“He halted in the middle of an assault over open ground; was he nuts?” McNamara asked.
“No,” Carter said; “Just cowardly.”
“The rangers were being slaughtered. Finally, the ranger’s real company commander, Barry Macek, rallied his remaining men and continued the assault,” Williams continued. “I had already
moved my reserve force up and we joined Macek to take the armory. By this time, no one could find Pope.”
“Pope was caught by my perimeter force, without his rifle, trying to get out of the combat area,” Carter said.
“What a son of a bitch,” McNamara said.
“The mission was a success,” Williams added, “But nearly half of the rangers were killed.”
“Macek charged Pope with an article 99, cowardice in the face of the enemy, and an investigation was begun.” Carter went on. “But Pope’s Daddy came to the rescue and kept him from being arrested and he was allowed to continue on duty as an intelligence officer until his trial.”
McNamara shook his head. “Unbelievable,” he said.
Carter nodded his agreement. “A few weeks later, Macek was leading a deep reconnaissance patrol in New Mexico. The patrol was ambushed by a force three times its size. Barry Macek was killed along with eighteen other rangers. Pope was the intelligence offer that called for that patrol to be sent out.”
“Son of a bitch,” McNamara hissed.
“Without Macek as a witness, the case against Pope fell apart. The best the JAG lawyers could do was charge him with dereliction of duty. And, thanks to Daddy once again, the only punishment he received was a punitive letter of reprimand. That’s kept him from getting promoted above Colonel, and away from a lot of really influential postings, but that’s all the punishment he’s gotten. Brandon and I were given direct orders by the Secretary of the Army not to talk about it. Having the son of a cabinet official accused of cowardice publically would be bad for national moral; they said. ”
“The bastard should have been shot,” McNamara said. “Maybe we should grab him and let some of Macek’s ranger buddies have few hours of quality time with Pope.”
“Pope almost certainly has political ambitions after the war. He also knows that Douglas and I would never permit him to be elected to political office; even if that meant facing court martial.”
“So he rats out the teams during Swift Sword to get you two,” McNamara reasoned. “The rest of us were just collateral damage.”
“That’s about it,” Carter confirmed.
“But why take out the teams in the Urals?” McNamara asked
“What do you think Monica would have done if she knew that Pope was responsible for me getting killed?” Carter asked.
McNamara nodded his understanding. “She wouldn’t have given a shit about proof. She’d have walked right up to him and shot him in the face.”
“Pope had to compromise both of the Ural teams or it would have looked suspicious,” Williams said.
“That’s right,” Carter agreed.
“But you two are still alive, and Pope has to figure that you’ll tell everyone in the teams what he did,” McNamara observed. “He has to know that we’ll be coming for him.”
“I’m sure he does,” Carter said.
“We have no proof of what he did,” Williams said.
Carter’s body tensed. “Then we find proof,” he said. “Mac, you know about a thousand NCOs in every branch of service. I want you to reach to your buddies; some of them are in position to get the information we need.”
“You’ve got it, Boss,” the Canadian agreed.
Carter turned to Williams. “Brandon, you were raised in the Ivy League, and that’s where the intelligence community does their recruiting. Reach out to your friends and see what they can find out for us.” Williams nodded his consent.
“We’ll get our proof. We’ll make sure pope is who compromised us,” Carter declared.
“And then what?” McNamara asked.
“Then we deal with Pope ourselves; within the teams,” Carter said. “This time his daddy doesn’t get to come to the rescue.”
"We’ve got no problem with that, Boss," McNamara confirmed. “But if we find proof that bird-colonel who’s the son of an undersecretary of defense is a coward, a murderer, and a traitor there will be one hellacious political shit storm.”
Carter looked the Canadian in the eye. “We’ll my friend; we may just have to kill a few politicians too.”
[][][]
Having removed himself from the informal wake that Mary Hicks was hosting, Carter found himself studying a pair of robins that had nested in a birdhouse suspended in a poplar tree. Both parents were fluttering around the nest; the male bring materials for the nest while the female did the actual construction.
Soon there would be eggs in that nest, and then chicks. Soon there would be a family. He stood on the Hick’s back porch, watching the two birds busily preparing their home. He was unsure how to interpret what he was sure was seemed to be some kind of metaphor.
Okesa Nagura watched him through the sliding glass doors of the Hicks’ home. She took step toward him and stopped. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to be comforted by him. Paralyzed by apprehension, she found that she could not go to him. With Monica dead and her own feelings toward Carter known to him, she feared that her intentions might be misinterpreted. She cursed herself for her indecisiveness.
"You should go to him, dear," Mary Hicks said, coming to stand beside Nagura.
"But perhaps he wants to be alone," Nagura said, unsure of her own excuse.
The older woman took Nagura's hand. "He doesn’t", she assured Nagura. "He may think he does; but he doesn't."
Nagura's voice became a near whisper. "What if it is too soon?"
"Because he knows that you love him?"Hicks asked. Nagura turned away from watching Carter and looked at Hicks; surprise evident on her face along with embarrassment.
"Monica told me about the talk the two of you had about Doug," Hicks explained.
