The Line

CHAPTER 1

“One minute! Lock and load!”

In the glow of his night vision goggles. Major “Boomer” Watson could see the hand gestures reinforcing the words of his executive officer.

Captain Martin — one finger up, then palm slapping the magazine well of the AK-74.

The Soviet-made Mi-24 Hind-D shuddered as the pilots reduced airspeed and. crept even lower to the heavily wooded Ukrainian countryside, until they were flying less than twenty feet above the highest treetops. Boomer reached up and slightly adjusted the focus on his AN-PVS-7 night vision goggles, using the forward bulkhead separating the eight Delta Force troopers from the pilots up front as his reference point. In the green glow of the inner eyepieces, the other occupants of the blacked-out cabin showed up clearly, the men similarly outfitted in long Soviet-style overcoats, night vision goggles, AK-74s, and combat vests bristling with the tools of death.

Boomer knew the pilots were wearing their own goggles up front in order to fly the Russian aircraft well below minimum safety zones. He wasn’t overly worried. The pilots were from the top-secret 4th Battalion of Task Force 160—the Nightstalkers — and were more than proficient in their job of flying captured and “appropriated” foreign aircraft.

Instinctively, Boomer slid a thirty-round plastic magazine out of a side pocket of his load bearing vest, slipped the back lip into the magazine well, then levered it forward, locking it in place. He smoothly slid back the charging handle on the right side, chambering a 5 .45mm round. His thumb flicked over the safety, ensuring the weapon was still on safe.

“Ten seconds!” Martin yelled from the right door.

Boomer stood, letting the folding-stock AK dangle on its sling and grabbed both sides of the open left door. He peered out, ignoring the chill night air blown down by the rotor wash. Getting oriented, he recognized the landing zone from the satellite imagery they’d hurriedly been fed minutes before loading at their base in northern Turkey. On time and on target.

The LZ was on a mountainside and the only way the pilots could get in close without having the tips of their blades hit dirt, was to put the nose in, touching the front wheels, while keeping the tail up in the air. As soon as the wheels touched. Boomer jumped out, landing in waist-high grass. He ran to the side ten paces and hit the ground, weapon pointing into the darkness. As soon as the last man was out, the sound of the turbines increased and the helicopter lifted and was gone, leaving a deep silence.

Boomer got to his knees and pulled a global positioning receiver (GPR) out of the top flap of his backpack. He popped up the small integrated antenna and twisted the activating key on the side. No larger than a portable phone, the GPR. fit in the palm of his hand. The small screen quickly glowed with data received from the network of satellites the Department of Defense had blanketing the planet.

By finding the best four satellites in the night sky, the GPR could pinpoint their location to within ten meters. Boomer punched the ros key and was rewarded with grid coordinates confirming that they were exactly where they were supposed to be.

Despite the visual confirmation prior to landing — and trust in the pilot’s navigating skill along with the chopper’s own GPR — Boomer had long ago learned the importance of double-checking.

“Assume means make an ass of you and me!” Boomer had heard more than once in his twelve years in the Special Forces and Delta Force, and he’d had those words confirmed on several missions. He punched the nav button and the route information he had memorized was displayed:

Boomer stood and turned clockwise until the bottom line changed to read on course. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the other members of his team were all accounted for, and then he moved off in the indicated direction.

They had slightly over two hours to get to their target, and it was downhill most of the way.

The team had been dropped off along a mountainous ridge line in the southern Ukraine that ran parallel to a two-lane asphalt road between the town of Senzhary and the province capital at Barvenkovo. The road was their goal.

Their target would be traveling this road between 0430 and 0530. Or at least that’s what the Intelligence dinks doing the mission briefing had assured Boomer. He himself had little trust in the wisdom of those who kept their rear end comfortably ensconced in chairs and didn’t have to live-or die — based on the accuracy of their information.

That was left to Boomer and his team. He grimaced slightly as he remembered the colonel from the Joint Chiefs of Staff office, his nametag identifying him as Decker, who’d given them the mission briefing. Decker assured them that their target would be traveling along this road.

