by Bob Mayer
Thorpe snapped a salute and turned on his heel. When he'd gotten his orders, he'd thought about calling some of his old acquaintances and lining up a job for the two months, but he'd decided against going through the trouble. Now he was regretting that decision. He shut the door behind him and Christie was waiting.
"This way, sir."
Thorpe followed him down the hall and to the left. Christie opened a door and a small, windowless room beckoned. There were two desks with computers on them. One of the desks was occupied by a young warrant officer.
"Chief Takamura, meet Major Thorpe. He's going to be working with you for the next two months."
Takamura stood and offered his hand. He was short and chubby. He wore thick-lensed, army-issue, black-rimmed glasses. "Major, good to meet you."
Thorpe shook his hand. Christie turned in the doorway. "Get him set up with a badge and tell him what the colonel wants done."
"Right top."
The door shut. Thorpe sank down at the desk facing Takamura’s and waited.
Takamura pointed at the computer on Thorpe's desk. "Our job is to screen records for the next promotion board. Make sure the photos are up to date, awards, record of service, et cetera."
Thorpe stared at Takamura as if he were speaking a foreign language. He closed his eyes as Takamura went on.
"Per the commanding general's policy letter, 98-2-4, the SOCOM G-l is responsible to make sure that all SOCOM personnel's records are in the best possible shape they can be when they go before a promotion board."
"Isn't that the individual's responsibility?" Thorpe asked. The army, perhaps the largest "corporation" in American, promoted on the basis of time in service and service records that held evaluation reports.
"Yes, sir, it is," Takamura agreed, "but the general felt that so many people were deployed that many soldiers won't have a chance to update their records or even check them, so he wants us to do it for them. He doesn't want any of his troops penalized for being deployed."
Thorpe hated to admit it, but that made sense. He just didn't want to be the person to have to do it.
Takamura smiled. "I was the only one doing it. Now, I guess, it's the two of us."
Thorpe looked at the computer. "Great."
***
Six hours later, two things were for certain. There were a large number of officers assigned to Special Forces that were facing promotion boards. And most of them had not updated their records. Thorpe wasn't surprised about that—most Special Operators were more concerned about doing their job than making sure their Department of the Army photo was up to date, or the record of their latest award or ribbon was placed in their records. Also, most of them were so rarely in the States that updating files was a low priority. Thorpe's first year in Special Forces he had spent eleven of twelve months deployed overseas.
There was another thing he realized as he stared at the computer screen. Whatever little Thorpe had learned about computers had been supplanted in his brain by other information. He wasn't sure what that other information was, but he spent half the afternoon patiently listening and learning as Takamura showed him how to bring up a personnel record, then review it against the master Department of Defense data file and then update the record. Thorpe's two-finger pecking style of typing didn't help much either.
Thorpe was glad to see the end of the workday come. That was probably the only advantage to this job that he could see. He wouldn't be going to the field, and come 1700 he could walk out of the building like the rest of the staff weenies he'd used to despise while he was on an operational team.
Which is exactly what he did at 1700. He'd called Dublowski during the day and arranged to meet him at the Green Beret Club. Dublowski was there waiting for him when Thorpe walked in the door. Thorpe slid in the opposite side of the booth.
"Beer?" Dublowski asked.
"No, soda," Thorpe replied. He noted that Dublowski wasn't drinking either. Maybe they were all getting too old for the business. At the bar, several young NCOs from the school were sharing a couple of pitchers and telling of their day's work in loud voices.
"So what do they have you doing?" Dublowski asked as he came back with the soda. Thorpe quickly explained.
Dublowski snorted. "Watch out for the stapler. I hear some of those people in SOCOM received Purple Hearts during Desert Storm when they got wounded by a stealth Iraqi attack stapler that was planted in the office. They had people fly in from the States with the mail and pick up a combat infantry badge and combat patch. Bunch of bullshit."
"I'm surprised the SOCOM commander thought of having someone check on his people's records," Thorpe said.
Dublowski nodded. "General Markham's good people. He looks after his soldiers. Others . . ." Dublowski's jaw set. "Others, they don't give a shit about us. We're just tools to be used. Put a Band-Aid of American soldiers on every damn little outbreak around the world. Don't fix it. Just shove us in there and—" Dublowski stopped in midsentence.
"No, go ahead," Thorpe said with a smile. "Tell me how you really feel."
Dublowski didn't smile in return. He averted his gaze toward the bar.
Thorpe glanced at the younger men drinking at the bar. Daylight through the window passed through the mugs of beer on the bar, highlighting the golden glow. He looked back at the older man. Dublowski was now staring out the window. A young girl was at the bank across the street, using the ATM. Her shiny dark hair reflected sunlight as she tossed her head, clearing a stray strand off her forehead.
"I don't want to bring up more bad thoughts," Thorpe began, but Dublowski shifted his attention back into the room and indicated for him to go on. "Our world of covert operations is a small one. You've got to have some contacts in the intelligence community. Did you check with any of them about Terri?"