Nagura let out a long breath. "I do not want him to think I'm trying to replace Monica."
"He won't think that," Hicks said assuringly. "I know Doug. He’ll probably be more worried about you than himself; that's how he is." Nagura held Hicks gaze; searching for more encouragement. "Go on, Dear; it will be alright."
The two women shared an embrace. Nagura took a deep, courage gathering, breath and then moved purposefully toward Carter. She hesitated briefly as she approached, but then moved up beside him, and took his arm; nestling her cheek into his shoulder.
Neither spoke. Carter turned to her and fixed her eyes with his. Satisfied with what he saw there, he wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb and turned back to studying the nesting birds. Nagura nestled close to him again, smiling slightly as she watched the robins go about their domestic construction; happily unconcerned about the wars of men. She still had hope that Carter would come to love her as she loved him. But, for now she would simply be a companion while he grieved. He had accepted her intentions as honest and selfless; he had accepted her. For now, that was enough.
Chapter 13
Richard Pope could feel his father's disapproval radiating off of the older man like waves of heat. It made the already uncomfortably warm atmosphere in the limousine feel truly oppressive. Arthur Pope was not a man who forgave easily and his son had come asking for forgiveness. The flickering light from the windows cast by the streetlights as the car moved through the rain-drenched streets bathed the older man in fluctuating shadows that made him seem to pass between the physical plain and the ethereal. Barely visible in the deeper shadows, his signature dark business suit made his body seem to be a part of those shadows. Darkness, his natural element, enfolded him like a cloak.
A smothering silence had been maintained since they had left a celebration honoring everyone involved in Operation Swift Sword twenty minutes earlier. The rain provided by the typically erratic Ohio weather only added to the tor
ment throughout an evening that, for the younger Pope, had been an exercise in anxiety. Throughout the night his dress uniform seemed to become progressively more restrictive. The presence of so many battle tested soldiers made him, and everyone else at the event, keenly aware that he, himself, had failed the test of combat.
He had congratulated Cater; even shaken his hand for the sake of appearances. But no amount of forced military courtesy could mask the mutual hatred the two men felt for each other. In Carter’s eyes, Richard Pope had seen his own death.
"I had to take the opportunity to eliminate Carter and Williams," he said, desperately hoping that his father would reply and end the maddening silence. The elder Pope only continued to stare out of the window. "They know what happened in Texas," he continued, hoping to, at least, elicit a rebuke from his father. "Texas has already set my career back by years. Those two sanctimonious bastards will never let me make general or be elected to office.
Arthur Pope turned to look at his son. His eyes were so heavily cast in shadow that they appeared as deep, black holes in his face. "They haven't spoken about the Texas incident in all of these years because they were ordered not to,” he said in an exasperated hiss.
"But they will never let me get into a position of real influence," the younger man argued."They would both gladly face court martial to prevent that. If I don't advance in some way, the group will replace me."
Arthur Pope turned back to the window. "It may already be too late to prevent that."
Richard Pope's voice involuntarily gained pitch. "Father, you know what that means."
"Richard, you are a coward, and you are weak,” the older man said impassively."The group does not tolerate such things, and neither do men like Douglas Carter. The problem with what tried to do in Brussels is not that you tried to kill your enemies; or even that you failed. The problem is that you acted sloppily and out of fear. Besides that, you killed over twenty other paranormal operators that would have been useful, if unwitting, assets to the group’s agenda.”
“The other deaths were incidental and served to make killing Carter and Williams look like more fortunes of war,” the younger man said defensively. “At least Carter's wife is dead. I caused him pain."
In his younger days, Arthur Pope might have struck his son for making such an idiotic statement. "There was no reason to kill Carter's wife. Only fools kill for no reason, Richard," he said.
The younger man stiffened in his seat. "If I'd have killed Carter, and left her alive, she would have killed me on sight. I knew her; she wouldn't have filed charges or cared about proof. She would have acted."
The elder Pope let out a long breath that seemed to be comprised of physically incarnated disappointment in his son. "More fear," he said. "Carter is a career special warfare combat veteran, who may well be the best soldier of his generation. Until now, he was only seeking to avenge a betrayed friend. Now, thanks to this idiotic blunder of yours, he is also an avenging husband. Have I taught you nothing over the years?"
Richard Pope leaned toward his father. “I didn’t know about that C-190 gunship, Hicks and Carter went around me when they added it to the extraction force. If it weren’t for that, Carter and Williams would be dead along with Carter’s wife.”
“General Hicks and Colonel Carter are not idiots,” Pope’s father said. “They anticipated your move, and countered it.”
“What should I do, now?” the younger man asked.
“Stay away from Carter and the FIRE teams,” Arthur Pope replied. “Whatever you do, stay away from their telepaths. It was a risk for either of us to be near them at the celebration tonight, but all of the politicians and intelligence officials that were present had their own psychics there to prevent any unauthorized telepathic activity, so we should be safe.”
“Do you have your own psychics, Father?” the younger Pope asked.
