Secret sanction sd-1

by Brian Haig

  Finally, a new flash of green tones appeared on the screen, and it took a minute to sort out what we were seeing. This one had a hell of a lot more of the small, bright green dots, all of which were moving, some slowly, some more quickly. I watched for two minutes and felt my heart land somewhere in the pit of my stomach.

  Finally, the equitable Mr. Jones stood up and walked over to the screen. He began using his hands to point toward this and that as he said, “For those who are unfamiliar with our technology, these smaller green dots are personnel. The larger, brighter dots, like this one right here, are from stronger heat sources. In this case, they correspond to automobile engines.”

  Delbert asked, “Where is Sanchez’s team in that mess?”

  “Good question. I wouldn’t have known the answer myself if I hadn’t called and talked directly with the team of analysts who did this work.”

  He turned around and whipped a laser pointer out of one of the many pockets in his field vest, flicked it on, then flashed its tiny red beam at a small line of slowly moving green dots.

  “Count here, and you’ll recognize there are seven dots. If you run this tape at hyper speed, then you realize they’re moving in a single file. Our analysts were thrown off at first, because they were told to look for a group of nine men. Eventually, an infantry officer on our staff mentioned that the team might’ve posted a rear security element.”

  Jones’s little red pointer shifted position to show a pair of little dots located some distance behind the bulk of Sanchez’s team. “We think this might be Sanchez’s rear security element. Although they’re only two inches away on this screen, in true ground measurement they’re about a quarter of a mile back.”

  Morrow said, “That must be Sergeants Perrite and Machusco.”

  “If you say so,” Jones remarked, awarding her the kind of smile that said, “Good girl. I still want to sleep with you.” He continued: “Now, if you’d like we can watch this tape for another forty-nine minutes, or I can explain what you’re looking at.”

  “Explain,” I said, feeling sick.

  “Oh, before I do, one other piece of good news,” he announced with a lofty smile. “We also have audiotapes taken the same day from some of our other assets. They were sent in code, and the language is Serbian, but our analysts decoded and transcribed them for us.”

  He paused for a moment to let the drama of all that sink in.

  “What we have here is a massive manhunt in progress. All told, nearly seven hundred Serb troops were involved. A Serb recon unit reported the sighting of an American A-team at”-he paused and looked down at his yellow pad-“Let me see… at two fifty-eight in the afternoon. Immediately afterward, Serb militia radio traffic got very busy. Mobilization orders went out to various units in what we call Zone Three. The Serb militia obviously don’t call it that. They refer to it as the Fifteenth Divisional Command region. It took them a while to get all these units in place. The Serb militia in Kosovo operates in a very decentralized fashion, with small units located across large areas.”

  “Why is that?” Delbert asked.

  “Several reasons. One, they don’t face any large ground threats that would force them to keep their units concentrated. Two, they wouldn’t want them concentrated anyway. By spreading out, a single division can exert control over a much larger geographic region. Third, we believe our bombing campaign has forced them to spread out, so there are no large, inviting formations for our planes to hit.”

  “Go on,” I said, trying to sound interested rather than miserable, which was exactly how I felt.

  “Right. This tape we’re watching was actually taken around 10 P.M. I guess that’s about eight hours before the ambush. As you can see, Sanchez’s team was pretty well hemmed in. It’s actually a miracle they made it out. By the way, our analysts overlaid maps of the area on this film, and these right here”-he paused to sweep his red dot and make a line on the wall-“are two intersecting roads where Serb vehicles appear to be moving to establish a block.”

  I said, “Can you show us where the ambush took place?”

  “Be happy to, pal.” His little red dot moved to a position along one of the lines where he had indicated there were roads. Then he said, “No satellites were overhead at the time of the ambush, but we did get another pass the next day, when Sanchez’s team was nearly to the Macedonian border. Wanta see it?”

  “No, not really,” I sourly replied.

  The light flipped back on, and Morrow and Delbert were both beaming like children under a Christmas tree.