Dublowski sighed. "Yeah, I called in every favor I could think of. Nothing. I had a buddy of mine in the FBI do a check here stateside just in case she had maybe come back. Nothing." Dublowski leaned forward. "But it was kind of strange, Mike."
When Dublowski didn't elaborate, Thorpe had to ask. "What was strange?"
"I called a guy I knew in the CIA. We aren't exactly buddies, but he owed me one. His son was in the Eighty-second and got in trouble a couple of years back downtown in Fayetteville and I pulled some strings and got the boy out of it. So I figured he'd be a good guy to get to check behind the scenes with the Germans, since the Agency has got to have connections with the German intelligence agencies."
"Anyway, this guy said he would see what he could find out. He was enthusiastic about it when I first asked. You know, like he was glad he could repay the debt. But a week later he called me back and he said he hadn't found out a thing."
"So? Maybe there was nothing," Thorpe said.
"It wasn't what he said," Dublowski said, "but rather how he said it."
"What do you mean?"
"He'd lost his enthusiasm. He didn't want anything to do with the situation. When I pushed him, he cut me off and said he was sorry. When's the last time you heard a CIA dink say he's sorry?"
Thorpe pondered that for a moment. "What do you think?"
"I don't know," Dublowski said. "It bothered me then and it still bothers me now."
There was only one thing Thorpe could come up with and he was loath to say it, but felt he had to. "Maybe he found out she's dead?"
"Maybe, but he would have told me. I was prepared for that and he knew it. He wasn't that much of a nice guy that he would want to spare me the hard news. No, I just got the feeling there was something else bothering him."
"Like what?"
"I've been wondering that myself the past couple of weeks, but I can't think of anything."
"You check with anyone else?" Thorpe asked.
"Everyone I could," Dublowski said. "We get GSG-9 men through here quite a bit," he said, referring to the elite German counterterrorism police force. "I've buddied up to a few of them. I called a couple and asked them to make some inquiries for m
e in Deutschland."
"And?"
"And nothing. Nada. I tried following them up, but they're dodging me."
"That's strange," Thorpe said.
"That ain’t all of it," Dublowski said. "The Agency has a representative here at Bragg who's supposed to coordinate with SOCOM and Delta. A guy named Ferguson. He showed up one day and told me to keep my professional and personal life separated; that they'd gotten some complaints about me via the State Department from the Germans. That's bullshit." Dublowski pushed his glass around on the table.
"Is there anything I can do?" Thorpe asked.
"No, but thanks for asking." Dublowski was silent awhile. Then he spoke in a tone of voice Thorpe had never heard the sergeant major use before. "Sometimes, Mike . . . sometimes I question whether I did right."
"You've been checking into things as much as you—" Thorpe began, but Dublowski cut him off.
"I'm not talking about after she was gone, but before. Whether I was a good father. You know I was gone most of the time she grew up. We all were. Defending our country, or so we were told. But did I do enough to protect my family? Hell, I've never fought anyplace—be it Vietnam, El Salvador, Lebanon, Desert Storm—where I felt like I was really fighting for my country."
"None of those places were really threats to us, were they? Political bullshit. Games. That's all they were. And I went to all of those places they ordered me to and left my family alone." Dublowski looked up and Thorpe was disturbed by the confusion in the eyes of the older man. "Which was more important? Hell, even at the end, the last time, I left my family in Germany while I came back here to the States to get up to speed on that operation we ran in the Gulf. Left them alone in a foreign country."
Thorpe leaned forward in the booth. "Dan ..." he began, but he found the words weren't there. Finally he spoke the truth, based on what he had learned with his own family. "I don't know."
"What's wrong with you?" Dublowski said. "We've been yacking about me all this time and you haven't said word one about your life. What happened with Lisa and Tommy?"
"They're dead." Thorpe said the two words flatly.
"Goddamn," Dublowski whispered. "What happened?"
"Last year. Just a month after I got off active duty. Car crash." Thorpe swallowed. "A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. Sideswiped them on the interstate and rolled them eight times before they came to a stop. They were both dead at the scene."
"Jesus," Dublowski whispered. "I didn't hear anything about it. I'm sorry, Mike."
"I was at a job interview." Thorpe looked up. "Can you believe that? I'd put my papers in right after Louisiana. Retired. Finally did what it took for my marriage, my family, to be first. They were coming back from Lisa's mom's. And I was away. Not there for them once again when they needed me.”
"There's nothing you could have done except died too," Dublowski said.
"Maybe that—"
"Don't go there," Dublowski said.
Thorpe spread his hands out on the table. "The thing is, Dan, we don't know. I don't think we control anything. Lisa and Tommy wouldn't have been on that road if I had stayed in service."
"But Lisa would have left you if you had stayed in," Dublowski said.
"I know that, but she and Tommy would be alive. I thought I did the right thing for her and Tommy by getting out. So I don't know, Dan. I can't tell you what's right and wrong, or good and bad." Thorpe stood. "You still have Marge. Go home."
Dublowski stood. "Who do you have, Mike?"
Chapter Five
The girls were brought in, connected by a long thin chain that was run through a loop on the cuffs that bound their wrists. The interiors of the cuffs were lined with padding, to prevent any marking or scarring.
