With the jungle this thick, satellite access was spotty at best-far too unreliable for Jonathan to track his own progress on the computer, or even on his GPS system-but compasses never lied, and his good old-fashioned land navigation training was so ingrained that he was almost pleased to have an opportunity to use it again. He found reassurance in the fact that their route was well worn by wide-wheelbase vehicles that clearly traveled heavy.
Thank God for Venice. By tasking the SkysEye network to scan the areas marked by Josie, she was able to confirm the presence of the villages and the mountaintop factory. With the current weather conditions, though, she’d only been able to use the thermal sensing capabilities. No visual confirmation of individual people would be possible until the skies cleared.
Venice also delivered the news that a new picture of Evan Guinn had been posted on the anonymous website that the kidnappers had established. Apparently, they were trying to sell the notion that the kid was in Italy-they’d even gotten their hands on yesterday’s edition of a daily newspaper published for towns along the Amalfi Coast.
“The backdrop is just that, though,” Venice had said. “A backdrop. A cheesy one at that. Evan could really be anywhere. I’m trying to track down the location of the server they’re using for the website. It should be a little easier if I assume that it’s somewhere in Colombia, but so far I’m not having any luck. The people running this are very good.”
“So are you,” Jonathan had encouraged. “What do you hear from Gail and the Alaska connection?”
The pause before the answer had said it all. “I don’t think it’s good news, Digger. The satellite imagery there shows a lot of fire and smoke.”
“You don’t think it’s good news? Jesus, Ven.”
“I know, I know. But I haven’t heard anything from her one way or another. Obviously, something went wrong, but I don’t know that she’s been harmed.”
“How long has it been?”
“The screen showed nothing twelve minutes ago. Now, for the last eight minutes I’ve been showing the fire and smoke.”
Jonathan ran the options through his head. Gail was smart, and she was resourceful. If she had survived, then she’d be in control. “What exactly is burning?” he asked.
“It’s hard to tell from the steep angles,” she said. The SkysEye network orbited close to the equator, so the images from the extreme north and extreme south were always distorted. “Certainly the house is burning, and it looks like the car she rented, but there’s another big fire off to the north of the house itself.” It was clear from her tone that she was examining the images as she discussed them.
“I gotta tell you, Dig, it looks like burning gasoline, to me. You know, that greasy black smoke.”
Jonathan’s gut tightened. He knew exactly what she meant. It was the kind of fire that never occurred in nature, which by definition meant that it was caused by man, and the man who caused it meant to do harm. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do,” he’d told Venice. “Call Wolverine. Get her involved.”
“With what?”
“With whatever is going on up there. This is half on her dime anyway. Have her scramble a medevac chopper or a local squad car or something. If Gail is up there wounded, I want her to get some medical attention right by-God now.”
This was new territory for Jonathan. Until this mission into the jungles of hell, he’d never been in a position to divide his troops-at least not since leaving the Army. Before, it had always been just him and Boxers doing the covert side of the business, with occasional help from outside contractors. Throughout all those years, success had been dependent upon the effectiveness of his command abilities-abilities of which he was abundantly confident. Now, the sphere was expanding with the addition of Gail to the covert team, and the first time he’d taken his eye off the ball, something had clearly gone very wrong, and he was in no position to do anything about it. A knot of fear materialized in his gut and had started to metastasize.
When they’d hung up, Venice was supposed to make that phone call next. He hadn’t heard from her since. That was over four hours ago.
Since then, they’d driven the Range Rover and the Blazer to the spot where the road ended and a trail began, and they’d been hiking since, mostly uphill. They’d taken their time dividing up the equipment. Jonathan had ordered, and Josie had provided the Marine Corps equivalent of rucksacks because, loyalties aside, he thought they were better than what the Army used. Made of the standard MARPAT camouflage scheme, they featured an abundant array of PALS straps for pouches, and they were specifically designed to accommodate modular tactical vests and CamelBak water bladders to keep them from sweating themselves dry.
