Full Assault Mode (17 page)

Two days after Hawk’s unannounced visit, Colonel Webber had sent word to Kolt that the JSOC commanding general wanted to see him. Admiral Mason had personally summoned Major Kolt Raynor for a 0900 hours meeting in his office, and at 0852 hours on a very sunny Monday morning, Kolt worried that he might be casually late.

Kolt knew it wasn’t to pin a medal on him or even shake his hand for accomplishing the mission in the Goshai Valley three weeks ago. No. Kolt had blown off the admiral’s order to abort that mission, and even though the admiral couldn’t be one-hundred-percent certain that Kolt had heard the abort call before leaving the back of the hovering aircraft, he was certain of Kolt’s refusal to move to the alternative landing zone to be picked up by the helicopter. All things considered, Kolt figured the meeting could go either way.

Kolt leaned over to check his hair in the rearview mirror, or what hair he still had. Even with a fresh high-and-tight cut yesterday for his DA photo, somehow he figured the commanding general wouldn’t be all that impressed. Kolt also knew that leaving the goatee on his face until the last minute before his DA photo probably wouldn’t impress the admiral either.

At the moment, he silently cursed his inherited thinning hair. For someone who was unflappable about the important things—things on the battlefield in particular—his internal vanity was a slow bleed that frustrated him. It was a bloodletting that he had no control over to stop. The hair in the shower every morning reminded him.

Delta operators have a certain look. At least Kolt thought they did. The image in his mind of the poster-boy operator was always of a lean but muscled warrior with thick flowing hair and the sort of good looks that were the envy of most of society. The kind of warrior typically found in ancient times that lived off meat and nuts and grain. The type of man ninety-five percent of the men in the world aspired to be. The type of operator Kolt had been before 9/11 and before the physical beating he had taken on the battlefield since the war on terror started.

Of course, if pressed, Kolt would argue that the best Delta operator was the guy who looked as normal as the next guy on the street corner. A guy that could blend in like a chameleon arguably could accomplish so much more in the realm of counterterrorism. Blending in, or hiding in plain sight, mitigated the risk of compromise significantly. Such an operator just wasn’t as soothing to the eye.

But, privately, the receding hairline just sucked. The only thing that sucked more when it came to Kolt’s appearance was the embarrassing love handles he carried. The same ones he struggled to reduce a little during his recent five-month deployment to Afghanistan. But whereas the male-pattern baldness was inherited, the love handles were courtesy of a few too many frozen yogurt stops in nearby Southern Pines.

With the irritating bright sun in his eyes blocking his vision, Kolt squinted as he pulled his black 1991 Chevy Silverado pickup through the heavily guarded checkpoint. He powered his window down, greeted the two patriotic Vietnam veterans proudly holding down a retirement gig as security guards, and flashed his unit-access picture badge. The guard checked his name against the visitors’ roster, verified facial recognition in the database, and traded his Unit badge for a visitors’ badge before raising the security barrier and waving him through.

The Joint Special Operations Command Headquarters was always a busy place. Like most compounds that spring up out of necessity, little attention was given to world events that might soon highlight the scarcity of parking spots. After a couple of trips around the main parking lot hoping for an open spot to appear, Kolt saw one in the next lane over. Out of pure habit, he
combat parked,
backing into the spot.

He thumbed his unit-issued Droid one more time before sticking it in the glove box and grabbed his tan beret. In Delta, berets were about as scarce as were dress uniforms, and very rarely required or worn within the compound. There were only two times when a Delta operator had to dig deep into his wall locker to locate his colored beret. Neither time was all that common, but in both instances it was typically a sign that something bad had just happened.

The most common time was when visiting higher headquarters. A tan beret marked a Delta operator as a former Ranger. Green, of course, let everyone know he was a product of the Special Forces A-Teams. Guys from Airborne outfits wore the maroon beret. Berets weren’t necessarily a bad thing. They just weren’t exactly the most appealing hat for operators with relaxed grooming standards and facial hair. The longer it remained atop long, thick hair, the more it seemed to rise on the head, giving you the feeling such operators were wearing the floppy hat favored by the eccentric Lady Gaga.

