The Kings Of Cool

71

Ben’s lying.

Chon could see it on his face.

Something’s wrong at home, something with the business, but he pushes the thought aside to focus on the mission.

The mission is simple.

He’s done it a few dozen times now-night raids on a house.

Chon’s team isn’t involved with complicated counterinsurgency operations-gaining the trust of the people, setting up village security, building clinics, clean water systems, schools, winning hearts and minds.

Chon’s team does “antiterrorist” ops.

“Degrade and disrupt” the enemy’s command and control systems.

Put simply:

Find enemy leaders and kill them.

The theory being that dead people are probably degraded but definitely disrupted, death being more or less the maximum kink in someone’s day.

The collateral theory being that if you kill enough leaders, it discourages middle management from applying for the job vacancy.

Nobody wants that promotion.

(More money

More responsibility

Corner office

Laser dot.)

Most Salafist leaders want to go to Paradise eventually, not immediately, generously yielding that privilege to lesser beings. Otherwise that cocksucker bin Laden would be standing on the top of the Sears Tower waving his arms like Come and get me, not hiding out.

Anyway, over the course of a couple of wars, Chon’s unit morphed from counterinsurgency to antiterrorism because the latter is

Cheaper,

Faster,

And easier to tabulate.

Bodies (especially dead ones) being easier to count than hearts (fickle) and minds (transitory).

So he’s used to missions like this.

There’s just so goddamn many of them.

So many Bad Guys to kill.