Obviously they were taking security seriously around here, Thorpe reflected as he followed the master sergeant to the elevator. Once they were on board, the other man turned to him and stuck out a hand.
"Sergeant Major Jim Christie."
"Major Mike Thorpe."
"I know. I've heard of you."
It was hard to tell from Christie's inflection whether that was good or not. Thorpe knew Special Operations was a small pond and he'd made more than a couple of splashes in his time, and if anyone was going to hear something about it, it would the G-l section.
"This way," Christie said, leading him down a corridor.
"Where will I be working?" Thorpe asked. He hoped he got to go to a Special Forces Group; either Third or Seventh, both here on post, would be fine with him. His rank was O-4, Major, and there were slots at both group and battalion level for that rank.
"That's up to Colonel Kinsley," Christie said.
"When do I get to meet him?" Thorpe asked.
Christie pointed to a door at the end of the corridor as he slid behind the desk to the left of the door. "Right now."
Thorpe knocked on the door. A woman's voice called out, "Enter."
Thorpe glanced at Christie, but the sergeant was studiously absorbed in paperwork. Thorpe opened the door and marched to a point two feet in front of the colonel's desk, all the while checking out her and the room.
Kinsley was in her late thirties with straight brown hair parted in the middle. Her face was well tanned and she had on heavily starched fatigues. She wore steel-rimmed glasses that gave her appearance a severe look, rather like the librarian who used to hush the kids at the library back home. On the wall behind her were several plaques and a large guidon. It was red and gold, from a quartermaster unit that matched the insignia on her collar. There was a combat patch on her right shoulder, which these days could mean anything from having served in the Gulf War to a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia- Herzegovina.
"Major Thorpe reporting, ma'am."
Kinsley had a file in her left hand and she kept it there as she returned his salute. "At ease," she said.
Thorpe spread his feet shoulder-width apart and put his hands together in the small of his back. He watched her, waiting, a little surprised at this overly official meeting. He wondered if this was the way the regular army operated. It had been over fourteen years since he'd last been in a regular army unit, in the infantry at Fort Hood, and it was hard to remember. Special Forces usually operated less formally, but more professionally than the regular army, an apparent contradiction that outsiders had a hard time understanding.
Kinsley shook the file. "Quite a record. At least the part that isn't classified."
Thorpe didn't say anything.
"I asked for your classified records. After all, most people who work for this organization have classified data in their personnel files and I do have a top-secret access. My request was denied."
Thorpe wasn't surprised at that. And he didn't see any reason why LTC Kinsley, SOCOM G-l, had a need to know, since he was just here to do two months of active duty to punch his reserve ticket so he could qualify for retirement pay.
"You people," Kinsley continued, "act like you have your own little private armies. I spend my time trying to make sure all the units manning rosters are filled, and then find out some commander decided to move people around the world wherever he feels like it."
Thorpe remained s
ilent. He'd met people like Kinsley before who thought their support job was more important than the job done by the people they were supposed to support.
"Are you bothered to be back on active duty?" Kinsley asked, dropping the file and leaning back in her chair.
Thorpe was surprised at both the question and the tone. It sounded like a challenge. "I'm here to do my duty as ordered."
"You didn't have to," she said. "You could have turned the orders down."
"I'd like to get my retirement benefits, ma'am. I believe I've earned them."
She picked up a cup of coffee and took a sip. Thorpe felt very uncomfortable at his modified position of parade rest while she sat there drinking coffee. He was too old for this. She seemed to be sizing him up. He glanced at a chair to his right, but if she noticed the look, she gave no indication.
"There's a lot going on," Kinsley said. "Tenth Group is heavily involved in the IFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina and it looks like Seventh Group might have to commit a battalion also to the peacekeeping effort due to recent developments. I've got tons of paperwork making sure the deployed units are up to strength."
Thorpe didn't say a word, waiting. Like I give a damn about your problems, he thought. Tell it to the guys who are on the teams executing those deployments where the bullets are flying. He'd always found that people far away from the firing lines tended to think they were as important as, if not more important than, the people on the cutting edge.
"See Master Sergeant Christie to get your security badge."
Thorpe blinked. Getting a badge meant that he was going to be working in this building. "Ma'am, I'd like to work in one of the groups if possible. My experience is—"
"I've read your file," Kinsley cut him off, "at least the parts they would give me. I know what your areas of expertise are. But I make the assignments here. You're only going to be around for a few months. I just lost my only eighteen-series officer to one of the groups and you're taking his place. There is plenty that can be done in this office. As a matter of fact, I have a major project that will take up most of your time." She reached into her in-box and pulled out another file. She glanced up. "That's all. Christie will brief you and get you set up."