Absent any reliable intel on the conditions in which Evan Guinn was being held, they had to plan for a number of contingencies. Boxers and Jonathan both carried M4 carbines combat-slung across their chests, plus twelve-gauge Mossberg shotguns bungee-slung under their armpits. Jonathan had his Colt 1911. 45 in a tactical holster on his thigh, the same spot where Boxers carried his Beretta 9-millimeter. Each carried twelve spare mags for their rifles-three hundred sixty rounds-plus four spare clips for their side arms and twenty rounds each for the Mossbergs-fifteen rounds of double-ought buck and five Foster slugs for making big holes. Add to that three fragmentation grenades and two CS grenades, plus a couple of bricks of C-4 explosives and detonators, and each of them was carrying half his body weight in equipment.
Okay, for Boxers a quarter of his body weight, but it was still heavy. Jonathan drew straws with the Big Guy to see who would carry the long-handled bolt cutters-in case they had to snip a padlock-and the Big Guy lost. Jonathan almost felt sorry for him- almost. While Boxers was two times stronger than Jonathan, he was also the only one among them with a rod in his femur where there should have been bone. Jonathan figured that that was countered by the fact that he, Jonathan, had been gut-shot twice in his career and therefore had fewer functioning viscera. He didn’t know what that meant, actually, but it had sounded good at the time.
For his part, Harvey carried an MP5 machine pistol with two hundred spare rounds, plus a sidearm and a shitload of medical supplies. Jonathan had tried to talk him out of some of them, but Harvey had ignored him. In fact, Harvey hadn’t said a dozen words since they’d left the scene of Josie’s shooting.
Finally, Jonathan had insisted that they “soldier up all the way” for this mission, meaning mandatory body armor and helmets. This mission nearly guaranteed CQB-close quarters battle-and he wanted them prepared. As he’d said, “It’s not about comfort, it’s about professionalism. The only way Evan Guinn finds freedom is if we stay alive. And if we have to carry you, we won’t be able to carry him if we need to.”
Jonathan took point on the walk into the jungle, with Harvey in the middle, and Boxers in the rear. After an hour, Jonathan dropped back to walk alongside Harvey. In a real war zone in a real war, it would have been unforgivable, but out here he thought they could afford a little bunching.
Harvey’s silence was bothering him. He seemed to be struggling with the emotion of the fight with Josie. Jonathan had discovered before that medics were wired differently than other soldiers, equally willing to risk their lives-perhaps even more willing-but oddly disconnected from the real business of war, which was killing. For medics, the line that separated good guys and bad guys was refreshingly blurred by the presence of beating hearts on both sides.
Harvey just walked. He kept his jaw clamped tight and his lips pressed into a thin line, as if forcibly locking his anger inside his head.
Finally, Jonathan had had enough. “Okay, Harvey, spill it. What aren’t you saying?”
Harvey glanced at Jonathan, then returned his gaze to the road. “Anything, so far as I can tell.”
Okay, he’d walked into that one. “I need you to tell me that you’re mission capable.”
Harvey cast him a sideward glance and smirked. “By ‘mission capable’ do you mean ‘not about to wig out and frag the commander’?”
“That’ll do as a start,” Jonathan said.
Harvey took his time answering. “Don’t worry about me knowing right from wrong,” he said at last. “Killing’s never been my thing, okay? If I’ve led you to believe otherwise, I apologize. I’m way more about hiding and healing, so if you’re expecting me to do a lot of shooting, you might be disappointed. I might be disappointed. Who knows? And the part about wigging out? I just flat-out don’t know. I hope not. But if I do, I don’t owe you or anybody else an apology. You invited me to this party, remember?”
“I remember,” Jonathan said. And he appreciated the candor.
“And about your leaving that guy to die, well, it’s done. You didn’t ask my permission, and you certainly don’t need my forgiveness. There’s a reason why I was never promoted to a position of leadership in the Marine Corps.”
“Says the man who won the Navy Cross,” Jonathan said.
Harvey laughed. “A fleeting bout of insanity, I assure you.”
“I read the citation.”
