Mission of Honor

Chapter Three

It was a dark, rainy morning and DiMaggio's Joe was not as jammed as usual. That was fine with General Mike Rodgers. He had been able to find a parking spot directly outside the coffee bar. And he spotted a small, clean corner table on the inside. He walked to the back of the room, slapped his damp cap and his copy of the Washington Post on the empty table, then got in line.

The line at the counter moved quickly, and to Rodgers's amazement, the display case actually had what he wanted. He paid for his oversized corn muffin and an ultratall cup of coffee. Then he returned to the table and sat on the stool, facing the back wall. He gazed into the past. He had to remind himself why he had become a soldier in the first place. And this was certainly the place to do it.

The legendary DiMaggio's Joe was located in Georgetown on the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The coffee shop had been established in 1966 by a transplanted New Yorker named Bronx Taylor. Taylor was a New York Yankees fan back when the Washington Senators were their rivals and people could still smoke in coffee shops. The widower had retired and moved to Washington to be close to his daughter and son-in-law. He needed something to do, and he decided to be provocative. Taylor succeeded. Fans of the baseball Senators used to come in to yell at Taylor. They were all bluecollar workers back then. Janitors from Georgetown University, bus drivers, barbers, and butlers and gardeners from the tony old houses. The men would come in and deride the Yankees over juice, sausage, and watery eggs. And pie.

And coffee. And a smoke or two. And more coffee. Taylor made a fortune at this little place.

When Bronx died four years ago, his daughter Alexandra took over. The diner was gentrified. The woman replaced the catsup-stained white tile walls with wood paneling. Instead of a counter and booths with large, solid Formica tables, there were now wood stools with stands that had wobbly metal lattice tops. And Alexandra no longer served just one kind of coffee. For that matter, she no longer served just coffee. There were flavors and fragrances and blends that ended in an e. Rodgers still ordered plain and black coffee, even though it tasted as if it were brewed with potpourri.

Apart from the name of the place, Alexandra had left one thing more or less intact. Taylor had covered all four walls with framed photographs and faded newspaper front pages. The pictures were of Yankee Stadium and the star players of the 1940s and 1950s. The yellowing headlines in coffeestained frames boasted of winning plays, pennants, and world championships. Alexandra had collected them all on the back wall, and they were the only reason Rodgers still came. The mementos took him back to the summers of his youth.

Rodgers grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, which was closer to Boston than to New York. But he was still a Yankees fan. The Bronx Bombers had flash, confidence, and poise. They were also largely responsible for his becoming a soldier. Mike Rodgers could not hit a baseball worth a damn, as his lifelong friend and former Little League teammate Colonel Brett August often reminded him. Rodgers had the eye, but he did not have the power in his arms. Rodgers sure could shoot, though. He started by building orange-crate pistols. They used tightly stretched rubber bands to fire squares of cardboard with surprising accuracy and force. Then he graduated to Daisy BB guns. The sleek Model 26 Spittin' Image was his first. Then his father bought him a Remington Fieldmaster.22 caliber pump to hunt small game. Rodgers shot the squirrels, birds, and rabbits that fellow students used for dissection in biology class. What he did would not be fashionable today. But in the early 1960s, it earned Rodgers a commendation from the school principal. The teenager's interest in firearms led him to study history. To this day, weapons and history remained his greatest passions.

Those and the New York Yankees, he thought as he looked up at a sun-browned photograph of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris with their bats slung casually across their shoulders.

Thanks to the Yankees, Rodgers associated the idea of wearing a uniform with belonging to an elite team. Since the Yankees did not need a sharpshooter-except when Boston fans came to town-Rodgers turned his sights on that other great team with uniforms, the United States military. Rodgers's extended tours of Vietnam and his devotion to the service had kept him from having any long-term relationships. Except for that, the forty-seven-year-old general never regretted a day of the life he had chosen.

Until four months ago.

Rodgers finished his coffee. He looked at his watch. There was plenty of time before he had to be at Op-Center. He went to the counter to order another ultratall cup.

As Rodgers waited patiently in the short line, he looked around at the young faces. They were mostly college faces with journalists and members of Congress here and there. He could tell them all at a glance. The politicians were the ones lost in newspapers, looking for their names. The reporters were the ones watching the politicians to see who they sat with or who they ignored. The students were the ones who were actually discussing world events.