Arthur Pope ignored the question. “Just stay away from the teams,” he admonished. “I’ll arrange to have you transferred away from Fort Reagan. We have to keep you out of sight while I plead your case to the group. You used their resources to contact the WCA and betray Carter. If your treason is linked to them the consequences will be catastrophic.”
The limousine pulled to a stop at a small helipad used exclusively by ranking VIPs. Four Department of Defense guards in long, black watch coats surrounded the vehicle brandishing sub-machine guns. The two black sedans that carried the rest of the Elder Pope’s entourage also stopped. A thin, ashen-faced aid scurried through the rain to open the limo’s door for his master.
“Pack and get ready to move,” Arthur Pope told his son. “I’ll protect you if I can.”
With that, the older man walked to a waiting helicopter under an umbrella held by his ashen faced aid and disappeared inside. The younger Pope watched sullenly as the helicopter rose and departed.
“Take me home,” he said into the car’s intercom.
‘Home’ was a white, three bedroom house just inside the city limits of Wilmington. Pope despised it. It was so much like the pathetic, mundane dwellings that most of the equally pathetic and mundane people in the country abided in. They were dwellings that were neither hovels nor mansions. They were for a person who could not decide rather he was a serf or a prince.
It was that so called middle class that Pope despised above all other things. One should give orders or one should obey them. The notion that anyone could live and do neither was the dangerously naïve notion that had plunged the world into chaos and disorder. The idea individuals could make decisions for themselves without dominating others was a delusion afflicting the followers of democracy. There were those that ruled and those they ruled over. One was either a serf or a prince.
Pope knew that he was a prince. It was his birthright; guaranteed by blood and breeding. That he was forced into the façade of appearing to be equal with the products of the hopelessly polluted, diluted and randomized gene-pool never ceased to sicken him. The mongrel hybrids that had overrun the planet and struck down the old nobility and royal bloodlines and brought mankind to the edge of extinction with ridiculous notions of individualism and self determination needed to be brought to heel if human civilization was to continue.
In order to bring order from chaos, there had to rulers and there had to be subjects. The subjects had to know there place, and the rulers always had to be ready to remind the subject of their place with the lash. He took comfort in the fact that some of the old family bloodlines were still pure.
Carter, even with his para-gene and all the benefits it bestowed, was still a genetic accident; a random comingling of inferior strains of humanity. Paranormals would make useful subjects, but they were not bread to rule. Carter, for all his fighting skills and strength, had no true power and would not know what to do with it if he did.
Mao was only partly correct when he said that political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Political power was based on controlling many guns, and the people who held them. That control was achieved through the control of resources; control of wealth. Politics, at its core, was economics. Any distinction between the two disciplines was an illusion. It was the inheritors of the thirteen ancient bloodlines that still controlled the majority of the world’s vital resources. Soon the earth would be such a hellish place that the weak-blooded masses would beg for those noble bloodlines to assume control again. There would be peace and progress.
Passing two private security guards he had recently retained, he unlocked his front door and tossed his keychain onto a door-side table. He passed by through the living room, climbed a short staircase, and entered what passed for the house’s master bedroom. Discarding his uniform jacket, he entered the adjacent bathroom and examined himself in the room’s slightly scratched mirror. He looked weary and disheveled; even to himself.
Having had more than a little wine at the night’s festivities, he felt the need to empty his bladder. He need not worry about Carter he assured himself as zipped his fly. He plays by the ru
les, he thought. People like me make the rules. Carter was just not of the thirteen, after all.
His bladder empty, he turned to back toward the sink. Douglas Carter stood inches away from him. Pope expelled a gasp that would have been a scream if had been able to take in sufficient air. He fell backward, striking his head on the bathroom’s wall; his left hand plunged into the toilet bowl. His legs spread wide as he tried to scramble away.
Carter stood above him, a temporary prosthetic limb attached to his left shoulder. An eight inch knife was in his gloved right hand.
“You can’t kill me,” Pope said. It was more of a plea that a statement. His voice was a panicked whine. “You can’t kill me now.”
Carter jammed his knife into the floor up to its hilt; inches from Pope’s groin. Carter stood, leaving the blade lodged in the floor. “No,’ Carter said; his voice calm and icy. “Not now,” he added, before turning to leave. Pope sat where he had fallen, paralyzed with fear with his arm in the toilet.
“Did you get what we need?” Carter asked Sains who had been waiting just outside the bathroom.
“Yeah, I pulled enough out of his pea brain to put us on the trail. We should just kill the prick now,” Sains declared limping slightly on temporary prosthetic foot.
“No,” Carter said as they left the Pope’s house and bypassed the oblivious guards at the front door. “He has more to answer for that just the deaths he’s responsible for. He’s disgraced the United States military from the day he put on his first uniform. What he did was treason and I want that to be known. I don’t just want to destroy him. I want to destroy his memory. I want him to live in fear until I decide to come for him.”
The two men had reached their car and Sains and slipped into the passenger’s seat. “Boss, you popped up behind him in his own bathroom while he was taking a piss. I don’t think he’ll ever feel safe again.” Carter started the car’s engine and pulled away from the curb.
The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One Page 31