In Boomer’s opinion, the man would have been more comfortable in a three-piece suit on Wall Street than wearing camouflage fatigues at a secret forward staging area in the mountains of northern Turkey.

Boomer especially remembered the flash of the large diamond set against black hematite in Decker’s West Point ring as he slapped the pointer on the satellite photo of the ambush area. Boomer couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn his own West Point ring. As a matter of fact, he couldn’t quite remember where the ring was. Hopefully it was somewhere in the one-room apartment he kept back at Fayetteville, North Carolina, for the few weeks in the year he was actually back at his home base.

The terrain steepened. Boomer could see the dark snake of the road ahead and below. He halted briefly, the team mimicking his actions, and did another GPR check. Checkpoint One. On course and ahead of schedule. Less than a thousand meters from the road.

“Let’s split,” Boomer whispered, the acoustic mike built into the transceiver clamped on his head transmitting the message on low power FM to the other seven men. The whisper did little justice to his normally deep voice. It was a voice that instilled confidence in listeners. An advantage for a man who led others into death and destruction.

Boomer and his commo and security men — Headquarters Element — moved to the left, the two men falling in place and covering his flanks. Captain Martin, the team executive officer, went off to the right with the remaining four team members to set up the kill zone.

The Headquarters Element scrambled down the hillside, staying hidden under the pines that covered the rock-strewn ground, until they reached a small knoll overlooking the road. Boomer crouched behind the trunk of a tree, one of his men going off to the left to provide far left flank security, the other settling “next to the team leader. Boomer scanned the deserted stretch of road fifty meters away and ten meters below.

“Bronco, are you in position? Over.” He asked over the FM radio.

“Roger, Mustang,” Martin replied.

“In position. At my mark, I’ll turn IRON for your identification.”

Boomer peered off to his right.

“Mark. Over.”

Boomer spotted the brief glow as Captain Martin illuminated an infrared flashlight — invisible to anyone not wearing goggles — then just as quickly turned it off.

“Roger, Bronco. I’ve got you. How’s it look? Over.”

“Good field of fire. Good cover. Palamino Element is at the road installing their toys. Over.”

“Roger. We’ll keep an eye open for the target. Mustang out.”

Boomer lay down on his stomach in the pine needles at the base of the tree, pulling the Russian overcoat in tight around his neck. It was cold, somewhere in the low thirties.

He looked to his lower right along the road and spotted the silhouettes of the demolitions men, Palamino Element, at work. He checked the time on the GPR: 0413. Seventeen minutes before the estimated target window. Boomer tapped the shoulder of the man lying next to him.

“Are we up on Satcom, Pete?”

Staff Sergeant Peter Lanscom nodded.

“Five by.” He handed over the small handset for the satellite communications radio.

Boomer pressed the send button on the handset.

“Thunder Point, this is Mustang. Over.”

The reply from Turkey was immediate.

“Mustang, this is Thunder Point. Go ahead. Over.” Boomer-recognized Colonel Decker’s voice.

“We’re in position. What’s the latest from the eye in the sky?

Over.”

“We’re getting live downlink from an Intelsat on your target. Mustang.

You’ve got two vehicles en route your location. A car in the lead and a bus following. Just as briefed,” Colonel Decker couldn’t help adding.

“They’re approximately twenty-two klicks from your position, moving at about sixty kilometers per hour. Over.”

“Roger. Out.” Boomer replied. He returned the handset to Lanscom.

The math was easy: twenty-two minutes, give or take a couple. Nothing to do but wait. He glanced down the road. The demo men were done.

Boomer hissed in a lungful of cold air, trying to still the churning in his stomach. The flash of white teeth was framed in the moonlight by his naturally dark skin, an inheritance from a grandmother on his father’s side who had been a full-blooded Cherokee. His black hair, a few inches longer than allowed by regulations, had just the slightest tinge of grey at the temples. His eyes were so dark as to appear black, but more unusual was the warmth they emanated regardless of Boomer’s mood. While Boomer’s overall reputation as a calm, likable individual was valued by friends and acquaintances, it mattered little to the organization that received the bulk of his time and attention.

