Authors: David DeBatto
“You make it sound like I did something illegal,” DeLuca said. Gillette had been a base commander in Stuttgart who got chaptered
out after DeLuca’s investigation proved he’d misappropriated funds. Colonel Stanley Reicken had been DeLuca’s immediate superior
in Iraq, until he gave the order for his men to fire on Iraqis holding a white flag, and there, DeLuca had helped a BBC reporter
gain access to the proof. “But you’re right, I don’t like bureaucrats. And I guess I’m not so big on rules. The Army is exactly
who I’d want with me if we needed a thousand guys to cross a field, but sometimes you need to slip through a narrow door,
and then you don’t want a thousand guys with you. Why Vitaly Sergelin? Was it the money or the oil?”
“Both,” Koenig said. “It always astonished me, how few people understood the nature of power in the old Soviet Union. People
saw a row of unsmiling men in bad hats watching May Day parades in Red Square and thought they were in charge. Vitaly Sergelin
had more to do with the democratization of the Soviet Union than Gorbachev or Yeltsin ever did. China’s gross national product
tripled in the last five years and it’s going to triple again in another two—that’s a billion people who twenty years ago
were riding bicycles and building houses out of bamboo. You think we’re the only country that’s going to want oil? You think
a billion Chinese aren’t going to want cars? If we can’t control demand, we’d damned well better control supply. Russia has
more oil reserves than all of the Middle East and Alaska combined.”
“And what Sergelin doesn’t have is the physical force to protect his assets,” DeLuca said. “So you work together. He funded
your parallel programs and in return, you provide security.”
“He’s part of the decision-making process, as an ally,” Koenig said. “There are others. Maybe you haven’t noticed, Chief DeLuca,
but this little world of ours is falling apart, reverting to tribalism at its most elementary components, sometimes quite
literally—look at Africa. Countries that have been stabilized either by despotism or by democracy for a quarter of a century
or more are splitting at seams along tribal lines. Hutus and Tutsis. Dinkas and Arabs. Kum and Fasori. You’re starting to
see it in China, Pakistan, India… That narrow door you’re talking about is globalization. Those who manage to get through,
fine, great, they’re our allies, but those who get shut out and can’t get inside, they’re joining the barbarians.”
“And the barbarians are armed,” DeLuca said.
“You’re goddamn right they are,” Koenig said. “And I’m not just talking about a few pissant 707s flying into office buildings.
I’m not talking about having to fight two wars on two fronts today and thirty wars on thirty fronts tomorrow. I’m not even
talking about dirty bombs or suitcase nukes passing through airport security checkpoints manned by overweight unwed-mother
high-school dropouts who couldn’t find a bowling ball in a bread basket. We have eight thousand nuclear-armed cruise missiles
and five thousand ICBMs on this planet and a hundred million laptop computers capable of launching them, and all somebody’s
got to do is write the program that lets them, and once that gets on the Internet, we’re going to have eight thousand rockets
launching all at the same time. And what are we going to do then? Who’s going to be left to say, ‘Gee, I wish we’d thought
of that—I wish somebody had prepared for that’?”
DeLuca decided to play a hunch.
“And that’s just the terrestrial threat,” he said.
Koenig didn’t say anything. Was it possible that Koenig believed in UFOs? If so, it was probably the darkest secret he had.
“I’ll leave whether or not we need Darkstar to bigger brains than mine,” DeLuca said, shifting the focus back to things Koenig
could talk about. “But if Darkstar is a fact, then the people controlling Darkstar are going to need intelligence. I don’t
mean SIGINT or IMINT. I mean boots on the ground, global. I mean somebody who can walk into a village in Pakistan and ask,
‘Where’s Osama Bin Laden?’ and get a straight answer. And tell you, this is where he goes, this is when he’ll be there, come
and get him. I think you’re right about tribalism. And tribes have chiefs, but how do you know who they are? Who’s going to
go in and get you the information you need? And that’s what I’m good at. That’s what I’m best at. You can look it up. And
that’s what I’m offering you.”
