Bergstrom had a way about him, and everyone laughed at the ex-SEAL commander’s wry mode of delivery. Finally, Director Ramshawe said, “John, this meeting requires the utmost discretion. But we all believe these characters need to be, er, eliminated. Before they do something shocking.
“Trouble is, they’re not a small group of mass murderers running around while we hunt them down. These cats were officially liberated by the one of the highest judicial authorities in the United States legal system. We cannot go against that. So if anything is to be done, it has to be one of the greatest secrets this country ever had.”
“Otherwise we might all end up in the slammer,” said the admiral, echoing the fears of Ramshawe himself.
“Precisely,” said Birmingham.
“Well, I’m not doing it personally,” said the admiral, without a smile.
“No,” said Jimmy. “We asked you to come here to try and think of someone who might. Someone one hundred percent trustworthy, honor-able, and capable.”
“Any one of my SEALs would fit that,” he said. “But I do see the problem very clearly. Because he cannot be a serving officer, and then act in total defiance of the laws of the nation, and indeed against the expressed wishes of his commander-in-chief.”
“And there you have it,” said Rear Admiral Carlow. “We simply could not make such a request of any serving U.S. officer to carry out such a mission. If we did and someone was caught, there would be a case for treason, and that still carries the death penalty.”
“Christ, they might execute us all. Nice.” Ramshawe was very obviously baffled.
It was John Bergstrom who marshaled his thoughts quickest. “Look,” he said. “Let’s not make this more complicated than it is. We got four murderers we need to eliminate in the most efficient and secretive way, for the highest possible motive. That’s the safety of our country. And there are plenty of guys out there who would do it for the right money.”
The admiral paused, and asked, “May I assume money is no object?”
“You may,” said Bob Birmingham.
“Okay, I’ll make a few calls. A lot of ex-SEALs are in private security firms, operating all over the world, protecting heads of state. Maybe the best way is to look for a foreign-based outfit.”
“Just so long as they never know who hired them,” ventured Admiral Bradfield.
Rear Admiral Carlow spoke next, very slowly. “Look,” he said, “the guy we want needs to be ex-Special Forces. He also may need some experience in mountain warfare against the Taliban or al-Qaeda—just because he may end up there. He needs to be a top-class marksman, an expert in unarmed combat, proficient with a knife and high explosives. We’re looking for a warrior, right?”
“Close,” said Jimmy. “But he’s also got to be a man of honor. A guy who understands the totally clandestine nature of the mission. A man who is conducting this operation on behalf of the nation—yes, for a big financial reward, but this man needs to be a cut above the rest. He’s actually gotta be a fucking saint!”
Everyone laughed. But the deadly serious edge to the meeting would not go away. Rear Admiral Carlow, the United States Special Forces commander, spoke again. “It’s running through the back of my mind, but a year or two ago, I recommended the court-martial of one of my officers for murder and reckless conduct in the face of the enemy, during which he totally flouted the Geneva Conventions.”
“Sounds perfect,” said Jimmy, sarcastically. “He could probably start World War III, if he concentrated.”
“Actually, I’m not joking. He never was guilty, and he was just about the best officer on the base.”
“Who did he murder?” asked Bob Birmingham.
“A group of a dozen al-Qaeda killers, right there on the banks of the Euphrates River.”
“What for?” asked Jimmy.
“They’d just wiped out twenty of his guys in a missile attack.”
“And he let ’em have it, right?” recalled Admiral Bradfield. “Opened fire while they were trying to surrender. I remember the incident.”
“That’s it,” said Andy Carlow. “He just let ’em have it . . . ”
“The court martial found him not guilty on all charges. I remember that as well,” said Admiral Bradfield.
“That court martial should never have been brought. And I’ll go to my grave regretting my part in it,” replied Carlow. “All the way to my goddamned grave.”