Boomer was a long way from home. He’d grown up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the George Washington Bridge touched New York City.

Boomer’s earliest memories were of his mother taking him on walks in Fort Washington Park along the banks of the Hudson beneath the high arch of the bridge. She’d taken him there when he was ten years old after receiving the telegram that his father had been killed in action in Vietnam. That was in 1969, prior to the Army instituting the policy of having notification officers deliver the grim news. At that time, the Army had simply sent telegrams and had them delivered by cab drivers.

Virginia Watson had had the driver take them down to the park and drop them off, the piece of yellow paper gripped tightly between her clenched fingers. The news of Michael Watson’s Medal of Honor for actions on the last day of his life would come many months later, but on that bright fall day nothing had mattered other than the intense grief Boomer could feel and see in his mother. Boomer’s emotions were more complex. His father had been gone for eight of the first ten years of his life and Boomer’s memories of him were blurry images of a large man dressed in a uniform with a strange green beret that he wore cocked at an angle.

Just as Boomer had sensed the grief that day, seven years later, he had sensed his mother’s disapproval of his decision to accept the automatic offer of an appointment to West Point that every child of a Medal of Honor winner was given. Boomer’s attitude had been that at least something good had come from his father’s death. Besides, he had rationalized, she couldn’t really afford to send him to college anywhere else. The idea of a free education and pay more than satisfied his seventeen-year-old mind.

His mother had already gone into debt to send him to Cardinal Spellman Catholic High School in the Bronx. And though she would have preferred more bills rather than give another man to the Army, Boomer was not to be swayed.

His easygoing attitude was blunted in this regard, and she accepted his decision.

She’d seen this tenacity on the basketball court at Spellman.

Despite his — by basketball standards — relatively short height of six feet, he’d earned a starting slot on the Spellman varsity team by outworking all the other players on the team and impressing the coach with his hustle.

What had really caught the coach’s eye thought, was Boomer’s actions as a sophomore in a game against perennial New York basketball mecca Power High School, alma mater of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Boomer had been sent in after the starting backcourt had fouled out trying to guard Power’s all-city forward, later an NBA player. The coach had told Boomer to let the Power forward have no free shots. Boomer had promptly stuck to the more talented player like glue, hacking him severely every time he handled the ball, to the point where the Power player had lost his temper and took a swing at Boomer. The fight that erupted had cleared both benches and half the stands and resulted in Boomer and the Power player being ejected, but not before Boomer had returned the swing and decked the other player. The action had surprised the coach, but not Boomer’s mother in the stands. She knew that, like his father, her son had a hard streak in him.

The years had passed and now Boomer was lying in wait, a familiar but always nerve-wracking position as far as he was concerned. As the countdown to action continued, Boomer was shifting to his action mode, his nerves freezing over and a wary calmness settling in. He grabbed the handset for the Satcom radio again.

“Angel, this is Mustang.

Over.”

The reply from the pilot of the MI-25 was instantaneous.

“This is Angel. Over.”

“Status? Over.”

The pilot’s laconic southern drawl was reassuring.

“At hold position. All clear. We can be there in a jiffy to pick yaup. Over.”

“Roger.” Boomer checked the time display on the GPR.

“We’re probably going hot here in five mikes. We’re going to need you real quick then. Over.”

The Russian-made aircraft, appropriated from Saddam Hussein’s air force during the Gulf War years previously, and the Soviet made weapons and uniforms, were a subterfuge to influence any possible survivors of the ambush-or anyone who might be in the area — that the events that were about to occur were the work of a renegade

Ukrainian militia group of which there certainly were many. The only pieces of equipment that were not endemic to the area were the GPR, night vision goggles, and satellite radios, but if any of them were captured, there would most certainly be, a body captured also, at which time the foreign origin of the equipment would no longer matter and diplomatic denial would take over.