Besides visiting the head sheds at JSOC or the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, USASOC, a few miles south near main post, berets along with full dress uniforms went on after a teammate had fallen in training or battle. In those instances, which had been fairly often since the World Trade Center towers had collapsed in 2001, the fallen operator had plenty of teammates standing over him as he was lowered into the grave with dignity and full honors.

*   *   *

Kolt walked the hundred feet from his truck to the five-story command building. He passed several young troops that very smartly snapped a hand salute and offered the greeting of the day. It surprised him.

“Good Morning, sir!” they said in unison.

“Uh, morning, guys,” Kolt responded as he tried to render a suitable hand salute in return. The Delta compound was a no-salute area just as any combat base overseas was. Kolt was out of practice.

Kolt approached the tinted double glass doors and reached for his visitors’ badge. He flashed it in front of the proximity card reader and listened for the door lock to disengage.

He stepped inside and took an immediate right into the open elevator door. He pressed the number 3 button, and as the door closed he checked to ensure the buttons on his cargo pockets were still buttoned. He was inside the Joint Special Operations compound, and unlike the Delta compound, they still were sticklers for maintaining a sharp and properly worn uniform—even in a combat zone, a ridiculous and impractical standard Admiral Mason brought with him from the Pentagon. As the elevator came to a slow stop, Kolt looked down at his boots to check his spit-shine job.

Substandard. I’m out of practice with my boots, too
.

The hallway leading to Admiral Mason’s secret corner of the world was lined with framed posters of various motivational phrases. One in particular caught Kolt’s eye. It read,
PARARESCUE—BECAUSE EVEN SEALS, GREEN BERETS, AND RECON MARINES NEED TO CALL
911
.

Kolt smiled slightly.
Yeah, Delta needs you guys too
.

“Hello, Major Raynor, great to see you,” Mary said with a genuinely wide smile.

“Hey, Mary, how are you?” Kolt answered quickly. This wasn’t the first time he had been called on the carpet in front of the JSOC commanding general, just the first time with Admiral Mason. Addressing the admiral’s secretary by name was a pretty good indicator that he had spent way too much time at his higher command.

“That was a real nice article in
Newsweek
about the airplane rescue in India,” Mary said with raised eyebrows and a slight tilt of her head. “The U.S. ambassador to India is one of the special operation community’s biggest fans now.”

“Really?” Kolt asked with interest. “Haven’t seen it.”

“Well, go on in Kolt. The admiral will be right with you,” Mary said with a warm smile as she looked over her reading glasses and motioned to the office door.

Kolt marveled at the museumlike atmosphere inside the admiral’s office. Covering the walls were framed photos in various sizes, sporadically separated by award certificates and other memorable correspondence. One was taken with the president in front of the White House. Another was with the Secretary of Defense, taken in front of the Tokyo Sky Tree, the 2,080-foot tower with bicyclists and a passing rickshaw in the background. Above and behind the large cherry desk, the most prominent item on display was the oversize and gaudy framed Naval Academy graduation certificate, made all the more ridiculous by the hand-rubbed antique-brass-finished vanity light hanging over it.

The admiral’s entering the room startled Kolt. He turned abruptly to face him.

“Good morning, sir,” Kolt offered, attempting his best impression of standing at a rigid position of attention with his beret gripped in his left hand. He expected the admiral to ask him to take a seat.

Sipping his coffee as he rounded the desk, the admiral nodded slightly in silence before taking a seat.

It was clear that Admiral Mason was in no mood for niceties. He reached into the top desk drawer and retrieved an unmarked manila envelope.

“Take a close look, Major,” he said. He was very formal as he handed it to Kolt.

“Yes, sir!” Kolt answered as he opened the envelope. He pulled out a packet of paper, about twenty sheets in all, stapled together in the top left-hand corner. The cover page was military formal in every way. It was an army-regulation 15-6 investigation.

Raynor leafed through the pages, seeing numerous handwritten, sworn statements from individuals familiar with the raid into Pakistan that nabbed Mohammad Ghafour a few weeks earlier. One from Bill “Smitty” Smith, the air mission commander from 1/160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment. Another from Master Sergeants Jason “Slapshot” Holcomb and Peter “Digger” Chamblis.