“He got off with an officer’s reprimand,” he added. “But it finished him. He left the Navy immediately. Everyone stood at the gate to say goodbye, I mean the whole base stood at the gate. People were in tears, guys who’d fought with him in the backstreets of Baghdad. I was ashamed of the Navy that day. Ashamed at the injustice of it.
“No one who was there will ever forget it. I mean, watching him walk out to the car. At the last second he turned around and saluted us all. I damn nearly wept.”
“Jesus,” said Jimmy, “Some kind of a man. What was his name?”
“Lieutenant Commander Mackenzie Bedford, SEAL Team 10, Foxtrot Platoon.”
IT TOOK DIRECTOR RAMSHAWE’S researchers approximately fifteen minutes to track down Mack Bedford. He was working in a shipyard in the little town of Dartford on the Kennebec Estuary in Maine. The six-foot-three, former SEAL team leader, now thirty-five, was a native of the town, and his family had known the shipyard owners, the Remsons, for generations.
Harry Remson had given Mack a position commensurate with his high status in the U.S. Navy. He had his own office and secretary right next to Harry. He was Remson’s only salesman, and his task was to acquire orders for warships, guided-missile frigates.
Mack’s territory was the globe, and in his first six months he had landed a major order from the prime minister of an African nation— a man who was anxious to spend the international food-aid money on the kind of modern weaponry required to conquer the peace-loving but wealthy nation next door.
Mack knew what the smiling Homba Bomba was up to, and he did not especially approve of it, but the Remsons were paying him a comfortable $250,000 a year, and he was duty bound to bring in the orders. This one was worth $500 million, and the Africans had put down a $29 million deposit, non-refundable.
Director Ramshawe had declined to call Mack, preferring instead to travel to Maine, without prior warning, in company with Bobby Birmingham and Rear Admiral Andy Carlow, Mack Bedford’s old boss. All three men arrived in a marine helicopter at around 10:30 a.m. the following morning.
They circled the snowy landscape above the little town on the river around thirty miles northeast of Portland, then landed in a windswept, frost-covered field right opposite Mack’s white clapboard home, where he lived with his strikingly beautiful wife, Anne, and their son Tommy.
Anne stepped out onto the porch wearing a heavy-duty sheepskin coat, and waved to them. The helicopter contained only one word on its fuselage, NAVY, and after twelve years of marriage to the former lieutenant commander, she guessed there could only be one man in this town such an aircraft might be coming to visit.
Rear Admiral Andy Carlow, in full Naval uniform, climbed out before the rotors had stopped spinning, and he waved reassuringly at Anne Bedford, whom he had known briefly while Mack and his family lived in Coronado. Ramshawe and Birmingham disembarked next and walked the short distance across the field to the house where Andy introduced everyone.
Not many days went by when Andy did not find himself wondering about Mack Bedford. And that applied to a number of senior officers who cursed the day they had agreed to find him guilty of something even so minor as an officer’s reprimand—anything to placate the politicians and their goddamned useless peace talks.
The officer in charge of the court martial was haunted by that infamous day, and, even now, Andy Carlow remembered that final moment when Mack had turned around and saluted, plunging a dagger of remorse, regret, and sorrow into the hearts of them all. There were a thousand guilty men at the gateway on that day, and not one of them was
Mack Bedford.
The question hung in the air for months. Why had someone not run forward and stopped it? Why not Carlow? Why not the goddamned president of the United States? Why not indeed?
“How’s he been?” asked Carlow.
“Not too bad, Andy,” replied Anne. “Considering everything. We’re okay. Do you want to see him?”
“May we?”
“Sure, I’ll call him. He can be here in five minutes. Come on in, I’ll make some coffee.”
She still was very beautiful, Andy thought, and the consummate officer’s wife. Calm, assured, and confident.
Inside the house, the big room was heavily beamed across the ceiling, with broad, polished, wooden floorboards, colorful rugs, and a log fire. The furniture was Americana but comfortable. Andy noticed the newest U.S. Navy magazine, Proceedings, on a side table.