Rodgers did not see any future soldiers among the many students. Their eyes were too lively, too full of questions or answers. A soldier needed to be committed to just one thing: following orders. The way Striker had done.

Striker was the elite rapid response military arm of the National Crisis Management Center. Rodgers was the deputy director of the NCMC, familiarly known as Op-Center. Upon joining Op-Center shortly after its inception, Rodgers had formed and trained the unit.

A little over four months ago, while parachuting into the Himalayan mountains, General Rodgers and Colonel August had watched as all but one other member of Striker was shot from the sky. In Vietnam, Rodgers had lost close friends and fellow soldiers. On Striker's first foreign mission, he had helped them through the death of Private Bass Moore. Shortly after that, he had seen them through the loss of their original field commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Squires. But Rodgers had never experienced anything like this.

Even worse than the scope of the slaughter was the helplessness Rodgers felt watching it happen. These young soldiers had trusted his judgment and his leadership. They had followed him without hesitation out the hatch of the Indian Air Force AN-12. And he had led them into an ambush. Rodgers was seasoned enough to know that nothing was guaranteed in life and war. But that did not stop him from feeling as if he had let the Strikers down.

Op-Center's staff psychologist Liz Gordon told Rodgers that he was suffering from trauma survivors' syndrome, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition manifested itself as lethargy and depression resulting from escaping death that took others.

Clinically, that might be true. What Rodgers really suffered from was a crisis of faith. He had screwed up. Being a soldier was about risking your life. But Rodgers had gone into a situation without being aware of an obvious potential danger. In so doing, he had disgraced the qualities his uniform meant to him.

But Liz Gordon had told him one thing that was certainly true. If Rodgers continued to dwell on what had gone wrong, he would be no good to Op-Center or its director, Paul Hood. And both needed him now. Striker had to be rebuilt, and Hood had to deal with ongoing budget cuts.

Enough, thought the general. It was time to get out of the past.

Mike Rodgers turned from the back wall. He sat down, unfolded the newspaper, and scanned the front page. Rodgers was one of the few people at Op-Center who still read a printed newspaper. Paul Hood, intelligence chief Bob Herbert, FBI liaison Darrell McCaskey, and attorney Lowell Coffey III all got their news on-line. To Rodgers, that was like engaging in cybersex. It was a result without an interactive process. He would rather have the real thing.

Ironically, the New York Yankees were mentioned in an article below the fold. The piece described some megatrade with the Baltimore Orioles. It sounded to Rodgers as if the Birds were getting the better end of the deal. Even the Yankees were not as sharp as they used to be.

Of course, no one dies when the Yankees make a bad call, Rodgers reflected. He looked at the other headlines.

The one that caught his attention was beside the baseball article. It was about an apparent paramilitary action in Botswana. The nation rarely showed up on the morning intelligence reports. The government in Gaborone was stable, and the people were relatively content.

What was most surprising were the eyewitness accounts of the action. At least four dozen armed men entered a tourist compound. After firing a few warning shots, they abducted a Catholic priest who ministered at the adjoining church. The priest was well liked and had no known enemies. The kidnappers had not demanded a ransom.

Rodgers's immediate thought was that the priest had heard someone's confession, and the men wanted the information. But why send a small army to grab a single individual? And why attack in daylight instead of at night? To make sure the army was seen?

Rodgers would have to see if Bob Herbert had any information about the kidnapping. Even when he was down on his abilities, Mike Rodgers could not help but ruminate about military issues. The army was not just his profession but his avocation.

He read the rest of the front page while he finished his coffee. Then he refolded the newspaper and slid it protectively under his arm. Rodgers made his way through the pinball array of tables to the front door. He pulled on his hat and stepped onto the slick pavement.

The rain was heavy, but Rodgers did not mind. The gray tones of the morning suited his mood. And though the dampness did not feel comfortable, he was surprised to find that it made him feel good. The pictures reminded him of what he had dreamed. Each droplet reminded him of what he had. Something that his former teammates did not possess: life.

As long as Mike Rodgers had that, he would continue to do the one thing that had ever really mattered.

He would strive to be worthy of his uniform.