“I’m under investigation, sir?” Kolt asked, somewhat surprised.

“Informally at this time, Major. Yes.”

“May I ask why, sir?”

Mason paused before speaking.

“Major, I have initiated a 15-6 to determine the circumstances around the mission in the Goshai Valley to capture Mohammad Ghafour,” Mason said. He was clearly trying to keep his emotions in check and not doing a great job at it.

“Sir, I was only doing my duty,” Kolt said.

“Your duty, Major? More like your desire to do whatever the hell you want and ignore the chain of command.”

Kolt understood now. Despite the success of the mission, Mason was pissed because he didn’t get to control how it went down. “Sir, we had a compromised operator on the ground and the intel for capturing Ghafour was solid,” Kolt answered. In fact, at the time he ignored the admiral’s abort call and roped onto the target anyway, he hadn’t known about Shaft’s being compromised. He didn’t learn that until they were back at J-bad during the hot wash.

Mason snapped. “Bullshit, Major! Your man could have walked out of that valley the same way he came in and never tipped his hat. You put two helicopters and close to thirty men in danger with your personal cowboy antics. You heard me abort the mission,” Mason snapped.

Kolt placed the folder and packet back on Mason’s desk. Then it hit him like a speeding freight train.

Kolt’s body went numb. He felt an odd sensation of déjà vu. He had been here before. It was the exact same feeling he had experienced when he was first run out of the community for a different mission. Ironically, the earlier mission happened across the border in Pakistan, too.

“Sir, I did hear you say abort the op. I’m certainly not going to stand here and lie to you about it,” Kolt answered.

“You son of a bitch! I knew it!” Mason replied, banging his fist on the desktop and standing up.

“Major, I specifically aborted that mission to protect the lives of everyone in both those helicopters. Your life, as well as mine, and dozens of others.”

Kolt anticipated the walls crumbling around him or a pack of armed military police entering to whisk him away. He couldn’t help notice the admiral’s hair had fallen out of place when he banged his fist on his desk. Kolt didn’t speak a word more than, “Yes, sir!” But he refused to whimper.

Kolt was human. Kolt was an American. He was devastated by his own revelation that he had intentionally ignored the admiral’s order. Sure, it was hectic up there on that helo. Things were a bit confusing and uncertain. But that’s the environment that Delta considers home-field advantage. Even so, blowing off the CG who sat only a few feet away from you was over the top. In fact, it was well over the top, but what was arguably cloudy inside the helicopter was crystal clear inside the admiral’s office.

He knew the admiral was stating the facts and that they weren’t open to interpretation, but he refused to give in. Kolt wasn’t apologetic at all for executing that mission. He wasn’t sorry for recovering his teammate, Shaft, and capturing Mohammad Ghafour. He didn’t expect a medal. He didn’t expect even simple thanks.

Kolt dug in.

“With all due respect, sir, the abort call you made was well outside standard operating procedure.”

Admiral Mason slipped back into his leather chair, sipped his coffee, and laser-locked on Raynor’s eyes.

“Explain yourself.”

“Point of no return, Admiral. The specific location in time and space that an operation cannot be aborted, a point determined well before launch time by the planners at J-bad. Every mission has one. Our mission in the Goshai Valley had one, and that decision point was when we turned down the valley. At that point, sir, three minutes from being over the target area, the enemy could hear the helos approaching. At that point, we were committed.”

“You can’t kill anyone you want to, Raynor!” Mason said, obviously trying to change the topic of abort protocol. Details of the mission were well known at this point. Kolt and Shaft captured Ghafour and made it out of the old British fort. Kolt had been wounded in the leg, but five fighting-age males, all armed with AK-47s, were smoked as Kolt and Shaft dragged Ghafour out of the village.

“You aren’t America’s killer man, son,” Mason said.

Kolt knew it was no use trying to match wits with the admiral. “Sir, I say again, we were hovering over the target. A single operator was on the ground. We were way past the time to abort that hit.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it, Major!” Mason responded. “You have a reputation of doing what Kolt Raynor wants to do on target … chain of command be damned!”