Acts of War

SIXTY-FOUR

When Mike Rodgers had first enlisted in the Army, he had a drill sergeant named Messy Boyd. He never found out what Messy was short for, but it had to be short for something. Because Messy Boyd was the neatest, most punctilious, most disciplined man that Rodgers had ever met.

Unfailingly, Sergeant Boyd drilled two things into his men. One was that bravery was the most important quality a soldier could have. And the other, that honor was even more important than bravery. "The honorable man," he had said, paraphrasing Woodrow Wilson, "is one who has squared his conduct by ideals of duty."

Rodgers took that to heart. He also borrowed the copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations Boyd kept on his desk. That started him on his twenty-five-year love affair with the wisdom of the great statesmen, soldiers, scholars, and others. It turned him into a rapacious reader, devouring everyone from Epictetus to St. Augustine, from Homer to Hemingway. It made him think.

Maybe too much, he told himself.

Rodgers sat on the wooden bench in the bumpy fuselage of the C-141B. He was absently listening to Colonel August tell Lowell Coffey and Phil Katzen about their Little League home-run rivalry with each other.

Rodgers knew that he had never acted in a cowardly way, nor had he ever behaved with dishonor. Yet Rodgers also knew that because of what had happened in the Middle East, his career as a soldier was over. He had thought it ended when he failed to retake the ROC from the Kurds at the Syrian border. That had been clumsy and stupid, the kind of mistake a man in his position could not afford to make. But with the death of the PKK leader he had found new life. Not as a soldier in the field, but as a soldier in the fight against terrorism. What would have begun in the courtroom would have become a brave and honorable battle against a terrible scourge.

Now, he thought, there's nothing.

"General," August asked, "what was the name of that catcher who ended up beating us both out in fifth grade?"

"Laurette," Rodgers replied. "I forget her last name."

"Right," said August. "Laurette. The kind of girl you wanted to sop up with a biscuit. She was that lovely, even behind her catcher's mask, glove, and a wad of Bazooka bubble gum."

Rodgers smiled. She was cute. And that home-run showdown had been quite a race. But races ended with one winner and several losers.

Like the race we just ran in the Middle East.

The winner there had been Striker. Their performance had been exemplary. The losers? The Kurds, who had been crushed. Turkey and Syria, which still had millions of restless citizens within their borders. And Mike Rodgers, who had bungled security, escape, judging the character of a loyal coworker, and handling a prisoner of war.

America had lost too. It had lost by tucking Mike Rodgers back in his Op-Center cubicle instead of supporting him in the war against terrorism.

And it is a war — or at least it needs to be.

As he'd lain there in the infirmary, Rodgers had sharpened his thinking about that. He'd planned to use the podium of his court-martial to declare that any nation which attacked our people anywhere, in any way, had effectively, declared war on us. He'd further planned to urge the President to declare war on any nation which kidnapped our citizens or blew up our aircraft or bombed our buildings. Declaring war did not necessarily mean we'd attack the people and soldiers of those nations. But it would leave us free to blockade their ports and sink any ships that tried to get in or out. To shut down their airports and roadways with missiles. To halt commerce, destroy their economy, and topple the regime which had backed terrorists.

When the terrorism ended, the war would end.

That was what Rodgers had planned. If executing the Kurd could have been the first shot across the prow of terrorism, he would have regained his honor. As it was, having killed the unarmed man who had tortured him was just revenge. There was no honor or bravery in that. As Charlotte Bronte had once written, vengeance was "as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy; its after-flavour, metallic and corroding."

Rodgers looked down. He didn't wish he could take the bullet back. Killing the Kurdish leader had spared the nation the agonies of the trial, of Op-Ed justice and handwringing. It had also given the Kurds a martyr instead of a loser. But God, how he wished the bullet had taken them both. He had been trained to serve his country and to protect its integrity and its flag at all costs. The pardon was a blot on both. By showing him charity, his nation had lost sight of a more important quality: Justice.

The error was made by well-meaning people. But for the sake of his country's honor, it was an error which had to be undone.

Rodgers stood stiffly, constricted by the bandages around his arms and torso. He steadied himself on the rope which ran shoulder-high along the fuselage.

