Tom Clancy's Op-center Balance of Power - Tom Clancy [96]
McCaskey folded his hands. His tired eyes were still on August.
"Striker's never had a mission like this," McKaskey said. "Do you have a problem with it?"
August shook his head.
"Do you think any of your team will have a problem with it?"
"I don't know," August said. "But I'll find out."
McCaskey looked down. "There was a time when this kind of thing was standard operating procedure."
"There was," August agreed. "But back then it was a first-strike option rather than a last resort. I think we've found the moral high ground."
"I suppose so," McCaskey said. He rubbed his eyes. "Anyway, you guys hang loose in the commissary. I'll let you know as soon as we have anything."
McCaskey rose and drained his coffee cup. August stood and took a sip from his own cup. Then he handed it to McCaskey. McCaskey smiled and accepted it. He took a swallow.
"Darrell?" August said.
"Yeah?"
"You're looking pretty close to flameout."
"I'm gettin' there," he admitted. "It's been a long haul."
"You know," August said, "if we have to go in I need you to be sharp. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if after Aideen arrives, you lay down somewhere. I can debrief her, talk to Luis, come up with a few scenarios."
McCaskey walked around the desk. He slapped August on the back. "Thank you very much. Colonel. I believe I will take that rest." He grinned. "You know what sucks?"
August shook his head.
"Not being able to do the things that you were able to do easily in your twenties," McCaskey said. "That sucks. All-nighters used to be a breeze for me. So was eating junk food and not having my stomach burn like a son-of-a-bitch." The grin faded. "But age makes it different. Losing a coworker makes it different. And something else makes it different. The realization that just being right doesn't matter. You can have law and treaties and justice and humanity and the United Nations and the Bible and everything else on your side, and you can still get your ass handed to you. You know what the moral high ground has cost us, Colonel? It's cost us the ability to do the right thing. Pretty damn ironic, huh?"
August didn't answer. There was no point. Soldiers didn't have philosophies; they couldn't afford to. They had targets. And the failure to achieve them meant death, capture, or dishonor. There was no irony. At least, not in that.
The officer headed toward the commissary, where his team was waiting. When he arrived, he turned on the computerized "playbook" he carried. He indicated the plan McCaskey had presented, then he polled the team to make sure everyone was willing to be on the field, ready to play.
They were.
August thanked them, after which the team hung loose. All except for Prementine and Pupshaw, who figured out where and how hard to hit the soda machine so it would dispense free cans.
August accepted a 7-Up and then sat back in the plastic chair. He drank the soda to wash away the bitter coffee taste. As he did, he thought about what had happened over the past day. The fact that the politicians in Spain had turned to Amadori to stop a war. Instead, he used it as a primer to start a bigger war. Now the politicians were turning to more soldiers to stop that war.
August was a soldier, not a philosopher. But if there were an irony in all this, he was pretty sure he'd find it in there.
Written in blood and bound in suffering.
* * *
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tuesday, 1:35 a.m.
Washington, D.C.
Hood awoke with a jolt.
He had returned from the White House and immediately called Darrell McCaskey to relay the President's orders. McCaskey had been silent and accepting. What else could he be? Then, knowing he'd want to be awake whenever the Striker operation commenced, Hood shut the lights off and lay down on his office couch to try to rest.
He started to think about Op-Center's unprecedented two-tiered involvement in the operation. First there was the elimination of Amadori. Then there was the aftermath, helping to manage chaos.