The muted roar of the helicopter blades sounded behind the pilot’s voice.

“No sweat. Over.”

“Mustang, out.” Boomer glanced down the road, trying to catch the glow of the oncoming vehicles headlights in his goggles, where they would show up like brilliant spotlights.

Nothing yet.

Boomer spoke into his FM radio.

“Bronco, this is Mustang.

Status? Over.”

Martin’s reply was swift.

“All set. Over.”

That meant Martin’s team had the Soviet made PK machine gun set up and their RPG rocket launchers ready.

Contrary to the movies. Boomer knew a good ambush consisted of setting up the kill zone, then backing off so that the weapons can effectively cover the killing ground which must be too far from the ambushers for the victims to overrun.

In this case. Boomer was satisfied his men had all the little checkmarks in the manual of efficient killing ticked off.

A faint glow appeared in the hills to the south: the reflection of the headlights. Boomer picked up the handset for the Satcom.

“Thunder Point, this is Mustang. Over.”

“This is Thunder Point. Over.”

“Request final mission authorization. Over.”

“Your mission is a go. Mustang,” Decker said.

“Authorization code Victor Romeo Two Four. I say again, your mission is a go. Code Victor Romeo Two Four. Out.” The radio went dead.

“There’s gonna be some hurting puppies in a few minutes,” Lanscom whispered, the snout of his NVG pointed down the road, picking up the glow, as he fingered his AK-74. This was Lanscom’s first live mission, and Boomer could understand the younger man’s nervousness.

He himself had been on several, but that didn’t necessarily make it any easier. In fact, having witnessed the effects of modern weapons on the human body did little to relieve the anxiety of being on the receiving end.

Boomer didn’t bother trying to allay Lanscom’s fears.

Now that he had the final go, his job was to concentrate on the mission at hand. The bus was carrying members of one of the factions of the newly formed Ukrainian parliament.

A faction that was vehemently opposed to following the guidelines of the standing agreements on nuclear arms reduction between the United States and the Ukraine.

NATO inspection teams in the Ukraine to ensure treaty compliance had recently been forced to curtail their activities.

The political situation was growing unstable. A NATO team had been attacked two days earlier by a mob, and the U.S. Congress was getting very vocal about sending 200 million dollars a year to the Ukraine to dismantle nuclear weapons when the job wasn’t being done. The Ukrainian parliament, defying the Ukrainian president’s signing of the START II Treaty, was making vague threats of nuclear blackmail as the country’s economy slid into a morass. It was the politics of the late 1990’s, and since military force was-an extension of politics. Boomer was here to extend the wishes of the United States government.

Thirty-six hours ago, the issue reached crisis level. A Ukrainian Backfire bomber flying low toward Iraq had been intercepted over Turkish airspace by two American F-16s assigned to NATO. The Backfire had refused to land, and the F-16s had attempted to force it down. The result had stunned the world as the Backfire disintegrated in a nuclear fireball, taking with it the two American jets.

According to the intelligence analysts, the Backfire had been caught while trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon to Saddam Hussein’s regime in exchange for desperately needed cash. When confronted with the possibility of capture, the crew of the Backfire had chosen suicide.

The Ukrainians claimed the aircraft had wandered off course during a routine training mission and an on-board accident caused the explosion.

It was a feeble excuse at best. No one seriously believed that the plane could be that far off course and the experts pointed out that nuclear weapons did not explode by accident.

The incident infuriated Congress. Claiming treachery and deceit, it demanded that the START II treaty be scrapped.

Boomer knew that in the biblical tradition of an eye for an eye, he was here to inflict hurt on those that had harmed the United States. In this case the radical politicians who had sent the Backfire on its fateful mission. Intelligence had placed them in a bus on this road.

Boomer and his team were here to kill them.