“Then you know for certain that it was a fleeting bout of insanity.”
“I know that you repeatedly exposed yourself to heavy enemy fire to pull three critically wounded Marines to safety one at a time.”
Harvey avoided eye contact. “I feel like I’m repeating myself now. Insanity.”
Jonathan wasn’t about to let him get away with that. “You’re not in a Senate hearing now, Harvey. You’re with a guy who’s been there, okay? I know what you did, and I know what it took for you to do it.”
“Well, that makes you one of about three in the world then. Congratulations.” He fell into silence for a long moment, and Jonathan let him have it. He didn’t want to be too direct in looking, but out of his peripheral vision, he thought he might have seen Harvey’s eyes getting moist. No man wants that button pushed.
After a minute or more, Harvey said, “You know, I can point exactly to the moment when I realized I didn’t give a shit anymore. Want to hear about it?”
If it were anyone else in the world, Jonathan’s honest answer would have been no. All things related to touchy-feely and fully bared human emotion left him cold. But he was devoted to valor, and those who exhibited it. “Sure,” he said.
“I had a buddy in boot camp-John Avery. We got really tight. After basic, we went to infantry training together, and in the last week, he blew out his knee in some dumb-shit PT exercise, so we got out of sequence, him six months behind me. I’d finished my tour and was back in the States when I got word that John had been killed by a sniper in Anbar Province.”
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said.
“So was I. That was at the height of my crazy period, you know? Anyway, I wanted to go to his funeral. The docs weren’t sure it was the right thing to do, but I was pretty firm, so they let me go.”
He cleared his throat. “You know, he was a young guy. What, twenty-three maybe? He had the kind of service records that they make movies out of. Great guy, terrific leader, and scared of absolutely nothing. So a sniper takes him out while he’s sipping out of a canteen at a roadblock. The funeral was everything you like and everything you dread. Lots of family, lots of tears, lots of townspeople, out in Nowhere, Tennessee.
“The Marine Corps sent an honor guard, and they did their best to make it feel military as they buried him in the yard outside of the Baptist church where his great-grandfather and everybody after him was baptized and married. It was kind of beautiful in its own right.
“And then these war protestor assholes showed up to heckle. At a fucking funeral, man. A fucking funeral. These are third-generation hippie wannabes who’ve never fought for anything, and while family and friends are trying to bury a no-shit war hero, they’re trying to make it about them. I mean, this is what we fight for, right? So that everybody can say whatever’s on their mind? At John’s funeral, the cops who were originally there as honor guard escorts ended up protecting the assholes who had nothing better to do than ruin a mother’s last memory of her son. Would you care to tell me where the sense is in that?”
Jonathan shook his head. “I couldn’t begin to.”
“Well, you see, this is where it really helps not to be crazy. ’Cause from where I sit it doesn’t even make sense to keep trying. Fuck ’em all. Then I got jammed up by some adolescent bitch who knows how the news cycle works, and I just sort of ran out of things worth dyin’ for, know what I mean?”
Jonathan did know. He’d known for decades; but the mark of an American soldier was the ability to push aside the weaknesses of politicians and slothful do-nothings to accomplish the mission within guidelines established by the politicians and slothful do-nothings. Jonathan’s years in the military had shaped his understanding of God and country. He believed with all his heart that civilians needed to be in charge, but he prayed for the day when those civilians would quit using people like him as political chess pieces.
The rain had slowed to an unpleasant drizzle by the time Jonathan and his team arrived at the village, which itself seemed strangely quiet. Clearly, the place was occupied, but the residents were apparently all inside. The three of them gathered in the center of what would be the town square if the village were in Ohio. A face appeared in the window of a nearby hut, and then disappeared.
“I’m taking theories,” Jonathan said.
“Maybe they’re all just staying in out of the rain,” Boxers offered.
“Or maybe they’re scared shitless because we’ve got enough guns and bullets to take over the country,” Harvey countered.
Jonathan leaned more toward the latter than the former. He shouted, “ Hola! Hay alguien aqui? ” He meant that to be, Hello, is anyone here?