He thought a little megalomaniacal posturing was in order, delivered deferentially.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but if we’re talking about the virtually instantaneous projection of force, and I wouldn’t deny
the need for it for one second, particularly after 9/11, then isn’t it imperative that that force be used wisely?” DeLuca
said. “You said the problem is people, not technology. People can’t make good decisions without good intelligence. You can
rely on SIGINT or IMINT all you want, but you’re still not going to build a machine that can open another man’s mind. I make
my living getting people to do just that. And I guess I’m asking you to do that, too, sir. Obviously, I came here fully aware
that if you turn down my offer, you could take me out the second I step out that door, and that from your point of view, the
threat I pose is well-contained. But I don’t think you’d delete an asset once you appreciated the value of it. And the idea
of working for somebody who could get more done in five minutes than the Army could accomplish in five years is more than
a little appealing. I’ve got my résumé in the car if you want to see it.”
Koenig smiled.
“That won’t be necessary,” Koenig said. “I’m aware of your abilities. You should know that when I think somebody is looking
into me, I’m going to look into them. You’re quite right about the advantages of intelligence. You know, General Taylor at
Huachuca is a friend of mine. Had him out here hunting a while back, so I asked him. He said you were one of the best instructors
he ever had. Wishes you were still there.”
“General Taylor’s one of the best commanders I’ve ever had,” DeLuca said. “His good opinion always meant a lot to me.”
“He referred me to the chapter you wrote on interrogation techniques,” Koenig said. “Quote: ‘It is often useful to find a
way to make the person you’re interviewing feel like you have his own interests at heart, whatever they may be. Taking an
aggressive position is more likely to raise his defenses than to lower them. From a global perspective, when questioning an
enemy combatant, the United States armed forces as “bad cop” is the default assumption. One might actually win hearts and
minds with compassion, which can be either real or feigned. Real is better.’ Did you write that, DeLuca?”
“I did,” DeLuca said.
“And did you think you could play me the way you might play some third-world towelhead?” Koenig said. “Did you think you could
pretend to have our interests at heart?” Apparently Koenig hadn’t read the part about the value of making an angry adversary
think you’re stupid. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, DeLuca. None. And the funny thing is, you still found out
more than you were supposed to. All you had to do was find the girl and the disks and eliminate one little intangible. I asked
them to get me someone who was good but not too good, and primarily, someone who could stay within the parameters of his mission.
One look at your record would have suggested you weren’t going to do that. I don’t like soldiers who can’t stay within the
parameters of their missions, DeLuca. Never have.”
“I didn’t come here to be liked,” DeLuca said, now that the game was up. When in doubt, declare victory.
“Then why did you come here?” Koenig said. “Not that I care, but I don’t know how you think.”
“I came here to arrest you,” DeLuca said.
“And you thought I would let you?”
“I thought you might not like it,” DeLuca conceded. “Most people don’t.”
“You don’t really have the faintest inkling of what you’re dealing with, do you?” Koenig said. He called out to the next room.
Carr appeared in the door, his .45 Colt automatic in his hand. “Lieutenant Carr,” Koenig said, turning to leave. “Would you
please take care of this? And when you’re finished, see to that Indian fellow wandering around outside.”
“Take
care
of this?” DeLuca said. “You can’t even shoot me yourself? What kind of pussy bullshit is that?” Koenig stopped in his tracks.
DeLuca wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with this or what he was hoping to accomplish, beyond getting Koenig to do something
stupid. He imagined Koenig had a high opinion of himself. Such high opinions were often a man’s weakest link. He also wanted
to stall, on the off chance that something brilliant would occur to him. “But then I haven’t met a candy-assed rear-echelon
motherfucker like you yet with half the balls he thought he had. You guys are great at sitting behind your plasma screens
with your hot little mouses in your hands, clicking on what infantry platoons you want to send where or what village you want
to target from six thousand miles away, but not one of you pissants ever had to kill a man with your own hands close enough
to watch his eyes turn red or come within a hundred miles of being killed yourself. You know what the real soldiers call you?
Playstation Generals. But don’t stay on my account—I know you’ve got beaver you need to hunt with RPGs.”
Koenig turned and was about to say something, then thought better of it, nodding to Carr before walking to the front door
and exiting.
DeLuca turned to face Carr.
“I don’t suppose if I told you you were under arrest, you’d put the gun down?” DeLuca said.