  Jones looked at me with a real wiseass grin. “Guess it all came out the way you wanted, huh, buddy?”

  I wasn’t his buddy, and I had an almost irresistible impulse to make that clear, but all I said was, “And I’m still not allowed to take any tapes out of this facility?”

  “Nope. They’ll be stored in the archives back in Maryland. If anyone wants to view them, they can see them there.”

  I looked at Delbert and Morrow. “Any questions for Mr. Jones?”

  Delbert said, “No, I think it’s pretty clear-cut.”

  Morrow turned to Jones. “Did you get any audio transcriptions of the Serb response to the ambush?”

  “Actually, we did. It was kind of nutty. We’ve got a transcript of a unit reporting the discovery of the bodies. Then there’s another transcript of the Fifteenth Division headquarters ordering all units to halt in place and await further instructions. That’s all we got, though.”

  “And how do you interpret that?”

  “What we guess is that once the Serbs found out Sanchez’s team could bite, they got a lot more cautious, real quick.”

  Morrow was nodding like, yes, of course, that’s exactly what happened. I wanted to strangle her, too.

  She then said, “No more audio interceptions? Isn’t that a little odd?”

  Jones nodded at her like this was a really brilliant question and, oh, by the way, he still wanted to sleep with her. “Not really,” he said. “The Serbs know we listen in. When they want to hide things from us, they stop transmitting and start using messengers.”

  She said, “But you have a copy of the transcription when the ambush site was discovered?”

  “Want to hear it?”

  “Please.”

  He riffled through a stack of computer printouts, then culled one out. “Okay, here we are. The sender’s call sign was Alfa 36, and the receiving station was Foxtrot 90. We haven’t been able to identify Alfa 36, probably a militia company, but Foxtrot 90 is the headquarters for the Fifteenth Division. The message went like-”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Read it verbatim.”

  He shook his head at me-a clear sign he didn’t want to sleep me with me-then looked down at the page. “Okay. It was a series of four transmissions. First transmission went, ‘Foxtrot 90, this is Alfa 36. Report that there has been an ambush at grid 23445590.’ Now second transmission:‘Alfa 36, this is Foxtrot 90. Describe condition.’ Now the third transmission:‘Foxtrot 90, this is Alfa 36. Seventeen dead, thirteen wounded, five living.’ Now the fourth transmission:‘Alfa 36, this is Foxtrot 90. Hold in place and await further instructions.’”

  He looked up and said, “That’s it. No more audio interceptions between those two stations after that.”

  You could almost hear Delbert and Morrow gasp. There were still eighteen living Serbs when the ambush site was discovered. Ergo, Sanchez and his men must not have killed the survivors. K-chunk! The two of them just won the daily double.

  Morrow shot me a triumphant look, then asked, “You said it’s common for the Serbs to go to radio silence when they have sensitive orders to pass?”

  “Right. The Serbs have a great deal of experience trying to elude our intelligence capabilities. In the early years of Bosnia, we used to listen in all the time when they planned their massacres and mass rapes. We made tapes of it, and a lot of our stuff got used as evidence in the Hague tribunals. It was unfortunate, really. We protested, because we did
n’t want to expose our capabilities, but the President overruled us. Pretty soon, every time they planned an atrocity, they made damned sure not to talk about it on the radios.” Then he paused and looked at us curiously. “Why? Is there something here I should know about?”

  Morrow looked at me and I gave her a nod of permission.

  She said, “There sure as hell is. Somebody went around that ambush site and put bullets into the heads of the survivors.”

  Jones took a heavy breath, then looked down at the table. “No shit? Their own men? Why would they kill their own men?”

  Delbert said, “To create an atrocity to pin on American troops.”

  Jones nodded as though everything just fell into perfect place. “Those bastards! Yes, that would fit. No wonder they stopped transmitting.”

  After that, there really wasn’t anything left for me to say. The daily double had become the trifecta. Morrow and Delbert could not resist giving me the occasional triumphant leer, and good form required that I smile back and respectfully acknowledge that they’d been brilliantly right where I’d been miserably wrong. Unfortunately, good form never was my forte. I just glowered and sulked.