The five girls were all young, under twenty. They were draped in baggy white pants and smocks. Their faces were covered with veils, leaving only their eyes exposed. They were all short, ranging from a tad under five feet, to two inches over. Except for the last one in line. She was several inches taller, a willowy form overshadowing the others.
Their heads were bowed, except for that last girl. Her eyes were green and they darted about, checking out the room, then settling on the two men reclining on couches at the other end, fixing them with her glare.
The others all had blue eyes, but these dared not challenge the men, rather remaining fixed on the floor in front of their feet. Their shoulders were drooped, the cant of their bodies indicating defeat.
One of the men waved a hand festooned with rings and the guard who had escorted the girls halted them, then went down the line, grabbing their shoulders and forcing them to face the two men, their backs against a white-painted stucco wall.
The two men spoke in French, a language of choice and one they knew none of the girls understood.
"We have wasted enough time on them," the larger of the two men said. "They are expensive to keep and a security risk. We have much that needs to be done. We do not have time for this. We need to be going." He was without his sniper rifle but not a weapon, as a large-caliber revolver nestled in a shoulder holster.
"They are very valuable," the other man disagreed. In his right hand was the same vial he had had in Germany, made of titanium, the surface glittering in the light. His fingers rotated it from pinkie to thumb and then back, a habit he paid no conscious attention to, the titanium vial passing through the fingers and the rings that adorned them in an intricate dance.
"One is," the larger man said. "But the others . . . You are once more mixing business with personal—"
"I do what I do for us. It is the only way to gain our vengeance."
The larger man said nothing for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to the girls. "They are stubborn."
The vial stopped moving for a few seconds as the other man spoke. "They are stones plucked from the wild. We must find the jewel inside—if there is one. And then we must shape the stone. An unshaped diamond is not worth anywhere near as much as a finished one."
He nodded toward the girls. "They can be shaped. But it takes care and precision. And when they are done, they are perfect. You have to mine many rocks to find the perfect jewel. If we get the One from this batch, it will be worthwhile. It is not enough to bend them to your will, you have to bring out what is inside. The One must be willing on her own and that is very difficult to achieve."
"The One." The larger of the two men fidgeted. His hand caressed the butt of his pistol.
The first man sighed. "But you are right, my brother. They have been stubborn. We have wasted too much time on these. They are promising, but we must winnow out the unacceptable. Sometimes a hammer must be used to crack the stone to see if there is something valuable inside." He reached out a hand. "Give me your gun."
The larger man pulled his pistol out, but hesitated before offering it. "Remember not to damage the—"
"I know, I know." The smaller man took the pistol, then spoke in English. "Young ladies, your attention, please."
The girl at the end had been watching them the entire time, not understanding the words they spoke but trying to follow anyway. Now the other four lifted their faces.
"You know nothing right now. You don't know where you are. You don't why I have brought you here." His voice was low, so quiet the girls had to strain to hear him. It was as if he was speaking to himself. "You are to be a gift. The most valuable of gifts. One of you." His voice grew slightly louder. "One of you. Or maybe none of you. It will be up to you. One of you must accept her fate and become . . ."—he paused for a long second, then smiled at a memory—"the One."
The girl on the end started to say something, but his hand shot up and chopped down, stopping the first word before it exited her throat. "You will not speak. You are either the One already or you are not. Only time will tell. But we do not have forever."
He flipped open the chamber and emptied the bullets into his open palm. The gun was made of carbon steel, the handle of dark plastic. The barrel was four in
ches long and thick.
Once the gun was empty, he took one bullet and held it up. "This is a .45-caliber bullet." He slid it into one of the openings on the cylinder, then flipped it shut. "There are five of you. Six chambers in the gun. There is a good chance one of you will die. Then the others will be left to ponder their reluctance to accept your reality. Of course, there is a very slight chance all of you will live." He spun the cylinder.
He pointed the gun in the girls' general direction. "I am going to pull the trigger five times. Who wishes to be first?"
Confusion showed in the girl's eyes. The one on the end stepped forward. "Me."
"Very good." The man aimed down the long barrel and pulled back on the trigger. The double action pulled the hammer back until it was fully cocked. He kept pulling. The hammer slammed forward with a solid click, but no round went off. The girl's shoulders slumped in relief and she stepped back.
"The odds are now one in five," the man said. "Who is next?"
Another girl stepped forward. She thrust her chin forward, glaring at the man with the gun.
He pulled back on the trigger and the hammer crashed home on an empty-cylinder. "One in four now."
Two girls stepped forward at the same time. The man swiveled the gun at the one on the left in one smooth motion and pulled the trigger. The sound of the hammer on the empty chamber was still echoing when he had it trained on the second girl. She involuntarily stepped back as the hammer cocked, then slammed forward. Again on an empty chamber.
"Fifty-fifty now."
"No!" the remaining girl protested. "Please."
"You must step forward," the man said.
"No." The girl was sobbing. She fell to her knees, hands covering her head.
The man leveled the gun and pulled back on the trigger. Everyone in the room was riveted as the hammer poised in the cocked position. It flew forward, striking home on an empty chamber.