Boomer wasn’t exactly sure how his team’s mission was going to affect things, but in a few minutes there would be fewer people opposed to NATO gaining positive control over the nuclear stockpile. Boomer, like most of his comrades in arms, drew no ethical lines when it came to nuclear weapons in the hands of extremists. Using the cold calculations of the professional military man, the potential body count of a rogue nuclear bomb weighed against the lives of the men approaching his kill zone left him with no qualms.

The lead car came around the bend and into sight, closely followed by a bus. Boomer twisted the focus knob on his goggles. The Ukrainian flag flapped from the radio antenna on the right rear of the car. It roared by, rapidly approaching the ambush area. Boomer looked at the bus and blinked.

There was some sort of emblem pasted to the right side of the bus, next to the door. As the bus rumbled by below him, he tried to make it out; he could almost swear it was the globe compass marking of NATO.

The car had entered the kill zone, and the bus was less than thirty meters away from the point of no return. Boomer knew he had less than two seconds to make a decision.

“Abort!” he hissed into his radio. There was no immediate reply.

“Martin, abort! Answer me, goddammit!”

A bright flash split the night sky, followed immediately by the roar of an explosion as a remotely detonated mine went off under the front tire of the lead car. The blast lifted the car twenty feet into the air and tossed the crumpled ‘ machine off the road. A line of fire seared from the area of Martin’s team and slammed into the bus — the warhead of the RPG rocket detonating on impact. Designed to stop tanks and armored personnel carriers, the warhead tore through the thin metal skin and exploded inside, blasting apart flesh and machine with equal ruthlessness.

“Abort!” Boomer yelled helplessly.

Green tracers licked out from the hillside disappearing into the ravaged body of the bus, the crack of the PK machine gun filling the silence left by the explosions. Boomer could see men crawling out the windows of the bus, trying to claw their way to safety.

“Get the chopper here!” Boomer ordered Lanscom. He got to his feet and ran along the hillside toward Martin’s position. He slipped and fell, grabbing onto a sapling to keep from rolling down the hill. As he got to his feet, he could hear the snap of AK-74s adding to the din of the PK machine gun.

Just as Boomer arrived at the kill team’s position, the firing suddenly stopped. In the sudden absence of the sound of killing, the screams of the wounded echoed up the hillside.

The members of Martin’s team were standing, peering down, weapons at the ready, the barrel of the machine gun glowing bright red. Boomer grabbed Martin on the shoulder, and the captain turned, startled, a glazed look in his eye.

“Why didn’t you obey me?”

Martin blinked.

“What?”

“I ordered you to abort, goddammit!”

Martin shrugged and pointed downhill.

“They were in the zone. There was nothing else we could do. It was too late.”

“You didn’t have to fire up the bus,” Boomer retorted.

“What’s the big deal?” Martin asked.

“This was what—” They both froze as an eerie voice floated up the hill, crying out in English: “Oh God, help we!”

“That’s why!” Boomer yelled.

“That was a NATO bus.”

The members of the kill team stared at him. Boomer was looking down the hill, thinking furiously. Flames were flickering out of the engine of the bus. He could make out some movement among the bodies lying around the shattered vehicle. There appeared to be one or two unwounded men down there, dragging the hurt to the shelter of the drainage ditch on the far side. Lanscom and the other man from his headquarters element came running up.

“Chopper’s inbound, sir,” Lanscom informed him.

“Two minutes out.”

Boomer reached out and grabbed the handset for the Satcom radio.

“Thunder Point, this is Mustang. Over.”

“This is Thunder Point. Over.”

Boomer’s voice was harsh as he reported.

“We’ve got a fuck-up here. We hit the target, but it was a friendly.

Looks like a bus full of NATO inspectors. Over.”

Colonel Decker didn’t hesitate.

“Get out of there ASAP.

Over.”

“There’s wounded down there. We need to help them.

Over.”

“Negative, Mustang. Over.”

“Let me talk to my six. Over,” Boomer said, trying to get a hold of his commanding officer.

“Your six is not available. Exfil immediately. You are not to render any assistance. You are not to compromise your presence. That’s an order. Over.”

