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CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

March 19

Night

An airplane over Europe

“Are you men comfortable?”

“Yes, sir,” Luke said.

Murphy didn’t respond. He sat in a recliner across the narrow aisle from Luke, staring out the window at blank darkness. They were in a small jet that was set up almost like someone’s living room. Luke and Murphy sat at the back, facing forward. In the front were three men, including a Delta Force colonel and a three-star general from the Pentagon. There was also a man in civilian clothes.

Behind the men were two green berets, standing at attention.

“Specialist Murphy?” the general said. “Are you comfortable?”

Murphy slid the window shade down. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Murphy, do you know how to address a superior officer?” the colonel said.

Murphy turned away from the window. He looked directly at the men for the first time.

“I’m not in your army anymore.”

“Why are you on this plane, in that case?”

Murphy shrugged. “Someone offered me a ride. There aren’t a lot of commercial flights out of Afghanistan these days. So I figured I’d better take this one.”

The man in civilian clothes glanced at the cabin door.

“If you’re not in the military, I suppose we could always ask you to leave. Of course, it’s a long way to the ground.”

Murphy followed the man’s eyes.

“Do it. I promise you’ll come with me.”

Luke shook his head. If this were a playground, he would almost smile. But this wasn’t a playground, and these men were deadly serious.

“Okay, Murph,” he said. “Take it down a notch. I was on that hill with you. Nobody on this plane put us there.”

Murphy shrugged. “All right, Stone.” He looked at the general. “Yes, I’m comfortable, sir. Very comfortable. Thank you.”

The general glanced down at some paperwork in front of him.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for your service. Specialist Murphy, if you are interested in being discharged early from your obligations, I suggest you take that up with your commanding officer when you return to Fort Bragg.”

“Okay,” Murphy said.

The general looked up. “As you know, this was a difficult mission which did not go exactly as planned. I’d like to take the opportunity to familiarize myself with the facts of the situation. I have the records from the mission debrief when you both returned to Bagram. I gather from the testimony, and the photographic evidence, that the overall mission was a success. Would you agree with that, Sergeant Stone?”

“Uh… if by the overall mission, you mean to find and assassinate Abu Mustafa Faraj, then yes sir. I suppose it was a success.”

“That is what I meant, Sergeant. Faraj was a dangerous terrorist, and the world is a better place now that he’s gone. Specialist Murphy?”

Murphy stared at the general. It was clear to Luke that Murphy was no longer all there. He was better than he was the morning after the battle, but not by much.

“Yes?” he said.

The general gritted his teeth. He glanced at the men to his left and his right.

“What is your assessment of the mission, please?”

Murphy nodded. “Oh. The one we just did?”

“Yes, Specialist Murphy.”

Murphy didn’t answer for several seconds. He seemed to be thinking about it.

“Well, we lost nine Delta guys and two chopper pilots. Martinez is alive, but he’s scrambled eggs. Also, we killed a bunch of children, so I’m told, and at least a few women. There were piles of dead guys on the ground. I mean hundreds of dead guys. And I guess there was a famous terrorist there too, but I never saw him. So… about par for the course, I guess you’d say. It’s kind of how these things go. This wasn’t my first rodeo, if you know what I mean.”

He looked across the aisle at Luke.

“Stone looks okay. And speaking just for myself, I didn’t get a scratch on me. So sure, I’d say it went fine.”

The officers stared at Murphy.

“Sir,” Luke said. “I think what Specialist Murphy is trying to say, and you’ll see from my testimony that I agree, is the mission was poorly conceived and probably ill advised. Lieutenant Colonel Heath was a brave man, sir, but maybe not a very good strategist or tactician. After the first chopper crashed, I requested that he abort the mission, and he refused. He was also personally responsible for the deaths of a number of civilians, and likely for the death of Corporal Wayne Hendricks.”

Absurdly, saying the name of his friend nearly brought Luke to tears. He choked them back. This wasn’t the time or the place.

The general glanced down at his paperwork again. “And yet you do agree that the mission was a success? The object of the mission was achieved?”

Luke thought about that for a long moment. In the narrowest military sense, they had achieved the mission goal. That was true. They had killed a wanted terrorist, and perhaps somewhere down the line, that was going to save lives. It might even save many more lives than were lost.

That was how these men wanted to define success.

“Sergeant Stone?”

“Yes, sir. I do agree.”

The general nodded. So did the colonel. The man in civilian clothes made no response at all.

The general gathered his papers together and handed them to the colonel.

“Good,” he said. “We’re going to be landing in Germany soon, gentlemen, and then I’ll take my leave of you. Before I do, I want to impress upon you that I believe you’ve done a great thing, and you should be very proud. You’re obviously courageous men, and very skilled at your jobs. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude, one that will never be repaid adequately. It will also never be acknowledged publicly.”

He paused.

“Please recognize that the mission to kill Abu Mustafa Faraj al-Jihadi, while successful, did not take place. It does not exist in any recordkeeping, nor will it ever exist. The men who lost their lives as part of this mission died in a training accident during a sandstorm.”

He looked at them, his eyes hard now.

“Is that understood?”

“Yes sir,” Luke said, without hesitation. The fact that they were disappearing this mission didn’t surprise him in the least. He would disappear it too, if he could.

“Specialist Murphy?”

Murphy raised a hand and shrugged. “It’s your deal, man. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a mission that did exist.”

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