August looked up. "You okay?"

"Yes." He smiled. "Just going to the bathroom."

He looked down at the uncharacteristically effervescent Colonel August. He was proud of him and glad he'd won the race. Rodgers turned and headed to the back.

The bathroom was a cold room with a hanging lightbulb and a toilet. There was no door, one of those small touches designed to keep the weight of the aircraft down.

On the way back, Rodgers passed aluminum shelves which carried Striker's equipment. He stopped. His own gear was in a duffel bag he'd had in the ROC. There was still one way to regain his honor.

"It's not there," said a voice from behind him.

Rodgers turned. He looked into Colonel August's long, apostolic face.

"The gun you used to execute the terrorist," August went on. "I took it."

Rodgers squared his shoulders. "You had no right to go into another officer's grip, Colonel."

"Actually, sir, I did. As the ranking officer not a party to a confessed crime, it was my duty to confiscate evidence for the court-martial."

"I've been pardoned," Rodgers said.

"I know that now," August replied. "I didn't know it then. Would you like the gun back, sir?"

Their eyes remained locked. "Yes," Rodgers said. "I would."

"Is that an order?"

"Yes, Colonel. It is."

August turned and squatted beside the lowest of the three shelves. He opened the first of the five cases which contained Striker's handguns. He handed the pistol to Rodgers. "There you are, sir."

"Thank you, Colonel."

"You're welcome, sir. Is the general planning to use it.

"That's the general's business, I think."

"It's a debatable point," August said. "You're seriously overwrought. You're also threatening my superior officer, a general of the United States Army. I'm sworn to defend my fellow soldiers."

"And to follow orders," Rodgers said. "Please return to your seat."

"No, sir," August said.

Rodgers stood with the gun at his side. Half a plane away, Private DeVonne and Sergeant Grey had gotten off the bench. They looked like they were ready to rush over.

"Colonel," Rodgers said, "the nation made a grave mistake today. It forgave a man who neither deserved nor wanted forgiveness. In so doing it endangered the security of its people and institutions."

"What you're planning won't change that," August said.

"It will for me."

"That's damned selfish, sir," August said. "Permit me to remind the general that when he came in second to Laurette What's-Her-Name, he didn't think he could live with that either. As she rounded the bases he swung an angry bat so hard that had he not been stopped by his frightened best friend, he would have struck himself in the back of the head and probably suffered a serious concussion. But life went on and the former first baseman saved countless lives in Southeast Asia, Desert Storm, and more recently in North Korea. If the general intends to hit himself in the head again, be advised that the former second baseman will stop him again. This nation needs him alive."

Rodgers looked at Colonel August. "Does it need that more than it needs honor?"

"A nation's honor is in the hearts of its people," August said. "If you still your heart, you rob the nation of what you claim you want to preserve. Life hurts, but we've both seen enough death. We all have."

Rodgers's gaze returned to the Strikers. There was something alive in their faces, in their posture. Despite everything they'd endured in Lebanon, despite the death of Private Moore in North Korea and Lieutenant Colonel Squires in Russia, they were still fresh and enthusiastic and hopeful. They had faith in themselves and in the system.

Slowly, Rodgers put the gun on the shelf. He didn't know if he agreed with August about the rest of it. But what he'd been about to do would have killed their enthusiasm stone-cold dead. That in itself was enough to give him pause.

"Her name was Delguercio," Rodgers said. "Laurette Delguercio."

August smiled. "I know. Mike Rodgers doesn't forget anything. I'd just wanted to see if you were paying attention to the story. You weren't. That's why I followed you back here."

"Thanks, Brett," he said quietly.

August pursed his lips and nodded.

"So," Rodgers said softly. "Did you tell them how I clutch-hit in the last inning of the last game to beat yours and Laurette's home-run butts the following season?"

"I was about to," August said.

Rodgers patted the colonel on the shoulder. "Lets go," he said, edging around him. He winced as the bandages chafed.

With a nod to DeVonne and Grey, Mike Rodgers returned to the hard bench to listen to Brett August talk about a time when Little League was the world and a shot at another season was a damn good reason enough to live.