Boomer held the handset, unable to reply. He felt the gaze of the other, members of his team upon him.

Colonel Decker’s voice took on an edge of anxiety at the lack of reply.

“Mustang, do you hear me? Mustang?

Confirm that you will comply with your orders. Over.”

“Let’s get down there,” Boomer ordered his men, dropping the handset.

“Thunder Point says to exfiltrate,” Martin objected, pointing at the radio.

“And I say let’s get down there and help who we can.

We’ll put the wounded on board the chopper and take them back to Turkey.”

Martin shook his head.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have to obey orders.”

Boomer stared at his executive officer. The sound of helicopter blades started to override the cries of the wounded.

Martin half lifted his AK-74, 17 a vaguely threatening gesture in Boomer’s direction.

“You’re going to have to shoot me in the back if that’s what you’re thinking,” Boomer snapped. He turned and started downslope. Behind him, Martin lowered the weapon and grabbed the handset for the Satcom radio, rapidly speaking into it.

Boomer was less than twenty feet from the road, when the Hind-D changed its landing pattern, roared up the road, and the 12.7mm Gatling gun in the nose opened fire.

Boomer threw himself to the ground as bullets tore through the carnage his team had wrought, effectively finishing the job. The survivors were caught in the open and thrown about like rag dolls as the heavy metal-jacketed bullets tore into them. The helicopter banked and flew back, doing another gun run, taking care of those who had hidden in the drainage ditch. The aircraft flared just beyond the wreckage of the bus and slowly settled down to land.

Boomer stood and stepped out into the road. He bent over the closest body. There was no doubt the man was dead, his chest was torn open and half his head gone.

Boomer checked the pockets, then quickly ran to the other bodies. All dead and most unidentifiable. The rest of his team came running down the hill toward the beckoning doors of the helicopter. Reluctantly, Boomer turned and followed them, stepping up and through the door into the waiting womb of the cargo bay. The helicopter immediately lifted and headed south to safety.

Boomer had something in his hands, a small piece of plastic. Turning it toward the red glow of the cargo bay, he read the lettering. He briefly froze and a look of anguish coursed across his face. He stuffed it back into the pocket over his heart.

Boomer spent the rest of the return trip in silence, ignoring the other members of his team. The one time Lanscom nudged him, holding out the handset of the Satcom to answer an incoming message from Thunder Point, Boomer simply pointed at Captain Martin. Lanscom took the radio over to the executive officer, who spent a good portion of the trip speaking into the handset. Boomer unhooked his FM radio and stuffed the earpiece into his vest pocket.

The noise inside the helicopter, loud enough to drown out any attempt at normal conversation, made the ride a curiously silent one. Each man was coming off the adrenaline rush of the action, and each was weighing the potential consequences.

At the airfield in northern Turkey, the helicopter landed and was immediately directed into a secure hangar where the doors swung shut as protection from prying eyes. The helicopter came to a halt. The sound of the engines decreased as the pilots began shutting the bird down.

The side door opened and a soldier stuck his head in.

“The Colonel’s Waiting for you.”

As the other members of the team stood up to exit the bird. Boomer grabbed Captain Martin’s arm and pulled him down into the seat next to him.

“What the fuck happened back there, Pete?” he asked, finally able to be heard.

“What do you mean?” Martin asked, jerking his arm out of Boomer’s grip.

“You told the pilots to strafe, didn’t you?”

Martin couldn’t meet his commanding officer’s eyes.

“Those were our orders.”

“We killed our own,” Boomer said.

“You damn near killed me.”

“You shouldn’t have gone down there. Boomer,” Martin said. The younger man shook his head.

“It was messed up, but once the shit starts hitting the fan you got to play it out as it lays.”

“That’s what you call it?” Boomer asked incredulously.

“Strafing wounded friendlies? Playing it out?”

Martin nervously shrugged.

Boomer poked him hard on the shoulder.

“You ever pull a weapon on me again, I’ll kill you.”