  Jones began quietly murmuring with Morrow, and Miss Smith decided I was no longer good company, so she got up and walked around the table and initiated a similarly low-key conversation with Delbert. It was as if they were having a winner’s convention, while I stewed in loser’s melancholy.

  Finally, I got up and showed myself out of the NSA facility. I could’ve skulked back to my office, but instead I wandered around the Tuzla compound for an hour or so. I did a lot of thinking during that hour. I thought about how stupid I’d been. I thought about what I was going to do after Clapper banned me from ever practicing military law again. I thought about what life was going to be like selling cars on one of my father’s car lots. I guess I deserved it.

  One of the first lessons you learn in law school is to trust facts, and only facts. Avoid deductions, spurn instincts, and run like hell every time a hunch comes within ten feet of you. Every law school professor tells you that, in one way or another, on the very first day of class. I’d done just the opposite. I’d done a swan dive off a circumstantial highboard and it turned out there was not a single drop of evidentiary water in the pool.

  Chapter 19

  By the time I got back to my little office building, I must’ve looked pretty doleful, because Imelda’s girls all started offering me coffee and asking if there was anything they could do for me. I was quite touched. Before I knew it, I had three cups of steaming java and was sitting in my office, twiddling my thumbs and wondering what in the hell to do next.

  The truth was, the only thing left to be done was to finish the report. Then I’d climb on an airplane and go face Clapper’s tribunal. Imelda and her tribe had already typed up the transcripts of the interrogatories. Delbert and Morrow had already prepared and proofed all the supporting documentation and evidentiary indexes. Really, the only work that remained was to prepare the final statement that laid out our conclusions and recommendations. I thought about doing it myself; I just didn’t have my heart in it. Besides, Delbert and Morrow would figure I was infringing on their victory dance.

  Then it struck me. The coroner’s report. I asked Imelda to put me through to Dr. Simon McAbee, and about a minute later she stuck her head in and told me to pick up the phone.

  “Hey, Doc, Sean Drummond here.”

  “Hello, Counselor.”

  “Listen, I owe you a big apology. I should’ve called two days ago. Our due date got moved up. We’re going to need your results tomorrow.”

  “Oh, well, that’s really no problem,” he assured me. He had one of those voices that dripped with prissy efficiency. “I finished three days ago anyway.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the outcome? Curiosity, you know.”

  “We’re recommending against court-martial.”

  “Ah, that’s a great relief, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure,” I lied.

  “So how did you account for the bullets in the head?”

  “The Serbs did it themselves. There’s no doubt about that. We found definite proof that there were still survivors when the first Serbs arrived at the ambush site.”

  “Well, very good,” he said. “It would sicken one to believe that American soldiers would do such a hideous, barbaric thing.”

  I was already getting tired of Simon McAbee’s voice. Like lots of doctors, there was this pedantic echo to nearly everything he said. I guess I could understand that from doctors who deal with living beings. But a pathologist? Besides, I was in a really black mood. I was preparing to wrap up our conversation when some impulse made me ask, “Hey, Doc, one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember I asked you to see if you could estimate how many of the Serbs would’ve died from wounds other than head shots?”

  “Right.”

  “Were you able to do that?”

  “I made an estimate. Let me see…” he said, and I could hear the sound of papers being shoveled around. “Ah yes, here. Perhaps twenty-five of them would have died as a result of the wounds received previous to the head wounds.”

  “Twenty-five?” I asked.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to be held to that number. I mean, I didn’t have the bodies here to examine them properly.”

  “Does that mean twenty-five who would’ve died eventually?”

  “Oh goodness. Maybe I misunderstood what you wanted. Twenty-five of those men would have died almost instantly. Certainly others would’ve died afterward. Too many variables in those cases to make reliable judgments, though. Quality of trauma care. Time elapsed before they arrived at a proper facility. Adequacy of medical care.”