More faces appeared in windows, but no one stepped out to greet them. Jonathan tried again. “ Me gustaria hablar con su lider, por favor. ” I want to speak to your leader. “ Somos amigos. ” We are friends. Then, to drive the point closer to home: “ Estamos aqui para herir sus enemigos! ”
Boxers chuckled. “We’re here to hurt your enemies,” he translated. “I like that.”
And so did the villagers. Two and three at a time, they wandered from their huts to see. They didn’t draw closer, but they didn’t run away, either. They gathered in clusters, talking among themselves but watching the newcomers.
“There are no men,” Harvey said.
Jonathan called out again, “ Me gustaria hablar con su lider, por favor. ”
A woman stepped forward. She could have been fifty or eighty. “Our leaders are dead,” she said in Spanish. “ El Matador killed them.”
Jonathan removed his helmet and offered his hand. “How do you do?” he said, also in Spanish. “My name is Jones. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Many losses,” she corrected. “I am Isabella. Is that man a doctor?” She pointed to the medical emblems on Harvey’s equipment pouches.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jonathan said.
Harvey doffed his helmet and tucked it under his arm. “Hello.”
“They attacked my daughter today,” Isabella said. “I think she needs a doctor.”
“Show me where,” Harvey said. “I’ll be happy to help.”
Isabella led the way back to her hut, the one from which she’d just emerged. Jonathan held back while Harvey led and Boxers stayed in the middle of the yard, looking scary. Hey, do what you’re good at. Isabella stopped at the doorway and motioned for Harvey to go in first. As they approached, Jonathan heard moaning, and then caught a glimpse of movement inside. It had the look and feel of a bedside death watch. Harvey must have caught the same vibe, because he shot a concerned look back at his boss before stepping across the threshold. Jonathan started to follow, but Isabella held up a hand to stop him.
“Not you,” she said. And then she shouted something to the gathered villagers in such quick dialect that Jonathan caught very little of it. He heard the words for welcome and food, though, so he had a good idea what the intent was.
Moving as one, the villagers closed in. Instantly friendly, they surrounded Jonathan and Boxers like they were family, flooding them with offers to sit and relax. Benches appeared in the middle of the compound, and then some tables, and within a couple of minutes, food started to arrive. Jonathan had no idea what it was, but the enthusiasm with which it was presented told him that he was receiving special treatment.
Following Jonathan’s lead, Boxers slipped out of his gear and helmet, but kept it all close by. Neither of them removed their weapons. This was a party, and they were the guests of honor. The villagers seemed fascinated by Boxers’ size. Jonathan took odd pleasure in the Big Guy’s obvious discomfort at being scrutinized.
Jonathan had positioned himself in a way to be able to watch the hut that had swallowed the third member of his team. Thirteen minutes into the party, Harvey reappeared, absent all of his equipment but his sidearm. He looked shaken, and there was blood on front of his uniform.
“Excuse me,” Jonathan said, and he rose from the table.
Boxers mimicked the action, moving like Jonathan’s reflection. “What’s up?” Then he turned and saw it, too. “Oh, this can’t be good,” he mumbled.
Jonathan closed half the distance and waited for Harvey to join him. “Are you all right?” Jonathan asked. “You look terrible.”
“We’re hunting animals, Boss,” Harvey said. “Fucking animals. You should see what they did to that little girl in there. She’s fourteen, for God’s sake.”
Jonathan felt the heat in his neck. He had no desire to see. He’d seen enough and lost far too much to the kind of human predators that Harvey described. Everything that Felipe had told him was turning out to be true.
“Will she be okay?” Jonathan asked.
“I think she’ll live,” Harvey replied. “Being okay is a little too vague. A little too relative.”
“Where is your weapon and equipment?” Boxers asked.
Harvey pointed back to the hut. “I’ll get them in a minute.”
“What, are you crazy?” Boxers said. “You can’t just-”
“Hush, Box,” Jonathan said.
“And what’s with the real names all of a sudden?”