Martin exited the aircraft without another word. Boomer angrily got to his feet and followed. In the hangar he walked to the brightly lit corner where the communications console was set up and the maps were tacked to plywood walls. Colonel Decker was there along with Colonel Forster. Boomer’s immediate superior in Delta Force. Boomer’s hand slid into the pocket of the greatcoat he was wearing and reappeared with two pieces of cloth. He threw them down onto the folding table in front of the two senior officers without a word. A small, blood-stained American flag with a Velcro backing along with a NATO blue beret lay there, frozen in the bright glow of the overhead lights.

Forster glanced at the patches, then at Boomer. “I heard.

I’m sorry.”

Boomer’s eyes were locked on Colonel Decker’s. He ignored the other members of the team as they gathered around. Captain Martin keeping a safe distance away.

“Do you have a problem, major?” Decker asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Boomer stiffened.

“No, sir, you have a problem. The target that you identified and confirmed for destruction was a busload of NATO officers from one of the inspection teams in-country. I took that shoulder patch and beret from one of the bodies: An American body.”

“It was a mistake,” Decker said.

“We received some bad intelligence.”

“Bad intelligence?” Boomer was stunned.

“I counted at least six bodies outside that bus, and God knows how many were inside.”

“It’s done,” Forster quietly said.

“It was a mistake and it’s done. Let it go. Boomer. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

Boomer twisted his head. “Let it go? Sir, my men just killed some of our own.” His finger pointed at the patch, shaking with emotion.

“How the fuck could Intelligence get that screwed up? You were tracking that damn bus since it left—.”

“But we couldn’t tell who was in it,” Decker quickly interjected.

“That was your job on the ground.”

Boomer stepped back in surprise at the last comment.

“My job? It was oh-dark-thirty in the morning there. Those vehicles were moving about forty miles an hour into my kill zone. You gave me final authorization for a go on the mission. I tried to abort,” he said, throwing a hard look at Captain Martin, “but it was too late by the time I recognized the markings on the bus.”

“Sounds like you made the mistake, major,” Decker said. Boomer took a step toward Decker, his eyes blazing.

“Listen,” Forster said, holding both hands up and moving between the two men.

“Let’s not be getting into a pissing contest about whose fault things are. It’s done. We’ve run seven different ops here into the Ukraine and this is the first one that went wrong. I don’t like it. Nobody likes it, but our luck was bound to run out sooner or later. Let’s be glad you all made it back all right, and we’ll make damn sure something like this never happens again.”

Decker picked up the flag and beret and stuffed them into his fatigue pants pocket, then turned an emotionless gaze on Boomer.

“Your boss is right. We don’t like it, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. There are things going on that you aren’t cleared to know.

We were obviously fed false intelligence on this mission. It might even have been a deliberate setup. A lot of strange things have been going on since the interception of that Backfire. But it’s done, and we need to make the best of it.”

“The best of it?” Boomer asked.

“How can you make the best of it?”

“That’s not your concern, major.”

“It damn well is my concern,” Boomer replied angrily.

“Major!” Decker snapped.

“That’s enough.” He turned to Forster.

“I want this man relieved of duties immediately.”

Forster bristled.

“This is my command.”

“It won’t be’ much longer if you don’t do what I say,” Decker warned.

Forster glared at the other officer for several seconds before replying.

“I’ll take care of it. You,” he added, still looking at Decker, “watch what you say to my people. This was your mission and you take responsibility for what happened.”

Decker pointed at Boomer.

“I want him out of this area of operations before close of business today.” With that he turned and strode out of the hanger.

Forster waited until he was gone, then faced his subordinate.

“I’m sorry. Boomer.”

From the tone of his commander’s voice. Boomer knew what the words meant. He was stunned.

“You’re going to let that asshole dictate what you do?”

“He works directly for the Joint Chiefs, Boomer,” Forster explained.

“I think the best thing to do is to get you out of here before someone goes headhunting to lay blame for this mission. It’s for your own good. I’ll cover your ass and take care of things here.”