Within minutes they heard a car come sweeping into the drive, and shortly thereafter, Mack Bedford came through the front door. He’d shaved his beard now, but Andy would have recognized him anywhere. The big ex-SEAL commander entered the room and exclaimed, “Andy Carlow, hello. Welcome to the great state of Maine.”
The two old buddies, who had once roamed the rubble-crushed streets of north Baghdad together, now embraced, slapping each other on the shoulders; remembering things said during Mack’s final days, and things that could never be said.
Andy introduced his traveling companions, head of the CIA, head of the National Security Agency.
“What happened?” joshed Mack. “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs busy?”
Just then Anne arrived with a large pot of coffee and mugs, with a pitcher of cream and a sugar bowl. She placed it on the sideboard and instantly beat a tactful retreat. Mack walked over and closed the door to the front hall. “Okay, what do you need? I doubt that chopper in the field was on loan for a social call.”
Jimmy Ramshawe opened the proceedings. “Lieutenant Commander,” he said, carefully granting the SEAL the full respect of his rank, “I wonder if you read recently that under a new Supreme Court ruling some of the most dangerous inmates of Guantanamo Bay are now being released by the U.S. appeals court?”
“I did. And I should tell you that a couple of years ago I thought the world had gone crazy when my own career was shattered. I now think it’s gone a lot crazier. I’m sure you understand just how dangerous some of those characters are. I used to hunt them down, up in the Hindu Kush. They’d slit your throat as soon as look at you.”
“Well, there are four guys in question right now. The appeals court let ’em loose a few days ago, and as we speak they’re in Pakistan heading north across the Punjab on a train.”
“Up to the Swat Valley, I guess?” said Mack. “There always was some serious shit going on up there—training camps and all. Probably preparing another hit on the U.S. mainland. Better stay on ’em. Seems just about every last fanatic who got out of Tora Bora headed for the Valley.”
“You ever go there?” asked Bob Birmingham, who was always rather in thrall to the military, and loved their stories.
“I never did get right in,” said Mack. “But I observed it a few times from the steep walls of the escarpments that run alongside it. I remember one time some hairy fucking tribesman walked up on me, carrying this curved dagger. Said he would cut the throat of the Infidel. And he meant it.”
“Christ, what happened?” asked Bob.
“Nothing really. But I had to kick him in the balls, then break his wrist, then his neck. Mad bastard.”
“I’m guessing a kick in the bollocks from a bloke like you would have shot his eyeballs straight across the Swat Valley, like a couple of bullets,” said Jimmy.
“Got his attention,” Mack replied, chuckling at the Aussie’s knack of reducing even the most violent confrontation to a scene from a cartoon.
“Well, anyway,” said the NSA director. “We are now facing a problem that may repeat itself. Right here we’ve got four of the most dangerous terrorists ever captured, and they’re all on the loose. We cannot re-arrest them because they just got freed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
“Equally we cannot forget about them because they all have the most diabolical records of mass murder and violence. And they’ve sworn revenge on the United States. The Mossad wants them worse than we do, but daren’t move because of U.S. law.”
“So you want to take them out?”
“Precisely.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“And may I ask the purpose of your visit?”
“Of course. We came to ask you if you could help in this mission.”
Mack Bedford stood up and walked to the sideboard. “At this moment,” he said, “I have two very simple questions.”
“Fire away . . . ”
“Would everyone like some coffee? And, do you think I might be insane?”
“Yes, to the first,” said Ramshawe, “Not bloody likely, to the second.”
“I am not quite clear on one thing. Are you suggesting I very quietly go out and murder these four characters?”
“Well, we were not going to put it in quite that way,” interjected Bob Birmingham.
“Any way you phrase it comes to the same thing,” replied Mack, “Shoot, blow up, cut throats, poison, or throttle. You want them all dead. And since all four of them are now, apparently, innocent men, that would come under the general heading of ‘murder.’ So the penalty for me would be life in prison or a death sentence.”