Carr shook his head, still smiling confidently.
“It looks like I’m going to have to wipe that smirk off your face myself then,” DeLuca said. He circled slowly to his left.
Carr responded, evidently amused anew.
“And how are you going to do that?” Carr said.
“Well,” DeLuca said. “I could just let you kill me and hope that thirty or forty years of having a guilty conscience would
destroy your soul. But that presupposes a level of self-reflection your generation tends to lack, so I guess I’ll just have
to kick your ass the old-fashioned way.”
“You’re going to kick my ass?” Carr said.
“I’m going to try,” DeLuca said, still sizing up his opponent. “My boy Dan Sykes said you’re pretty good. And I know you’re
not going to shoot me here because you don’t want to get blood on the general’s Persian rug, so why don’t you put the gun
down and show me some of your jujitsu shit? But I gotta warn you—I did a little boxing in college. Come on, Lieutenant—don’t
tell me you’re afraid of a man my age? And you know I’m right about the rug.”
“Your boy Sykes lasted less than a minute,” Carr said, lowering the gun. “What makes you think you could do any better?”
“I have something Dan Sykes didn’t have,” DeLuca said.
“The wisdom that comes with age?” Carr offered.
“No,” DeLuca said. “Backup.”
He glanced over Carr’s shoulder. Carr refused to look.
“Is this where you cleverly trick me into turning my head?” Carr said.
“I don’t want to shoot you, son,” Ben Yutahay said from the doorway, where he leveled the Remington pump-action shotgun at
the lieutenant, “but on the other hand, I don’t really care about the rug.”
Carr turned his head, momentarily, but it was long enough for DeLuca to pick up a lamp with a heavy ceramic base, which he
then broke across the back of Carr’s head. Carr fell where he stood.
DeLuca heard the helicopter’s engines revving.
He picked up Carr’s automatic, nodded a thank-you to Yutahay, then ran for the helipad, which was about a hundred yards off.
There was no time to think, so he didn’t try. He squeezed off four quick rounds but knew the small sidearm wasn’t going to
stop the helicopter, so he sprinted, knowing only that if Koenig went to ground, he was going to be much harder to find. He
was thirty yards away as the chopper lifted from the pad. DeLuca ran harder and managed to grab hold of the portside runner,
sprinting along with the helicopter until the engine revved even higher and he felt himself lifted from the ground, at which
point he realized this was one of the stupider things he’d ever done. It was not his intention to fly, and he’d never cared
much for helicopters, even when he was inside them (“fifty thousand rivets flying in loose formation,” a pilot friend had
once called them), but when he realized he was twenty feet off the ground and rising, he decided it would be prudent to hang
on.
He threw a leg over the runner and wrapped his arms around the pylon. Koenig’s pilot tried to shake him off, banking sharply
to the left, then to the right, while the ground below spun and whirled. The pilot pulled on the collective and the nose of
the helicopter turned skyward. DeLuca felt his weight shift to the rear.
The chopper pitched left, then right, then left again. When the helicopter suddenly dived, DeLuca felt his stomach turn inside
out, but he managed to wrap his other leg around the runner to straddle it. They wheeled left and circled back to the house,
picking up speed.
Then a winch began to lower from the starboard port, a fat iron hook on the end of a half-inch-thick steel cable. At eight
feet, it stopped.
Koenig’s pilot banked sharply left, using the winch in an attempt to knock DeLuca from his perch. The first blow struck the
strut, clanging loudly. The second missed by a wide margin, but then the hook whipped around and struck DeLuca in the ribs,
breaking at least one of them, by DeLuca’s rough guess.
He held on.
The chopper banked left and dived. The earth spun. DeLuca saw the estate below him. His head swam and he felt dizzy. The hook
swung back and momentarily wrapped around the runner’s pylon, pinching his right hand. He screamed as the pain shot the length
of his arm. When the cable unwrapped, he tried to grab the hook and immobilize it, but as the chopper banked sharply right,
he lost his balance.
He fell.
He grabbed hold of the cable to stop his fall. He tried to hang on to the runner with his feet, but the force was too much,
and when the helicopter jerked again, his feet slipped.