“What part of ‘hush’ confused you?” Jonathan grumped. To Harvey: “Are you okay?”
Harvey shifted just his eyes to look at him. “She’s fourteen,” he repeated. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just been a long time.” He pivoted on his heel to return, then stopped and looked back. “More and more mission capable every minute.”
Navarro drove a twenty-year-old Ford Bronco with enormous knobbed tires and more rust than paint on the body. “Buying vehicles is one of the toughest parts of living an anonymous life,” he explained to Gail as he carefully piloted the vehicle onto the main road off his potholed driveway. The attackers were all dead, and everything he owned was on fire. They’d hung around checking things out for about fifteen minutes, but then knew it was time to get going before emergency vehicles started responding to the smoke.
Bruce hadn’t so much as cast a longing glance at his blazing home as they drove away. “If your car’s not a piece of crap that you can pick up for a few thousand bucks, you’re either going to leave a paper trail, or people are going to notice. That was hard for me, getting over the need to be noticed.”
They drove in silence for a while. “Think I’ll see jail time?” he asked.
Gail looked at him and gauged her answer, which could not have been more different than the one she would have given a year ago, when she was still a cop. “Not if you play your cards right.”
She had his attention.
“Think about it. You’ve got the kind of information that will make a prosecutor’s case. You can make them heroes. That kind of information comes with a price.” She let it settle on him. “If I were you, I’d hold out for immunity and a new identity.”
“They’d give that to me, you think?”
Gail shrugged. “Play a little poker. Lawyer up first chance you get, and then make your conditions clear. I happen to think they’ll roll over.”
Navarro smiled, then chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be a kick in the-oh, shit.”
Gail saw his eyes locked on his rearview mirror, and turned in her seat to see a sedan with a light bar pulling him over. “Do you know the car?”
Navarro slapped his blinker and drifted to the right shoulder. “I know the guy. It’s Jerry Soaring Eagle. He’s sheriff around here.”
Gail’s mind raced, but came up blank. What else was there to do but pull over? “Do you like him?”
He gave her a look. “He’s the sheriff. It’s his job to know everybody. Mine was to keep from being known. We’re not buddies, but I think he’s a decent fellow.” Bruce rolled down the window and waited for the sheriff to arrive. “I left my wallet inside the house,” he mumbled.
Gail turned in her seat to watch the cop approach. She noted that his weapon was holstered, and that his gait was easy. He didn’t have a face from her angle-not until he got to the driver’s window and bent at the waist to look in.
“Mr. Planchette, how are you?” the sheriff asked. Gail had almost forgotten Navarro’s alias.
“I’m just fine, Sheriff,” Navarro said.
The sheriff looked beyond the driver to lock eyes with Gail. His Indian blood was obvious in his features, and his face was set hard. “That so? I think if everything I owned was on fire, I’d be a little, I don’t know, something other than ‘just fine.’”
Navarro paled and shot a look to Gail.
Before she could say anything, the sheriff asked, “Are you Gail Bonneville?”
Her jaw dropped. “I, uh, yes.”
He fixed her with a stare. “Uh-huh. Well, could I ask you both to step out of the car?”
Gail’s stomach tumbled and her mind raced, but options still evaded her. Obviously, the guy was really a cop. But how could he know who she was? She pulled the door handle as he opened Navarro’s door for him. “Sheriff, I need to tell you that I’m armed,” Gail said.
“I figured as much,” the cop replied. “Don’t touch yours, and I won’t touch mine. How’s that?”
Oh, this wasn’t right at all. At the very least, he should have asked to see a carry permit. She let Navarro leave the car first and then took her turn, so as not to overload the cop’s senses. Her door opened over a ditch, so she lost six inches in height on her first step. She walked around the right front fender and positioned herself directly in front of the worn Ford medallion. Ahead and to her right, Navarro looked terrified.
The sheriff looked from one of them to the other and winced a little as he shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I just got the damnedest phone call about you two.”
Navarro shot her a panicked glance. “Is that so?” Gail asked, trying her best to look unmoved.
