The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [3]
"The General will see you now, Captain," she said, looking up from the phone on her desk.
"Thank you, Gunny," Caruso said, coming to his feet and heading for the door, which the sergeant held open for him.
Broughton was exactly what Caruso had expected. A whisker under six feet, he had the sort of chest that might turn away a high-speed bullet. His hair was a tiny bit more than stubble. As with most Marines, a bad hair day was what happened when it got to half an inch, and required a trip to the barber. The general looked up from his paperwork and looked his visitor up and down with cold hazel eyes.
Caruso did not salute. Like naval officers, Marines do not salute unless under arms or "covered" with a uniform cap. The visual inspection lasted about three seconds, which only felt like a week or so.
"Good morning, sir."
"Have a seat, Captain." The general pointed to a leather-covered chair.
Caruso did sit down, but remained at the position of attention, bent legs and all.
"Know why you're here?" Broughton asked.
"No, sir, they didn't tell me that."
"How do you like Force Recon?"
"I like it just fine, sir," Caruso replied. "I think I have the best NCOs in the whole Corps, and the work keeps me interested."
"You did a nice job in Afghanistan, says here." Broughton held up a folder with red-and-white-striped tape on the edges. That denoted top-secret material. But special-operations work often fell into that category, and, sure as hell, Caruso's Afghanistan job had not been something for the NBC Nightly News.
"It was fairly exciting, sir."
"Good work, says here, getting all your men out alive."
"General, that's mostly because of that SEAL corpsman with us. Corporal Ward got shot up pretty bad, but Petty Officer Randall saved his life, and that's for sure. I put him in for a decoration. Hope he gets it."
"He will," Broughton assured him. "And so will you."
"Sir, I just did my job," Caruso protested. "My men did all-"
"And that's the sign of a good young officer," the M-2 cut him off. "I read your account of the action, and I read Gunny Sullivan's, too. He says you did just fine for a young officer in his first combat action." Gunnery Sergeant Joe Sullivan had smelled the smoke before, in Lebanon and Kuwait, and a few other places that had never made the TV news. "Sullivan worked for me once," Broughton informed his guest. "He's due for promotion."
Caruso bobbed his head. "Yes, sir. He's sure enough ready for a step up in the world."
"I've seen your fit-rep on him." The M-2 tapped another folder, this one not with TS formatting. "Your treatment of your men is generous in its praise, Captain. Why?"
That made Caruso blink. "Sir, they did very well. I could not have expected more under any circumstances. I'll take that bunch of Marines up against anybody in the world. Even the new kids can all make sergeant someday, and two of them have 'gunny' written all over them. They work hard, and they're smart enough that they start doing the right thing before I have to tell them. At least one of them is officer material. Sir, those are my people, and I am damned lucky to have them."
"And you trained them up pretty well," Broughton added.
"That's my job, sir."
"Not anymore, Captain."
"Excuse me, sir? I have another fourteen months with the battalion, and my next job hasn't been determined yet." Though he'd happily stay in Second Force Recon forever. Caruso figured he'd screen for major soon, and maybe jump to battalion S-3, operations officer for the division's reconnaissance battalion.
"That Agency guy who went into the mountains with you, how was he to work with?"
"James Hardesty, says he used to be in the Army Special Forces. Age forty or so, but he's pretty fit for an older guy, speaks two of the local languages. Doesn't wet his pants when bad things happen. He-well, he backed me up pretty well."
The TS folder went up again in the M-2's hands. "He says here you saved his bacon in that ambush."
"Sir, nobody looks smart getting into an ambush in the first place. Mr.