  I felt this sudden heavy pounding in my heart. “Doc, listen. I need you to be perfectly clear. Are you saying that twenty-five of those men were killed instantly?”

  He paused for a moment, and I nearly bent the corner of my desk.

  “Instantly, no,” he finally said, and my heart rate started to settle back down.

  Then, after another moment, he clarified. “I would state it like this. Twenty-five of the Serb bodies were inflicted with such catastrophic trauma that they would have expired within three minutes of receiving their wounds. There were four others who would be borderline, but you warned me that the exact number of deaths inflicted by Sanchez’s men might be a contestable issue in court. I therefore didn’t include those four. With proper first aid, a few of them might’ve lingered longer.”

  I didn’t say anything for a long time, until McAbee finally said, “Major, are you still there?”

  “I’m here, Doc.”

  “I apologize if I prepared the wrong estimate. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll work all night if I have to. I’ll bring in extra office-”

  “No, Doc. You did just what I asked. You’re sure of your numbers?”

  “Of course. I even erred toward the safe side. It’s quite possible, in fact very likely that twenty-seven or twenty-eight died almost immediately. Judging by the wounds, it was a hideously violent ambush.”

  “Again, Doc, tell me you’re positive of your numbers.”

  I could hear his voice getting more exasperated. “Major Drummond, I’m a graduate of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. I’ve been a fully functioning pathologist for sixteen years. I think I can recognize when tissue damage is severe enough to cause imminent mortality.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I hung up the phone and sat there, stunned. Well, okay, maybe not stunned, but in that general proximity. I was certainly mystified. Jones had said that when Alfa 36 arrived at the ambush site, it called its division headquarters and reported that there were seventeen dead and still eighteen survivors. Yet, according to McAbee, twenty-five of the thirty-five Serbs should most definitely have been dead. That would’ve left, at most, only ten survivors. Depending how it went with
the three or four questionables, maybe less than ten survivors. Maybe only five or six.

  Say that Alfa 36 reached the ambush site right after Sanchez’s team pulled out. Maybe that accounted for the difference. I tried to think that through. Sanchez’s team opened the ambush by detonating the two mines buried in the road. That might’ve killed the driver of the lead truck and maybe a few of the men in the back. Then Sanchez’s men began raking the column with M16 and machine-gun fire. Willy-nilly, the Serbs piled out of their vehicles and scrambled for cover behind them. Then the daisy chain of those deadly claymores went off. All of this happened in that first frightful minute.

  In ambushes, that opening minute is the height of mayhem. It’s when most of the blood is spilled. And remembering the corpses I’d seen back at the morgue, a very large number appeared to have been shredded by those claymores. Then according to Sanchez and his men, another five to seven minutes were spent trading bullets back and forth. Figure a few more Serbs might’ve been killed during that exchange. By that time, though, the Serbs were mostly behind cover and were furiously returning fire. Sanchez’s men would have been hunkered down, firing back more sporadically, less accurately. Plus, with Perrite on security, and Graves, the medic, back in the rear, Sanchez only had seven shooters at the ambush site. The number of casualties would’ve dwindled to a trickle.

  McAbee was sure that twenty-five, and maybe even twenty-nine of the Serbs would have been dead within three minutes after they received their wounds. He was the expert. He knew which organs had to be smashed, which arteries severed, and which limbs obliterated before human brains and hearts started putting up out-of-business signs. That made it physically impossible for Alfa 36 to have arrived at the ambush site in time to find eighteen survivors.

  So what in the hell was going on here? A tough question with only two possible answers. Either McAbee was the most incompetent idiot to ever graduate from Johns Hopkins or I’d been duped. Cleverly and professionally duped. The transcripts of the Serb radio transmissions had to be fakes. And if those were faked, well, then maybe… no, probably… no, definitely, the satellite films were fakes as well. Mr. Jones with the marble eyes had somehow managed to orchestrate a bit of high-tech chicanery.