“It is, indeed,” the sheriff said. “I’ve been in this business for a long, long while. I’ve seen and heard a lot of strange things. After a while, given the nature of the job, you get used to being surprised. But this phone call beat everything else combined.”
He took a deep breath, and his scowl deepened. “It’s just not every day that you get a call from the director of the FBI.”
Isabella reemerged from the hut with Harvey and joined the others in the center. He had his helmet crooked on his head, his MP-5 in his hand, and his pack slung over his shoulder. He looked like he needed a very long nap.
Isabella made a shooing motion with her hands-the exact same gesture Mama Alexander would use to chase away pigeons when Jonathan was a boy-and the villagers dispersed, leaving the table for Jonathan’s team and Isabella.
“I’m sorry for your daughter,” Jonathan said in Spanish.
“She is just one of many,” she said. “The soldiers are very bad men.” She looked uncomfortable. “Not you. Them. You saved my daughter. I am very thankful. Are you here for the white-haired boy?”
The directness startled him-more so because this was a culture known for obfuscating everything from the weather to the color of the sky. Slipping a question like that into an unrelated discussion was an old interrogator’s trick, and Jonathan was pissed at himself for showing a reaction. With the option of a bluff gone, he said, “Yes. What makes you ask?”
Isabella smiled ruefully, exposing a set of well-worn teeth, from which several were missing. “I notice things,” she said. “Sometimes those things are hard to see, sometimes they are easy. A white boy with white hair is easy to see. Soon after, white soldiers with guns are easy to see. I think maybe one has something to do with the other.”
“His name is Evan,” Jonathan said. “He was taken from his home, and we are here to take him back.”
Isabella’s eyebrows scaled her forehead. “Just three people?”
Jonathan shrugged.
“They are many,” Isabella said. “Thirty, maybe forty.”
“Holy shit,” Boxers grunted.
Jonathan ignored him. “Thirty or forty total, right? Not thirty or forty soldiers.”
Isabella nodded. “Twenty soldiers. But many people with guns. Men and boys with guns keep men and boys without guns from running away. Keep enemies out.”
Jonathan and Boxers had seen it before throughout the world. Young men with nothing to lose confuse firearms with manhood. You see it on the streets of the United States, too, but in the third world, those young men with guns had jobs to do, and they were handsomely rewarded for them. In his experience, the average age of guards and terrorists and pirates all hovered in the mid-teens. Like teenagers everywhere, they were genetically wired to be fearless. Combined with indoctrination to kill without hesitation, that fearlessness made them fierce warriors.
Sensing the pall in the air, Jonathan changed the subject. “You say that Evan was here yesterday? How long ago?”
Isabella nodded. “Five, six hours. Maybe longer. With the men who hurt my daughter.” Her eyes hardened. “With the boys who did that to her.” Clearly, she’d sensed their discomfort in engaging young people in combat. “The boys who do that to many of the women in the village. At fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, they are already devils. Do not pity them.”
“How was Evan?” Jonathan pressed. “Was he in good health?”
A sudden wariness changed Isabella’s face to a mask of suspicion. All trappings of hospitality evaporated. She seemed suddenly angry. “Leave now,” she said; but she didn’t rise.
Jonathan recoiled. He looked to Boxers and got the shrug he knew he was going to get before he looked. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.
“Leave,” she said again. “I want no part of this.”
Jonathan made no effort to comply. In fact he leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Isabella, if I have offended you, I apologize.”
She glared. “You offend me by being here,” she said. “You see my daughter, I tell you about the devils on the hill, and all you care about is the white boy. The American. The gringo. My son is dead. Many sons are dead because of the devils, but no one cares. The white boy-your Evan-is another mother’s son. I help you help him, and I bring danger to all the people of my village. You don’t care about my people, I don’t care about yours. You must leave now.”
Harvey cleared his throat, drawing all eyes around to him. “Where are the men?” he asked.
“Dead,” she replied.
“All of them?”
“All who were old enough to fight. The others work up there.” She pointed toward a spot in the air that only she could see.