“The way you say it, no one would dream of taking on the mission,” said Andy Carlow.
“Well someone might,” replied Mack. “But he’d have to be a professional, someone who would do it for money. You might locate one of those somewhere. Ex-military, highly paid, for certain unusual skills.”
He passed around the coffee, and through the closed door Mack could hear Anne talking animatedly, just catching the phrase, “Well, they definitely wanted something very important.”
What he didn’t know was that Anne was talking to Mack’s father, and that they were both concerned in many ways about Mack’s recent demeanor. Plainly he missed the SEALs, missed the hugely fulfilling role of commanding men who had a higher calling than mere cash. Men who had a touch of the noble savage about them. Americans, who, when the bugle sounded, would come out fighting, for honor and patriotism, and would die for their country. Mack missed it. Missed every last vestige of his far-lost command.
And he treasured every memory. There were nights when his dreams were filled with elation. Nights when he was scared, waking up, breathless, reaching for his rifle, shouting out to Lieutenant Mason, leading his men into unknown territory, way up in the mountains, or, in the hot and dusty ghettos of Baghdad.
The trouble was, Mack was a SEAL, from his boots to the top of his head. For months and months he’d tried to enjoy his new life, enjoy his big salary and time with his small family. But the blacktop grinder where they trained, out in Coronado, was never far from his thoughts. He’d even had a flag-staff constructed in the front yard, in the same position as the SEALs’ flag, back on the shores of the Pacific.
Every morning he hauled up the Stars and Stripes, and every evening as twilight descended upon his home, half a world away from SPECWARCOM, Lt. Commander Bedford hauled it down. When he thought no one was looking, he came to attention, and saluted. And whenever he did so, there was the faintest tremor on his upper lip.
Anne usually knew what Mack was thinking. And right there, when he stood rigidly beneath his personal flagstaff, she understood he was recalling the lines from the creed of the SEALs—lines she considered utterly magnificent. Lines for heroes:My SEAL Trident was bestowed upon me by those who have gone before. It embodies the trust of those whom I have sworn to protect. . . . I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans—I will always defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I must earn my Trident every day.
On the rare occasions when Anne caught a glimpse of her husband enacting this p
rivate ceremony, it almost broke her heart. Just to see this strong and powerful warrior, a man born to lead troops in battle, so utterly alone, so solitary, yearning for the only life he could never have. She always pretended she had seen nothing.
But these past few weeks, both she and his father had noticed an ever-increasing change. Mack was becoming more within himself, reading more, watching the History Channel and the Military Channel. She was secretly thrilled that Andy Carlow and his friends were here, especially when she heard Mack’s great shout of laughter at one of Ramshawe’s more absurd metaphors.
And he was plainly flattered at being selected by an old friend to commit a quadruple murder. “Sets you apart, old mate,” said Jimmy. “We could probably make you more famous than Jack the Ripper!”
“Well,” said Mack, “What price do you put on it?”
“Ten million bucks,” said Birmingham, instantly. “Cash. Half up front, if we get the right guy. No taxes.”
“Just tell us. Are you interested?”
“Not really. I was never cut out to be a mercenary. Killing for money. It just doesn’t feel right. And with a crime like this, well, you gotta live with yourself. And I don’t think I’d like it much. And Anne, if she ever knew, would hate it.”
“How would you feel about $20 million?” asked Ramshawe.
“Same.”
“But could you do it? If no expenses were spared, and you could make all your own rules and arrangements?”
“Probably. With some backup in locations. I guess I probably could.”
“But, Mack Bedford,” said Rear Admiral Carlow, “there is no price we could put on it, that would tempt you to perform this service for your government and your commander-in-chief?”
“Well, that’s not quite accurate, Andy. Because there is a price.”
“Name it,” said the SEAL boss.
“I want my commission back in the United States Navy SEALs. I want my name cleared of any wrongdoing, and I want my rank back, as if I’d stayed in the Navy.”
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