“What work do they do?” Jonathan asked. He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from her.
“Coca drug,” she said. “They have a factory up there. Young men and boys put to work up there. We stay here and bring them food.” She looked away as she said the last part, and Jonathan interpreted that to imply other services that one would expect from a village of slaves.
“Why don’t you leave?” Harvey asked.
“They are our sons,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “They work or they die. We stay or they die. If they try to escape, then we die. That’s why they work for the devil.”
“Jesus,” Harvey breathed.
Jonathan had seen it before, in all corners of the third world. The average American, accustomed to twenty-four-hour cable television and air-conditioning on demand, found it impossible to comprehend the suffering endured by the other eighty-five percent of the world’s population. While we prosecute hate speech, the rest of the world enslaves their enemies.
Jonathan sighed noisily. “If you help us, we will fix it for you,” he said. “If you can help, we can make them stop hurting you.”
Boxers got squirmy in his chair. “Um, Scorpion?” he said in English. “What are you doing?”
Isabella looked interested. “I don’t think I understand,” she said.
“We’ll kill some, and make the others too frightened to ever hurt you again.”
“We need to talk,” Boxers said in English.
“There are only three of you,” Isabella said.
“But we’re very good at what we do,” Jonathan countered.
“Scorpion, stop!”
Jonathan slammed the table with his hand. “Quiet!”
“Are you listening to what you’re saying?” Boxers railed. “Do you think maybe a team meeting is in order?”
Jonathan’s eyes flared. He shifted to English. “What’s the alternative? What would you have me do? We’re just going to sneak in, take our one precious cargo, and then leave the rest for these people to live with?”
“That’s exactly what I’d have you do,” Boxers fired back. “That’s the mission. We’re surgical, remember? Not tactical. In a perfect world we sneak in and sneak out and never fire a shot. You’re talking about going to war.”
Jonathan cocked his head. “Since when did you start backing away from starting wars?”
“When I learned to count and discovered that three against a lot was really bad odds. What they have going here is not our fight. It’s their fight.”
“But our fight is going to make it worse for them.”
“So? Our fights always make things worse for somebody. It’s what we do.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” Jonathan stood. He thought more clearly when he paced. “Just once, wouldn’t you like to actually finish the job we started? Just once, wouldn’t you like to solve the problem behind the problem and bring justice to everybody?”
Boxers looked confused. “Are we still talking about Evan?”
“Think about it,” Jonathan went on. He was on a roll. “Vietnam, Grenada, Mogadishu, Heavy Shadow, two Gulf Wars. Hell, Afghanistan. We moved in, we did what we had to do, and then we left a mess behind. We told ourselves we were successful because we achieved our objectives, but then we left misery behind.”
“What’s this ‘we’ shit? We did our jobs. We would have stayed for as long as it took. But we were just the muscle for the assholes in Washington. Don’t lay their shit on me.”
Jonathan opened his palms, as if balancing an invisible tray. “But don’t you see? You just made my point. Washington isn’t in on this. This one is all us. The scope of what we do is our design. What we do or don’t do is all on us. We can do this right.”
Boxers rose, too, and when he did, Isabella and Harvey both stirred uncomfortably. If this came to blows, it’d get real ugly real fast. And no one in his right mind would put a dollar on Jonathan to win. “Jesus, Scorpion, why do you always pull this shit? Why is there always some fucking moral dilemma to lay on me? These people were born badly, okay? Whoever spins the luck wheel before we’re born let it stop a tick or two early for all these poor fucks. But we can’t fix it all. Even if we had enough ammo, we couldn’t carry it, and sooner or later some lucky fucker is going to drill me. Again.”
Harvey raised a finger to interrupt. “Are you saying-”
“You shut up,” Boxers snapped, thrusting a finger in warning. If it had been a gun, Harvey would have been dead.
Jonathan nodded that it was a good time to sit quietly. He wanted to hear Boxers out. He valued the Big Guy’s input on his occasionally quixotic plans.
“And what about the Guinn boy?” Boxers said. “You’re going to risk his life while you’re saving the third world?”
“His life is already at risk,” Jonathan said.
“Which is why we’re here. How do you think he’s got a better shot at getting home? By us sneaking him out under cover of darkness, or by touching off a running firefight?”
That point scored. Jonathan wanted to argue. He wanted Boxers to be wrong, and he wanted to fight for these people. But Big Guy was right. Evan Guinn was the target of this op. It began and ended with him, and whatever resources they expended needed to be expended exclusively for the mission. On another day, under different circumstances, or maybe even with more manpower, this was a fight they could afford to wage.
But not today.
“We could give them the extra weapons,” Harvey said, flouting danger and daring to speak.
The others turned in unison to face him.
“The weapons we left behind at the bottom of the hill. The ones that Josie’s guys surrendered. We could leave them for the villagers to fight back. They won’t need us.”
Boxers stood a little taller and planted his fists on his hips. “Just like that, huh? Just give ’em to the locals and leave? No training? Is that the way y’all did it in jarhead school?” He snorted a laugh. “Explains a lot of the Marine marksmanship I’ve seen.”
“They’ll be as trained as the people they’re shooting at,” Harvey said, ignoring the interservice dick-knocking.
“Or they’ll end up providing additional weapons to the bad guys,” Jonathan said. “Either on purpose or otherwise.” He shook his head. “I was wrong,” he said. “It was a stupid idea.”
Harvey stood. “No, it wasn’t. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Says the medic,” Boxers scoffed.
Harvey took two steps closer to the Big Guy, craning his neck to stare him down. “Exactly, says the medic. The very same medic, in fact, who just did his best to repair what may be irreparable damage. Chances of bearing children maybe five in ten. Then there are the facial cuts. You want to see?”
Boxers tossed his do-you-believe-this-guy smirk to Jonathan, but Jonathan wasn’t receiving.
“Come on,” Harvey pressed, grabbing Boxers’ sleeve. “Come on in and take a glance. See if it’s worth fighting for.”
Boxers yanked his arm away. “I don’t need to see what I already know,” he said. “I’ve seen it before. Don’t care to see it again.”
“But you don’t mind letting it happen some more, right?”
“It’s not our job to stop it. Our job is to rescue a little boy who needs rescuing.”
“A white boy,” Harvey mocked. “Just like Isabella said. We love ’em if they’re white, but put a little color on ’em and we don’t care so much.”
“Who the fuck are you to lecture me?” Boxers growled. “You’ve got no idea what I got in my heart. You’ve got no idea what I want to do and what I don’t. What I’m telling you is that professionals don’t think with their hearts. They think with their heads. I don’t know where jarheads come from, but where I come from, it’s a professional’s job to push all that shit aside and concentrate on the fucking mission. If I’m gonna die in some fuckin’ stink hole like this place, it’s gonna be because I was trying to do my job.”
“And these people?” Harvey made a wide sweeping gesture with both arms. “What about them?”
“They are not my job. Not this time, anyway.”
Harvey gave up that fight and turned to Jonathan. “Boss, don’t back down. You were right the first time. We’ve gotta do what we came to do up there at the top of the hill. That’s a sure thing. But after we do, what about all these villagers? They’re going to pay the price for our success.”
“You make like they’re innocent,” Boxers said, reengaging. “That’s bullshit. Where I sit, these villagers might not be the monsters that the others are, but their fingerprints are on this business, too. They know what’s going on up there, and they let it happen every single day.”
“They’re powerless to stop it!” Harvey yelled.
Jonathan held up a hand for his turn. “Not entirely,” he said. “Big Guy has a point. In World War Two, Eisenhower held townspeople accountable for the concentration camps. They accepted soldiers’ business in their shops, and they kept roads clear for the shipment of people to the death camps. Wasn’t it Edmund Burke who said, ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing’?”
“Exactly,” Boxers said. “Thanks for seeing my side.”
Jonathan gave him a hard look. “We’re good men, Big Guy,” he said with a wink. “We’ve gotta do something.”